CALL Research Journal Entry #8

Time flies. I hardly believe that it has been nearly three months since the beginning of this semester. Well, it might be a good time to examine what I’ve learned about CALL during this period. There are many dimensions that designers should take into consideration while designing CALL materials, such as learners’ individual differences, the goal of the course, the arrangement of syllabus, the applicable teaching methodologies and principles, available facilities and whether the design scheme at local level accords with wider environment. Using computer to assist teaching seems to be an unavoidable trend. This emerging field requires experts to cultivate and to make better integration between computer technology and pedagogy reality. Meanwhile, the drawbacks of computer technology shall be clearly identified before a efficient language learning course and environment can be created.
Besides, many web sites and e-tools presented by the classmates are practical and interesting. I am particularly impressed with Tony’s “Puzzle Maker” and Sharon’s “Yahoo! Pipes” presentation. Puzzle Maker can be used to generate quite a few fascinating vocabulary-spelling puzzles that undoubtedly enhance students’ interest and motivation in learning. Yahoo! Pipes, on the other hand, is a marvelous and revolutionary new tool with the power of customizing one’s own homepage. Users can design the pipe map and draw preferred feeds to render a tailored webpage that contains only the information of interest. Wow, it really made me eyes wide open!!