EUROCALL 2001, held at the University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands, included more than a hundred presentations. Out of these, twenty papers were submitted and twelve of these were selected for inclusion in this issue of ReCALL containing the Selected Papers. Due to space constraints a further two papers have been held in reserve for the next issue. Additional material will be included in a CD-ROM to be produced by the conference organisers. See http://www.kun.nl/eurocall/index2.html for details.

The central question in this paper is whether Web technology has the potential to add value to face-to-face language teaching in the form of activities that cannot be realized fully in a traditional classroom. While arguments will be presented for and against e-learning, our conclusion is that the latest human-machine interfaces offer an environment for interactive learning that can foster the acquisition of communicative skills. The paper argues that one of the great strengths of the Web is the potential to engage students in creative information gap activities and real experiential learning in the form of meaningful, process-oriented projects in authentic settings. Evidence will be drawn from three sources:

[bull ] The current literature on new learning approaches.

[bull ] The latest best-practice applications, such as Webquests, Voice Chat, MOOs and innovative co-operative ventures.

[bull ] The findings of two large research studies by the author on students’ perceptions of Web-based language learning in school and tertiary settings.

The paper emphasises the importance of creating connectivity rather than content.

This paper presents a new teacher interface for the Electronic Tandem Resources (ETR) site, the student interface described in Appel & Mullen (2000), and a new version of the site designed specifically for research purposes. The main features of the original site geared towards the language learner were the creation of a virtual environment for tandem language learning and the provision of tools and data intended to help foster the development of learner autonomy. The new teacher interface supports the integration of tandem language learning activities in the foreign language classroom and addresses the difficult issue of performance assessment and task evaluation. Computer-mediated communication activities between students in different countries are notoriously difficult for teachers to monitor. Nevertheless, there is evidence that in certain situations it is beneficial for the teacher to be able to monitor these activities. The teacher interface of the ETR site offers a user-friendly interface which requires only basic computer skills, and gives teachers access to data such as the date of the most recently sent messages, the number of words sent by students and the percentages of text written by each student in their respective L1 and L2, without giving teachers access to the content of the messages, thus preserving students’ privacy. Furthermore, a slightly different version has also been designed for evaluation of the learning by the researcher investigating second language learning in an electronic tandem environment. This interface has been designed for setting up experiments and some of its features allow for control over variables related to the experiment. The interface records time stamps for sent and received messages.

SLIM is a prototype interactive multimedia self-learning linguistic software for foreign language students at beginner-false beginner level. It allows students to work both in an autonomous self-directed mode or in a way of programmed learning in which the process of self-instruction is pre-programmed and monitored. In this latter mode it incorporates assessment and evaluation tools in order to behave as an automatic tutor. It is organized into three basic components: audiovisual materials; a linguistic database recording all language material in text format; the supervisor. Audiovisual materials are partially taken from commercially available courses; the linguistic database is a highly sophisticated classification of all words and utterances of the course, both in written and spoken form, from all possible linguistic aspects. The supervisor is both an attractive, enjoyable and strongly pedagogically based software that allows the user to work on language materials. The most outstanding feature of SLIM is the use of speech analysis and recognition which is a fundamental aspect of all second language learning programmes. We also assume that a learning model can be represented by a finite state automaton made up by a fixed number of possible states – corresponding to the macro and microlevels at which the student's competence may be modelled – each one being internally constituted by the actual linguistic objects of knowledge of the language that make it up.

The objective of this paper is to describe a task-based project in tandem via e-mail, and to discuss the effects of motivation on task performance. In this project, a group of Irish students and a group of Spanish students are asked to carry out a series of tasks in collaboration with their tandem partners via e-mail by means of a web page especially designed for the project. Half the message is meant to be written in the student’s native language and half in the target language, and students are also encouraged to correct one another. The goal behind our research is to discuss the effects of motivation on task performance. We argue that resource directing (such as reasoning demands) and resource depleting factors (such as prior knowledge) which belong to task complexity in Robinson’s model (Robinson, 2001) are closely connected to affective variables which, as is the case with motivation, belong to task difficulty. Motivational factors like interest in the meanings to be exchanged, involvement in the decision-making process, students’ expertise in the topic, media and materials used, and the diffusion of outcomes among others have strong effects on task performance, and should therefore be considered together with complexity variables.

