Talk:Computer-assisted language learning

/Archive 1

Total rewrite in progress, November 2010
From Graham Davies, November 2010

I hadn't looked closely at this article for a couple of years - sometime back in 2008. In the meantime it had got into a dreadful mess - too many cooks. The only way it can be rescued is to rewrite it from scratch. I am now in the course of doing this. Some of the existing material can be recycled, but a lot of it is irrelevant and out of date. I am taking on board some of the comments that other contributors have made. It should not take me more than 2-3 weeks to knock this article into shape.

GroovyGuzi —Preceding undated comment added 16:58, 25 November 2010 (UTC).
 * Would have been nice if you worked on the article in your sandbox instead. Committing a mangled outline that only serves to remind yourself of what you are planning to write is not ideal.  75.71.151.179 (talk) 20:54, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree and I've reverted the changes. It's not acceptable to have sections that are obviously incomplete and written as such. ElKevbo (talk) 04:32, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry! The article is in desperate need of revision. It contains inaccuracies, blatant advertising (Rosetta Stone) and is not a reflection of the current state of CALL. Looking at the individual sections once again, I think it is possible to correct them and tidy them up one by one, without making a mess of the article as a whole. I'll make a few changes today, starting with the Introduction and History sections. The Introduction in particular is poorly written and needs simplifying. I think that the section on problems and criticisms is one that should be targeted for total revision. It's too slanted. GroovyGuzi (talk) 10:49, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Advertisement for the Rosetta Stone removed. There are many more CALL programs that could have been mentioned. Better not to list any commercial products, I think, unless cited as an example of a particular type of program, e.g. Sim City and Montevidisco. GroovyGuzi (talk) 11:23, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I was reading this article and looking for examples of CALL software. I put a link in the Rosetta Stone article pointing back to this one. A question I still have as a Wikipedia reader is what other CALL programs there are out there. I have no answer and was hoping some other editor did and would be willing to edit the article. 199.245.32.210 (talk) 20:06, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

The opening paragraphs of the article have been revised GroovyGuzi (talk) 11:47, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

The History section has been divided into two parts. The first part has been simplified and brought up to date, and the second part has been incorporated into a new section headed Call typology and phases of CALL, which is essentially the same as what was there before, but with additions and corrections. GroovyGuzi (talk) 12:48, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Publications that I have referred to in the History and Call typology and phases of CALL sections have been added to the Sources section. The Sources section needs more work if it is to become a proper References/Bibliography section. GroovyGuzi (talk) 13:05, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I have added references to the parts that I have revised. I am making no more major changes until I get feedback from you guys. GroovyGuzi (talk) 13:05, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I have no objections to major changes so please don't slow down on my account! I simply object to half-made changes and empty sections. ElKevbo (talk) 15:45, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I am still making major changes, but in an offline version. I realise that it was wrong to upload half-baked and empty sections. I shall add in the changes as I complete each new section. I have been looking more closely at the references and footnotes. I think big chunks of the existing text will have to go. Whoever wrote them has clearly relied too heavily on a small number of authors (Noemi, Ehsani & Knodt, Stepp-Greany, Warschauer) whose works are not representative of the state of the art of CALL. I found a few dead URLs too and links to some of my own out-of-date works. I am flattered to have the links and there is no problem re copyright as nearly everything I write is subject to a Creative Commons Licence (just acknowledge me). Currently the article presents a very narrow view of CALL that is in need of serious updating. I'll get on with the job! GroovyGuzi 87.113.242.135 (talk) 17:58, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

The section on Computational Linguistics has been renamed Human Language Technologies and rewritten, but using two of the existing references. GroovyGuzi (talk) 12:48, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

The section on Multimedia Language Centres has been re-edited. Much of the original content has been retained, however. New references have been added. The order of the sections is being changed to reflect their relative importance in CALL. Hence Human Language Technologies follows Multimedia Language Centres. The sections that follow the Multimedia Language Centres section need substantial editing and condensing - which will be the next priority. The section on Problems and Criticisms has been removed. It was beyond repair, as most of the criticisms and problems were based on a narrow perception of CALL or were out of date. Some genuine and relevant criticisms and problems were raised, however, and will be incorporated into a new section on the effectiveness of CALL. GroovyGuzi (talk) 18:15, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I have added a list of CALL professional associations. I am surprised that this was missing. More may be recommended by readers. I am not sure of the status of CALLIS, the TESOL CALL SIG.

I am planning to add new sections and resources on Multimedia CALL, Web-based CALL, Corpora and concordancing, Computer-mediated communication (CMC) and CALL, Interactive whiteboards, CALL in virtual worlds, Teacher education in CALL, The impact of CALL. Have I missed anything? GroovyGuzi (talk) 11:05, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

The See also section has been verified and added to. I have added new verifiable titles to the Resources section, now renamed Bibliography - which will be referenced extensively as I re-edit the article as a whole. I removed the original link to Loucky (2010) as it bypassed a subscription service - which I believe to be dishonest. The link now goes to the TOC page of the journal (Literary and Linguistic Computing, OUP) in which the article appears. I checked most of the citations in the sections that I have not yet re-edited. Ehsani & Kodt (1998) are cited several times. They are a reliable source, but speech technology has moved on in leaps and bounds since 1998, and this source is therefore no longer a reflection of ICT's capabilities in this area. Stepp-Cready (2002) is a reliable source, though also a bit dated now. I cannot verify the references to Leigh Thelmadatter's article, "The Computers Are Coming … Are Here!", TESOL Greece Newsletter 95, but it appears that large sections of the Wikipedia article as edited by Thelmadatter in 2007 are a reproduction of this article at http://vennyoktarina75.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/call.doc. I checked all the references to Noemi Domingo's article. The actual date of the article cannot be verified, but the dates of the articles and books cited in the article all predate 2000, and it is clearly an outdated source. Noemi Domingo is not a familiar name in the world of CALL. Clearly, the Wikipedia article still needs a lot of work to bring it up to date. GroovyGuzi (talk) 11:49, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

