Evaluation of Factors Affecting the Efficacy of English Acqusition in CALL Environment

Abstract

This paper is to elaborate on the factors that influence the learners' language acquisition in multimedia environment. It first describes a course-support hypermedia language-learning environment based on computer-assisted language learning (CALL) system. And then it does some research to identify positive and negative factors influencing the effectiveness of CALL system. The factors considered in this study were the teaching style, help options and student's motivation. After a period of two-year-research and test, the corresponding data analyses and results of this study confirmed the influence of the above factors on the effectiveness and usefulness of CALL system. Keywords-computer-assisted language learning system; hypermedia;Call systemWith the development multi-media technology and network technology, computer and multimedia as the core network has integrated in the education. The use of information technology on the development of curriculum resources will not only be the means of modern education and information and education to maximize the use of resources, but also can provide students a vast personality development platform. The effectiveness of CALL (computer-Assisted Language Learning) stems has been proven by many previous studies (e.g., Yang, 1997). They find that the CALL English teaching pattern plays an important role in improving teaching efficiency. Others have given some suggestions on improving the deficiency of application of CALL. While a communicative focus on the appropriate and meaningful use of language in a variety of contexts is still in its struggle as Stevens, et al. (1986: xii) stated, "There are several reasons why CALL has not fulfilled its early promise." Therefore a lot of researches are needed to fulfill in order to make full use of the CALL system. This paper focuses on the multimedia activities based on CALL in English class and intends to facilitate the studying process in language learning. The research is to examine the learners' use of multimedia activity from software with a particular focus on the factors that influence the learner's successful learning, including the learners' attitudes and motivation towards the multimedia activity, and evaluate the influence of teaching style and the effect of help options when the learners have difficulties in study. I. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF CALL ENVIRONMENTThe architecture of hypermedia courseware based on CALL system consists of three layers (see figure 1): visualization layer, functioning layer, and data storing layer. The visualization layer presents the actual learning material and interacts with the user or a group of users through the Internet. The functions layer serves for the processing logic and allows the users to access the teaching resources in the data store layer via the search mechanism and to check answer and get feedback via the answer-check mechanism as well. The last layer is the data store layer: like the content data, the student profiles, in which students' personal data, learning behavior, learning ...