CALL in the K-12 Context: Language Learning Outcomes and Opportunities

Authors

  • Paige Ware Southern Methodist University
  • Emily Hellmich University of California at Berkeley

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11139/cj.31.2.140-157

Keywords:

secondary, elementary, classroom, CALL

Abstract

This review of CALL research in K-12 contexts is structured around two distinct bodies of research, each of which generates different types of questions emerging from the diverse demands of elementary and secondary education. The first area focuses on learning outcomes and builds on the use of conventional measures of learner achievement and instructional efficacy to help guide systematic decisions about innovations in curriculum and assessment. At stake from an outcome orientation is how technology might amplify the pace, reach, and efficacy of using technology to move students toward established curricular goals. The second area views new technologies as the site of learning opportunities, and researchers in this vein ask how to rethink which goals are targeted, which assessments are retooled, and which new areas of learning are forged with digital tools. The affordances of new technologies are viewed as products of a steady stream of innovation that offers novel learning environments, expanded semiotic resources, and new modes of communication. We begin with an orientation to K-12 language education contexts as a backdrop to our central focus on synthesizing current CALL research, and we conclude by discussing the challenges and possibilities of integrating technology into K-12 language education.

Author Biographies

  • Paige Ware, Southern Methodist University
    Paige Ware is an associate professor in the School of Education at Southern Methodist University. She earned her PhD in Education, Language, Literacy, and Culture at the University of California at Berkeley after teaching EFL for many years in Spain and Germany. Her research focuses on the use of multimedia technologies for fostering language and literacy growth among adolescents, and on the use of Internet-based communication for promoting intercultural awareness. Her research has been funded by a National Academy of Education/Spencer Post-Doctoral Fellowship and by the International Research Foundation for English Language Education (TIRF).  She was also the principal investigator of a Department of Education Office of English Language Acquisition professional development grant supporting secondary school educators.
  • Emily Hellmich, University of California at Berkeley
    Emily A. Hellmich is a third-year doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley in the Language, Literacy, and Culture program. Rooted in experience teaching foreign language both domestically and abroad, her primary interests are how second and foreign languages are being conceptualized and taught in today’s global, mobile, and digital world. Her dissertation work focuses on how technology is instantiated into second and foreign language classrooms and what impact such integration has on student and teacher perceptions of language and language use. 

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Published

2014-05-29

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Review article

How to Cite

Ware, P., & Hellmich, E. (2014). CALL in the K-12 Context: Language Learning Outcomes and Opportunities. CALICO Journal, 31(2), 140-157. https://doi.org/10.11139/cj.31.2.140-157