The section on CALL software design has been revised to incorporate a summary of Stepp-Greany's article. The sections on Role changing in teachers and students, the Use of CALL for the four skills and the Advantages of CALL have been removed as they tend to labour the points made by Stepp-Greany, who provides the main input for these sections. As the article continues to takes shape, these points will be included more discreetly and succinctly. GroovyGuzi (talk) 19:46, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Title of the section headed CALL software design changed to CALL software design and pedagogy to reflect its contents more accurately. Minor changes to the section headed CALL typology and phases of CALL. Title of the section headed Multimedia language centres changed to Multimedia CALL, with new text on multimedia CALL added at the beginning of the section. I am reasonably happy with the structure of the article at this stage. It makes sense as it stands, and I can now continue adding new sections, as planned, on Web-based CALL, Corpora and concordancing, Computer-mediated communication (CMC) and CALL, Interactive whiteboards, CALL in virtual worlds, Teacher education in CALL, The impact of CALL. GroovyGuzi (talk) 12:07, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

New section on Web-based CALL added. GroovyGuzi (talk) 13:20, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Redundant references in Further reading section removed, as recommended under Wikipedia guidelines. Current further reading references will remain for the time being until incorporated as citations in the main text within the next 2-3 weeks. GroovyGuzi (talk) 10:21, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I have added two more sections to this article: Corpora, concordances and CALL, and CALL in virtual worlds. For the time being, I aim to leave the article as it is, apart from making minor additions and improvements. It may be desirable to add further sections on Computer-mediated communication, Interactive whiteboards, Teacher education in CALL and Mobile-assisted language learning, but the article as it stands now covers a wide range of current manifestations of CALL that go far beyond the areas covered by the original article on which I started work in November 2010, and it includes many more citations that can be followed up by readers who wish to explore different aspects of CALL in more depth. GroovyGuzi (talk) 17:41, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Martin Lapworth has contacted me suggesting that a section on authoring tools could be added. Sounds like a good idea. There is a module on CALL authoring programs (Module 2.5) at the ICT4LT site (which I edit): http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod2-5.htm GroovyGuzi (talk) 13:45, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

I have archived all the old discussions (August 2007 to March 2010) as they are no longer relevant to the article as it now stands.GroovyGuzi (talk) 10:10, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to ClueBot NG for spotting serious case of vandalism by Supyanhussin and reverting to previous version GroovyGuzi (talk) 12:36, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I’ve taken a close look at Supyanhussin’s changes to the article. Most of them date back to an older version. They are unacceptable for the following reasons:

(1) The changes represent an outdated view of CALL, predating the definition produced by Levy (1997).

(2) Levy’s broad definition of CALL is accepted by established professional CALL associations, notably CALICO and EUROCALL. Both associations accept conference papers and publish articles on the topics that Supyanhussin claims are outside the ambit of CALL. EUROCALL has SIGs dedicated to concordancing/corpora and to CMC.

(3) The changes damage the structure of the article as a whole.

(4) The changes make the introduction read like a polemic rather than part of an encyclopaedia article. GroovyGuzi (talk) 15:13, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I have restored the previous version once again. The reasons are given above. GroovyGuzi (talk) 10:39, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Further to the above, regarding Supyanhussin's criticisms of Levy's broad definition of CALL (which were added to the main article and then removed), see also Levy & Hubbard (2005), who raise the question Why call CALL “CALL”? A reference to Levy & Hubbard has now been added to the main article. Further discussion of what people understand by CALL might be useful but should be raised here before being added to the main article. GroovyGuzi (talk) 11:27, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

DITTO: == What is "concordancers"? == Clearly, at a minimum here some _links_ to the definitions of these highly technical terms will be required _prior_ to this "Corpora and concordancers" section, however, from an more general editing perspective, assuming in advance that this article could be made accessible to the non-specialist reader, I would have greatly preferred an introduction to terminology of CAL, and a discussion of these specific terms during their first usage (I.E., in a previous section); these terms do seem rather specialized to the perspective of experts in "CAL".

What is "corpora"?
The text never defines it, and I have not been able to find it.

85.102.139.215 (talk) 21:52, 26 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I got this from dictionary.com, it is the plural of corpus which means

cor·pus [kawr-puhs] Show IPA noun, plural -po·ra  [-per-uh] Show IPA for 1–3, 5, -pus·es for 4. 1. a large or complete collection of writings: the entire corpus of Old English poetry. 2. the body of a person or animal, especially when dead. 3. Anatomy. a body, mass, or part having a special character or function. 4. Linguistics. a body of utterances, as words or sentences, assumed to be representative of and used for lexical, grammatical, or other linguistic analysis. 5. a principal or capital sum, as opposed to interest or income. MilkStraw532 (talk) 22:03, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately byki has been discontinued and is no longer available. Many people still have copies on their laptop or computer. Please share these with others who wish to learn new languages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.2.160.50 (talk) 11:41, 23 August 2018 (UTC)