ABSTRACT
Online language teacher education (OLTE) has the potential to fulfil the mission of traditional distance learning (DL) education, that is, to provide educational opportunities to those who cannot attend bricks-and-mortar institutions. Perhaps the most important affordance of OLTE is the 'any time, any place' possibility for learning, so it is especially useful for DL students who are unable to attend bricks-and-mortar institutions, either because of the remoteness of where they live or because of scheduling difficulties, such as work or family commitments. OLTE delivery varies both in terms of the types of technologies used and the percentage of instruction and learning taking place online. Despite the usefulness of considering the percentage of instruction delivered online as a method for discussing delivery types, other criteria also need to be considered such as: synchronous or asynchronous learning, Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs), flipped learning, video conferencing, learning management systems (LMS) and social media.
