This paper presents the results of a study that demonstrates an effective use of the Web as a tool to increase motivation and thus promote reading and writing skills in Spanish as well as a deeper sense of the culture of the Spanish speaking world. In the study, thirty students of second year Spanish at the University of New South Wales were required to prepare an itinerary for a trip to a Spanish speaking country of their choice using the WWW as the only resource. In general our findings regarding improved language skills were consistent with the literature: an increase of vocabulary, more use of references, more student initiated interactions and greater interactivity in the classroom amongst students were observed. There was, however, one aspect, linguistic accuracy, in which improvement was not greatly noted. The data collected confirms that a task-oriented Web based course can increase the motivation of students, improve the scope of their reading, and enhance their perception of the target culture, all with a great effect on range of language explored, learned and re-processed, but a much lesser effect on the accuracy of written language produced.

French learners at university meet difficulties in the comprehension of oral English. Being in a formal context of language learning, they need to develop language awareness to compensate for insufficient exposure to the English language.

To meet the students’ needs, data was collected in order to pinpoint the main errors made by French learners in listening tasks. The errors were then analyzed and put into perspective with the system of oral English; a connection clearly appeared between the errors and what is barely heard or cannot be heard in reference to written English, hinting at what could cause poor oral comprehension. Three areas of knowledge appeared to be missing in the students’ background: the links between morpho-syntax and phonology, the mastery of phonological data found in dictionaries and the possible recourse to strategies in order to compensate for what has not been heard properly. These issues were addressed in an on-line program designed for non-beginners of English at university.

This paper deals with the assessment of the progress made by users of the program in a formal learning situation. Two groups of learners were considered: students whose major is English, and students for whom the study of English is optional. Two series of tests were implemented, before and after the use of the program. The tests focused on the ability of learners to read IPA transcription, to count syllables in oral English, and to pronounce auxiliaries and prepositions in different contexts.

The results to be discussed establish that the two groups of learners significantly improved their knowledge of oral English. Of particular interest is the fact that, even if the two groups had significantly different knowledge of oral English before using the program, with non-specialists of English having poorer knowledge, the two groups obtain similar results on the post-test, showing greater progress on the part of the non-specialists. All learners appear to improve dramatically their knowledge of IPA and their ability to use it.

The progress measured by the tests was corroborated by other modes of assessment: a survey on the students’ judgment as regards the usefulness of the program, and individual interviews focusing on what the students recall from the content of the program. In the latter, the students used relevant meta-linguistic and meta-cognitive expressions, showing their ability for further progress in developing listening abilities in English as a Second Language (ESL).

RECALL aims at providing intelligent error feedback to learners' input in a role-play scenario. This is achieved by integrating three intelligent modules into into system: a Diagnosis Module which analyses the learners' input, a Learner Module which reocrds errors made by the learner, and a Tutoring Module which provides exercises and offers feedback. In this paper the functionality of the RECALL system is described and the approach to error classification as well as the actual implementation of this approach is discussed. A pedagogical perspective on the navigational and teaching capabilities of RECALL are considered.

Several studies have found that virtual exchange (VE) has a positive impact on intercultural effectiveness (IE) development. However, few VE studies have measured and unpacked perceived learning gains from VE in this area using data from multiple VEs and mixed-methods approaches. In this study, we explored the impact of VE on perceived IE development among pre-service teachers in two exchanges. Using k-means cluster analysis of reported gains in IE, we identified three groups of students who reported high-medium-low IE gains. Cluster analysis informed our qualitative analysis of students’ reflections on VE. Having analysed data from 486 diary entries at four successive time measurements, we identified three factors critical to students’ perceived IE development: students’ ability to overcome challenges during VE, level of engagement with their partners, and engagement with cultural difference. These findings shed light on what experiences in VE influence participants’ perceptions of their intercultural learning. The study provides recommendations for the design of online collaborative learning programmes, such as VE, that might help address students’ diverse needs.

