Senin, 28 Desember 2009

article call 10

Computer-Assisted Language Learning (Call) And The Internet

by Solange Moras
Cultura Inglesa de São Carlos, Brazil, June 2001

1. INTRODUCTION
Computers and the Internet are so widespread today that one feels outdated if not using them.  I have always been interested in computers and believe they can be beneficial in teaching, but have never really used them in my classes.
In our school we have computers in the self-access area, in which students can use CD-ROMS or the Internet. The school has compiled a list of useful web sites for students, and we ask them to access English-only web sites, but I have always felt students need more guidance in the use of these resources. Therefore I have chosen a small Intermediate class, in which I know most students already use the Internet at home or at school / university to experiment with the use of the Internet in class, as a way of promoting learner’s independence and a better use of our self-access resources.
Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) is not a new development in language teaching, as it has been used since the 1960s and 70s. However, it still lacks research methods and a clear theoretical foundation. (Chapelle, 1997). We are going to describe the development of CALL and discuss the most recent questions regarding theory.
2. THE DEVELOPMENT OF CALL
We can divide the development of CALL into three distinct phases (Warschauer, 1996): behaviourist, communicative and integrative.
Behaviourist CALL was implemented in the 1960’s and 70’s, when the Audio-lingual method was mostly used, and provided students with drills and practice. This model used the computer as a tutor, presenting drills and non-judgmental feedback.
Based on the communicative approach, communicative CALL focuses more on using forms rather than on the forms themselves. The communicative CALL programmes provide skill practice in a non-drill format, through language games, reading and text reconstruction. This approach still uses the computer as a tutor, although it gives students choices, control and interaction. Another CALL model used for communicative activities involves the computer as stimulus, as in programmes that stimulate writing or discussions, and which may not be specifically designed for language learners. Finally, communicative CALL also uses the computer as a tool, in programmes that do not provide language material, but enable the learner to understand and use the language, such as word processors, desk–top publishing, spelling and grammar checks programmes, as used for instance in process writing.
The current approach is integrative CALL, which is based on multimedia computers and the Internet. These technological developments have brought text, graphics, sound, animation and video to be accessed on a single inexpensive computer. These resources are all linked and called ‘hypermedia’, enabling learners to navigate through CD-ROMS and the Internet at their own pace and path, using a variety of media.
3. USING THE INTERNET IN ELT
There are many advantages in using the Internet, as seen in Fox (1998), Singhal (1997) and Warschauer (1997). First, taking part in the Internet is intrinsically motivating for students, since they see it as a trendy and useful tool, enabling them to be connected with the world. As English is the main language in the Internet, learners begin to appreciate the usefulness in learning the language.
Using the net also gives students control over their learning, enabling them to go at their own pace and choose their paths according to their individual needs, which may also be motivating. It helps in promoting learner independence and the development of learning strategies, provided that learners receive appropriate guidance.
Secondly, the World Wide Web (WWW) give students instant access to a wide range of authentic material, from newspaper and magazine articles to radio broadcasts and informal chat-rooms, and also to material prepared specially for learners, such as grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary exercises and tests. Apart from retrieving information from the Internet, learners can also create their own materials, such as projects, and share them with partner classes or with the general public. This possibility also adds a great deal of interest, as learners communicate with a real audience.
Because the internet is primarily text driven, it appeals to shy students, giving them time to think and participate in exchanges in a chat room, e-mail or class conferencing. Another positive outcome of Internet use (reported by Singhal, 1997, Fox, 1998) is improved reading and writing skills. Furthermore, because language used on the Internet tends to be lexically and syntactically more complex than oral discourse, students may gain a broader range of English. Communication with native speakers forces students to practice specific skills such as negotiating, persuading, clarifying meaning, and requesting information. In the near future, technical developments will probably make it easier to exchanges messages orally as well, which will mean even more chances for skills development.
Finally, the Internet allows learners to participate in the culture of the target language and to see real language in context, away from course books and the classroom.
