CALL: Technologically Learning
After reading the article “Computers and language
learning: an overview” by Mark Warschauer and Deborah Healey; there are several
things I found very interesting and useful for my future career as an English
Teacher.
My initial reaction to the article was that it was not
going to state things that I did not know before. However, in this article I
found a lot of information that was new for me. It provides information about
the history of computer-assisted language learning (CALL), some examples of
softwares that can be very useful for any language teacher, and also what the
authors think will be the future of CALL.
Something that I learned from this article is that, up
to this date, CALL has had three different stages. The first stage is called
Behavioristic CALL, and it used a very traditional approach, including many
repetition drills. The second stage is the Communicative CALL, and it focused
more on the use of the language, teaching grammar implicitly. The third stage
is Integrative CALL, this final stage integrates skills and technology.
What surprised me from the article is that researches
have found that students tend to like using computers and multimedia to support
their classes, and they feel motivated by the use of interactive videos, even
if they feel that this material do not necessarily improve their learning.
In conclusion, I found the article very interesting
and useful, and I believe that all language teachers should learn about this
topic.