The paper presents the results of a comparative investigation of course developers’ and teacher trainees’ views regarding the usefulness and effectiveness of a multimedia self-tuition course designed to introduce foreign language teacher trainees to tools and methods for organising computer-assisted language learning. The paper first provides a brief description of the home-study course itself. It describes the course’s main components, its content as well as the learning and evaluation tasks the course provides in support of the learning process. Next, the paper reports on the way in which the evaluation project investigating teacher trainees’ and course developers’ views regarding the effectiveness of the course was set up. The project’s design is presented, and the way in which various procedures of data collection (written evaluations and individual interviews) were triangulated is commented on. In the third section we present the investigation’s main findings. The section focuses on points of agreement and disagreement between developers’ and trainees’ views regarding the usefulness and effectiveness of the course. Finally, we describe the changes brought about by the evaluation project, and reflect on the necessity to take account of future users’ views and requirements in the design and development process if the training of foreign language teachers is to benefit from web-based delivery.

This paper summarizes the research described in a PhD thesis (Pujolă, 2000) which presents a description of how learners use the help facilities of a web-based multimedia CALL program, called ImPRESSions, designed to foster second language learners’ reading and listening skills and language learning strategies. The study investigates the variation of strategy use in a CALL environment: Twenty two Spanish adult students of English worked with the program in four sessions and their computer movements were digital-video screen recorded. Together with direct observation and retrospective questions a detailed picture of learners’ deployment of strategies was drawn. As the emphasis was on the process rather than the product, the description and analysis of the data focus on the observation of the language learning strategies learners deployed when using the help facilities provided: Dictionary, Cultural Notes, Transcript, Subtitles and Play Controls, Feedback and an Experts module specifically designed to provide the language learner training component of the program. The qualitative analysis of the data indicates that many variables have an influence on the amount and quality of the use of the help provided by the program, from the learners’ individual differences to the fact that the CALL environment may prompt learners to behave or work in a different way from a more conventional type of learning. The results of the study provide information for future CALL material design and the type of research offers new possibilities for CALL research methods.

The objective of this study is to investigate how low-proficiency English for Specific Purposes (ESP) students benefit from a hypermedia-enhanced learning environment, specifically in terms of incidental acquisition of lexical items in the target language. Additionally, this study aims at finding out how frequently the comprehension tools available from within the application were used by the learners. The hypermedia-assisted learning environment used in this study provides a rich environment where learners gain exposure to foreign language texts by listening and reading in the target language. Learners are invited to explore Chemistry-related video segments through listening comprehension questions in combination with access to various comprehension tools, for example, L1 translations of questions and answers, L2 video manuscript, translation of manuscript sentences, specific video segments containing answers to questions and video control tools. A total of 40 subjects with a low-intermediate proficiency level were exposed to the treatment. An achievement test was administered before the treatment as a pre-test, and two weeks following the completion of the treatment as a post-test, to evaluate retention. The courseware was set up by the researcher to record every user action and compile these data into user logs of behaviour data which were subsequently submitted to analysis. The findings of this experimental study are conclusive in suggesting that hypermedia-based instruction can provide an effective learning environment to build vocabulary among ESP students. It can be claimed that the access to a variety of comprehension tools results in a deep processing of the lexical items and can therefore contribute to favour retention.

The acquisition of foreign languages for specific purposes through e-learning strategies is one of the areas less researched and developed in the field of CALL. However, as a member of a recently completed Leonardo da Vinci Project, devoted to vocational training, the author will report on the findings of the Airline Talk project. The goals of the project were to supply materials which would promote continuing learning amongst airline staff in three target languages: English, German and Spanish. This paper focuses on the development, structure and language content of the Spanish courseware, ¡Bienvenido a bordo!, designed at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia. The author discusses the process carried out by the project partners in order to satisfy learner demands in terms of learner orientation, process orientation and learner autonomy to achieve language competence through the development of communicative skills and interactivity. Issues that are described include: needs analysis, courseware specifications, exercise template design, graphical user interface and learner motivation. The results arising from the evaluation carried out at two different partner institutions will conclude the discussion.

