Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:1662] First Summary
From: Adamson (adamson46844@mni.ne.jp)
Date: Wed 16 May 2001 - 23:51:01 MEST
From: "Adamson" <adamson46844@mni.ne.jp> Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:1662] First Summary Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 06:51:01 +0900
Lawrie Hunter began the discussion by suggesting that the design of any task
work, including CALL, should begin with a consideration of the learning
scenario, i.e., learner, task, resources, and choice of expressive mode.
Lawrie went on to explain that he and a colleague had provided web-based
support for a course they developed on critical thing with CALL because the
students proved to be too busy or not interested enough to use the task
support. Lawrie then said that a CALL writing course which he has developed,
a HyperCard authoring course using "contained" real-life tasks covering
description, classification, sequence and cause-effect genres, has become
more structured over the four year period of development. Lawrie ended by
again stressing that design should begin with the learning scenario, which
he here describes as what the learner wants and how does the material
support or distract from that.
>From the moderator:
What Lawrie has called the "learning scenario" is frequently described as
curriculum design or doing a needs analysis. Also Lawrie's finding that the
students did not use the supporting websites which were prepared is very
interesting. This would seem to be a major problem for both the individual
and large publishers. Has anyone else experienced similar problems?
Next, Nick Kearney reported that his school in Spain receives a number of
students who have purchased then given up on CALL courses. This situation
make less pressure on the school to use computers. Nick then makes two
comments on points from the discussion paper. The first is that for ESP
courses the teachers are not expected to provide content; the students
frequently provide this. The teachers job is to concentrate of facilitating
the process of learning to communicate. The second point is that he believes
the students do not compare CALLware to gameware, because their CALLware is
focused on communication. Exercises and controlled practice is given to the
students through teacher prepared materials using authoring software. Nick
ends with the statement that he believes that "teachers can do it alone."
>From the moderator
Nick brings up the very important question of the role of CALL. What exactly
are we going to use it for? Does it supplement or replace the teacher? Or is
their some other relationship involved?
In the next message, Charles Adamson supported Nick's comment about students
knowing more about the content than the teachers with details from his
situation in teaching nursing English. Charles also briefly described a CALL
program which he is working on that will provide the student with dictionary
entries for all words in the program. Charles then restated that in his
experience, contrary to Nick's observations, the students do make a
comparison of CALLware with the slick commercial game programs
>From the moderator
One question that has come out of the discussion thus far is "What role do
we expect our CALLware to play within our curriculum or program?" This
question is just as pertinent for CAL as for CALL and is a question that
anyone working with CAL/CALL must answer in regard to their own program. The
answer may overt or it may be implicit, but there must be an answer. It
would be very interesting to hear how people are answering this question
with regard to all kinds of CALware, language related and otherwise. Another
question that has arisen is "How sophisticated must the program be, in terms
of graphics, art, sound, etc., in order for it to meet the students'
expectations for the face validity of software?"
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