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No CALL? Are we doing our students a disfavor?

Posted by mesmark · September 25, 2006 · 2 replies

Here's a pretty interesting summary of some different research into the affects of online learning. It goes over several strong points and leads finally to the question of whether it's OK not to use CALL. Maybe we're doing a disfavor to our students if we don't get them involved. Maybe online English is a different beast.

Kern, R., Ware, P., & Warschauer. M. (2004). Crossing frontiers: New directions in online pedagogy and research . Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 24, 243-260.
http://www.gse.uci.edu/faculty/markw/frontiers.pdf

What do you think?

2 Replies

simplyesl

I think that the internet should be used as an extra dimension to English teaching. Nothing can compare to the tons of resources available at your finger tips.

emile

OMG, Mark that's such a long article and it uses phrases like

...problematizes the notions of its own inquiry...

But anyway, the Internet is a fantastic tool for ...communication... so sure it's useful. There are many grammar topics that students can work through online, for example, and then spend class time on speaking activities. Of course, there are BAD online courses around, that's for sure.