Despite the advantages just mentioned, there are a number of disadvantages or obstacles we need to consider. First, technical and financial problems, such as long waiting time to access information and costs related to the acquisition of computers, programmes, training, telephone lines and other expenses.
Lack of training and familiarity with computers and the Internet (on the part of both learners and teachers) can lead to frustration, instead of offering a motivating learning experience. 
The enormous quantity of information found on the Internet can also be a disadvantage. First, it may be difficult for students to focus on what they want to do, with so many possibilities to sidetrack. Secondly, a lot of the material on the net is unsuitable for children and young learners, and it is virtually impossible to bar them from accessing it.
Finally, we have to address a problem that is not intrinsic to CALL and the Internet, but to how teachers use these resources. As Warschauer (1997) recommends, “in order to make effective use of new technologies, teachers must thus take a step back and focus on some basic pedagogical requirements”.
First, it must be remembered that “the use of the computer does not constitute a method. Rather, it is a medium in which a variety of methods, approaches, and pedagogical philosophies may be implemented” (Garret, cited by Warschauer, 1996).
Secondly, as Integrative CALL is still a very recent development, its research methods and theoretical foundations are under intense debate among researchers (Chapelle, 1997; Salaberry, 1999). Therefore, until more studies confirm the advantages of Integrative CALL and clearer guidelines for teachers are published, we need to analyse it carefully in the light of our experience and the results we obtain. 
Chapelle (1997) proposes two basic questions to guide the evaluation of CALL activities, and which can be useful in our practice. They are: 
·      What kind of language does the learner engage in during a CALL activity?
·      How good is the language experience in CALL for L2 learning? 
Both questions are complex and a reliable answer to these would involve discourse analysis, which is not the field of teachers. However, they show us some aspects we need to consider. 
In some CD-ROM programmes and Internet activities, what learners do most is click the mouse, or engage in other activities in which very little language is produced. And when there is language production, does it promote learners dual concern for communicating meaning using suitable form? Does it elicit repetition or expansion of previous language? 
We also need to consider the question of input. How can we control input and provide optimal comprehensible input in activities on the Internet?
Fox (1998) suggests attention to three basic elements in successful Internet activities: integration in the course, e.g. a pen-pal project alongside a writing course; development of computer competence by teachers and students alike; and active teacher involvement in guiding and supporting students to avoid frustration. 
Warschauer (1997) proposes five guidelines to help teachers implement computer network-based activities into the second language classroom. They are general guidelines that can also be used in an EFL context: 
1.    ‘Consider carefully your goals’: It must be clear to the teacher why this tool would be more successful than a traditional one. Reasons for using the Internet range from increased motivation to learning computer skills, but we should not ask students to do something on the computer that a book could do just as well.
2.    ‘Think integration’: Simply asking students to have a computer pen pal will not ensure a significant educational outcome. Teachers must be more involved in the activities and integrate them into the overall design and goals of the course.
3.    ‘Don’t underestimate the complexity’: A number of students may lack basic prerequisites for using the Internet, and it might be very time consuming to train these students. Apart from this, technical practicalities such as having computers available, hardware and software malfunction and excessively long waiting time to access web pages., may all hinder the use of the Internet in class.
4.    ‘Provide necessary support’: We should not stop trying to use the Internet due to the problems we mentioned above, but provide support in the form of hand-outs, training sessions, set up simple log-on procedures, encourage students to work in pairs or groups and help each other, and being available to help students when they are carrying out their Internet tasks.
5.    ‘Involve students in decisions’: Because of the complexities and difficulties mentioned, the teacher must be aware of the impact of these activities, consulting them through class discussions and surveys. This does not mean a passive role for the teacher, who should co-ordinate activities, focus students’ attention on linguistic aspects of texts and assist students in developing learning strategies. 
Concluding, although we certainly do not think technology should take over the language classroom, we believe the Internet shows great potential for use in ELT. Therefore, we ought to endeavour to make informed choices about how the Internet can be successfully integrated into our teaching, being open to analysing the results of such experiments.
