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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2008
Since 1984, CALL materials have been used on a regular basis in the German Department at the University of Aberdeen in integrated language courses, in order to practise and consolidate the material taught in face-to-face contact classes. CALL work essentially forms a backup to the taught part of the course. What the students are taught one week, they practise in their CALL class the following week, and additionally have the opportunity to work on further exercises on a private-study basis. Within the field of language learning, our experience suggests that the computer can be above all a superb tool for revision and consolidation. With the development and use of hypertext materials, there is more than just the possibility that it can now become even more effective than hitherto.
1. For further details on our experience with CALL from 1984 onwards, see Burgess, Gordon: ‘The use of the micro in an integrated German language course at University level’, in Cameron, K. C. et al. , eds, Computers in Modern Language Studies, Chichester: Ellis Horwood, 1986, pp 20–26.Google Scholar
2. In a recent article reviewing an admittedly limited range of CALL software for the IBM PC, Johnathan Butler and David Pollard find that it is characterised by a ‘lack [of] any common design standards’, and by ‘poor design standards’, which they find ‘symptomatic of the early days of software development’. The authors' third objection to the programs reviewed is that they are ‘discrete units, built in isolation from other software’. I would argue that this is likewise attributable to the earlier generation of UK CALL material. See Butler, J. and Pollard, D.. ‘Computer Assisted Language Learning: a sample survey of available commercial software’. Applied Computer Translation. Vol 1. No 1, 1991. PP 1–13.Google Scholar
3. This raises, of course, the whole question of the process of foreign language acquisition. In his Error Analysis and Interlanguage (Oxford University Press, 1981), S. Pit Corder makes the point that ‘input is “what goes in” not what is available for going in, and we may reasonably suppose that it is the learner who controls this input’ (p. 9): ‘It may also well be that die sequence of data presentation, the syllabus, does not correspond with the logical processing requirements of the learner’ (p. 27). Hypertext CALL materials would seem at last to offer the student with the opportunity of tailoring the input to his/her own learning needs, admittedly within limitations imposed by the author of the software or other restrictions.
4. Computer Lib/Dream Machines. Redwood/Washington: Tempus, 1987. pCLl.
5. Computer Lib/Dream Machines. Redwood/Washington: Tempus, 1987. p DM 29.
6. Computer Lib/Dream Machines. Redwood/Washington: Tempus, 1987. p DM 32 (Nelson's italics).
7. A task made considerably lighter by the timely publication of the ReCALL Software Guide by the CT1 Centre for Modern Languages in August 1990!
8. On the potential of HyperCard for CALL work see. for example. Harland, Mike. HyperCard: assessing its potential in CALL programming. Computer Assisted Language Learning, Vol 1, 1990, pp 41–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