This paper discusses the role of customized learning environ1ments in the teaching of English to undergraduate science and technology students and focuses on a more subject-specific and skills-oriented approach in English for Specific Purposes (ESP). It may be argued that multimedia technology and the Web have a vital role to play in integrating often complex subject matter and language learning. As most university level students nowadays are mostly conversant with multimedia and Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) packages and feel at home before a web-based interface, creating teaching materials to cater to their needs requires a whole new set of skills, not least a knowledge of Web-design and Web-authoring programmes. Educators now need to create environments in which students can learn; they engineer new situations. Let us call it “WELL by design”. The focus is on motivating learning, a move towards constructing knowledge and involving the students in meaningful interactions. This paper focuses on how web-based materials are incorporated in day-to-day classroom teaching, how students are encouraged to interact with these materials, and how interaction is promoted and encouraged through the creation of pair and group activities based on the materials. Particular attention will be given to the potential of Web Enhanced Language Learning (WELL) in encouraging collaborative and constructive learning processes. The relationship between tutor and learner in a technology-enhanced environment will also be considered and discussed. A demonstration of specially devised link-mediated learning units within a web-enhanced course in ESP designed specifically for environmental science students will be made, together with an overview of resources, tools and observations within the context of the technology classroom. Particular emphasis will be placed on CALL and WELL as an essential support within a fully integrated language course for science students, as well as on the community-creating and connecting spirit of the Web in a virtual language learning environment.

People learning a new language have problems with various aspects of the language they want to learn – with its grammar, with its pronunciation, with its morphology... CALL tools have been provided for most of these linguistic levels, but comparatively little has been done about helping students with problems of meaning. We will argue that language technology is now mature enough to support tools that address at least some semantic issues, and we will describe a tool that attempts to provide appropriate support for a specific class of learners.

When we decided to put this issue together, we called for contributions from CALL researchers and practitioners who were ‘‥concerned with the teaching of grammar in the post-communicative world…’. We were aware of the contentious nature of such a description – it suggests that the communicative approach is not, perhaps, a complete answer to the question of how to teach languages. Amongst the correspondence we entered into, subsequently, were some exchanges with colleagues who believed we were advocating a retrogressive step. It is only comparatively recently, they pointed out, that language learners have been freed from the shackles of piece-meal learning, drilling, correction and self-monitoring, and allowed to focus on ‘the challenge of communication’

In response to the need for research on the contextualized use of CALL resources, the authors conducted a survey on instructor use of a popular online Spanish language learning resource to provide insight into how foreign language instructors’ use of online resources are influenced by socio-institutional factors and instructor motivational factors such as personal background and teaching philosophy. From the 118 survey participants, the authors used quantitative techniques to choose three case studies that represented the diversity of respondents who use the resource in their teaching. They present overall trends and qualitative profiles of the three instructors with the intent to gain an overall understanding of the nature of how the resource is used, not only to provide direction for future quantitative research, but also to illustrate the utility of qualitative research in providing such understanding. Upon analysis of the case studies, the authors conclude that the actual use of a CALL resource may be far from the ideal use the designer intended, and that the use of CALL resources is highly contingent on the sociocultural context of the implementation of the resource. Instructor comments seem to point not towards the physical CALL infrastructure of an instructor’s workplace as a determining factor of resource use, but towards the CALL culture and collegiality of the environment. Most revealing of the nature of an instructor’s use of a resource seems to be the congruence of site features with the instructor’s teaching philosophy, itself the product of a variety of factors.

