TEFL Lake Worth Florida

CALL (Computer-Aided Language Learning) 63. In our modern times, there are organisations that use computers as tools for the learning of languages. I live and teach in france, and there are several such organisations that operate here. I work for one of them. It must be said that there is a difference between sitting a student down in front of a computer and saying 'here, do these exercises' and providing them with a structured, organised, well-thought-out method that involves the use of a computer. And, should this method rely totally on the computer, or should there be a certain amount of interaction with a flesh-and-blood teacher also? I feel that a combination of using the computer, with a stuctured program, and interaction with a teacher can be a very successful program. I have seen the advances that students can make using just such an approach. In my experience, an effective CALL system must have several factors. Firstly, there must be divisions of level, according to the abilities of the students. This is a given, as you cannot have a beginner student learning the same material as an advanced student. It must be structured; it must feed in grammar and vocabulary in a gradual fashion, so as to not overload the student in the beginning and to give them the structures that are appropriate for their level. It must also be interesting, it must keep the attention of the student. This latter factor is why, in our organisation, which is worldwide, we have a storyline running through all off our lessons, introducing the characters at the beginners stage, and following the characters through their lives and trials and tribulations, up to the advanced, practically bilingual stage of their learning. I believe that the most effective computer-aided learning systems must allow the students to learn in a natural way. That is to say that language must be acquired, not imposed. We consider that our system allows the student to learn in the same way as a child would learn, through repitition and reproduction of the language. The initial learning is done with the computer system, and the production and implementation of the language is done with a teacher and other students. The students have the opportunity to listen to a stucture and repeat several times on the computer, to immerse themselves in the storyline by playing the part of one of the characters and to complete little assessments at regular intervals on the computer to verify that they have understood what they have learnt. The final verification of whether they have totally assimilated and understood is performed with a teacher and other students, according to the level of the students. There are also lots of websites accessible which offer a form of CALL. With these websites, you can access exercises which you can do on-line and then check your answers to see how well you did. I believe that websites such as these are very useful, but not as a stand-alone learning approach. The reason for this is that you can do the exercises and see the mistakes you made, but you rarely have access to the explanations you may need to understand WHY you made the mistake in the first place. I believe that these websites should be used as a 'backup', as a source of homework and extra practice to ensure that the student has well-understood the target structure and wishes to verify their understanding. To summarize, I am in favour of Computer-Aided Learning, but not as a stand-alone method. I believe that the use of a computer can be invaluable, due to the possibility of structuring the system, but that it should always be complemented with a certain amount of 'teacher Time'. Students will always need to be able to ask questions, have reassurance and communicate with someone in front of them, and, of course, that is not possible with a system that relies soley upon the use of a computer.