CALL Evaluation by Developers, a Teacher, and Students
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/cj.v23i1.93-138Keywords:
CALL Evaluation, Criteria, English as a Second LanguageAbstract
Researchers and teachers agree that evaluation of CALL should ideally inform pedagogical choices about how best to use CALL, but how to go about such an evaluation is not clear. This study offers an example of a context-based evaluation by operationalizing criteria for CALL evaluation and administering the instruments to three groups of stakeholders: the people who developed the content for the CALL materials, the teacher, and the students. The CALL materials were Longman English online (LEO). The setting was a community college English as a second language class in New York. Results, which focused on the agreement among stakeholders and their assessment of factors pertaining to six criteria, indicated good agreement among stakeholders and overall positive evaluations, but also identified some areas for improvement in the materials and the evaluation instruments.
References
Bachman, L., & Palmer, A. (1996). Language testing in practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brown, H. D. (2000). Principles of language learning and teaching (4th ed.). New York: Longman.
Burston, J. (2003). Proving IT works. CALICO Journal, 20 (2), 219-226.
Chapelle, C. A. (2001). Computer applications in second language acquisition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Chapelle, C.A. (2003). English language learning and technology: Lectures on teaching and research in the age of information and communication. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.
Crookes, G., & Chaudron, C. (2001). Guidelines for language classroom instruction. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (3rd ed.) (pp. 29-42). Boston: Heinle & Heinle Thomson Learning.
Dunkel, P. (1991). The effectiveness research on computer-assisted instruction and computer-assisted language learning. In P. Dunkel (Ed.), Computer-assisted language learning and testing: Research issues and practice (pp. 5-36). New York: Newbury House.
Jaeger, R. (1990). Statistics. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (2000). Techniques and principles in language teaching (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University press.
Lightbown, P., & Spada, N. (1999). How languages are learned (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
Mellow, J. D. (2002). Toward principled eclecticism in language teaching: The two-dimensional model and the centering principle. TESL_EJ Online Journal. Retrieved August 6, 2003 from http://www.kyoto-su.an.jp/information/test-ej/ej20/al.html
Pederson, K. M. (1987). Research on CALL. In W. F. Smith, (Ed.), Modern media in foreign language education: Theory and implementation (pp. 99-132). Lincolnwood, IL: National Textbook Company.
Pienemann, M. (1985). Learnability and syllabus construction. In K. Hyltenstam & M. Pienneman (Eds.), Modeling and assessing second language acquisition (pp. 2375). Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters.
Rost, M., & Fuchs, M. (2004). Longman English interactive. New York: Pearson Education.
Savignon, S. (2001). Communicative language teaching for the twenty-first century. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (3rd ed.) (pp. 13-28). Boston: Heinle & Heinle Thomson Learning.
Skeehan. P. (1998). A cognitive approach to language learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stake, R. E. (1994). Case studies. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 236-247). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Yin, R. (1994). Case study research: Design and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.