4. EXPERIMENTING WITH THE INTERNET 
When I started having access to the Internet at home one year ago, and having read some articles about it (Renner, 1998, Porto, 1998) I started accessing ELT web sites such as David Sterling’s ESL Café, Comenius and others, and found it would be interesting for students. At about the same time, our school started providing free Internet access for students through two computers in the self-access area. A list of useful web sites was compiled, and quite a number of students use the Internet, but no training in class was provided. 
Meanwhile, general interest in the Internet has been increasing and it has been widely popularised. Students are always talking about it, and quite a number of them have easy access to it.
As Warschauer (1997) advises in his guidelines (see part 3), we thought it was important to consult students about their interest in using the Internet to learn English, and also in having a class focusing on it.  I had a class discussion with one of my groups, and all students responded very positively. This is a very co-operative class, with students who want to stretch the limits of their learning.  Most of them are highly motivated and I believe that using the Internet will promote greater learner independence and widen their opportunities of exposure to the language. I also chose this class because of its small number, so that they could work in pairs on our three computers that are linked to the Internet. Out of the six students, only one said she did not know how to use the Internet. 
What I intend to do in this particular class is to show students a few ELT web sites that I think are useful and that they could access during the holidays, so that they do not lose contact with the language in the next two months.  As this will be their first contact with the Internet in a language class, and for one student the first contact with the Internet ever, my goals are rather limited, but our long-term aim is to integrate Internet activities in the course. Following Warschauer’s (1997) guidelines, we do not want to underestimate the complexity of dealing with the Internet. Secondly, we are going to support students with a handout containing all the steps they must follow, and we are also going to monitor and help students as needed. Moreover, students are going to work in pairs so that they are able to help each other, hopefully using the target language to communicate. 
I have selected six web sites, and my idea is to ask each pair to explore two of them (see handout attached to the lesson plan, in part 5). I have also assigned tasks to be carried out while they are logged in, so that they have a focus in this ‘exploration’ and so that they make notes to be exchanged with other students afterwards. The idea is that each student will have an idea of what each web site on their handout offers, hopefully motivating them to access these in their own time. 
Feedback on the activity will be collected during a class discussion and also through an anonymous survey with three questions, which students are going to answer at the end of the class. Their feedback will be invaluable to guide us through further exploration of this new, promising resource, as well as being a chance for students to reflect about the class.
6. POST-LESSON ANALYSIS AND REFLECTION 
The fact that we had three computers connected to the Internet at the same time made the connections very slow, and caused two of them to be disconnected lots of times. This made the activity not at all exciting for some students, who had to wait for a long time until connections were re-established. 
One out of the three pairs did not encounter any such problems, being able to carry out the tasks much more easily. However, even in this pair, the students were so absorbed in the screen that they did not take all the notes they were supposed to, even though I kept asking them to do so while monitoring the activity. 
One pair also had ‘navigation’ problems.  This is something I had not anticipated and is mentioned by Singhal (1997).Searching the web requires logic skills, scanning and evaluative judgement on the part of learner, and these are skills that need to be developed in most learners.  As a result, this pair needed a lot of guidance during the activity. 
Another aspect I observed was communication between the partners while doing the tasks. I noticed they did not speak much, only exchanged a few remarks, like ‘this one’, ‘go there’, ‘copy this’ while pointing at the screen. Also, they lacked vocabulary to talk about the computer problems and features of the programmes, resorting to Portuguese. Therefore, teaching them some specific language would encourage this kind of communication L2, which is very common in real life. 
During the feedback session, I noticed that most groups had missed some very important features of the web sites visited.  For instance, they did not find the chat rooms for learners, nor the access to pen pals files. As a result, I decided to tell them about these, which I think are the most interesting things the sites offer, and students seemed interested in checking these in their own time. 
On the whole, however, they were able to find important resources, such as an on-line dictionary with pronunciation, proficiency tests, idioms, and others. 
The answers to the feedback questions reveal two opposite views. Two students did not approve of the activity. In their words:        
·      Did you like learning English through the Internet ?
