CALL And Teacher's Role

Computers are the part of our everyday life. The rapidly increasing use of computer technology is changing the lives of millions of people and the social organizations in which they work. Computers contribute to teaching many subjects at schools, especially in language learning. CALL, an acronym for Computer-Aided Language Learning, has begun to be loved and admired by learners as an important addition to the classroom situation. As CALL is a mixture of pedagogy and computational linguistics, it uses computers in order to increase the students'exposure to interactive language situations, or as a replacement for teachers in order to make for more flexible learning environments. With the computer, language learners gain many different kinds of opportunities to practice and to receive feedback on performance, including practice and feedback levels and types which are tailored to the learner's current level.This thesis begins with a definition of CALL and the brief history of CALL systems'development. After the introduction to different CALL applications, the thesis dosensses the advantages and limitations of CALL. Then it focuses on three components of the CALL classroom, namely,'the computer','the learner','the teacher'.Among the three components,"the learner"enjoys most popularity nowadays in most research papers. A large amount of energy has been devoted to the studies of"the learner"and the interaction between"the learner"and"the computer"while very little attention has been paid to studying"the teacher".In fact, it is a great need for more research on"the teacher"because teachers play a key role in promoting the development of CALL and helping learners to learn autonomously. So the training of teachers in how to implement learner training in their classrooms is discussed at the end of this thesis.