Glenn Stockwell and I are excited to announce a panel at the forthcoming Eurocall Conference in Bordeaux (September 8-11) on ‘The Learner in Changing CALL Environments’. Speakers include Cynthia White, Phil Hubbard, Jozef Colpaert and Glenn and myself. We hope you will be able to join us in Bordeaux!
The past few years have produced a new body of research where the learner is given a more central role in a range of different ways, prompted to a large degree by new developments in technology. For example, learners may express their opinions through forums such as blogging (e.g., Pinkman, 2005) or various forms of computer-mediated communication (e.g., Darhower, 2007). The emergence of social networking sites such as Active Worlds and Second Life have empowered learners to make decisions about who they wish to converse with, by what mode (i.e., text chat or oral communication), and to freely engage in discussion with a real audience who shares similar interests (e.g., Dudeney, 2008). Furthermore, learners have free and easy access to an enormous quantity and variety of authentic text, audio, and video material along with tools to aid comprehension. These new developments can leave educators with problems in how to deal with the freedom that learners are given while at the same time designing courses to achieve certain learning goals, raising several pertinent questions. How much freedom should learners be given? Is there such a thing as too much freedom? How can specific goals be incorporated into these learning environments? What are learner expectations regarding instruction? What forms should feedback take? The panelists in this session will address these questions and consider other questions related to the issue of learner centeredness in CALL, and considerations educators need to be aware of with the changing balance between teacher and learner.
Tags: call, conference