Computer Assisted Language Learning: Advantages And Challenges

Discuss about the Computer Assisted Language Learning.

Computers and technology has become extensive in schools, colleges and every other educational sector. Now, since language learning has a sense of urgency at present, it has raised the requirement of computer literacy to the level of obligation (Beatty 2013). Language teachers, now a day have started to employ computers as a medium of new pedagogical instrument for teaching foreign languages. This generated the idea of Computer Assisted Language Learning i.e. CALL and this has been proved to influence educational psychology, designing learning materials for teachers through web based instructions and Human Computer Interaction (Golonka et al. 2014).

The authors Cynthia White and Hayo Reinders, in this chapter have emphasized the effectiveness of CALL in teaching the foreign language, English and developing the teaching materials for that purpose through CALL. The authors, in the first place, try to identify the unique features of CALL that has provided it an advantageous position over other conventional non-CALL teaching methods. However, the section also highlights some of the major drawbacks of this technology driven language-learning platform. It has been argued in the chapter that language learning in virtual medium takes place in three levels that include theoretical perspective, pedagogical framework and teaching procedure. The supporters of CALL have asserted immense importance to these stages appreciating them as dynamic, iterative procedures in terms of design and execution. According to the scholars reviewed in this chapter, there are numerous advantages of L2 acquisition through CALL; the materials of CALL aid in developing computer literacy, communicative skills, building e-community, creating identity, learning in a collaborative platform and mentoring. Besides, the chapter highlights advantages of organizations in using CALL materials as well as several pedagogical advantages of these materials in the acquisition of L2. Perhaps the greatest advantage of CALL is that it can incorporate such features like recording and animation that are not possible to find in the traditional learning concepts.

In the second subsection of the chapter  two different projects have been discussed where CALL has been utilized; the first one being in a distance education program and the second being a self-access program in online. The first project, the application of CALL materials in the online distance-learning program was more or less a success but in the second one, the need for effective learner training and increasing the number of support staff was felt. However, in both the projects, it was seen that the students’ interpretation of the tasks and materials had a mediating role between CALL and the students’ success.

Two Different Projects Utilizing CALL

The chapter reviewing the utilization of CALL in acquisition of L2 takes a strong stand in supporting the widespread usage of this newly emerged technological language-learning program. The chapter in the beginning identifies some of the distinct features of this learning and by discussing relevant pedagogical theories attempt to highlight the potential positive outcomes of this.  Due to the difference in platform and in the process of designing curriculum, CALL faces several difficulties in combining theory and practice (Levy and Stockwell 2013). However, the chapter has shown an inclination to negate the importance of developing theory-based curriculum stating that it was not necessary to restrict the instructional design by grounding it on pedagogical theories. However, this approach is highly wrong as pedagogical theories are meant to discover the essential requirements of a student at different stage and helps the instructors to go in depth of the learners’ psychology (Ushioda 2013). Moreover, in the CALL format, face-to-face interaction between the teachers and the learners is absent and that the teacher is not physically present to guide the students according to their learning needs. Hence, a curriculum based on pedagogy built as per the needs of students becomes important here, as it would enhance their learning outcomes.

On the other hand, the three-level model is indeed effective for the CALL learners, as this would inevitably help them to learn in a systematic way. In this context, agreeing with the authors it can be said that the pedagogical activities have scope to be initiated at any of the three levels of approach, design and procedure (Reinders and White, 2017). Indeed, it is the openness and flexibility of the CALL procedure that has made the online language learning so popular.

To discuss about the unique features and advantages of CALL learning, as Loucky and Ware (2016) identifies, it is highly appreciating that CALL incorporates contemporary technological attributes like peer-to-peer networking, messaging and many more to overcome the pedagogical constraints and affordances. Among all other advantages mentioned about CALL in this chapter, some raise questions about their real power to be proved as an advantage. For instance, the author mentions the availability of multimedia technology like online video and information on internet enhances authenticity (Bueno-Alastuey and López Pérez 2014). However, all these mediums that have been mentioned here are not formally established as authentic source for studying and hence, the question about their reliability remains. There are other issues with the matter of teacher-student interaction that have been emphasized by the author are also not beyond questions. Undoubtedly, interaction in the language acquisition program plays a major role but when this interaction and access to internet does not remain in limit, it can create scope for unnecessary deviation for the students (Oberg and Daniels 2013).

