Please cite as: Marczak, M. (2014). Digital Native/Immigrant(?) Teachers on Themselves. English for Specific Purposes World , 15(44), pp. 1-7. Digital Native/Immigrant(?) Teachers on Themselves Mariusz Marczak, PhD Pedagogical University, Cracow Chair of Translator Education Introduction. The profile of an average contemporary learner has been perceived through the lens of Prensky' (2001a; 2001b) seminal articles on the digital native vs. digital immigrant dichotomy. In his seminal publication Prensky (ibid.) posited that learners born after the 1980s speak "(…) the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet" (Prensky 2001a, p.1) as they grew in an environment where all the technology was interwoven into their the fabric their daily routine. In effect, he credited digital natives with “Different kinds of experiences lead to different brain structures“ (Prensky, 2001, p. ?) and ascribed to them a number of characteristics which allegedly distinguish them from digital immigrants, i.e. people who were introduced to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) only in the course of their lives, having been born into a world devoid of it. In the views of Prensky (2001) but also Tapscott (1999), Oblinger and Oblinger (2005) digital natives are active learners who prefer experiential learning to the traditional paradigm of knowledge being transmitted from the teacher to the students. Moreover, they engage can successfully handle multi-tasking, i.e. involve in the performance of several tasks at the same time as well as access information and communicate with others through ICT . However influential the premises of Prensky's (2001a; 2001b) theory turned out to be, they were countered by the opinions of the sceptics, who found challenged Prensky's views on neurological grounds. For instance, Van Slyke found it hard to accept the belief "(…) that neurological structures could change to such a dramatic extent from one generation to the next" (Van Slyke, 2003, p. ?). At the same time, scholars such as Thomson (2001) seemed to support Prensky's (2001) logic when they observed that neurolinguistic research does indicate that change to brain structure even over the duration of one's life may be brought about by appropriate stimulation and that "(…) the early years are a period of considerable opportunity" (Thomson, 2001, p. ?). Thus, Thomson maintained that neural connections in the human brain could indeed be bloomed and pruned, depending on experience and types of activity in which a young would involve. Similarly to Prensky (2001), he would emphasise the role of early exposure to ands interaction with technology on the development of neural synapses.