Talk:Computer-assisted language learning
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This article needs help. In particular, Im not happy about the discussion of specific programs like The Rosetta Stone. Sounds too much like an advertisement. Thelmadatter 15:34, 23 August 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter
I plan to rewrite this article as soon as I find the time to sit down and sort thru this mess! Thelmadatter 16:17, 7 September 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter
This does need serious work. It is really to the point that mere additions or revisions will not help...It really needs to be redone from scratch. Not only are there too many blatant software and website promotions, but also too many in-text links (that is what link at the end of wikipedia entries are for). It also seems like this is primarily an attempt at writing the history of CALL in the UK. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.208.176.36 (talk) 05:05, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Working
Im working right now on the rewrite... Hope to get it up next week. Thelmadatter (talk) 17:22, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
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- Still working.. got the research and a very rough draft done but since I dont have Internet connection at home (why pay when you have it free at work? hee hee) I wont put it up until it is near-perfect. Thelmadatter (talk) 17:11, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
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- OK the rewrite is up.... I admit I need to do a little more work on the references but the problematic ones are locked up in my office until Jan 3. Meanwhile, I thought I should get this up, in case anyone wants to start tweaking it.Thelmadatter (talk) 20:24, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
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Suggested amendments / additions by Graham Davies, April 2008 (aka GroovyGuzi)
I have done a bit of editing myself, but the article would benefit from additional editing by the main contributor. It's generally OK, but it has a strong slant towards TESOL and the North American concept of CALL. There's a mass of CALL materials and CALL research focusing on the common European languages (French, German, Spanish and Italian), as well as Arabic, Chinese and Japanese. See, for example, the materials at the BBC website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages
Currently the article leans on a couple of sources that are now somewhat dated: Warschauer (1996) and my own article which I produced for the LLAS Centre, University of Southampton (UK) in 2002. The most up-to-date CALL resource is probably the ICT4LT site, which I edit and update every week. It covers a wide range of different manifestations of CALL. Browse the contents page, look at the resource centre and use the glossary as an index:
http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_resource.htm
http://www.ict4lt.org//en/en_glossary.htm
Add something on audio-conferencing, video-conferencing and Skype.
EUROCALL has recently set up a CMC Special Interest Group, headed by Robert O'Dowd. See Section 14 of Module 1.5 at the ICT4LT website.
Add something on Second Life. There is a great deal of activity in this area at present (April 2008). EUROCALL has set up a headquarters building on one of the EduNation islands, which are maintained by Gavin Dudeney, The Consultants-E, Barcelona. CALICO has set up a Second Life SIG. The first SLanguages conference took place in Second Life in June 2007, and a second conference is planned for May 2008. You can read all about this in Section 14.2.1 of Module 1.5 at the ICT4LT site - where there are lots of relevant links.
Possibly add something on the way in which Web 2.0 applications are increasingly being used in CALL: e.g. social networking sites, podcasts, vodcasts, Voki, IMVU, etc. See Section 2.1 of Module 1.5 at the ICT4LT site for a defintion of Web 2.0 and examples.
The range of new resources is vast. See my personal Favourite Websites page for a snapshot of what is currently available: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/websites.htm
Huge strides have been made in CALL and computational linguistics in recent years. See Module 3.5 (Human Language Technologies) at the ICT4LT site. The EUROCALL NLP SIG and CALICO ICALL SIG are worth a reference. See especially the work being carried out by Aliy Fowler, Trude Heift and Mathias Schulze.
I have added references to Philippe Delcloque's comprehensive History of CALL. The History of CALL was produced in 2000 to mark the beginning of the new millennium. New developments are documented in Section 2 of Module 1.4 at the ICT4LT site, e.g. the increasing use of blogs, wikis and podcasting - and Web 2.0 applications in general, especially social networking.
Interactive whiteboard use is also on the increase. In the secondary education sector in the UK, for instance, this is the main growth area, along with increasing use of VLEs. Most new commercial materials produced in the UK are designed to be used on interactive whiteboards and VLEs. Moodle has been adopted as the main VLE by The Open University in the UK. It is already being used for the delivery of language courses at a distance. Regina Hampel has published several articles on the use of Moodle in delivering language courses.
Regards, Graham Davies, Emeritus Professor of CALL, Editor ICT4LT website (http://www.ict4lt.org): http://grahamdavies.wikispaces.com 87.113.23.189 (talk) 10:30, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
