Revisión tecnológica del aprendizaje de idiomas asistido por ordenador: una perspectiva cronológica

El presente artículo aborda la evolución y el avance de las tecnologías del aprendizaje de lenguas asistido por ordenador (CALL por sus siglas en inglés, que corresponden a Computer- Assisted Language Learning) desde una perspectiva histórica. Esta revisión de la literatura sobre tecnologías del aprendizaje de lenguas asistido por ordenador comienza con la definición del concepto de CALL y otros términos relacionados, entre los que podemos destacar CAI, CAL, CALI, CALICO, CALT, CAT, CBT, CMC o CMI, para posteriormente analizar las primeras iniciativas de implementación del aprendizaje de lenguas asistido por ordenador en las décadas de 1950 y 1960, avanzando posteriormente a las décadas de las computadoras centrales y las microcomputadoras. En última instancia, se revisan las tecnologías emergentes en el siglo XXI, especialmente tras la irrupción de Internet, donde se presentan el impacto del e-learning, b-learning, las tecnologías de la Web 2.0, las redes sociales e incluso el aprendizaje de lenguas asistido por robots.The main focus of this paper is on the advancement of technologies in Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) from a historical perspective. The review starts by defining CALL and its related terminology, highlighting the first CALL attempts in 1950s and 1960s, and then moving to other decades of mainframes and microcomputers. At the final step, emerging technologies in 21st century will be reviewed

Girl Talk: A Dialogic Approach to Oral Narrative Storytelling Analysis in English As a Foreign Language Research

Research in the fields of Applied Linguistics (AL) and Second Language Studies (SLS) has begun addressing the ways in which second and foreign language (L2) use is a “material” struggle to understand, acquire and author L2 words for one’s own creative purposes – particularly in the face of ideologies about language learning and language use (Squires 2008; Suni 2014). This struggle has implications for the subjectivity, agency and ultimate acquisition and use of the target language by L2 users. This dissertation seeks to augment scholarship in this area by demonstrating how material struggle can surface in the process of data collection (a research interview). It presents an analysis of a recorded narrative of an English as a foreign language (EFL) user, who was a second year graduate student enrolled in a university in the southwest US. She was invited by the author -- a native speaker of English -- to tell an oral narrative story in English to a group with whom she met regularly. However, in positioning the EFL subject as “non-native” in the recruitment process, the author as a native speaker failed to anticipate the manner in which her request was interpellative (Althusser 1971[2001]), thus reproducing and subjecting the “non-native” to the ideology and discourses associated with that category and setting into motion a creative authoring of response to this interpellative call. In approaching the analysis from this perspective, this dissertation adopts an approach to oral narrative story analysis that is based on the Bakhtinian-inspired notion of dialogism (Bakhtin 1981, 1986). Dialogism underscores the resultant narrative as a collection of utterances poised to respond to the request to “tell a story,” while simultaneously addressing the ideology and discourses associated with this request. Additionally, the analysis explores the dialogic nature of the narrative from the standpoint of “tellability” (Norrick 2005; Ochs and Capps 2001), thus highlighting aspects of the narrative that render this tale of friendship, an extramarital affair and a friend “in hatred” meaningful in the context of its telling. Guided by an interest in Bakhtinian dialogism and driven by a concern for narrative tellability, three differing, yet complimentary, analyses of the narrative are explored: 1) ‐ 9 ‐ genre, register and vague (“vaguely gendered”) language, 2) face work, framing and cooperation and 3) gossip, stance and the representation of speech and voice. These analyses likewise uncover three themes that underlie the narrative context of the tale. These themes are: the backgrounding of nativeness and foregrounding of gender, the simultaneous and ambiguous struggle for solidarity and power, and the display of personal style through moral stance in the presentation of a continuous self over time and place. The implication of this work for future research and assessment in AL and SLS is addressed

The potential of mobile phones to transform teacher professional development

Futures thinking is used by governments to consider long-term strategic approaches and develop policies and practices that are potentially resilient to future uncertainty. English in Action (EIA), arguably the world’s largest English language teacher professional development (TPD) project, used futures thinking to author possible, probable and preferable future scenarios to solve the project’s greatest technological challenge: how to deliver audio-visual TPD materials and hundreds of classroom audio resources to 75,000 teachers by 2017. Authoring future scenarios and engaging in possibility thinking (PT) provided us with a taxonomy of question-posing and question-responding that assisted the project team in being creative. This process informed the successful pilot testing of a mobile phone-based technology kit to deliver TPD resources within an open distance learning (ODL) platform. Taking the risk and having the foresight to trial mobile phones in remote rural areas with teachers and students led to unforeseen innovation. As a result EIA is currently using a mobile phone-based technology kit with 12,500 teachers to improve the English language proficiency of 700,000 students. As the project scales up in its third and final phase, we are using the new technology kit—known as the ‘trainer in your pocket’—to foster a ‘quiet revolution’ in the provision of teacher professional development at scale to an additional 67,500 teachers and 10 million students

CLOUD COMPUTING OPPORTUNITIES: ENHANCING INTERACTIVE VISUAL CONTENT USAGE IN HIGHER EDUCATION LEARNING

Visual content in learning material most commonly found in schools learning materials and less in higher education learning. Students in universities and colleges are dependent on wordy textbook and lecture notes to study. Use of visual contents depends on educator’s interests, needs and willingness to provide the material to students. Nowadays, learning started to emerge at a rapid pace in producing learners with excellent academic achievements. The role of cloud computing hence increases the capability of delivering education from educator’s perspectives. The purpose of this paper is to highlight important features of cloud computing in enhancing the use of interactive visual content in higher education learning and promotes interactive learning to students. Systematic Literature Review (SLR) method is used to obtain primary data from online databases Scopus and by using the coding procedure in Grounded Theory(Strauss & Corbin, 1990), research produces meta-model data of codes extractions from primary data. Findings shows there are four major abstractions of cloud features that lead to enhancing interactive visual content use in higher education

eTwinning in Language Learning: The Perspectives of Successful Teachers

This study aims at investigating the effect of eTwinning, an innovative way of cooperative learning, on language teaching. A qualitative research design is preferred in order to explore the experiences of language teachers who have completed successful eTwinning projects. To this end, 7 ELT professionals (4 female, 3 male) from different cities of Turkey have been contacted on the Internet to share their experiences in a semi structured interview. The data was analysed descriptively to identify a) a general conceptualization of eTwinning in language learning and teaching settings, b) the advantages and c) the disadvantages of eTwinning from teachers’ perspective. The results have been discussed in the light of relevant literature. The paper ends with practical recommendations for teachers and researchers. Keywords: eTwinning, language learning, cooperative learning, ICT