‘Design’ is a term that is familiar to many language teachers and CALL practitioners. It is used regularly in relation to curriculum, syllabus, course and task in the general literature and it occurs in all these areas and more in the CALL sphere where instructional design, website design, interface design and screen design are just some of the additional points of focus. This paper aims to look at CALL design in more detail. It places a particular emphasis on describing the discourse, products and processes of design in CALL. It looks at what we have learnt about design and points to areas that remain problematical. It also makes connections with cognate fields whenever these links prove helpful. This study is the second in a series of three complementary papers which look at research, design and evaluation in CALL (see Levy, 2000). All use the same corpus of CALL work as a database and the research design and methodology in each is the same. In this paper the description and discussion is based on 93 articles involving design published in books and journals published in 1999. The descriptive section is followed by analysis and interpretation with special attention given to the relationship between theory and design, and the centrality of the task and the learner in the design process.

There are many CALL resources available today but often they need to be adapted for level or culture. CALL practitioners would like to reuse currently existing material rather than reinvent the wheel, but often this is not possible. Thus, they end up building CALL material, both language content and software, from scratch. This is inefficient in terms of CALL practitioners’ time and as Felix (1999) points out, there is no point ‘doing badly’ what has already been done well. Why can’t we reuse what already exists? Often the language content is hard-wired in the software and cannot be modified or the CALL material comes as an executable which is hard or impossible to change. Authoring tools can provide a degree of flexibility, but often focus on particular parts of the language learning process (e.g. interactive exercises) and the associated language content cannot, in general, easily be exported into other formats and presentation software. One solution to this problem is provided by XML technologies. They provide a strict separation between data and processing. Thus, three types of reuse are possible: reuse of the data processing engine (i.e. the XSL processing files), reuse of the language content structure (i.e. the XML data files) and reuse the linguistic resources (i.e. the language content). In this paper, an example is given of a CALL template that has been developed using XML technologies. The template provides a structure into which the language content can be slotted and a processing engine to act upon the data to create CALL material. The template was developed for the production of CALL materials for Endangered Languages (ELs), but could be used for MCTLs (Most Commonly Taught Languages) and LCTLs (Less Commonly Taught Languages) also. It has been used to develop a language learning course for Nawat (a language of El Salvador), Akan (a Ghanaian language) and Irish, demonstrating the reusability of the language content structure as well as proving the reusability of the processing engine provided by the template. A further reusable feature is the ability to create courseware in different media (Internet, CD and print) from the same source language content.

This study aims to compare various computerized bilingual dictionaries (henceforth CBDs) for their relative effectiveness in helping Japanese college students at several language proficiency levels to access new English target vocabulary. Its rationale was based on several observations and research claims (see Atkins & Knowles, 1990; Bejoint & Moulin, 1987; Laufer & Hadar, 1997) that bilingual and bilingualized dictionaries in general, as well as electronic dictionaries in particular appear to be much more rapid and effective than monolingual book dictionaries for the acquisition of new L2 vocabulary by language learners. The author has been testing and analyzing various CBDs in four major categories for the past two years. These include (i) portable electronic dictionaries (PEDs); (ii) software CBDs; (iii) online dictionary websites; and (iv) optical character recognition/translation (OCR/OCT) devices, both portable handheld ’Reading Pens‘ (e.g. Quickionary/Quicklink) and also flatbed OCR scanners (Logo Vista) bundled with translation programs. His research started over ten years ago, however, culminating in a dissertation entitled ‘Developing and testing vocabulary training methods and materials for Japanese college students studying English as a foreign language’ (Loucky, 1996; or summary thereof, Loucky, 1997). This dissertation studied the pre- and post-test vocabulary, comprehension, listening and total reading levels of over 1,000 Japanese college students at six institutions. Since then the author has devised a simple yet practical Vocabulary Knowledge Scale (VKS), helping to more clearly define and test the differences between passive or receptive understanding vocabulary and active or productive use vocabulary. Computerized technology has now made possible multimedia programming with the benefits of interactive processing and immediate feedback. Modern CAI/CAELL along with well-made CBDs, either online or off, can already be found to scan, pronounce and translate for us in any direction of the four language skills. This study examined Japanese college students’ use of four kinds of CBDs for more rapid accessing and archiving of new L2 terms, recommending integration of their use into a more systematic taxonomy of vocabulary learning strategies.