               ‘No. If I have a doubt I can’t ask to (sic) a teacher because I’ll be alone’
    ‘No. it’s slower and more bore (sic) than a normal class’
          ·      Do you intend to study English through the Internet outside class ?
    ‘No. I like learning English inside the class because we can talk to people’.
               ‘No, I think it takes a lot of time’.        
These answers reflect firstly the frustration or disappointment related to technical problems (the long waiting time and constant interruptions), and secondly, and more importantly, problems that are intrinsic to the current state of development of the Internet and CALL. As Warschauer (1996) puts it ‘today’s computers are not yet intelligent enough to be truly interactive’, not being able to diagnose a student’s problem and suggest different courses of action, thus our students’ feeling of being ‘alone’ when there is a doubt.  Still according to him, it will be a long time before Artificial Intelligence is adequately applied to CALL, making programs and Internet web sites more interactive. 
Nowadays it is already possible to use real-time audio and audio-visual chatting in the Internet, although these tools are not yet widespread. Being able to talk to other people while looking at them on the screen will certainly immensely improve the possibilities of using the Internet in ELT, and then maybe students will not feel that they are only talking to a machine. 
Despite these negative but extremely interesting comments, the other four students seemed to have favoured the experience. Some of their comments: 
‘I mostly learned that there are different ways of improve (sic) my language while I can have some fun’
‘I liked it a lot. I think the Internet is a good an dynamic way to learn (sic) English’.
‘I intend to visit this (sic) sites at home.’
‘It was very interesting. It’s important for us to learn English in different ways’ 
Among the students who found the experience useful, one had very little experience with computers and wrote ‘I don’t know a lot of things about Internet. I must learn more about computers. (...) This class was important because we had an idea about how to learn English using the Internet. I think we should have more classes like this one’.  
Another student who also liked the class added a suggestion: ‘I think it should be more “directioned”, (sic) or you can lose yourself’’ (sic). 
From all these comments I could conclude that we should start using the Internet in class, but we would have to have better computer facilities, including faster telephone lines, which is something we do not have much control over.  
Another improvement for this kind of class, following the last comment, would be to direct students more in each web site, maybe preparing a list of features and asking students to find which ones those web sites offer. 
The next step, as suggested by Fox (1998) and Warschauer (1997) would be to integrate Internet activities into the course curriculum.  For instance, for the Intermediate level, when students are studying informal letters, they could start having a pen-pal. When the topic is job hunting, they could have contact with authentic job adverts on the net. If the topic is `Countries`, they could check different web sites and then prepare one about their country as a class project. These are just a few ideas that show how the Internet could be used, but in all these cases, a principled approach is needed, and in this respect we intend to follow this methodological debate about the Internet in ELT, which is happening right there, on the Internet. 
7. BIBLIOGRAPHY 
Chapelle, C. (1997). ‘CALL in the year 2000: still in search of research paradigms?’ Language learning and technology 1/1: 19-43.
Fox, G. (1998). ‘The Internet: making it work in the ESL classroom’. The Internet TESL Journal, 4/9.
Porto, B. (1998) ‘The Internet, E-mails and Foreign language teaching’ .ELT News & views, Supplement 5.1: 11-15.
Renner, C. E. (1998) . ‘Learning to surf the net in the EFL classroom’. ELT News & views, Supplement 5.1: 11-15.
Salaberry, R. (1999). ‘CALL in the year 2000: still developing the research agenda’. Language learning and technology 3/1: 104-107.
Singhal, M. (1997). ‘The Internet and foreign language education: benefits and challenges’. The Internet TESL Journal 3/6.
Skinner, B. & Austin, R. (1999). ‘Computer conferencing – does it motivate EFL students ?’. ELT Journal 53/4: 270-279.
Warschauer, M. (1996). Computer-assisted language learning: an introduction. In S. Fotos (Ed.), (pp.3-20). Tokyo: Logos International.
Warschauer, M. (1997). ‘The Internet for English Teaching: guidelines for teachers’. TESL Reporter, 30/1: 27-33.















COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING (CALL)
IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF INTERACTIVE APPROACH:
ADVANTAGES AND APPREHENSIONS
by
T. Ravichandran, M.A., M.Phil., P.G.C.T.E., (Ph.D.)
Lecturer, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Technological University, Lonere - 402 103. (Paper presented and published in the Proceedings: National Seminar on CALL,
Anna University, Chennai, 10-12 Feb. 2000, pp. 82-89.)



INTRODUCTION
To begin with the question whether computers really assist second language learning, many teachers who have never touched a computer tend to respond with an emphatic no; whereas, the overwhelming number of teachers who give computers a try find that they are indeed useful in second language learning.  No doubt, computers make excellent teaching tools, especially in teaching languages in any aspect, be it vocabulary, grammar, composition, pronunciation, or other linguistic and pragmatic-communicative skills.  And the major benefits offered by computer in enhancing language acquisition apparently outweigh its limitations.
 
ADVANTAGES
Interest and Motivation
It is often necessary, in a language learning classroom, to provide repeated practice to meet important objectives.  Because this can be boring, painful, and frustrating, many students lose interest and motivation to learn foreign languages. CALL programmes present the learner with a novelty.  They teach the language in different and more interesting, attractive ways and present language through games, animated graphics and problem-solving techniques.  As a result even tedious drills become more interesting.  In fact, CALL motivates the students to go beyond the point of initial mastery and practice activity until they become automatic.
Individualisation
Many students need additional time and individualised practice to meet learning objectives. The computer offers students self-instructional tasks that let them master prerequisite skills and course objectives at a speed and level dictated by their own needs. Besides, additional programmes can be made available for students who master objectives quickly.  These additional programmes can provide more intense study of the same objectives, proceed to higher objectives, or integrate the objectives covered in the unit with other objectives.  In this manner, a computer gives individual attention to the learner and replies immediately to questions or commands.  It acts as a tutor and guides the learner towards the correct answer while adapting the material to his performance.
A Compatible Learning Style
Students differ in their preferred styles of learning. Many students seem to learn much more effectively when they are able to use a compatible learning style than when they are forced to employ an incompatible one.  Serious conflicts may arise when a teacher employs a style that is incompatible with a student's.  In this regard, the computer can be used for adapting instruction to the unique styles of individual students.  To cite an instance, the computer can provide an exciting rapid-fire drill for one student and a calm, slow-paced mode of presentation for another.
Optimal Use of Learning Time
By using the computer, students are often able to use their Academic Learning Time (ALT) more fruitfully.  Academic Learning Time (ALT) is the amount of time a student spends attending to relevant academic tasks while performing those tasks with a high rate of success.  For example, not all the time officially scheduled for studying a foreign language is likely to be allocated to it.  If an hour is assigned to working on a topic, but the teacher devotes five minutes at the beginning of the session to returning papers and five minutes at the end to reading announcements, then only fifty minutes have been allocated to working on the topic.  Scheduled time merely sets an upper limit on allocated time.  Likewise, allocated time merely sets the upper limit to engaged time, which refers to the amount of time students actively attend to the subject matter under consideration.  Even though fifty minutes may be allocated to studying a topic in French class, students may stare out the window or talk to their neighbours instead of pursuing the assigned activity.  Therefore, even when they are actively engaged in studying the foreign language, students learn effectively only when they are performing at a high rate of success.  This smaller amount of time is the factor that is most strongly related to the amount of learning that takes place (Lareau 1985:65-67).  Computers enhance second/foreign language academic learning time by permitting learners to acquire specific information and practice specific skills and by helping students develop basic tools of learning which they can apply in a wide variety of settings.  This also subverts the relationship between time and traditional instruction.  Traditional instruction holds time constant and allows achievement to vary within a group.  Computer-assisted learning reverses this relationship by holding achievement constant and letting the time students spend in pursuit of the objectives vary.
