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. In this foundation course, CALL will be used in a broad sense to refer to any endeavor involving the computer in some significant way in language teaching and learning.
Attempting to make significant use of CALL, as a backdrop to this, in a series of papers from 1987 to 1996 the developer attempted to develop a comprehensive methodological framework for CALL that integrated development, evaluation and implementation. The CALL world has turned out to be more complex than that original vision, for example and other uses centered on the computer as a tool), but it still serves a purpose in laying out areas of consideration for any software that has an identifiable teaching presence. The framework expanded on an earlier one by Martin Phillips (1985) and used the Richards and Rodgers (1982) framework (Method: approach, design, and procedure) as an organizing scheme to characterize the apparent relationships between elements of language teaching and learning and the computer. The driving force behind it was the observation that existing approaches to instructional design and in particular evaluation did not pay sufficient attention to language learning or else limited themselves to specific teaching approaches.
In supporting the sufficient attention to language learning, it introduces 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. It is one of the important approaches for the teacher to maximize the learning in using CALL.
In many cases the tool uses may be more important for a given teaching approach or teacher's experience, or may serve a given learning situation better. In one category of tool uses, computer-mediated communication, or CMC, 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 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 a significant variable, such as the difference between email on a computer and text messaging on a cell phone.
Using CMC in distance education and virtual worlds is increasing in education generally language learning and tutorial for CALL material can be presented online for independent study without teachers like using WWW and e-mail. It would give disadvantages such as 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. But in another side also would give us advantages such as: 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 translators, exist to aid comprehension of material, and etc.
So, in a far view of those advantages, using CALL in developing learning English skills (READING, WRITING, LISTENING AND SPEAKING) and teaching language using computers especially CALL 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) CALL has given us some amazing possibilities for improving language learning. However, these possibilities create a problem. Absent a teacher, students using computers are typically given more control over their own learning. Due to the newness of computer environments and the range of choices in many CALL applications, they are arguably unprepared to take on this responsibility. The result is that students may not use the computers in ways that are effective for achieving language learning objectives, and it is even less likely that they will use them in ways that are most effective.
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