Intro to CALL
SOURCES OF
INFORMATION ON CALL
Apart from the books in the bibliography, there is useful information about CALL in
the numerous WWW sites of interest for the information and support of TEFL
teachers. These sites often contain (or have onward links to) a combination of
CALL and other information for teachers, and miscellaneous CALL
activities for learners.
Teachers can find
information on jobs, teaching hints, guides to books and software, linguistic
points discussed at the level of the teacher, and so on.
Learners can find
exercises, dictionaries, penpal links etc.... A sample of these CALL resources
and activities are looked at classified in our Schedule
Here are some key ones (once
you get into a few, you find links to others of course)
http://www.sitesforteachers.com/
DEFINITIONS AND SCOPE OF CALL
CALL = Computer Assisted/Aided Language
Learning.
For the purposes of this course we take CALL to
embrace any computer software that is usable in some way to help language
learners, whether intended for that purpose or not, and whether directly used
by them, or used by someone else to create a conventional material (e.g. a
coursebook) which learners use.
Though the acronym 'CALL' implies a
limitation to language learning, we do not, as some do, distinguish that
from computer aided language acquisition (CASLA). And we include in our
scope language use by learners, and of course language teaching.
Computer aided language testing (CALT) is often discussed separately from CALL,
and for various reasons will not be much focussed on in this course (lack of
time and lack of the software!). We are also excluding use of computers in AL
and ELT research in general (CASLR), and in the learning of linguistics
rather than language (though there is an unclear borderline here, as much
language teaching involves teaching about language, especially grammar,
or raising awareness of language forms, and so resembles simple linguistics).
There are many other acronyms and terms
around with broader scope than CALL, or scope overlapping with CALL. They refer
to areas of theory and research which have implications for CALL: e.g. CAL,
CAI, CBE, TELL, Telematics, HCI, AI, NLP, Corpus Linguistics. On these neighbouring areas see Chapelle
2001 ch2 and Levy 1997 ch3 and pp77-82.
CALL 'tasks' include what may be otherwise
referred to as games, exercises, activities, materials, even tests, and just
'ordinary use' of facilities like word processing. Sometimes they are fully
determined by the program, sometimes they are largely in the hands of the
teacher or learner using the software. They may be done in class or at home,
etc.
Thinking about CALL means thinking about many
of the same things one considers when thinking about 'materials' for language
learning/teaching (coursebooks, visual aids like posters or videos, pen and
paper exercises, dictionaries etc.). Both involve something physical that
teachers and learners use alongside a teaching method, syllabus etc. in a
taught program OR which may be just used independently by the learner. Both
have to be bought (or pirated). Both have a tangible form, but at the same time
when exploited form part of a less tangible 'task' or the like. This parallel
leads us to the conclusion that there are three main areas of concern (see
Hubbard 1996 in
ed. Pennington The Power of CALL for a fuller exposition, attempting to
relate this to the Richards and Rodgers framework for analysing teaching
methods):
1) Development/creation. I.e. the principles and processes of writing
software or authoring new materials within some existing software (Cf. Chapelle
2001 p166ff, and Levy 1997 ch4 onwards (esp. p104-108), for concepts rather
than practicalities). Compare materials development, coursebook writing.
2)
Use/implementation. I.e. how teachers use software with their learners (in or
out of class, individually or in groups, for what sort of tasks, integrated
with other aspects of the teaching-learning process or not, etc. etc.)… and how
the learners use the software (which may be differently from how the teacher
plans, or indeed entirely independently of school), their processes and
strategies. Compare discussion of the role of materials like coursebooks or
tapes in a course, different 'task types' they can be involved in, learner use
of materials like dictionaries or cribs out of class unknown to the teacher
etc… (Levy 1997 Ch4 onwards touches on
ideas about Use repeatedly, esp p100-103; Jones and Fortescue ch14 old but
practical)
3) Evaluation. I.e. how to decide what is good or bad software….
including inevitably considering what is a good or bad use of the software. Compare
materials evaluation. (Chapelle 2001 Ch3).
Partly because of the limitations of what we
have available here, and the length of the course, we concentrate mostly on
(3), with some connected thought about (2). With computers becoming
increasingly used all over the world by language learners, any teacher today
needs some ideas about how to evaluate and use computer software and related
tasks with a class. (1), for most teachers, is beyond what they have the time
to do, or perhaps the capability, though all through the history of CALL there
have been keen teachers who have developed software themselves, or at least
authored their own material using packages that allow that, or in recent times
made webpages with useful links for their students..
DIMENSIONS/TYPES
OF CALL
One can classify CALL programs in all sorts
of ways (See Levy 1997 pp108-114, 156f). For us the two most important are:
-- By the type of
basic computer facilities they need, since that controls where we can find and
use different software on campus.
-- By the type of
pedagogical tasks they involve, because this is really our main interest, which
we do not want to get submerged under the purely computer aspects. Minimally a
task can be defined (a) in terms of the level of the language that is being
worked on (e.g. spelling, grammar, vocab, pragmatics, etc..... or all of these
together in one of the four skills) and (b) in terms of the activity involved
(e.g. multiple choice, gap filling, guided writing by paragraph completion,
imitating a piece of language after listening to it, communicating real
information... etc.).
All this is filled out in detail in my draft evaluation checklist, which prompts one to think
about and judge a whole lot of more specific aspects of the computer and
pedagogical sides of a CALL program, and in my schedule
which lists classified examples of various types of CALL.
HISTORY OF CALL
In terms of the development of hardware,
program types, relation to ideas about language learning and teaching... This
is filled out in class. See also Chapelle 2001 ch1 and Levy 1997 ch2 and
the online http://www.history-of-call.org/
-
The
computer-as-big-as-a-room era. Entire courses like that of PLATO organised at a
few universities. Audio-lingualism.
-
The arrival of the
home/school computer (Sinclair, Apple, BBC). CALL tasks as ancillary, and
produced by many small publishers such as WIDA and even teacher enthusiasts. Attempts
to fit it in with the Communicative approach.
-
The era of the powerful
PC (and Mac). Professionalisation of software writing but lack of transfer of
much software from earlier platforms.
-
PC + CD, multimedia.
Software out of the hands of teachers, largely audio-lingual in mode. New
attempts at entire courses.
-
The era of the Internet.
Teacher as selector. Learner-centred.
-
The future: convergence
of media and ‘omnimedia’