Immediate Feedback
Learners receive maximum benefit from feedback only when it is supplied immediately.  Their interest and receptivity declines when the information on their performance is delayed.  Yet, for various reasons, classroom feedback is often delayed and at times denied.  A deferment of positive feedback, though important to act as encouragement and reinforcement, may not harm the progress of the learners.  Nonetheless, any delay in offering negative feedback, the knowledge that one is wrong, will become crucial.  A blissfully ignorant student may continue mispronouncing a word or applying a misconception before discovering the nature of this error.  In such case, the computer can give instantaneous feedback and help the learner ward off his misconception at the initial stage itself.  In addition to this, the computer can look for certain types of errors and give specific feedback, such as, "It looks as if you forgot the article."
Error Analysis
Computer database can be used by the instructor to classify and differentiate the type of general errors as well as errors committed by learners on account of the influence of the first language.  And thus determine the most common errors cross-linguistically and more specifically, the particular form of a particular error type within a particular language group.  One such study conducted reveals interesting findings, for example, that in subject-verb agreement errors the base form of verb was over generalised incorrectly more often than the -s form by all speakers.  Also, Chinese writers typically omitted the articles a/an more often than the (Dalgish 1987:81-82).  A computer can thus analyse the specific mistakes the student has made and can react in a different way from the usual teacher--this leads the student not only to self-correction, but also to understanding the principles behind the correct solution.
Guided and Free Writing
A word-processor in the computer can be very effective in teaching guided/free writing activities.  The ability to create and manipulate text easily is the principle on which the word-processor programmes are founded.  In this manner, the word-processor encourages practice in guided or free writing activities together with a number of sub-skills which comprise the writing process.  Aspects of paragraphing, register, style, cohesion, rhetorical structure, lexical choice and expression can all receive attention without requiring the user to learn different programmes.  The advantage is that the teacher can direct the student's writing without exerting total and rigid control, allowing for freedom of expression within certain bounds.  Insights into grammar, vocabulary, punctuation, can also be developed.
Pre-determined to Process Syllabus
One major advantage in using a microprocessor is that it can enhance the learning process from a pre-determined syllabus to an emerging/process syllabus.  Even the ordinary 'fill-in-the-blanks' type of monotonous exercise on paper can be made an exciting task on the screen in the self-access mode, where the students themselves choose their own material.  CALL thus facilitates the synthesis of the pre-planned syllabus and learner syllabuses "through a decision making process undertaken by teacher and learners together" (Breen 1986:51).
Other Prospects
As students and teachers become more sophisticated in their use of such CALL software, more complicated use of these packages become possible.  For instance, the ability of the computer to handle data, and allow the students to become computational linguists, is very powerful (Hardistry 1988:42-43).  The experiential use of Wide Area Network (WAN) and Local Area Network (LAN) can reveal unexplored teaching materials and untouched learning methods. By effective use of linking computer with internet, authentic material can be brought directly into the classroom.  A reading text can be done using that day's news item or weather forecast than using a news clipping of the previous year.  The topicality of the issue can generate lot of interest and create authenticity of purpose.  Correspondingly, the facility of LAN can be very useful for the practising of writing pithy telegraphic and telex messages.  Of course, the joy and the excitement involved in the online communication process, both local and international, is an additional increment one gets from screen-based learning!
 
APPREHENSIONS
Man versus Machine
In spite of its glaring merits, the prospect of computer-assisted language learning has troubled teachers more.  Perhaps, the major cause of their worry might have developed from the basic problem of accessibility.  Often the computers have been kept in Science or Maths department causing a real and psychological distance in the minds of the Arts faculty.  Nevertheless, many see computer as a threat not only in terms of its power to replace the traditional skills, which the language teachers promote, but also its eventual replacement of the teacher himself.  Furthermore, shifting the control centre from the authoritarian teacher to the need-based learner and accepting the humble role of a facilitator/moderator instead of being a veritable dictator does not come easy for the traditionally clad chalk-talk teacher.  In addition, the computer-student interactive learning not only allows the possibility of role changes, but also the potential for role-reversal, endangered by physical reversal by students.  That is, the students literally turn their back to the teachers, and silence is now on the part of the teacher until called for assistance. Yet this role reversal can be exploited, since, it allows the classroom to become far more "learning centred" (Hardistry 1988:39).  This term rather than learner-centred, has been used, to indicate that the central aim of the language lesson is to enable students to learn.
