FOREIGN-LANGUAGE SOFTWARE: THE STATE OF THE ART or PICK A CARD, ANY (FLASH) CARD

Abstract

This article gives a report on the state of the art with respect to software development for CALI for all languages, but with some emphasis on Russian. Mr. Baker concludes that much of the software has been developed either by good language teachers who do not know enough about programming, or good programmers who do not know enough about language teaching. He concludes that our best teachers should be given released time to work as members of teams to develop good software. He describes ten areas in which much current software is deficient: 1. There is a general lack of solid instructional design; 2. The techniques of discovery learning are used very little; 3. 95% is trivial; 4. It is fragmented rather than integrated; 5. Lesson content is not accurate for the language taught; 6. The programming is not user friendly due to poor formatting and documentation; 7. There is too much cuteness; 8. There is no standard for the methods of obtaining foreign characters; 9. The software is not ready and tested when advertised; and 10. It is lacking in portability.