This paper examined a group of Turkish EFL in-service teachers' perceptions about a four-week online CALL training they received on a voluntary basis. The data were collected via a background questionnaire, interviews and reflection reports written by the participating teachers. Findings demonstrated that online CALL training was beneficial for the teachers since they gained familiarity with cutting-edge CALL technologies and developed ideas about how to use them in their classes. CALL learning in cyberspace, however, was found to be too challenging for some teachers devoid of the computer skills needed to manage the online experience. Most of the teachers also expected the CALL training to be situated in their classroom contexts providing them with ample opportunities to learn and apply CALL in their local teaching contexts. Taking the various needs of the teachers into consideration, the researcher came up with suggestions for future initiatives for in-service CALL teacher education.
Computer-assisted pronunciation teaching has been shown to have favourable learning outcomes for language learners, which brought about the emergence of increasing body of research on this topic. Despite some attempted review studies, no systematic review of the line of the relevant literature has hitherto been observed. This study seeks to fill in this gap by reviewing the research on computer-assisted pronunciation teaching in L2 classes published between 2010 and 2021 May. 26 studies were scrutinized in terms of their contexts and participants, technology used, pronunciation aspect analysed, research design and focus, data collection tools and theoretical framework. The results showed that most of the studies were conducted with EFL/ESL learners at university level. Computer-assisted pronunciation training (CAPT) and Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) programs were utilized more than other technological tools. Quantitative design was the dominant research method, which was followed by mixed method design while few studies were grounded in a theoretical framework. Segmental features of pronunciation received more attention. Pronunciation achievement, learner perceptions, relationship between some variables related to pronunciation learning and student interaction/ participation were the main topics of investigation. The findings suggested that teachers had a key role in promoting the effectiveness of computer-assisted pronunciation teaching by scaffolding, motivating, and guiding the learners as they use CAPT or technological tools. To this end teacher training that supports teachers in developing these competencies can be beneficial. Further research can focus on languages other than English, be conducted in primary and secondary school level and have longitudinal designs.
<p>Which dynamics of language learning and teaching change when traditional face-to-face language classrooms are moved to the online medium? And more importantly, does the advent of online technologies change the ways language teachers teach and language learners learn? In “Disruptive Technologies and the Language Classroom”, Hampel (2019) provides new insights into these important questions. She points out that online language learning and teaching destabilizes the language classroom by affecting its overall dynamics and by opening up new venues for language learning and teaching. By referring to her years-long experience in online language teaching and research, she argues that understanding the effects of these online technologies will better help language learners to communicate successfully in the second language (L2). Viewing communication as an aim and instrument in language learning, she focuses on the idiosyncrasies of computer-mediated communication and presents a theoretical discussion of computer-mediated communication’s unique features and affordances in reference to related literature. </p>
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