Computer-Assisted Language Learning

Assignment Paper: - E-C-402 English Language Teaching

Topic                     : Computer-Assisted Language Learning

Student’s name     : - Vala Neeta T.

Roll no                 :- 20

URL                      :-valaneeta391011.blogspot.com

Semester               :- 4

Batch                    :- 2011-12

                                                 

                                  Submitted to,

                                                 Dr. Dilip Barad,

                                                 Department of English,

                                                 Bhavnagar University.

Introduction

Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) is a form of computer-based assisted learning which carries two important features: bidirectional learning and individualized learning. It is not a method. CALL materials are tools for learning. The focus of CALL is learning, and not teaching. CALL materials are used in teaching to facilitate the language learning process. It is a student-centered accelerated learning material, which promotes self-paced accelerated learning.

A Brief History of CALL

In this, I have discussed reviews some of the early developments in CALL and feature some significant CALL programs which serve to illustrate what is both possible and desirable in CALL. Some of these possibilities and desires are simply a move from a behaviourist instructional design to a constructivist design.

A summary of behaviourist and constructivist design approaches to learning materials

A behaviourist design… ·         Eliminates extraneous information ·         Simplifies for comprehensibility ·         Uses a convergent, task-analyzed model as a basis ·         Reconstructs/ replicates knowledge ·         Abstract instruction experiences ·         Focuses  on acquiring skills ·         Offers prescriptive sequences of instruction ·         Supports individual learning and competition

A constructivist design… ·         Supports natural complexity and content ·         Avoids oversimplification ·         Presents multiple representations/perspective ·         Engages knowledge construction ·         Present instruction in real world contexts (authentic tasks) ·         Engages reflective practice ·         Offers open learning environments ·         Supports collaboration

• Just using the web: teachers give students tasks that require finding, comprehending and sometimes consolidating information on the web.

• Educational sites with ESL or adult literacy support.

• Text reconstruction activities,

• Multimedia reading, such as voice enhanced texts and dynamically illustrated material, found especially on CD-ROMs

• Online graded readers

• Use of email and discussion boards for fluency development.

• Online writing resources

• Collaborative writing tasks. E.g. Blogs

• Writing support practice (e.g., CALL activities with fill-ins for structured writing)

• Publication opportunities (both paper and web) as motivators. E.g. Wikipedia

• Workbook-style exercises (on disk and online)

• Grammar test prep materials

• CD-ROMs accompanying grammar textbooks.

• Online courses and references Hypertext-linked grammar notes accompanying readings

• Grammar portals

• Hypertext dictionaries/glossaries

• Talking dictionaries: Longman, Oxford, and Newbury House have learner's dictionaries with CD-ROMs that include pronunciation and sometimes other multimedia support.

• Concordance programs: these programs look for words in collections of texts, or corpora, and return examples of the word in the immediate context

• Picture dictionaries

• Word lists and vocabulary tests for English

Here, we find that behaviourist and constructivist models of instruction into practical concerns for learning materials but, in both cases the definitions are severe, and one is unlikely materials that exclusively adhere to one design.

 CALL dates back to the 1960s, when it was first introduced on university mainframe computers. The PLATO project, initiated at the University of Illinois in 1960, is an important landmark in the early development of CALL (Marty 1981). The advent of the microcomputer in the late 1970s brought computing within the range of a wider audience, resulting in a boom in the development of CALL programs and a flurry of publications of books on CALL in the early 1980s.

There have been several attempts to document the history of CALL. Sanders (1995) cover the period from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s, focusing on CALL in North America. Delcloque (2000) documents the history of CALL worldwide, from its beginnings in the 1960s to the dawning of the new millennium. Davies (2005) takes a look back at CALL's past and attempts to predict where it is going.  Hubbard (2009) offers a compilation of 74 key articles and book excerpts, originally published in the years 1988-2007 that give a comprehensive overview of the wide range of leading ideas and research results that have exerted an influence on the development of CALL or that show promise in doing so in the future. A published review of Hubbard's collection can be found in Language Learning & Technology 14, 3 (2010).

Butler-Pascoe (2011) looks at the history of CALL from a different point of view, namely the evolution of CALL in the dual fields of educational technology and second/foreign language acquisition and the paradigm shifts experienced along the way.

Definitions of CALL

A definition of call that accommodates its changing nature is any process in which a leaner uses a computer and, as a result, improves his or her language. Although this definition might seem unworkably large, it at least encompasses a broad spectrum of current practice in the teaching and learning of language at the computer. An awareness of this spectrum allows learners, teachers and researchers to recognize appropriate materials and methodologies and adapt others to various teaching and learning styles.

The Four Skills, Grammar and Vocabulary

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 a variety of meaning technologies such as text support, hyperlinked glossaries, and even translations.  Listening activities typically involve presentations followed by comprehension questions--some also include full or partial dictations.  One type of presentation specific to CALL is the punctuated presentation, in which the flow is interrupted at intervals to ask questions along the way. This in theory encourages more focused attention and allows a learner to get a check on understanding early in the activity. This technique was popularized in products by DynEd beginning around 1990.

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 using Internet voice mail, or simply attaching sound files to email. There has also been interest recently in having students produce and publish podcasts. Many believe that putting students in front of a computer in groups of two or more will get them talking about the computer task and improve speaking fluency, although research has not always borne this out: like many other CALL activities, it depends on the students' readiness and motivation. For tutorial CALL, practicing speaking has always been tricky. Most programs simply rely on voice recording, with the learner simply recording a line from a dialogue and then comparing it with the native sample.

