Computer Assisted Language Learning

CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) appears at beginning of the 1980s.  By 1982 it was in widespread use in the UK (July 1982), the newsletter CALLBOARD and in Davies & Higgins (1982). In the USA the acronym CALI (Computer Assisted Language Instruction) was initially preferred, appearing in the name of CALICO (founded in 1982), the oldest professional association devoted to the promotion of the use of computers in language learning and teaching.

An alternative term to CALL emerged in the 1980s, namely Technology Enhanced Language Learning (TELL), which was felt to provide a more accurate description of the activities which fall broadly within the range of CALL. Brown (1988:6) writes: Learning a foreign language can enrich the education of every pupil socially and intellectually and be vocationally relevant. The new technology should form an integral part of a modern language department's overall teaching strategy. By these means, to coin a communicative-sounding acronym, TELL (Technology Enhanced Language Learning) can help produce telling results in language performance both in school and in the wider world. It therefore has a place in every modern language department.

CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) is an approach to language teaching and learning in which the computer is used as an aid to the presentation, reinforcement and assessment of material to be learned, usually including a substantial interactive element. CALL is accommodates its changing nature is any process in which a learners uses a computer, as a result, improved his or her language.

CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) is the teaching program using basic computer as a tool or facility. CALL has a program to completely the progress. The programs are;

·         CALL-specific software. It is application designed to develop and facilitate language learning.

·         Generic software. It is application designed to general purpose.

·         Web-based learning program. It is program designed to improve skill in using modern internet technology.

·         Computer-mediated communication (CMC) program. Its seem like a web-based learning program, but CMC only using program which synchronous and asynchronous in learning progress.

CALL has a role or uses in language learning to improve the CALL self in education. The roles are computer as tutor for language drill and skill practice, computer as tool for writing, presentation and research, computer as medium of global communication, computer as simulation/problem solving, computer s game, and computer as application of internet ELT.

CALL has important potential for English language teaching. If used properly with clear educational objective. CALL can interest and motivate learners of English. CALL can increase information access to the teacher, provide flexibility to instruction and thereby serve the individual’s learning pace, cognitive style and learning strategies. CALL allows learners to control their own learning process and progress. Using effective and suitable software application, CALL can provide communicative meaningful language learning environments. Good quality and well-designed CALL software can offer a balance of controlled practice and free communicative expression to the learners, include immediate feedback. In the future, with the advance of computer technologies, it is expected that CALL will be able to absorb some teaching functions. However, despite greater user-friendliness and effectiveness, CALL will never replace the teacher. CALL is not a magic solution to language teaching. The effectiveness of CALL relies on how CALL is utilized to meet language learning goals for individualized learners in specific education setting.