Design and Development of CALL Courses in Japan

Abstract

Features of Japanese education and student learning styles influenced the authors' design, development, and implementation of a computer-assisted language learning curriculum to support English writing and computing skills. The authors' research extended over a four-year period while teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in a University setting in central Japan. This discussion covers implementation of computer-mediated communication (CMC) and the language and computing skills students need to acquire for cross-cultural e-mail exchanges. CMC syllabus design within the Japanese context and within a second language acquisition (SLA) research framework is also discussed.

The Role of Computer-Supported Discussion for Language Teacher Education: What Do the Students Say?

“…Since 1997, use of CMC (email and web-based discussion) has become an integral component of many courses in both the on-campus and distance/block courses. Since we are aware of the inadequacies of the "technological potential" argument for implementing CMC, we are interested in considering both explicit aspects of online education (e.g., course and task design) and implicit affects (e.g., potentially different social interactions among students (Johnson & Brine, 2000;Ragsdale, 1988) as part of our research. Although we have collected data from several different courses, only one is described in this article; however, discussion will be linked into more general findings from other studies.…”

Online Discussion in a CALL Course for Distance Language Teachers

“…In line with this widespread use, teacher educators are very keen to include CMC activities in their teacher education programs and try to give teachers practical experience of CMC through their programs (Kamhi-Stein, 2000;Motteram & Teague, 2000;Murray, 2000;Nunan, 1999). In the context of a CALL course particularly, online discussion activities are being integrated into the course as a means of encouraging teachers to develop knowledge through experience (Johnson & Brine, 2000;Son, 2000b).…”