Job Discussion Forums

[sprightly]

i'm looking at some yummy jobs being advertised, and they all ask for experience with CALL--computer assisted language learning.

anyone know where i can learn more about this online? have you done a course that was good, or conversely, bad?

[FGT]

(haven't looked) and don't know of any courses specifically for "CALL".
My school is trying to set it up at the moment. Any ideas/suggestions gratefully received.

[Glenski]

Perhaps you'd get more responses if you used the ESL Cafe forum below.
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/index.php

[sprightly]

thx glen! (are you on LP?)
although i wasn't expecting any response until tomorrow!

[Glenski]

LP????

[sprightly]

lonely planet, sorry.

[Glenski]

Yes. I use the same handle there. Someone told me about a year ago that that site had a fairly consistent number of people asking about teaching English, so I decided to make a presence. Not many there seem to know that much about it. No surprise, since it is more of a traveler's site.

[Capergirl]

I teach CALL classes. What I do is give the students ESL exercises and quizzes to do on the computer - grammar, vocabulary, reading/comprehension, etc. - related to what we did in our other classes. I get them to compose mini-essays in Word (when their proficiency reaches a certain level) and use the spell and grammar checks to help them find their mistakes. I also use Pronunciation Power with them sometimes or have them do listening/comprehension exercises online (Randall's Cyber Listening Lab is a good L/C site).

If you are familiar with computers at all, you merely need to get a list of some good ESL sites and access to a computer lab to do a CALL class. I hope that helps.

[johnslat]

Here's a pretty good web site that offers lots of links to CALL related stuff:

http://edvista.com/claire/call.html

We used CALL at the IPA for a year before I left. But we were using DynEd software:

http://www.dyned.com/dyned/eng/home.html

Not such a bad product - but the problem, as I saw it, was that it was just about impossible to integrate the packaged software with our pre-existing program.
Regards,
John

[arioch36]

I think CALL can be nice, here in China I often find it to be worthless the way it is used, which all to often is just to listen to tapes or watch movies(here in Henan China). Software, software software.

I liked the set up at one college I was at, especially for writing. It had vocabulary...definitions, pronunciation and best of all, synonyms. It was hooked to the internet via 56k, so all i did was find a site I liked (such as Purdue's "OWL" that I found here at Dave's) and I could download good material and quizzes regardless of whether the book was any good, or for supplemental materials and quizzes (ever try in China to tell them you need a thousand pages printed out every week...ha ha) . So say we were talking about appositives or gerunds. I could download the material directly, or take by disk from home. I could quiz them and give them the immediate answers, and answer questions on the spot.

Sometime's, students having access to the internet is very unhelpful IMHO.

The Chinese teachers only used CALL to show movies. (Is the same true in Japan? They have never been trained to use it, and innovation by teachers is frowned upon) The school leaders, however, decided they needed 20 more language labs. A Japanese company loans them the money. Somehow I think some money is changing hands under the table.

My next school had "CALL" . First the internet wasn't hooked up. Then it was hooked up for Chinese in country only. The lady who ran the lab didn't speak english, I couldn't explain what I needed to make it work, it was a complete waste

[sprightly]

good grief.

i was under the assumption that it was a specific sort of software.
heck, if it hadn't been for the internet, my classes would have been fairly dull.
well then. i'm quite good in CALL. i expect i shall improve. check that off my "qualifications needed" list.