Student interest in films as a medium for ESL education is high. Interest, however, is not enough to foster understanding in a traditional classroom environment. A more hands-on interactive approach to studying a second language via film is needed. By using online interactive exercises to study the language and culture in film, students are able to gain a better understanding of the language used in the film. This paper outlines a course that was developed using online interactive exercises and film to study language and culture. The course incorporates several modern technologies to allow students to take an active role in their learning and to increase their skills in areas that the students perceive to be of value in the future, namely listening, reading, and presentation skills. Automated feedback functions let the students, as well as the instructors, constantly monitor their progress. These technologies allow a more efficient use of classroom time and permit the students to go into the content of the film – especially the cultural aspects – much more deeply. Through this course, students are able to boost their confidence and their motivation to continue the study of language and culture via films on their own

This paper considers the progressive integration of a web resource in a language degree option centred on language varieties and linguistic variation in French. It focuses on the features introduced by the web environment and how they can enhance the learning experience of the students. It addresses the issue of the language used for teaching and learning with diverse groups of students including a high proportion of non-native speakers of English, varying levels of linguistic competence and different stages of study. The paper also examines web-based facilities supporting interaction and collaboration among members of the learning group (some teacher moderated). The evaluation is based on the results of a survey conducted with the group of students who took part in the pilot implementation in 2000–01 and on module feedback. The last section in the paper points to ways of integrating further the technology within the delivery and the assessment of the module, and of increasing student support and interaction.

This paper describes an online collaborative model designed to allow meaningful, authentic interactions between college English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students and adult native speakers of English. The program uses technology to bridge the gap between the need of EFL students to interact with native speakers for successful language learning and the geographical distance of EFL classrooms. The two groups of participants were brought together in a symbiotic relationship enabled and shaped by an online collaborative learning environment. This study employed two 4-member teams collaborating on an electronic bulletin board to address problems such as lack of response and lack of purpose that current models of online exchange face. Findings indicate that the team model is a viable alternative to one-to-one or many-to-many correspondence. They also suggest that collaborative activities may play an important role in fostering meaningful and lasting interactions.

Authoring systems can be a great advantage for teachers concerned with tools created specifically for their learners. They allow the designer to conceive modules for a precise public. The designer, often the teacher himself, can model his work on existing CD-ROMs marketed for the general public, inserting information that is more specific to his own public. For L2 acquisition, this solution can be satisfactory if the teacher’s main preoccupation is to have learners work on the language at their own rhythm and in their own time. However, there are a few oversights to this type of conception which need to be resolved: (1) teacher access to the finished product, (2) student access to the different parts of the finished product, and (3) pedagogical and didactic criteria. This paper concerned with all three oversights, notably the last, concentrates on developing the characteristics of all four learning stages described by Narcy (1997), while illustrating the different theoretical and practical possibilities of incorporating these stages into modules created by teachers.

This paper examines staff reaction towards the use of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) and Communications and Information Technology (C&IT) in language learning and teaching. It considers the attitudes of colleagues in three different universities, two in the UK and one in Canada. Our findings suggest that staff in these three locations are not resistant to the use of computer technology in learning and teaching but rather that any hesitations they have are due to a range of different factors of a practical kind, ranging from time pressures to course relevance. We found that staff in one institution are clearly more enthusiastic about using CALL and C&IT than colleagues in the other two, but that they were also widely welcomed in the latter. One of the main reasons for this has been the creation of common learning environments on the Web. In addition, findings show that staff already convinced of the benefits that CALL and C&IT bring to the teaching and learning experience (radicals) have a role in encouraging their less enthusiastic colleagues to begin using this form of technology. However, we found that the majority of colleagues are not radicals, but pragmatists, and are willing to make use of CALL and C&IT provided that the benefits are clearly guaranteed. There remains a small minority of conservatives. No suggestions are made as to how to deal with them.