Final CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning)

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.