Summary Of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL)

Summary of CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning)

Unit 1:

Introduction to Computer-Assisted Language Learning.

        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 other names, CALL seems to be the most widely accepted generic term.

        The scope of CALL consists of many ways that can be used for Teaching English as Teacher roles, they are

§  As researchers: 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 directors, helping students find and use supplementary CALL materials or web resources

·         As managers of computer-mediated communication among learners in and out of class

·         As software or web developers, either "from scratch" or adding new materials to existing templates

·         As coaches to help students develop software, websites, and general computer literacy

·         As CALL experts for your program, helping other teachers and administrators with CALL implementations

·         As CALL professionals, consulting on external projects, doing software reviews for journals, making conference presentations, writing papers, interpreting and applying CALL research, and/or  providing input to the field at large.

Though CALL has developed gradually over the last 30 years, this development can be categorized in terms of three somewhat distinct phases which I will refer to as Behavioristic CALL, Communicative CALL, and Integrative CALL.

Unit 2

An invitation to CALL (courseware Evaluation, Development,

Implementation)

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. There are three of models of courseware; they are

Development, Evaluation, and implementation. This model inspired by Richards and Rodgers (1982).

1.    Evaluation Model

Evaluation involves three kinds of considerations. They are operational description, learner fit and teacher fit

2.       Development Module

Courseware development refers to the process of going from the idea of creating a piece of tutorial software through the final product

3.       Implementation Module

Implementation considerations are relevant during the evaluation process, but they become crucial when deciding how best to use software that is available.

The following research Question direct the Investigating Teachers of this research by Saadiyah Darus.

1.       What are the teachers’ attitudes towards teaching English using computers?

2.      What are the challenges faced by teacher in using computers to teach English?

3.      What are the teachers’ suggestions in order to overcame these challenges?

And the finding of this research is using ICT can help a teacher in teaching English .

Unit 3:

Computer Mediated Communication

            Computer mediated communication 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 participants (one to one, one to many, or many to many ), and medium (text, voice, or video). In addition, the physical properties of the device may offer.

The next the medium richness depends on the following criteria:

1.       The ability of communication medium to transmit personality cues of interaction partners.

2.      The extent of the immediate feedback.

Research methodology that done by Nadeem Ehsan , Ebtisam Mirza and Muhammad Ahmad namely:

1.       Through in depth interviews with all the employees.

2.      Using a questionnaire and then recording the varied opinions of employees in SPSS to conduct hypothesis testing through statistical analysis.

3.      Hypothesis have been tested in SPSS using the following statistical tools: Histograms, Bar Graphs, Frequency Table etc.

ICT tools may be divided into two broad types. This include internet technologies and digital ICT tools . and A further discussion point would be why English particular dominates the CMC situation. First, as mentioned above, the internet began in the US. The second, English is still regarded as an international language for global information exchange. The third is it has a fair amount of native speaker and many second language speaker world-wide such that even native speaker of other languages still have the option to use English as well as their language on the internet.

Unit 4

CALL on the Web

This unit looks into the Web in more depth. The reason is that the Web represents the largest collection (by far!) of material that is accessible almost anytime and anywhere by almost anyone having a browser equipped computer and an Internet connection. 

Disadvantages of the Web over alternatives. 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 dramatically, but the Web is still not as responsive as a CD-ROM, DVD or the hard drive on a TiVo or other digital video recorder.

§  Sound and video are typically compressed to speed 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)

Despite the disadvantages, there are many good reasons for using the Web for certain language learning activities. 

§  There is anytime, anywhere access (for some people at least).

§  There are enormous amounts of free material.

§  Material can be found that is current.

WBLL is language learning that involves the use of the web and exploit Web materials, Resources, application or tools.

Unit 5

CALL and Language Skill

Skills-oriented language teaching remains a common approach for classes as well as for self-learning, and computer-assisted language learning is no 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. Many of these are for free, but like everything else that's free on the web, the sites need to be looked at carefully for their pedagogical value.

There are some cases promising areas for CALL development. They are:

§  Listening

Listening activities typically involve presentations followed by comprehension questions--some also include full or partial dictations. 

§  Speaking

 For tutorial CALL, practicing speaking has always been tricky. Auralog's TellMeMore, www.auralog.com  is an example of a program which allow some limited conversation simulation that gives something of the experience through the use of speech recognition software. 

