SUMMARY OF CALL
A. Unit
1
In unit 1, we talk about CALL, its
definition, its history, and its scope. CALL is the acronym for
computer-assisted language learning. Although,as we will see
below,the field or significant parts of it sometimes go by others name, CALL
seems to be the most widely accepted generic term. In this foundation CALL will
be use in a broad sense to any endeavor involving the computer in some
significant way in language teaching and learning.
CALL began in the 1960s with
mainframe-based drill and practice materials, especially those based on the
University of Illinois’ PLATO system. Early programs were written by
teacher-developers on Apple II, IBM PC, and BBC computer, and were often
distributed for free. In the late 1980s and early 90s, the Apple Macintosh
replaced the Apple II in many educational settings in the US and
became an immediate favorite among teacher-developers because of the support of
Hypercard, a powerful but easy-to-use authoriting. During this period the use
of the computer as a tool increased, especially as teachers developed
innovative techniques for using email and word processor become integrated into
writing classes. CALL is integrated into language learning activities both in
and out of the class. In 2009, I published a four-volume edited set, computer
assisted language learning : Critical concepts in Linguistics
(Routledge), an anthology of 74 key articles covering the whole field of CALL.
The scopes of CALL are
:
· As
researches : into second language acquisition, human-computer interaction, what
works for CALL
· As
consumers of CALL software for class use or building web activities into course
work
· As
director, helping student find and use supplementary CALL material or web
resources.
· As
manager of computer-mediated communication among learners in and out of class
· As
software or web developes either “from scratch” or adding new materials to
existing templates
· As
coaches, to help student develop software, websites, and general computer
literacy
· As
CALL experts for your program helping other teacher and administrator with CALL
implementation.
· As
CALL professionals, consulting on external project, doing software review for
journals, making conference presentations, writing papers, interpreting and
applying CALL research, providing input to the field at large.
Three phases of CALL are:
· Behavioristic
CALL
The first phase of CALL based on the then-dominant behaviorist theories of
learning. Programs of this phase entailed repetitive language drill and
can be referred to as “drill and practice.”
· Communicative
CALL
The second phase of CALL based on the communicative approach to teaching
which become prominent in the 1970s and 80s. proponents of this approach felt
that drill and practice programs of the previous decade did not allow enough
authentic communication to be much value.
· Integrated
CALL
Integrated approaches to CALL are based on two important technological
developmentsof the last decade-multimedia computer and the internet.
B. Unit
2
In unit 2, we talk about Courseware
evaluation, development, and Implementation. The term courseware,which refers
to software that is used to support formal language learning.In
practice,courseware has been used to refer to everything from complete software
packages that can be used without a teacher to software that is just a part of
a language learning course,sometimes a minor or optional supplementary part.
The three of modules, they are :
· Development
module
Courseware development refers to the process of going from the idea of
creating a piece of tutorial software through the final product. It should
be informed by general principles of instructional design
· Evaluation
module
Evaluation involves three kinds of considerations. a crucial aspect is
to understand what courseware does first before attempting to judge it.
· Implementation
module
· Implementation
considerations are relevant during the evaluation process, but they become
crucial when deciding how best to use software that is available.
C. Unit
3
In unit 3, we talk about Computer
Mediated Communication. CMC ( Computer Mediated Communication ) computers are a
means through which teachers communicate with learners, learners communicate with
one another and learners may even communicate with native speakers. That
communication takes place through variations in the following elements : timing
(synchronous or asynchronous), number and patterning of participant ( one to
one, one to many, or many to many), and medium *text, voice, or video).
Text-based CMC
Due
to both the history of technology development and the ease of text use, most
CMC has been done using the medium of text. We will look at the text uses both
for their own value and as a vehicle for introducing concepts relevant to audio
and video-based CMC. There are two kinds of text, they are :
- Asynchronous
text. The first use of CMC in language teaching almost certainly came through
email exchanges from teachers to students within classes. Email is an example
of asynchronous communication, in that the interaction is not in real time.
With email teachers can receive homework from students and give responses to
it. Students can communicate with another to practice using the language. There
are a number of sites that provide services for linking up such as interpals (www.interpals.net) and a popular one for ESL
learners is Dave’s ESL cafe (www.eslcafe.com/students).
Students can log into existing discussion lists specially for teachers.
- Synchronous
text. With synchronous text, or chat, the messages are exchange in text form,
ut in real time. Some of the early research on CMC was built around a type of
chat program, interchange. Chat rooms are easily found on the web through
portals like yahoo, chat rooms for english language learners available at sites
such as Dave’s ESL cafe and EnglishBaby (www.englishbaby.com).
Audio / Video CMC
Asynchronous
audio. Like text, audio or video interaction can be either asynchronous or
synchronous. One example of asynchronous voice interaction would be the
voicemail services, using this the setudents with voice-enabled computers can
leave messages for one another. An excellent free resource for doing such
recordings is Audicity (http://audicity.sourceforge.net/)
for both PCs and Macs.
