LEARNING LANGUAGES ONLINE
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Robert Beard, a language teacher at Bucknell University, in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, wrote in September 1998: "As a language teacher, the web represents a plethora of new resources produced by the target culture, new tools for delivering lessons (interactive Java and Shockwave exercises) and testing, which are available to students any time they have the time or interest — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is also an almost limitless publication outlet for my colleagues and I, not to mention my institution. (…) Ultimately all course materials, including lecture notes, exercises, moot and credit testing, grading, and interactive exercises will be far more effective in conveying concepts that we have not even dreamed of yet."
= CTI Centre for Modern Languages
Since its inception in 1989, the CTI (Computer in Teaching Initiative) Centre for Modern Languages, based in the Language Institute at the University of Hull, United Kingdom, aims to promote and encourage the use of computers in language learning and teaching. The CTI Centre provides information on how computer-assisted language learning (CALL) can be effectively integrated into existing courses. It offers support to language lecturers who are using computers in their teaching, or who wish to use them.
June Thompson, manager of the CTI Centre, wrote in December 1998: "The internet has the potential to increase the use of foreign languages, and our organization certainly opposed any trend towards the dominance of English as the language of the internet. The use of the internet has brought an enormous new dimension to our work of supporting language teachers in their use of technology in teaching."
How about the future? "I suspect that for some time to come, the use of internet-related activities for languages will continue to develop alongside other technology-related activities (e.g. use of CD-ROMs — not all institutions have enough networked hardware). In the future I can envisage use of internet playing a much larger part, but only if such activities are pedagogy-driven. Our organization is closely associated with the WELL project which devotes itself to these issues."
The WELL (Web Enhanced Language Learning) project was a project from EUROCALL (European Association for Computer-Assisted Language Learning). It ran from 1997 to 2000 in the United Kingdom to provide access to high-quality web resources in 12 languages. The resources were selected and described by subject experts, with information and examples on how to use them for teaching and learning.
More generally, EUROCALL's goal is to promote the use of foreign languages within Europe, to provide a European focus for all aspects of the use of technology for language learning, and to enhance the quality, dissemination and efficiency of CALL materials. Another project of EUROCALL is CAPITAL (Computer-Assisted Pronunciation Investigation Teaching and Learning), run by a group of researchers and practitioners interested in using computers in this field.
= LINGUIST List