Technology's Promise and Pitfalls

Outline of a Georgia TESOL 1998 Plenary by Deborah Healey

General CALL Directions

• Attention to teacher training, not just equipment; focus on pedagogy

  But the lure of the Web...

• Multimedia to appeal to different learning styles

  CD-ROM opened possibilities for video and sound
  Digital VideoDisc (DVD) expands the possibilities
  High cost of quality production
  Form over substance?

• "Intelligent" CALL

More appropriate responses to student errors
Exercises adapted to the level of the student
Speech recognition
More promise than reality...

On the Internet

E-mail

• Class homework

Students can turn it in when they're ready

More space for comments

Not all homework comes in at the same time

Harder to separate the student's text and the teacher's comments

No formatting

• Class-based exchanges

Very motivating, since students are writing for a real audience

Take a lot of teacher time to set up and energy to maintain

• Student mailing lists

Need teacher tasks for best results

Not always enough email activity to sustain interest

Individual "keypals"

Great when they work&emdash;students can make friends

Best to have a small group writing to a small group so no one is left without mail

Not everyone has the same motivation to write

Real-time discussions

• Chat: plain text and virtual reality

Class discussion&emdash; "private" channel

Under the teacher's control

Everyone participates

Need to set a topic and ground rules

Sometimes chaotic and hard to monitor

Public channels can be risky, though some are better than others

Real language from a wide variety of people

• MOO: text-based worlds (SchMOOze U)

Lots of reading

Friendly people online in this monitored site

Need teacher-set tasks, particularly at first

Daunting to low-level readers

World Wide Web

• Text, graphics, sound, video

Many learning styles addressed

Multimedia sites require fast computers and good Internet connections

• Teacher-oriented possibilities

Comprehensive lists available

Information about a vast range of topics

Many types of writing styles and genres for reading

Hard to find just what you want in a general search of the Web

• Learner-oriented possibilities

Many ready-to-use ESL sites with fun activities

Need teacher guidance to choose sites and use them effectively

Easy to get lost or sidetracked

---

Go back to the Index