Computer-assisted Language Learning - Typology and Phases

Typology and Phases

During the 1980s and 1990s several attempts were made to establish a CALL typology. A wide range of different types of CALL programs was identified by Davies & Higgins (1985), Jones & Fortescue (1987), Hardisty & Windeatt (1989) and Levy (1997: pp. 118ff.). These included gap-filling and Cloze programs, multiple-choice programs, free-format (text-entry) programs, adventures and simulations, action mazes, sentence-reordering programs, exploratory programs - and "total Cloze", a type of program in which the learner has to reconstruct a whole text. Most of these early programs still exist in modernised versions.

Since the 1990s it has become increasingly difficult to categorise CALL as it now extends to the use of blogs, wikis, social networking, podcasting, Web 2.0 applications, language learning in virtual worlds and interactive whiteboards (Davies et al. 2010: Section 3.7).

Warschauer (1996) and Warschauer & Healey (1998) took a different approach. Rather than focusing on the typology of CALL, they identified three historical phases of CALL, classified according to their underlying pedagogical and methodological approaches:

• Behavioristic CALL: conceived in the 1950s and implemented in the 1960s and 1970s.
• Communicative CALL: 1970s to 1980s.
• Integrative CALL: embracing Multimedia and the Internet: 1990s.

Most CALL programs in Warschauer & Healey's first phase, Behavioristic CALL (1960s to 1970s), consisted of drill-and-practice materials in which the computer presented a stimulus and the learner provided a response. At first, both could be done only through text. The computer would analyse students' input and give feedback, and more sophisticated programs would react to students' mistakes by branching to help screens and remedial activities. While such programs and their underlying pedagogy still exist today, behavioristic approaches to language learning have been rejected by most language teachers, and the increasing sophistication of computer technology has led CALL to other possibilities.

The second phase described by Warschauer & Healey, Communicative CALL, is based on the communicative approach that became prominent in the late 1970s and 1980s (Underwood 1984). In the communicative approach the focus is on using the language rather than analysis of the language, and grammar is taught implicitly rather than explicitly. It also allows for originality and flexibility in student output of language. The communicative approach coincided with the arrival of the PC, which made computing much more widely available and resulted in a boom in the development of software for language learning. The first CALL software in this phase continued to provide skill practice but not in a drill format, for example: paced reading, text reconstruction and language games, but the computer remained the tutor. In this phase computers provided context for students to use the language, such as asking for directions to a place, and programs not designed for language learning such as Sim City, Sleuth and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? were used for language learning. Criticisms of this approach include using the computer in an ad hoc and disconnected manner for more marginal aims rather than the central aims of language teaching.

The third phase of CALL described by Warschauer & Healey, Integrative CALL, starting from the 1990s, tried to address criticisms of the communicative approach by integrating the teaching of language skills into tasks or projects to provide direction and coherence. It also coincided with the development of multimedia technology (providing text, graphics, sound and animation) as well as Computer-mediated communication (CMC). CALL in this period saw a definitive shift of the use of the computer for drill and tutorial purposes (the computer as a finite, authoritative base for a specific task) to a medium for extending education beyond the classroom. Multimedia CALL started with interactive laser videodiscs such as Montevidisco (Schneider & Bennion 1984) and A la rencontre de Philippe (Fuerstenberg 1993), both of which were simulations of situations where the learner played a key role. These programs later were transferred to CD-ROMs, and new role-playing games (RPGs) such as Who is Oscar Lake? made their appearance in a range of different languages.

In a later publication Warschauer changed the name of the first phase of CALL from Behavioristic CALL to Structural CALL and also revised the dates of the three phases (Warschauer 2000):

• Structural CALL: 1970s to 1980s.
• Communicative CALL: 1980s to 1990s.
• Integrative CALL: 2000 onwards.

Bax (2003) took issue with Warschauer & Healey (1998) and Warschauer (2000) and proposed these three phases:

• Restricted CALL - mainly behaviouristic: 1960s to 1980s.
• Open CALL - i.e. open in terms of feedback given to students, software types and the role of the teacher, and including simulations and games: 1980s to 2003 (i.e. the date of Bax's article).
• Integrated CALL - still to be achieved. Bax argued that at the time of writing language teachers were still in the Open CALL phase as true integration could only be said to have be achieved when using CALL had reached a state of "normalisation" – e.g. when it was as normal as using a pen.

See also Bax & Chambers (2006) and Bax (2011), in which the topic of "normalisation" is revisited.