There are now many CALL authoring packages that can create interactive websites and a large number of language teachers are writing materials for the whole range of such packages. Currently, each product stores its data in different formats thus hindering interoperability, pooling of digital resources and moving between software packages based in different technology. The use of Extensible Mark-up Language (XML) for data storage goes a long way to solve this problem and allows for the easy conversion of exercises. Starting from a desire to develop a common format between Hot Potatoes, WELTS (part of the WELL project) and the Interactive Language Learning package from London Metropolitan University, a new version of the Interactive Language Learning software, now renamed Guildhall Interactive Software for Multimedia On-line (GISMO), has made such conversion possible. Given the immense resources required to develop the critical mass of material required to make online CALL relevant to an individual’s teaching practice, such a common approach is required to facilitate the pooling of resources. Should a bureaucratic or financial decision in an institution result in a change of software, teachers need to be able to easily convert their legacy material. XML technology can facilitate interoperability, thereby increasing potential accessibility by allowing teachers and students to have the use of a greater amount of pedagogical material. It is further proposed, using these developments, to create a large pool of exercises for practice and assessment that is independent of the delivery approach employed. This will obviate the need for teachers to keep reproducing basic language learning material and allow for the expansion of online CALL into more imaginative areas. This possibility introduces the question of standards within XML and whether it is necessary to further specify how the material is stored, perhaps using a standard such as the ‘IMS Question & Test Interoperability Specification’ or whether XML is a sufficient standard in itself.

This study replicates the research conducted by Pérez-Paredes, Ordoñana Guillamón and Aguado Jiménez (2018) on language teachers’ perceptions on the use of OER language processing technologies in mobile-assisted language learning. It expands the initial research study by adding Polish, Portuguese, and Turkish educational contexts, surveying 239 English as a foreign language teachers in these three countries. The main findings indicate that there are several differences among the three countries, including institutional support regarding the use of mobile devices and the training provided to the teachers. Based on the data collected in these countries, it was found that mobile devices are mainly used for teaching and learning on online platforms. Smartphones were one of the most used devices in English language teaching, while computer labs at schools seem to have lost their popularity. Regarding the technologies available, the results of the study reveal that the participants are most familiar with online dictionaries, spell checkers, and online collocation dictionaries, and the participants’ qualifications are linked to certain differences in familiarity and use of technologies in the classroom. Variables such as gender, age, and years of experience do not show any difference in the familiarity or frequency of use of those technologies. The main findings of the study point out the importance of institutional support and training regarding the use of mobile devices and open educational resources, which are no longer a choice but a necessity in education.

This study traces the evolution of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) by investigating published research articles (RAs) in four major CALL journals: ReCALL, Computer Assisted Language Learning, Language Learning & Technology, and CALICO Journal. All 2,397 RAs published over four decades (1983–2019) were included in the pool of data, and the Google Scholar citation metric was adopted to assess the impact of the papers. By selecting the top 15% of widely cited papers from each individual year, we minimized the time bias between years, enabling a balanced narration of the history of CALL through a representative dataset of 426 high-impact RAs. To identify the evolution of research trends, the contexts, methodologies, theoretical underpinnings and research foci of all 426 RAs were investigated using NVivo 12 and AntConc. The analysis of the data yielded encouraging results such as the upward trend in the number of publications and the international reach of CALL in the last two decades, the physical or virtual presence of language learners with diverse language profiles, and the growing tendency to triangulate methodology for increased complexity. However, long-standing issues such as the heavy reliance on traditional research contexts, poor reporting practices of basic demographic information, the large number of atheoretical papers and the concentration on a limited number of research foci continue to pose challenges in CALL research. Based on the findings, the paper suggests solutions for the controversies and addresses key issues for future research in CALL.

This paper examines the relationship between Information Technology (IT) and an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course. This relationship is examined in the context of pre-sessional summer courses at British Universities. The paper provides a rationale for the inclusion of an IT component on an EAP course, and considers why a number of IT areas are not yet being fully exploited by EAP units at British Universities.

Recently the NCET (National Council for Educational Technology) published a survey of the results of various studies on the evaluation and effectiveness of computer assisted teaching in Great Britain.1 This survey lists several positive effects of computer assisted teaching in a wide variety of educational applications. These range from increased motivation and eagerness to learn by disturbed or handicapped children to an increase in the performance of good learners by e.g. training analytic and divergent thinking.

