Why invest in CALL?
call will make the interaction between teachers and students easier and closer, students can learn everywhere at any time ( learning without going to the classroom).
call is an essential part of learning in the next decade. it also lightens the work of teachers, students also find the information more easily.
it's the need for the future generations and future ways of learning.
Nowadays, most
of students have positive attitudes towards using Computer
Assisted Language Learning. When they use Computer Assisted
Language Learning, their knowledge and information will be enriched. Besides that, CALL provides students with fresh and up-dated
information and plays an important role in developing
students' academic skills.
There are some reasons that we should invest in CALL:
- Saving time for evaluating the results of student. For example: Instead of having student to come to class just to give their assignment after their field trip, they can submit it online. Also, the teacher can mark them immediately.
- Improve the speed of processing and analyzing data in research.
- Easy access to resources everywhere.
- Help people to connect and interact with each other all over the world. For example: we can share research works and learn from each other’s experience.
- Improve knowledge retention. For example: If teacher recorded their lectures and uploaded online, student can review them whenever they need to.
We should invest in CALL for those reasons:
- Call plays an important role in enabling students to become effective independent learners and motivating them to be familiar to the lifelong learning concept. Besides the knowledge students acquire at school from teachers and friends, they have a chance to self-study at home or at any place and anytime they want to.
- Secondly, CALL applied in FL curriculum creates a habit for students to study actively and time over time, it becomes their habit in language learning, which is really good because if we stop learning a language, we will forget.
- Besides, students are curious and have eagerness toward the technology; therefore, CALL will attract them more than the traditional books and note-takings.
- With the FL, it is crucial that the more students get expose to the real life situation and authentic materials, the better they are in language learning. For example, listening to the American's speaking and accents is better than Vietnamese teacher's voice. For this reason, CALL with multiple apps and websites is an amazing choice so far.
- Finally, CALL reduces teachers' work and double students' motivation to learn if CALL is accessed and used in an appropriate way.
I would like to mention some reasons for investing in CALL.
- Reduce labor costs
- Enhance staff job satisfaction in terms of flexible working, i.e. they can work from home or remotely for part or all of the time, and job sharing
- Provide staff / teachers technology assistant to diversify their teaching methodology and task allocation
- Provide student with opportunity to access to technology
- Students are easy to get contact and practice with other fellows.
CALL, aka Computer assisted language learning, should be invested for five important features:
Firstly, it supports learner’s autonomy by giving them opportunities to create their own way for language learning. It demands a wide range of skills to accomplish a task, for example, editing a video, creating a website,…
CALL also develop their integration in social context, by introducing more team work in their language learning process. CALL projects are usually managed by a group of people, which includes a photographer, an editor, a designer, a content writer
Thirdly, it individualised one’s learning, when they can integrate text, images, sound, video,…in their activities.
Furthermore, by adopting new learning method, a learner will develop their language skills integrally, while they could have higher abilities of comprehension, speaking and writing by focusing on each online activity.
Finally, CALL opens to critism. Every user can express their critical look or their expectations at activities’ effectiveness at a click.
Here are the reasons to invest in CALL:
- Technology is playing important roles in our daily life. We can see a very clear shift from the past ten years when teenagers went to the Internet room to play with Yahoo, blog.... Nowadays, most of every student have a technological device to connect to the media.
- CALL allows learners to search, do assignments in a very fast way. What they have to do is some clicks.
- It is easier for students to store their information (google classroom, class dojo...) then follow and catch up with their friends.
- Students can easily get assess to the variety of test banks, practice tests,... to review and study
- It is always updated with the. latest version by experts around the world
Computer technology has played a significantly important role in the teaching and learning of foreign languages and in the study of English as a second and foreign language. Computer-assisted language learning can be thought of as the applications of computer technology and it has many advantages in language teaching and learning. In this working paper, the advantages of CALL in language teaching and learning will be taken into considerations to see why it worths being invested in the field of education.
Computer-assisted language learning has come to a new step, especially with the development of microcomputers and the Internet. Computers can facilitate a variety of learning tasks and have enormous potency as teaching tools. They can help both students and teachers because of their special properties. The first advantage is the effective motivation of CALL for students in classroom teaching. CALL can provide many funny games and communicative activities, reduce the learning stresses and anxieties, and provide repeated lessons as often as necessary. Those communicative and interactive activities, computer technology can help second language learners, strengthen their linguistic skills, affect their learning attitude, and build their self-instruction strategies and self-confidence. The computer can promote learning interaction between learners and teachers. Students who get bored and in traditional English classes become more and more interested in this new style of teaching and learning. Thus, they may become more active. The second advantage of CALL is its support for students in classroom teaching. It can keep teaching resources for a longer time, which is almost impossible in the traditional classroom. The teaching resources can then be shared by other teachers and students. Language learners have the option to study anytime and anywhere. Traditionally, learners must go to a class themselves at a fixed time and in a fixed classroom. If the place has a network of computer laboratories, learners can use the same materials wherever they are. They can even study at home if their personal computers have a link to the system or network in their school. CALL programs can be wonderful stimuli for second language learning. As a result, students’ learning becomes more individualized and autonomous. Shy or inhibited learners can greatly benefit from the individualized technology-learning environment, and studious learners can proceed at their own pace to achieve higher levels. This means that students become the center of learning and they can study more independently. Instead, teachers become facilitators. The usefulness in teaching and learning English skills is the third advantage of CALL. CALL can help students find it easier in learning some English skills such as reading, speaking, listening and especially in writing. In the past, when a writing assignment is given, students have to write their draft first and then retype or copy it again. But now with computers, students can use a word processing program to write their compositions and make corrections easily so that they do not have to retype or copy their final draft. They can also edit their writing before they turn it into the teacher, and then to revise the composition based on language teachers and learners keep their writings and records for further use.
Besides being powerful and stimulating aids, computers offer great potential for language learning. With the great development of computers and internet, more and more second language teachers and learners are using computers for foreign language teaching and learning today. It has changed the way people work, learn, communicate, and play. The advances in technology lately is really helping teachers and students in the learning process. Students not only learn in the conventional situation which is in face-to-face and directly with teachers and use textbooks as teaching materials in schools. Now, students can make us of CALL as teaching media contains tutorials and instructions for using in language learning. After we have discussed the advantages of CALL, we can find it worthy to be applied in current second language classroom.