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Computer-assisted language learning (CALL)''' is an approach to language teaching and learning in which computer technology is used as an aid to the presentation, reinforcement and assessment of material to be learned, usually including a substantial interactive element. HISTORY Early CALL favoured an approach that drew heavily on practices associated with programmed instruction. This was reflected in the term Computer Assisted Language Instruction ('''CALI'''), which originated in the USA and was in common use until the early 1980s , when CALL became the dominant term. Throughout the 1980s CALL widened its scope, embracing the communicative approach and a range of new technologies, especially Multimedia and Communications Technology . An alternative term to CALL emerged in the early 1990s , namely '''Technology Enhanced Language Learning''' ('''TELL'''), which was felt to provide a more accurate description of the activities which fall broadly within the range of CALL. The term TELL has not, however, gained as wide an acceptance as CALL. Typical CALL programs present a stimulus to which the learner must respond. The stimulus may be presented in any combination of text, still images, sound, and motion video. The learner responds by typing at the keyboard, pointing and clicking with the mouse, or speaking into a microphone. The computer offers feedback, indicating whether the learner’s response is right or wrong and, in the more sophisticated CALL programs, attempting to analyse the learner’s response and to pinpoint errors. Branching to help and remedial activities is a common feature of CALL programs. Wida Software ( London , UK ) was one of the first specialist businesses to develop CALL programs for microcomputers in the early 1980s. Typical Software of the first generation of CALL included Wida's " Matchmaster " (where students have to match two sentence halves or anything else that belongs together); " Choicemaster " (the classic multiple-choice test format); " Gapmaster " (for gapped texts); " Textmixer " (which jumbles lines within a poem or sentences within a paragraph); " Wordstore " (a learner's own private vocabulary database, complete with a definition and an example sentence in which the word to be learned is used in a context); and " Storyboard " (where a short text is blotted out completely and has to be restored from scratch). Wida's packages continue to be popular and are now merged into one general-purpose, multimedia authoring program known as "The Authoring Suite": http://www.wida.co.uk Storyboard-type activities, also known as "total cloze" activities, have been popular for many years. The concept originated from Tim Johns, subsequently modified by John Higgins. A variety of total cloze programs have appeared over the years, including "Copywrite" (part of the "Fun with Texts" package), "Quartext", "Eclipse" and "Rhubarb". Other CALL activities in the early days of computer use in schools included working with generic packages such as Word-processor s, which revolutionised text production assignments by enabling language learners to continually revise and have Peer Review ed what they are writing before printing out the final version of their composition. Current CALL software has embraced CD-ROM and DVD technology, and there is growing interest in Web-based CALL (see Felix 2001), whole-class teaching with interactive whiteboards, and the use of blogs, wikis, podcasts and other social networking tools. For a complete history of CALL from its early beginnings to the start of the new millennium, see Delcloque P. (2000) History of CALL. This document began as a poster exhibition that was produced to mark the beginning of the new millennium. It was then set up as a website (now closed) and is now available in PDF format: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/History_of_CALL.pdf PEDAGOGICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS Fascinated by the new technology in the early days of CALL, many teachers focused on technological issues, neglecting pedagogical and methodological questions and not realising that innovative pedagogy and methodology were required to integrate satisfactorily the use of computers into the foreign languages curriculum. A point of criticism which could easily be refuted was the claim that students tended to be isolated from their classmates when working in a computer lab - the "battery chicken" syndrome. It was soon discovered that using computers in language classes could promote team work among students and, if planned well, could also encourage them to use the target language to communicate in front of their computers, thus increasing the time they spent practising their oral skills. See: Piper A. (1986) "Conversation and the computer: a study of the conversational spin-off generated among learners of English as a Foreign Language working in groups", System 14, 2: 187-198. Whole-class teaching, which was a feature of early CALL - because schools could only afford one computer per classroom - is now making a comeback with the introduction of Interactive Whiteboard s. An approach to CALL that can be considered innovative is the use of concordance programs - dubbed Data Driven Learning by Tim Johns. This approach dates back to the early 1980s and is now widely used, especially by teachers of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). See Module 2.4 at the ICT4LT website, Using Concordance programs in the modern foreign languages classroom: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod2-4.htm Generally speaking, however, CALL Pedagogy and Methodology continue to lag behind the Technology . A recent approach has been to see CALL in relation to other technologies in society, and to stress the possibility that computers may only become fully effective in language teaching and learning when they have become "normalised". Normalisation of CALL, in this analysis, will be achieved when we use computers every day in language teaching as we use pens and books, without excessive expectations and without undue fear. Normalisation could therefore be seen as potentially a valuable aim and agenda for the profession (Bax 2003). THE CURRENT SITUATION The ICT4LT website contains a wealth of information on CALL that describes the current situation in CALL. The site was set up with the aid of European Commission funding, aiming to provide a comprehensive set of ICT training resources for language teachers: http://www.ict4lt.org For exploring language learning environments such as the Moodle LMS (learning management system), there are communities such as Moodle for Language Teaching: http://moodle.org/course/view.php?id=31 ONLINE CALL Before the Internet , communication amongst different countries was limited. Only those who visited other countries or were fluent enough in another language to write or speak on a telephone could communicate. With the birth of the internet, all of that changed. Suddenly communicating with the world was virtually at everyone’s finger tips twenty-four hours a day. Now the only problem standing in everyone’s way was the language barrier amongst countries. Not everyone had the time to enroll in classes with their busy lives in order to learn new languages. With this need for the world to start communicating and break the language barriers, the internet seemed to once again come to the rescue when it began creating online foreign language programs to start teaching people other languages. Through these programs, people could pick any language they wanted to learn and learn it right there in their own homes, at their own pace, any time of day. There are now countless such products on the market, most of them available on the online forum. It has now become increasingly easier to avoid the traditional methods of actual courses or self-help tapes and books to understand other languages. As in any new program though, there are both negative and positive factors to learning languages through the internet, but no one can doubt that these programs have definitely made it possible for many people to learn different languages who would have never had a chance to do so otherwise. |
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