Critique of the Reading

Among the appreciating features of CALL, the contribution of technology in this format is worth mentioning here. The infinite possibilities that technology has opened for CALL, is worthy to be praised. Especially, the prompt feedback providing aspect is very helpful for the language learners. The parser-based CALL and language processing has the ability to provide potential feedback even prior to the process of language learning (Balushi 2012).

This referred section of the book offers a clear advantageous position of CALL, though presented in subdivisions of organizational and pedagogical. The chapter rightly identifies the principal benefit of CALL in terms of access of internet-based materials at anytime anywhere. However, in this case the writers have not overlooked the potential drawbacks of accessing learning materials without the supervision of the educators. As Loucky and Ware (2016) opines that the context of self-access can be deprived of quality or efficiency without the motivation factor of teachers. In addition, the access to students’ data and progress report has been easier with this CALL format of learning. On the other hand, the authors have highlighted the advantage of sharing learning materials and updating them easily. However, in this context they have overlooked the fact that this unrestricted opportunity to share materials has opened the chances of plagiarism and dishonesty on students’ part.

Another aspect of cost-efficiency has been mentioned quite emphatically as an advantage. Yet, the initial cost of setting up the infrastructure of CALL has not been cited in the chapter. Setting up the technological appliances and framing CALL materials entail a huge amount of cost and this can be an obstacle to the widespread of technology driven language learning (Lin, Huang and Chen 2014).

From the pedagogical perspective the authors have highlighted two aspects how CALL enhances the authenticity of the learning materials and how through the educational games, which is a part of CALL course design, developed for the young learners, assist in their learning process (Reinders and White, 2017). Again, this case of authenticity is arguable as collecting corpora to develop dictionaries and even to form the textbook content may not be authentic. However, the writers have put forward an argument on this stating that the learning materials gathered from authentic sources are not necessarily of better quality always. This opinion has considerable logic in it and one can agree with them in this context. Apart from this, the agrreing with Griffiths and Oxford (2014), it can be said that the innovative idea of engaging students in educational games for better learning experience is highly appreciating.

Advantages of CALL

Excluding all these advantages and gaps in the learning process through CALL, the best among all is the communication process between two learners, which is highly praiseworthy. The way two students are partnered, where someone interested to learn a specific language is aligned with another student having that language as L1 is of great advantage. This kind of partnering across nationalities and languages is not possible in the traditional language learning program and that it facilitates the students to learn a language with its practical implications. This flow of ideas among the students is undoubtedly an advantageous ground for L2 learners.     

In case of situated learning, it is indeed challenging for the students as well as for the teachers to develop such situations and plan activities for the learners so that they can gather knowledge from real life situations. In traditional learning medium, creating this environment of situational learning is very difficult for the teachers but in as the authors mention, in CALL, this becomes much easier. This is because the educators need to create exercises for the students only and since this format of learning is somewhat self-reliant for the L2 learners, it is up to them to complete the tasks and activities recommended on their own (Reinders and White, 2017).

The aspect of language learning through multimodality is an interesting characteristic of CALL. In the traditional materials, the scope of using multimedia was absent. Knowing the fact that language acquisition becomes better with audio-visual medium and through constant interaction, there is no denial of the fact that CALL remains much ahead of conventional language learning programs. The CALL format enables the instructors to ‘repackage’ the materials into one mode from the other (Ushioda 2013). The benefit of this multimodality aspect is that the students can easily learn according to their preference of medium. However, the simulations of real world that CALL is able to offer indeed accelerates the pace of L2 acquisition although the authors do not overlook its limited scopes due to technical challenges (Golonka et al. 2014).

In this context, there is another benefit of CALL potentially identified by the authors. This entails the non-linearity of CALL presenting the students with opportunity to access information according to their choice of sequence. These are all advantages due to the involvement of technology in this format. However, as this non-linear learning violates the predetermined sequence grounded on pedagogical theories, many scholars like Ushioda (2013), have objected to this suspecting that students may unconsciously misguide them in the absence of an educator’s intervention.

Challenges of CALL

The major advantage that CALL incorporates in its space is the ability to monitor and record the learners’ progress and their learning behavior in a more efficient and easier way. Since all the monitoring and recording procedures are done mechanically, there are less chances of bias and that the students can also have opportunity to have a reflection on their progress. To opine from the pedagogical perspective, this aspect facilitating ongoing study planning develops the metacognitive awareness of the learners (Reinders and White, 2017). Besides, the CALL form of learning assists the learners to gain control over their leaning program giving them a feeling of empowerment. However, to what extent this control can be allowed is open to questions.

