This special issue offers a selection of papers presented at the 1999 annual EUROCALL conference, held last September in Besançon, France. Although CALL has a deep rooted tradition in France, EUROCALL’99 was the first large scale international CALL conference to take place in this country. Initiated by the European Association for Computer Assisted Language Learning and the French speaking CALL journal ALSIC (2000), the conference attracted more than 370 full participants coming from 30 countries.

This paper examines the affective dimension of tandem language learning via e-mail. It begins by highlighting some of the obstacles to this mode of learning, including organisational and pedagogical issues as well as the particular issues confronting learners. Drawing on a small body of empirical data, it explores the interactions between these issues and what learners perceive to be intrinsically motivating about tandem learning. It concludes by suggesting that affective learning experience has a potentially powerful role to play in fostering the development of learner autonomy through the reciprocity on which successful tandem learning is founded.

This study compares the attitude toward instruction of two groups of participants: control subjects who used a multimedia instructional module for French created by the researcher, and experimental subjects who created their own module. Quantitative data did not yield statistically significant differences in their attitudes. In the light of additional qualitative data, possible reasons for this result are discussed: high level of satisfaction with the novelty of instruction for both groups; computer problems, lack of adequate orientation, lack of real outlet for the module and difficulty of the texts for the experimental group. Included are conclusions and recommendations for further research.

In this paper, E. Esch and C. Zähner argue that the learners themselves are the key agents in the construction of new language learning environments. Learners differ in their ability to import new elements – such as ICTs – into their model of what constitutes an appropriate language learning environment. It is argued that accessibility, autonomy, ‘reflectivity’ and interactivity are conditions which must be met if ICTs are to become truly relevant to language learners. The way these principles have been guiding the development of the network-based language learning environment installed by the Language Centre of the University of Cambridge is described.

The article describes an experiment which investigated the role played by an encyclopaedic CD-ROM in knowledge and language learning gains. It considers both quantitative and qualitative evidence (e.g. pre- and post-testing, and on-line audio-recorded data) to demonstrate that learning did take place and to suggest how it might have occurred.

This article outlines the nature of the FirstClass computer conferencing program and considers its effectiveness in helping to develop a computer-based learning environment in modern languages at the University of Ulster. A wide range of different transactions is outlined and surveys of staff and student reactions are assessed. Their positive responses demonstrate that FirstClass is effective in establishing such an environment, enable us to draw encouraging lessons from our experience and indicate exciting possibilities of immediate further development.

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.

This article investigates the use of computer-mediated communication technologies in the context of teaching German by distance mode in Australia. More conventional delivery modes such as audiocassettes and printed study guides were augmented by electronic support mechanisms. Students were able to access their study guides, timetables and assignment tasks online and communicated with their course convener as well as with fellow students via a bulletin board and an internal email system set up for the course. The article reports on the extent to which students used these facilities rather than more conventional modes of communication (fax., telephone, written submission of assignments), on how students managed the set tasks and what difficulties they encountered.

This paper considers the problem of coherence and direction in CALL research. Rather than suggesting a top-down approach to setting goals for research, it argues for a much closer examination and a much stronger emphasis on existing CALL research work as a platform for directing and informing future CALL work. Based on a corpus of 47 CALL research articles published in books and journals in 1999, it sets out a framework for the description and analysis of CALL research as it is represented in the literature. Two major directions and three important, though less frequent, directions are described in detail, using examples from the corpus, and the implications for research in the future are considered. Particular emphasis will be placed on identifying the goals of CALL researchers and on clarifying the unique attributes of research in this field.

The Internet allows the language learner myriad opportunities to consult authentic sources and to practise using the target language with native speakers and other learners both synchronously and asynchronously. The current paper describes the design, development and implementation of language learning activities using text-based virtual reality or MOO (Multi-User Domain Object Oriented) in conjunction with the World Wide Web. The underlying purpose was to promote active, autonomous learning behaviours by enabling geographically distributed language learners to work with native- and non-native speakers of the target language on an engaging and motivating task with a concrete and meaningful outcome.

This article describes an exchange project carried out by foreign language classes in the University of León, Spain and the University of Northern Michigan, USA. The two groups integrated videoconferencing technology into a task based exchange in order to make students more aware of how they viewed their own and the target cultures. In the course of the project learners also experienced some of the challenges of inter-cultural communication. The development of the project is described and examples of intercultural learning are looked at. Some guidelines for the use of videoconferencing in such intercultural exchanges are also suggested.

The globalisation of business and the internationalisation of companies witnessed over the past decade has increased the need for business people operating across cultures to become both culturally and linguistically aware. The evolution of multimedia computing means that learning material can be created which amalgamates video, subtitles, tasks, text and a variety of support tools. This environment lends itself to the provision of learning opportunities and materials which aim to develop cultural understanding. This paper describes an on-going development project entitled SELECT which is creating multimedia courseware to develop cross-cultural awareness of the British business context. The paper outlines the background to the creation of the courseware and the needs it aims to meet. The theoretical underpinning of the development is outlined, covering the nature of cross-cultural competence, its development and the fit between the capabilities of multimedia and such competence. The approach taken and methods used to research and construct a valid, empirically-based cross-cultural syllabus relevant for those doing business with Britain is described and exemplified. The process of creating the courseware, including the authentic video assets and configuration of the learning design is discussed. The paper concludes with projections of future developments in technology assisted development of cross-cultural competence.

EUROCALL 2000 took place in Dundee, Scotland between 31 August and 2 September, with the subtitle Innovative language learning in the third millennium. This year's conference was dedicated to the memory of János Kohn, a pioneer of CALL in Hungary. János's untimely death occurred in March 1999. His memory lives on with the EUROCALL-sponsored Annual János Kohn Scholarship which enables a worthy Hungarian scholar to attend the organisation's annual conference.

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.

The Centro Virtual Cervantes (http://cvc.cervantes.es) is the Internet-based branch of the Instituto Cervantes, the official Spanish institution commissioned to disseminate the use and study of Spanish language and culture around the world.

Since its creation in December 1997, the CVC has rapidly become one of the most important reference sites devoted to Spanish language and culture on the WWW, having reached an average of over 100,000 visitors a month. This increasing number of visitors is primarily due to the great variety of resources available at the CVC website, which attract both professionals and the public in general. These include announcements of cultural events under Actos Culturales, the four discussion forums, each of which focuses on a specific topic, and the language classroom, Aula de Lengua, designed for both teachers and learners of Spanish.

The CVC front page enables direct access to the entire contents which are well structured, and organised in a very user-friendly manner. The central part is dedicated to current cultural events and is therefore constantly up-dated. The sections included are listed on the left and right hand side of the main menu page.

This article presents briefly the advantages and disadvantages of reusing natural language processing (NLP) tools in the CALL context. The issue is addressed through the description of GBGen, a sentence generation system. The abstract semantic representation used as input for the generator is described, as well as the actual generation process, from a deep structure to a grammatical sentence through transformations and the application of morphology. The possible didactic value of such a tool is then evaluated and the outline of a CALL scenario given. Finally, proposed adaptations of the generator for the CALL context are discussed.

The concept of authenticity first appeared with the development of the communicative approach. More recently, in the field of educational measurement, authentic assessment methods have been proposed. Although adaptive testing seems to be the most important application of computers in language assessment, these tests are usually not authentic. Since many real world tasks are accomplished with computers, these may be used for authentic direct testing. Computers may be also used in semi-direct testing as a way to enhance the context. Finally in authentic assessment, computers may be used as a tool to process the data when the learners use them to organise their portfolio. Using the computer, test developers can also create better authentic tests.