The Language Lab versus Computer
Another reason why teachers and sanctioning authorities alike are uncertain about the use of computers in language learning is that computers too, like language lab and other technological innovations, despite large investments, may remain unused and stored in some dark and abandoned room.  After all, language laboratories in many countries fell into disuse, as they were too tied to one particular form of methodology, which limited the awareness of the potential.  One real danger is that the computer could be used, like the language lab, as an instrument of Skinnerian behaviourism to facilitate the structuralist approach with an emphasis on "correctness," negating its flexibility and potential as a teaching aid to liberate the imaginations of the learners (Moore 1986:18-19).  In this perspective, often CALL courseware has been restricted to drill and practice, with the screen equivalent to the textbook.  Much software, like a textbook, is static both in presentation and in content.  Another major criticism of CALL software is the lock-step design of the lessons.  This, in turn, means that CALL software is missing a chance to exploit the computer's potential, with the result that computer power is not released to the student adequately.
CALL versus TALL
Computer-Assisted Language Learning(CALL) contrasted with Textbook-Assisted Language Learning(TALL), demands certain extra-skills such as typography, graphic design, or paper making and the lack of which panics the teacher and the taught alike.  For instance, an inadvertent typographical error on the part of the student input may be classified wrong although the grammar of the student's answer is correct.  Further, in terms of communication of ideas, a book is a means of communication between the author and the reader.  In the same way, the computer is a means of communication between the programmer and the user.  However, in this analogy, the author and the programmer do not mostly share similar concerns.  While the author is bound to be a subject expert, the programmer is mostly a technician combined with the likely motives of a businessman.  This gap between the author and the programmer is responsible for inappropriate lesson content, poor documentation, errors in format and content, improper feedback, etc.  Likewise, in most software, there is little chance for the teacher to add to or modify the existing programmes, even if he wishes too, since most of it is locked to prevent pirating.  And for the few of those who develop their own material, the time spent on programming and typing in the lessons can be quite lengthy.
 
PROBLEMS OR CHALLENGES?
Yet, these apprehensions should be seen in the backdrop of a developmental stage of  computerisation of individuals and institutions and as a temporary phenomenon.  The next generation of teachers and learners will be part of a computer generation.  They will take for granted the skills demanded by computer technology and handle it as coolly as switching on a taperecorder or watching a television.  Similarly, the pupils will need no readjustment of attitude when faced with a computer in a classroom and their familiarity and frequent association with the machine would replace the sense of awe and alienation felt by older people.  Then planning pre-, actual and post-computer activities would be easily possible.  The teachers would ensure that they are the ones in control of educational software by becoming involved in the development process and rejecting those programmes which do not serve their needs.  For that reason, the onus is on the present CALL-disposed teachers that in order to convince the CALL-deposed teachers about the potentiality of CALL courseware, they must prove that it is not only perfect in every way, but that it is far better than any other existing teaching aid.
 
CONCLUSION
An ideal CALL courseware remains not an alternative but a complementary tool in reinforcing classroom activities.  Apart from relying on the ability of educators to create suitable CALL courseware, the effectiveness of CALL depends on the teacher's readiness to adopt new attitudes and approaches toward language teaching.  The teacher should avoid being skeptical about the use of computer in language teaching and begin to re-evaluate his methods in the light of computer's tremendous teaching potential and boldly address to the challenges offered.  The computer can best assist teachers if it is seen not as a replacement for their work but as a supplement to it.  By the way, the computer, will not replace the language teachers, but, used creatively, it will relieve them of tedious tasks and will enable students to receive individualised attention from both teachers and machines to a degree that has hitherto been impossible.
 
 





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