Am bringing my perspective of Julia Gong article about the use of CALL in EFL teaching.
The use of computer in classroom opens new horizons for
teaching and learning English as a second/foreign language for teacher and
students.
The computer software and internet provide a more
comfortable and universal access to learning resources that offers authentic
language input for the users (Kataoka, 2000) , however the optimal exploitation
of CALL ( Computer Assisted Language Learning) at teaching ends should not be
taken for granted. (Levy 1997, 1) “Voice” dictionary for teaching pronunciation
is a good reference so far.
“Computer intervenes as an added tool or resource, as a
model or real world phenomenon, or system as a training environment to prepare
users for real world experience” (Pennington 1995, 11) The appropriate computer
use and software packages sound like a panacea to many issues related to the
weaknesses of foreign language learning and brings responses to teachers
complaints all over the world. With the right use of CALL we are likely to
produce a generation of English teachers and speakers with better skills in performance
and competence than ourselves.
Call materials are used both to improve the quality of
fluency and accuracy in regard of prosody and employment of software oriented
in use of discourse genre and topical area in order to stimulate verbal
interaction. This is the appropriate situation of teaching EFL that meets
teachers need as mentioned by: Runganayagie Nalini Reddy in his final project
ETSP Spring 2010 final project” Thematic integration of the four language
skills which incorporates issues of grammar (so it is not taught in a vacuum)
are an eternal challenge not just to the TEACH Ambassadors but to many ESL
teachers in South Africa (SA)”.
As far as mechanical part (phonetics, prosody, and segmental)
is concern the following are available: extensive texts, graphics, animation,
audio, digital, audio, digitized audio video clips as well as synthesis –by-rule
that can convert text to speech (Pennington 1995).The drawback of computer
issued speech (technical issues) can be compensate by digitized or video speech
even though the latter is less flexible. No less important option are the speech
recognition technology (Healey 1999, 127) and Aist (1999, 133) three dimensions
approach to teaching pronunciation.
Another good example of CALL application is SLIM (Multimedia
Interactive Linguistic Software) used in the University of Venice (Delmonte,
2000). One difficulty about this technology is its price. For now it is expensive
and is not affordable by the general public.
A common software designed for use of CALL meaningful side
is the CONVERSATION where the students can learn by interacting with computer
through record of own speech and machine feedbacks. CALL provides students with
broader and personal use of resource to learn at their convenient pace with
CD-Roms, web documents and BBC News through RealPlayer. The video and audio
conferencing, CU SeeMe and Microsoft networkmeeting. Email discussion forum,
synchronous discussions are helpful for the development of the learners’
speaking skills. Written chat sessions are also very efficient according to (Pennington
1995, 155), and Phinney (1995) Multi-user object-oriented domains (MOOs).
Teaching material can be conceived and designed with
electronic dictionary such as creating interactive CALL ESL programs. This provides
a computer based scoring system of assessment more objective than human
judgment in pronunciation errors.
CALL necessitates work of professionals in teaching to
extract from the relevant parts suitable for each category of learners. Its
great promising potential as a medium for teaching and learning of second/language
CALL always requires lot of human intervention. Nothing would replace the
human-to-human contact and the physical exposure to the culture of foreign
language.
Comments:
CALL is all about what teachers and learners of EFL need to
catch up and keep in touch with ongoing transformation of modern world. EFL
teachers who are not typically English speakers, originally from less
technologically advanced countries might integrate globalized world and
familiarize with most recent means of communication for teaching purpose.
I have lot of hope to see more brilliant EFL teachers in the
future trained with appropriate use of CALL and offer better quality of
teaching.
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