ENG517 Grand Quiz Preparation

Models for CALL (5. Models for CALL. 6. CALL Models Practices in SLA)

This traditional model by Dunkin and Biddle (1974) is examined in terms of how it can and cannot accommodate CALL. Based on the differences between CALL and traditional language learning, a new model for learning with CALL is offered. Collaboration is explored in terms of the challenges raised by learners themselves (social challenges) and challenges specific to the computer and CALL programs (technical challenges).

The principal concerns of this lesson can be summarized by the following three questions.

Model of CALL

The introduction of the computer into the classroom (in some cases, some places) has fostered changes to the practice of the teaching and learning of languages and related subjects, such as literature. Of particular interest to CALL research is the ability of multimedia to increase comprehensible input and offer opportunities for comprehensible output thus fostering SLA, through collaboration, which was a key construct in understanding opportunities for learning with CALL. In order to elucidate the relationship between CALL and SLA, it is necessary to construct a model. A model is a pictorial representation of a metaphor; a way of looking at and understanding the world. A model can be used as a tool to examine processes and describe the ways in which teaching and learning may take place or may be improved upon.

As CALL develops and increases in complexity, new models are put forward to describe more discrete portions of the discipline. For example, Bertin and Narcy-Combes (2007) focus on the role of the learner in a computer-mediated environment, suggesting that monitoring learner outcomes can be counterproductive.

Dunkin and Biddle (1974) noted that there appears to be a never-ending supply of models but go on to suggest that there are good reasons for such being the case, ‘teaching is a complex activity that reflects many factors.

Problems in Creating CALL Models

One is the expansive scope of what is considered to be within the realm of CALL processes, especially considering the broad definition for CALL that takes into consideration its changing nature: any process in which a learner uses a computer and, as a result, improves his or her language. A model for CALL either has to accommodate this general definition or more narrowly define a set of significant aspects of CALL that might be considered. The model offered later in this lesson attempts to define CALL in terms of classroom practice rather than also deal with learners using CALL software in other contexts, such as at home or as an activity peripheral to another subject.

The Need for a CALL Model

The question of whether or not CALL is intrinsically different from traditional language teaching and learning has been addressed through an examination of several historically innovative software programs. The fact that CALL is different from prior approaches and materials is also pointed out by Williams (1998) who argues that the potential for teaching and learning through CALL has not been tapped. N. Williams emphasized upon the need for reviews of the particular nature of CALL technology and proposed that; “Hypermedia allows everything to be linked to everything, just like human imagination. But teaching (as opposed to learning) requires rather narrower perspectives. Whilst the information within educational multimedia is extensive, attractive and complex, the interactions with and within that information, allowed by the authors of such systems, fail to realize the educational potential of the medium. We need more radical reviews of what learning might be through multimedia, combined with innovation in design (Stringer, 1997), to realize more fully the true potential for educational interaction in multimedia”.

Creating a new model requires decisions on the range and types of variables that need to be considered. The first task in describing a new model for CALL is to identify a current model for teaching and learning and examine what variables might or might not need to be reassessed. Hubbard (2005), in a review of 78 articles published in CALL journals between 2000 and 2003, cautions that most of what we know about CALL seems to come from studies conducted with untrained novice users.

A Model of Current Non-CALL Language Learning

Many authors have attempted to isolate the variables involved in learning and teaching language. Spolsky (1987), for example, lists 74 variables affecting learning. Such a high number of variables makes it difficult to isolate any one variable for careful consideration in, for example, an experimental examination of the variables’ influence on learning. A general model that includes and expands on Breen’s (1998) criteria can also include observations from Dunkin and Biddle’s (1974) model. Their model also identified aspects of language learning that might be studied in a classroom.

Dunkin and Biddle’s model is a general one, in the sense that it covers all formal instruction, not just language teaching. The following sections examine Dunkin and Biddle’s model in terms of its ability to accommodate CALL and outlines the differences that help define a new model suitable for CALL.

Various Dimensions

There are two ways of considering CALL: either as a supplementary learning material in which case CALL simply falls under the Classroom contexts heading in Dunkin and Biddle’s model; or as an autonomous process, a kind of virtual teacher. there is so far no empirical evidence of a learner completely acquiring a second language through CALL alone, although this is an interesting area for a study; the task would be to create or assemble a comprehensive CALL software program(s) for a language unknown to the teacher, the learner and the community, such as Swahili in rural Saskatchewan. Instead, it is assumed that the role of CALL is to help foster language learning by creating conditions that make some aspects of language learning easier.

Computer Functions beyond Traditional Materials

However, it is also necessary to accept that the computer sometimes assumes functions beyond traditional materials and accept that its inter-activity mirrors at least some of the functions of the teacher, especially when it is used autonomously, even though it cannot pretend to duplicate the teacher’s range. It is with this view of CALL that Dunkin and Biddle’s model is examined. In Dunkin and Biddle’s model, there are aspects that are broadly fixed in both non-CALL environments and CALL environments:

• School, community and classroom contexts
• Product variables of immediate pupil growth and long-term pupil effects

School, community and classroom contexts are likely to change only in the sense that some learners presumably encounter computers and computer software well ahead of their introduction into the classroom; or through the adoption of a virtual classroom model. This view, as already mentioned, needs to assume that CALL materials are more than just a classroom con-text. Through exposure to computers and computer software, learners are prepared for the ensuing classroom variables; in some cases, learners are given insight into how teaching materials are constructed – what Dunkin and Biddle consider the Presage variables, which we will discuss in coming topic.

The other factor unlikely to undergo significant change is Dunkin and Biddle’s Product variables of Immediate pupil growth and Long-term pupil effects, although the ways of measuring such changes, both by the teacher and the learner, are likely to evolve, for example, through computer-adaptive testing programs in which the computer evaluates a learner’s early performance in subtests and builds fuller tests, as well as scoring and tracking progress through learning programs.

Presage Variables

Presage variables include Teacher formative experiences, Teacher training experiences and Teaching skills. Software programs might in some cases, with different emphasis, function as a virtual teacher, a teacher’s helper, a teaching tool and a learning tool. Sloane (1990) as well as Boyd and Mitchell (1992) take a discourse approach and consider CALL a conversational activity shared among the learner, the machine tutor (i.e. computer program) and the educator/developer. But in many CALL programs, Dunkin and Biddle’s teacher attributes are generally subsumed under the consideration of the program taking the place of the teacher.

Dunkin and Biddle (1974) assume that an individual teacher comes to the classroom with a wide range of experiences and skills. Teacher formative experiences refer to factors such as those experienced because of social class and sex. They also list age, race and physical appearance to illustrate the fact that everything about a teacher is inclined to be involved in how the teacher is ‘likely to be treated differently both within and without the school’ (p. 39). In terms of a CALL context, the formative experiences are likely to be homogenized into the collective experiences of the materials developers as many soft-ware developers’ marketing executives are likely to be involved in any decisions in the creation of a CALL program.

Teacher training experiences refer to the formal education that a teacher receives from both academic institutions (i.e. teacher colleges, universities) and training in school placements. Dunkin and Biddle (1974) note that these include ‘courses taken, the attitudes of instructors, experiences dur-ing practice teaching and in-service postgraduate education, if any’ (p. 39). Hampel (2009) defines some of the skills necessary for teaching in a virtual environment, but in the CALL context, again, because of the collective