This paper examines research in the field of collaborative learning, concentrating on aspects suitable for use in an intelligent computer assisted language learning (ICALL) system. Current work on the project focuses on the construction of a student model, based on the notion that a model constructed and repaired through collaboration between the system and student will lead to a more accurate representation of the learner's beliefs, and is less likely to be regarded with suspicion by the student. Further, the act of collaboration should promote reflection on both the language to be learnt and the student's approaches to learning.

Le projet SAFRAN a pour objectif le développement d'une interface dédiée à I'enseignement du français assisté par ordinateur, interface dans laquelle sont intégrés progressivement des outils de traitement automatique des langues naturelles. Ces outils, dans le cadre du projet SAFRAN, sont I'analyseur syntaxique et le synthétiseur vocal FIPSvox, le dictionnaire électronique conceptuel FR-Tool et le conjugueur FLEX, lls permettent I'accès à des ressources linguistiques riches et variées, favorisent I'expérimentation et enfin, offrent un support au diagnostic. Notre article fait le compte-rendu de deux années d'activités scientifiques pour lesquelles nos efforts ont porté sur le développement d'un module sur I'enseignement de la phonétique du français qui intègre les outils de TALN mentionnŕs supra.

Since 1984, CALL materials have been used on a regular basis in the German Department at the University of Aberdeen in integrated language courses, in order to practise and consolidate the material taught in face-to-face contact classes. CALL work essentially forms a backup to the taught part of the course. What the students are taught one week, they practise in their CALL class the following week, and additionally have the opportunity to work on further exercises on a private-study basis. Within the field of language learning, our experience suggests that the computer can be above all a superb tool for revision and consolidation. With the development and use of hypertext materials, there is more than just the possibility that it can now become even more effective than hitherto.

Despite their potential benefits, teacher-created animated cartoons have not found much room in second-language (L2) research, probably due to some technical challenges involved in creating them. This paper reports the findings of a mixed-methods embedded experimental study, designed to test the impact of tailor-made animated cartoons on the correct use of common punctuation rules in English. The participants were 112 Turkish-first language (L1) learners of English, assigned to either the treatment or control group through random cluster sampling. The instructional materials in the treatment group included teacher-created animated cartoons, exercises designed using SCORM-compliant software, and a forum for discussions in Moodle. The participants in the control group, on the other hand, used PowerPoint presentations (PPTs) instead of animated cartoons and completed the same follow-up activities. Quantitative results suggested that the treatment and control groups’ post-test and late post-test scores significantly differed in favour of the former. Moreover, qualitative data from semi-structured interviews and document analysis revealed that the participants, especially those in the treatment group, viewed this learning experience highly positively. The findings globally imply that tailor-made animated cartoons might facilitate the learning of punctuation and help raise students’ awareness of it.

This paper presents an innovative application of concordancing to the study of comprehension based on the hypothesis that the presence of noise in raw concordance data brings to light the existence of strings liable to cause unsuspected comprehension problems to language learners. The paper explains how the hypothesis was arrived at before proceeding to describe and discuss an experiment specially designed so as to test its validity. In the course of this experiment eight post A-level students and two native speakers/teachers of French were observed processing the raw output of a concordance of the string bien que. Details of the concordance data are given, broken down in broad categories (concessive conjunction bien que, resultative conjunction si bien que, adverb + completive, etc.). The findings are reported in three stages corresponding to those of the experiment: a pilot study involving two of the students, a repeat of the experiment with the two native speakers, and a second learner study with a larger, more representative sample of six students. Between them the results are found to provide empirical evidence in support of the hypothesis. The main outcome is that contrary to the native speakers, none of the post A-level students was able to interpret all the citations correctly. Other significant results are that difficulties were spread unevenly across citations and were more common among those with lower grades. The implications for language pedagogy are then examined. The paper concludes that concordances can be helpful in predicting potential pitfalls and ends with some suggestions for future research.