A bibliometric review of the integration of information technology into foreign language teaching: a visualized analysis using CiteSpace

Abstract Information technology, as an essential element of modern teaching, has always played a vital role in foreign language teaching. Recently, with the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI), the integration of information technology into foreign language teaching has been increased in all aspects. To identify the current research status and future development trends, this research presents a visual analysis of the integration development of information technology into foreign language teaching (2000–2024), which is based on 4, 587 documents from the WoSCC (Web of Science Core Collection) database and CiteSpace software. The results show that the integration research has experienced a period of incubation (2000-2005), followed by an emergent period (2006-2019), before entering a relatively stable period since 2020. The keywords used for research on integration development can be summarized as follows: integration idea, technological media, instructional approach, and learning method. (1) Teaching idea is upgraded from auxiliary integration to resource integration and structure integration; (2) Technological media has transformed from audio-visual media to interactive media, as well as intelligent media; (3) There are three instructional approaches, including computer-aided teaching, multimedia teaching and intelligent teaching; (4) There are three corresponding learning methods: independent learning based on audio-visual materials, interactive learning based on diversified information platforms and personalized learning based on intelligent technology. In the future, the research on the integration of information technology and foreign languages will become more refined and systematic, highlighting student-centered teaching reform and the intelligent analysis of personalized learning data, which will fundamentally change the forms of teaching resources, ways of teaching and learning, and modes of evaluation.