§  Reading

In the early days of CALL, reading software was designed to improve skills in order to transfer them to paper materials. More recently, reading in digital form is becoming more and more common.

§  Writing

Writing was revolutionized for everyone with word processing, and the addition of spell checkers has been quite helpful

§  Grammar

Grammar practice was perhaps the earliest use of CALL. Today grammar work is largely focused on: Workbook-style exercises (on disk and online): online examples can be seen at www.grammar-quizzes.com/.

§  Pronunciation

Pronunciation work is generally of three types. They are Listen , Visualization, ASR

§  Vocabular

Vocabulary activities have been around since the early days of CALL in the form of electronic flashcards (linking L2 word to L1 translation or L2 word to L2 definition).

THE CHANGING WORLD OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

Three perspectives on technology and implications for ELT

1.       Technologist

Rapid advances in technology suggest pervasive access and use of technology in a very different high-technology life style. Implication for ELT Teachers and researches should be educated about possibilities that could improve or change their work.

2.      Social pragmatist

Imperfect technologist and normal human working practices act as constraints affecting technology use . . Implication for ELT Teacher and researchers  should carefully analyze their real options in view of the Experience of others and their own content and experience.

3.      Critical Analyst

Technology is not neutral and inevitable. Implication for ELT Teacher and researcher should be critically aware of the connection between technology and culturally bound ideologies.

Unit 6

CALL Research

Teaching language using computers in some way makes learning "better." But what exactly is "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 times/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 expensive materials (institutional efficiency)

Research has continued in all areas of call 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 student.

§  Observation.

§  Tracking..

§  Student surveys..

§  Pre- and post-testing to evaluate outcomes of the use of technology.

§  Student journals.

Unit 7

Call Learner Training

One way out of this dilemma is to spend time training learners in dealing appropriately with this new environment.  In the process, we may be able not only to help them with their CALL use, but also help them in general to become more effective autonomous learners. Surprisingly, this is not a well-developed area of CALL.

There are three alternatives to CALL learner training. They are:

§  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.

§  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.

§  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.

§   Technical Training

Technical training naturally includes general computer literacy (which can be a major issue or not depending on your setting and students), but of greater interest here is learning technical skills and knowledge of particular value to language learning.

§  Pedagogical Training

In a 2004 paper (Hubbard, 2004), there is a case for giving training not just on technical aspects but also on pedagogical ones, that is, how to use the tutorial software or tool effectively to meet specific learning objectives.

Of course, in order to be effective at training students, it is necessary to thoroughly analyze the software, task, or activity you are assigning. You need to be sure that you can make the connections between given actions and learning objectives before you can expect your students to do so on their own.

§  Learner Training for Effective Use of CALL

The goal of this chapter is to introduce the concept of CALL learner training and to provide guidance for making it a more central part of CALL than has thus far been the case. Like any other addition to the curriculum, learner training takes both preparation time and class time, and teachers wishing to implement it need to consider the obvious costs and weigh them against the potential benefits.

1.   Learner Training Research and Practice

A convenient classification for CALL applications has been provided by Levy (1997) in his distinction of tutorial versus tool uses of computer technology. According to Levy, a computer functioning in a tutorial role acts as a temporary teacher, providing instruction or guided practice, whereas a computer functioning in the tool role does not have these teaching attributes. A typical example of a tutorial application would be a grammar practice or vocabulary learning program; a typical tool application would be a web search engine, an e-mail program, or a word processor.

2.   Five principles for Learner Training

There five principles for learning training drawn from any experience over the last two decades using the computer in both tutor and tool roles.

Ø Experience CALL yourself

This first principle promotes the idea that teachers should get some firsthand CALL experience as learners before attempting to guide the students.

§   Give Learners Teacher Training

This principle offers a corollary for learners: for them to make rational decisions on how to use computers in their language learning, they need to be informed about some of the basic findings in the field of L2 acquisition.

§  Use a Cyclic Approach

The third states that for training to be valuable it must continue over time, not be something that is done at the beginning of a computer experience and then taken for granted thereafter.

Ø Use Collaborative Debriefings

This stresses the importance of collaborative debriefings that can be done either at the end of a CALL session or the beginning of a class following CALL activities done as homework.

Ø Teach General Exploitation Strategies

This final principle emphasizes the value of training students to exploit content for additional practice – both programmed content in language-learning software and authentic content from computer-mediated communication and web