|
Abstract:
|
Language teachers actively seek to provide their students with classroom opportunities to engage in collaborative interactions. Similar opportunities for such interactions can also be created within the context of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and, in particular, in the area of computer-mediated communication (CMC)—whether in real time (synchronous, SCMC) or deferred time (asynchronous, ACMC)—working together with other nonnative- (NNS) or native-speaker (NS) partners. Recent advances in intelligent CALL (iCALL) are also beginning to empower students to engage in online activities with computer applications that provide at least limited levels of feedback, if not some palpable degree of interactivity. This article will review the reported benefits of online language study with particular emphasis on the importance of providing a sound pedagogical framework for the tasks and activities that students are asked to accomplish. In pursuit of effective CALL, researchers have previously stressed the role of online negotiations of meaning via CMC, intercultural communicative competence, and electronic literacy and identity. Although these topics continue to be of great interest for the CALL field, other areas are attracting attention as well: iCALL, distance learning, and teacher training. CALL researchers are increasingly finding that teachers' lack of experience with using technology—that is, their inability to take into account its affordances as well as its engrained cultures of use—can often present the most serious barrier to its successful integration into the language curriculum.
|