In the second subsection, where CALL is shown in practice in two different projects, the advantages and disadvantages of this learning medium are expressed more explicitly. In the Online Distance Foreign Language Teaching program, the writers authentically document how the transfer from face-to-face learning to CALL has been difficult and challenging. Actually, this is the practical side of implementing CALL, which many of the scholars have disregarded in their highly welcoming analysis. Another project completed in University of Auckland offered an online language-learning program empowering the students with self-access.  This project along with the one conducted in King Mongkut University of Technology showed the gaps behind planning and its implementation, as according to Levy and Stockwell (2013), the students required more support materials than expected. The realization of CALL in the institutes clearly shows that the apparently thought easy implementation process has faced with major failure. In the online self-assessment program of Auckland University, the major challenge became to motivate students to use the online programs abundantly (Reinders and White 2017). Despite efforts and the huge positive response from the students, it became difficult to make them continue with the program. However, the authors lack in providing a solution to this unwillingness in the chapter and only highlighting the problems will not help.

Conclusion

Having explored the chapter from a critical point-of-view, it can be said that the authors have effectively highlighted all the major areas of benefit that CALL offers though many of the potential drawbacks have been overlooked or missed by them. This critical analysis also picks out the gap that remains between the theoretical concept and the practical implementation of CALL supported by the findings of projects conducted in the second subsection. The chapter has prioritized the matter of practicality in course design over pedagogical perspective. However, apart from all these, the critique of the chapter reveals that not enough concentration has been given on CALL as a language learning program; rather the discussion, at times appears to be general e-learning program. Excluding all these issues, the argument presented on CALL in this chapter has been a successful one.

References

Balushi, M. 2012. Computer Assisted Language Learning for English Language Teachers' Training in Oman. [online] Available at: https://linguistics.uoregon.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Al-Balushi-Mahfouda-Mar-12.pdf [Accessed 27 Apr. 2017].

Beatty, K., 2013. Teaching & researching: Computer-assisted language learning. Routledge.

Bueno-Alastuey, M.C. and López Pérez, M.V., 2014. Evaluation of a blended learning language course: students’ perceptions of appropriateness for the development of skills and language areas. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 27(6), pp.509-527.

Gilakjani, A.P., 2016. The Relationship between Information and Communication Technology and Foreign Language Teaching and Learning. Modern Journal of Language Teaching Methods, 6(4), p.67.

Golonka, E.M., Bowles, A.R., Frank, V.M., Richardson, D.L. and Freynik, S., 2014. Technologies for foreign language learning: a review of technology types and their effectiveness. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 27(1), pp.70-105.

Griffiths, C. and Oxford, R.L., 2014. The twenty-first century landscape of language learning strategies: Introduction to this special issue. System, 43, pp.1-10.

Hsu, L., 2013. English as a foreign language learners’ perception of mobile assisted language learning: a cross-national study. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 26(3), pp.197-213.

Lai, C., Yeung, Y. and Hu, J., 2016. University student and teacher perceptions of teacher roles in promoting autonomous language learning with technology outside the classroom. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 29(4), pp.703-723.

Levy, M. and Stockwell, G., 2013. CALL dimensions: Options and issues in computer-assisted language learning. Routledge.

Lin, C.Y., Huang, C.K. and Chen, C.H., 2014. Barriers to the adoption of ICT in teaching Chinese as a foreign language in US universities. ReCALL, 26(01), pp.100-116.

Loucky, J.P. and Ware, J.L. eds., 2016. Flipped Instruction Methods and Digital Technologies in the Language Learning Classroom. IGI Global.

Oberg, A. and Daniels, P., 2013. Analysis of the effect a student-centred mobile learning instructional method has on language acquisition. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 26(2), pp.177-196.

Reinders, H. and White, C. 2017. The theory and practice of technology in materials development & task design. [online] Available at: https://file:///C:/Users/admin/Downloads/1327962_1136940350_bookchapter-ReindersandWhite%20(1).pdf [Accessed 27 Apr. 2017].

Ushioda, E. ed., 2013. International perspectives on motivation: Language learning and professional challenges. Springer.