Asynchronous video. This area has not been as well-developed, due partly
to the bandwidth requirements for using video. While there are many sites for
sharing video (most notably www.youtube.com).
D. Unit
4
In
unit 4, we talk about CALL on the web in more depth, the Web is also where you
find the most common tool applications for CALL, in particular the browsers and
online video players that give access to a seemingly endless collection of both
dedicated and authentic English language material. The web has featured in many
of the CALL articles and conference presentations since the mid 1990s.
Disadvantages of the Web.
There are some disadvantages of the web, they are :
· Text-based
material on the web is sometimes not as easy to read as material in paper
format because of font color and background choices.
· Sound
and video sometimes take a noticeable time to transfer, even on fast
connections. Newer forms of streaming have improved this drammatically, but the
web is still not as responsive as a CD-ROM, DVD or the hard drive on a TiVo or
other digital video.
· Sound
and video are typically compressed to spend up transfer : depending on the
degree of compression and other factors they can be of noticeably lower quality
than the original. This can affect their suitability for supporting language
learning. Also some of the free material on sites like www.youtube.com were of poor audio or
video quality even in their original state (for example, if taken with a mobile
phone).
Down servers or broken links may lead to frustation.
Advantages of the Web.
There are many good reasons for using the Web for language learning
activities, they are :
· There
is anytime, anywhere access ( for some people at least)
· There
are enormous amounts of free material
· Material
can be found that is current
· Language
reference and other learning support materials can be found
· Student
and teacher publication opportunities exist
· A
cultural window is opened through the authentic material readily available
· Meaning
technologies, such as transcripts, dictionaries, and tranlators, exist to aid
comprehension of material
· Increasing
amounts of audio and video allow building of comprehension skills beyond reading
· Previous
disk-based activities (like tutorial exercises) and internet-based activities
(like email) can often be handled through the web
The key to using the web is to be
prepared. Know what the objective of your lesson is and try to make sure students
are trained in what they need to know to accomplish that objective. Try to
build some flexibility into the assignment or activity so that if something
isn’t working as expected it can still go on.
Here are few tasks to help you connect the material here to your language
teaching :
· The
web can be resource for both classroom and online lessons: take a look at two
or three of the lesson plans on the web (use google (www.google.com) to find “ESL lesson plans” if
none of of the sites above has what’re you looking for.
· Meaning
technologies like Babylon (www.babylon.com)
and online scripts for audio and video can hinder as well as help, since they
can interfere with normal language processing. What are some ways to use them
positively and to train learners in their use?
· Try
three or four of the sites listed above that you haven’t visited before. Note
ways you might use them in current or future classes.
· Increasingly,
the term “web 2.0” is appearing on the web and elsewhere. What is web 2.0?
there are examples of it here, such as www.youtube.com if
you don’t know what is is, go to a manifestation of it at www.wikipedia.org and look up the term.
How do you think web 2.0 is changing language teaching.
E. Unit 5 CALL and Language Skills
Skills-oriented language teaching remains a
common approach for classes as well as for self-learning, and computer-assisted
language learning is not exception. In this unit, we look at how both tool and
tutor software can be used to support specific skills. In particular, we will
look at some websites that focus on these skill areas.
There are some skill areas for call, they are :
1. Listening
Listening is potentially one of the most
promising areas for call development. This is because multimedia computing has
everything standard audio and video have with the addition of variety of
meaning technologies such as text support, hyperlinked glossaries, and even
translation. One type of presentation specific to call is the punctuated presentation,
in which the flow is interrupted at intervals to ask question along the way.
Examples of course website for two of my recent listening classes are at www.standford.edu/`efs/693a andwww.standford.edu/`efs/efs693b/.
And useful dedicated esl listening sites : they are www.esl-lab.com, www.ello.org, andwww.lingual.net.
2. Speaking
In terms of direct practice of
speaking, recent developments on the web have allowed for voice chat sites
which make it possible for learners and teachers to interact through the internet
in distance education courses. Asynchronous speaking practice is possible
through www.wimba.com, using internet voice mail, or simply attaching sound
files to email.
3. Reading
In the early days of call, reading software was
designed to improve skills in order to transfer them to paper materials. Here
some other ways call can be used to support reading : just using the web,
educational sites with esl or adult literacy support, text reconstruction
activities, such as storyboard, cloze exercises and jigsaw readings, timed or
paced readings to develop speed, for example,www.readingsoft.com/. Online graded
readers such as those at www.eslreading.org/.
4. Writing
Writing was revolutionized for everyone with word
processing, and the addition of spell checkers has been quite helpful. Grammar
and style checkers are much less useful to date. Writing has also been a common
skill taught as a course through distance education using in the internet.
Writing publication opportunities are ready available through wikis and blogs.
5. Grammar
Grammar practice was perhaps the earliest use of
call. Today grammar work is largely focused on the following : workbook-style
exercises at www.grammar-quizzes.com/,
grammar test prep materials especially toefl at www.toefl.com, online courses and references athttp://www.edunet.com/english/grammar/index.cfm,
and grammar portals such as www.esltower.com/.
