9. Computers and language learning: An overview

Computers and language learning: An overview

Warschauer, M., & Healey, D. (1998). Computers and language learning: An overview. Language Teaching, 31, 57-71.

Summary: This article will provide an overview of current teaching practices and research related to the uses of computers in the language classroom. It will be divided into four main parts: (1) a brief history of computer-assisted language learning (CALL), (2) a survey of current practices and research, (3) a prospectus toward the 21st century, and (4) a list of resources for further information. These three stages mentioned above do not fall into neatly contained timelines. As each new stage has emerged, previous stages continue. Current uses of computers in the language classroom correspond to all three of the paradigms mentioned above. The authors look at the teaching practices and research on the use of all three dimensions of the computer-internet use in language classrooms then analyse practices and research on the uses of the Internet in language learning and teaching.

Relevance: This article was written almost ten years ago when the Internet was firstly introduced in the language classrooms. The article gives the overview of the history of CALL, CALL software and the Internet and some research areas that have been explored ten years ago. However, the use of IT and learning English environment has been changing rapidly. At that time, there are not many people using webcam or publicize their own video clips like nowadays. Web blog is not yet widely known among web surfers. There are more emerging technologies available for learners to try and advent in the wired world. This article is a good review for the use of computer and the Internet in the past decades, at the meantime, some generalizations can be drawn about the history of CALL and web-based research that
1) EFL learners are motivated to use computer in their language learning
2) Teachers’ and educators’ attitudes to the introduction of CALL are positive
3) Students had positive attitudes toward writing with computers and less apprehension about writing, respectively.
4) Collaborative language learning with computers fits right into this real-world model and can be built into almost any type of language learning activity, on and off the computer.
6) Students who need extra help with those aspects of language can use small, focused CALL programs to give them additional time and assistance outside of regular class time.
7) The WWW provide realistic, native-speaker models of the language in a variety of media
8) For the first time, learners of a language can now communicate inexpensively and quickly with other learners or speakers of the target language all over the world on the CMC.
9) Computer-assisted discussion features participation which is dramatically more balanced than face-to-face discussion, with far less domination either by the teacher or by particularly vocal students
10) The language used in computer-assisted discussion has been shown to be more lexically and syntactically complex than in face-to face discussion (Warschauer, 1996a). This is likely due to the written nature of computer-mediated communication, which allows more planning time than oral communication and adopts more written syntactical features.
11) It was found that the impact of the Web-based work rested in large part on the social and cultural relevance of the writing assignments. When students perceived they were contributed something of value to the public arena, they put in a great deal of effort in the process and attention to the product, yielding positive results in their learning to write in a second language. When students did not see their work as having any particular social or cultural relevance, they showed little interest in web-based publishing and the medium itself lent little extra legitimacy or authenticity to their writing assignments.
12) ). Students themselves create their "texts" from their own selection of materials from a variety of sources. In teaching reading, we will have to go beyond how to decode texts, or understand them, and pay increasing attention to how to explore and interpret the vast range of online texts.
13) . In response to this situation, second language teachers will need to teach students effective online writing skills. This includes both the genres of electronic communication as well as the relationship of texts to other media. This will represent a natural evolution of the way we view the World Wide Web
14) The WWW is not only a distribution vehicle, but as a medium in its own right; students will want to learn how to publish Web pages that are fitting for the multimedia environment. We will thus need to find ways to teach our students to combine a variety of media--texts, images, sounds, video--without diluting the attention we give to language.