It has been suggested by many practitioners that using text-based chat supports the development of speaking skills indirectly due to the synchronous and informal nature of chat. The most widely used indirect method for practicing speaking is simply to listen to conversational dialogues on disk or the web.

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. Most CALL reading instruction, first on disk and later on the web, has involved the use of meaning technologies. These include dedicated applications, such as hypertext glossaries, translations, and notes (on grammar, usage, culture), put together by developers for particular texts and generic applications such as electronic dictionaries, encyclopedias, translation systems. A number of studies have shown an advantage for comprehension and vocabulary acquisitions when reading materials are supported by multimedia glossaries, and both native speaker and language learner texts exist with voice enhancement (text to speech) texts and dynamically illustrated material.

Here are some other ways CALL can be used to support reading

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, and using a thesaurus can be counterproductive if students aren't trained in their limitations. Writing has also been a common skill taught as a course through distance education using the Internet. 

Some other ways computers enhance writing instruction include the following.

Wikipedia are particularly good for collaborative projects, while blogs (weblogs) are online journals that individual students or groups can publish and allow others to leave comments on.

GRAMMAR

Grammar practice was perhaps the earliest use of CALL. Today grammar work is largely focused on the following:

VOCABULARY

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). Other common CALL implementations for vocabulary include the following.

 Advantages and Disadvantages of CALL

a.      Advantages

Many educators indicate that the current computer technology has many advantages for second language learning. The following are the advantages as stated by many experts:

·         Interest and motivation

Classical language teaching in classroom can be monotonous, boring, and even frustrating, and students can loose interest and motivation in learning. CALL programmers can provide student ways to learn English through computer games, animated graphics, and problem-solving techniques which can make drills more interesting (Ravichandran 2000).

·         Individualization

CALL allows learners to have non-sequential learning habit; they can decide on their own which skills to develop and which course to use, as well as the speed and level by their own needs.

·            A compatible learning style

Students have different style of learning, and an incompatible style for students will cause serious conflicts to them. Computer can provide an exciting “fast” drill for one student and “slow” for another.

·          Immediate feedback

Students receive maximum benefit from feedback only if it is given immediately. A delayed positive feedback will reduce the encouragement and reinforcement, and a delayed negative feedback affect the crucial knowledge a student must master. Computer can give instant feedback and help the students ward off his misconception at the very first stage.

·         Error analysis

Computer database can be used by teacher to classify and differentiate the type of general error and error on account of the influence of the first language. A computer can analyze the specific mistakes that students made and can react in different way from the usual teacher, which make students able to make self-correction and understand the principle behind the correct solution.

·         Pre-determined to process syllabus

Computer enhances the learning process from a pre-determined syllabus to an emerging or process syllabus. For example, a monotonous paper exercise of ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ type can be made more exciting on the screen in the self-access mode, and students can select their own material. Therefore, CALL facilitates the synthesis of the pre-planned syllabus and learner syllabuses “through a decision-making process undertaken by teacher and learners together” (Breen 1986 in Ravichandran 2000).

b.      Disadvantages of CALL

                  Although there are many advantages of computer, the application of current computer technology still has its limitations and disadvantages.

·         Less-handy equipment.

According to Ansel et al (1992) in Hartoyo (2006, 31), the CAL program is different from traditional books that can be carried around and studied wherever and whenever they wish: on a train, at home, in the middle of the night, and so on. School computers or language laboratory can only be accessed in restricted hours, so CALL program only benefits people who have computers at home or personal notebook.

·         Lack of trained teachers.

It is necessary for teachers and students to have basic technology knowledge before applying computer technology in second language teaching and learning. Therefore, computers will only benefit those who are familiar with computer technology (Roblyer 2003 in Lai 2006).

·         Imperfect current CALL programs

At present, the software of CALL mainly deals with reading, listening, and writing skills. There are some speaking programs have been developed recently, but their functions are still limited. Warschauer (2004) in Lai (2006) stated that a program should ideally be able to understand a user’s spoken input and evaluate it not just for correctness but also for ‘appropriateness’. Speaking program should be able to diagnose a learner’s problem with pronunciation, syntax, or usage and then intelligently decide among a range of options.

·         Inability to handle unexpected situations

The learning situation is that a second-language learner faces are various and ever changing. Computers merely have artificial intelligence, and it cannot deal with learner’s unexpected learning problem or response to learner’s questions immediately as teachers do. Blin (1994) in Lai (2006) stated that computer technology with that degree do not exist, and are not expected to exist quite a long time. In other words, today’s computer technology and its language learning programs are not yet intelligent enough to be truly interactive.

Conclusion:-

The role of computers in language teaching has changed significantly in the last three decades. Previously, computers used in language teaching were limited to text. Simple simulations and exercises, primarily gap-filling and multiple-choice drills, abounded. Technological and pedagogical developments now allow us to integrate computer technology into the language learning process. Multimedia programs incorporating speech-recognition software can immerse students into rich environments for language practice. Concordance software with large language corpora provides students with the means to investigate language use in authentic contexts. And the Internet allows for a great number of opportunities to communicate in the target language, access textual and multimedia information, and publish for a global audience.  It can be seen that there is a boom in the use of computers in the past thirty years from having students work on computer fed drills to students' long-distance communication and collaboration in authentic research and multimedia publication. Since the computer is capable of playing so many different roles in and out of class, it is believed to be the most exciting and potentially useful aid so far available to language teachers and learners.

By the way, the computer is a mechanical device which can be used well or badly. Without careful choice and preparation of materials, careful lesson planning and classroom management, and training of both learners and teachers, the computer is useless. Therefore, the teacher plays a significant role in implementing the computer into the lesson plan.