6. Pronounciation
Pronounciation work is generally of three types :
·
listen, repeat/record, and compare.
·
visualization ; wave form, pitch contour, spectogram.
·
asr (automatic speech recognition) scoring.
7. Vocabulary
Other common call implementations for vocabulary
include the following.
·
hypertext dictionaries/glossaries. Babylon (www.babylon.com)
is a commercial memory-resident dictionary system that runs in the background
on your computer.
·
talking dictionaries : longman, oxford, and newbury house have learner’s
dictionaries.
·
concordance programs.
·
picture dictionaries : http://www.pdictionary.com/ has
a picture dictionary for english, spanish, french, german, and italian.
·
word lists and vocabulary tests for english.
An outstanding site for vocabulary teaching and
research tools is tom cobb’s compleat lexical tutor : http://www.lextutor.ca/.
8. Culture
Obviously, this is a huge area for foreign
language teaching, where authentic cultural material is readily accessible
through the web. There are many ways to use the authentic material found on
websites to support cultural learning. At you tube,http://www.youtube.com.
F. Unit 6 CALL Research
In this unit we talk about call research. So far,
we have been going through this course with the implicit assumption that call
works, that teaching language using computers in using computers in some way
makes learning “ better”. Here are some possible interpretations :
· learners pick up
language knowledge or skills faster or with less effort (learning efficiency)
· learners pick up
what is targeted, retain language knowledge or skills longer, and/or learn more
of what they need (effectiveness)
· learners can get
materials or experience interactions that would otherwise be difficult or
impossible (access)
· learners can
learn with more or less equal effectiveness across a wider range of time/places
(convenience)
· learners enjoy
the language learning process more or are willing to engage in it more
(motivation)
· learners require
less space, less teacher time, or less experience materials (institutional
efficiency)
Call research trends
research has continued in all areas of call but recently has focused on several
identifiable areas, such as :
·
computer mediated communication; especially, interaction in synchronous chat
settings and email in tandem settings
·
visual, text and sound annotation to promote comprehension and vocabulary
acquisition
·
effectiveness of online collaborative and constructivist activities, including
development of communities.
There are several avenues available to teachers
in the role of researchers of their own classroom or students. They are :
· observation. When
your students are using software or doing a computer-ased task in a lab where
you can watch them. You can look over their shoulder, check their interactions,
and make brief notes of what you notice.
· tracking. Some
software has built-in tracking features. If you are using a discussion board,
all student posts can be reviewed.
· student surveys.
Ask specific questions about usage-note that it’s best to do this as soon as
possible after a call session sense memories fade rapidly.
· pre- and post-
testing to evaluate outcomes of the use of technology.
· student journals.
Getting students to keep a reflective journal of their experiences with
software.
· other studies :
case study, action research, descriptive qualitative study, experiment.
G. Unit 7 CALL Learner Training
at the last unit we
share about call learner training. Call has given us some amazing possibilities
create a problem. Absent a teacher, students using computers are typically
given more control over their own learning. One way out of this dilemma is to
spend time training learners in dealing appropriately with this new
environment.
There are three alternatives to call learner
training. They are :
·
one solution is to try to build software in such a way that it adapts to the
learner on a number of different levels : language proficiency, computer
proficiency, learning style, topical interest, motivational type and intensity,
and so on.
·
a second alternative is to take the philosophical position that learners have a
right to self discovery and that left alone they will naturally move to the
strategies that work for them and that are consonant with their learning style.
·
a third alternative is to acknowledge that learners would profit from
training but that it’s just too much trouble to train them since it
obviously takes a lot of time away from other aspects of language learning and
there’s no guarantee it will be successful.
Training can be divided at least into two areas :
technical and pedagogical.
·
technical training naturally includes general computer literacy, but of greater
interest here is learning technical skills and knowledge of particular value to
language learning.
Here is one example : most audio/video players,
for instance ( real, quicktime, windows media), often have a default setting is
small. But by dragging the bottom right corner, the player can be stretched.
Here’s another example : recent versions of
windows media player have a “play speed” control that allows learners to slow
down (or speed up) sound files (accessed through view> enhancements>play
speed settings).
·
pedagogical training that is, how to use the tutorial software or tool
effectively to meet specific learning objectives.
There are five principles for learner training,
they are :
·
experience call yourself. Try a piece of call software (like rosetta stone) for
a language you don’t know, or visit a chatroom for a language you aren’t fluent
in.
·
give learners teacher training. Let them know some of what you know if they are
to become more independent.
·
use a cyclical approach. Teach a bit at a time. Don’t just have a training
session at the beginning and think your job is done.
·
use a collaborative debriefings. Get learners to discuss their experiences,
successes and failures with the call tasks and software in pairs or small
group.
·
teach general exploitation strategies. Show the learners ways to use software
to make it easier if it’s too hard and harder if it’s too easy.
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