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Reviewing CALL history can be something useful. As Davies (1997) points out, it is important that we learn from the lessons of the past - so that we don't repeat the same mistakes. Or as Beatty (2003) says:

It is important to preserve such history not just to give a sense of the changing focus of CALL over time, but also to ensure that researchers do not overlook earlier issues and developments and waste time reinventing the wheel.

The use of computers in language learning is not something new, as we all know. It began with large mainframe computers in some American universities in the 1960s. The most famous system of those times was PLATO (Programmed Logic/Learning for Automated Teaching), which was a pioneering platform developed by the University of Illinois working with a business partner (Control Data Corporation); its programming language was not only designed for the purpose of teaching languages and although it was finally turned off in the 1990s, the name is still used today. However, it was in the 1980s, with the appearance of micro or personal computers, when the use of computers for learning purposes started to spread. The evolution of its pedagogical possibilities has been related to technological change. The very few options of computers such as the Timex-Sinclair or the first Commodore cannot be compared with multimedia computers with CD-ROMs (Compact Disk Read-Only Memory), which have been replaced at present by larger volume media such as DVDs (Digital Videodiscs). Hundreds of new CALL programs were published in the 1990s, but it was the arrival of Internet connections what changed many things. In the last years broadband penetration has been growing quickly; however, we shouldn't forget that in many countries the vast majority of people simply don't have the computers and high speed net connections needed. New web social tools are the last technological evolution which have given computers greater communicative power (and learning a language has a lot to do with learning to communicate).

We have a complete description of CALL history in Delcloque (2000). He has divided the publications on CALL history into two categories:

A - Objective description of events and projects.
Examples of this first type are Ahmad, K. et al. (1985) [Computers, Language Learning and Language Teaching. CUP] and Levy (1997) [the reference is in a previous post].

B - Interpretative description of different phases.

to be continued

On these days I'm checking a lot of applications of the Web2.0 thinking on how to use them more effectively in the classroom and among other documents I found this special issue of the Guardian with interviews with a lot of the successful pioneers

This is the summary video, and the main page with all the complete articles and interviews

something different, also great, a series of podcasts and videos from the K12 online conference http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=56 on how to use all these applications in the classroom, they suggest lot of ideas.

Llevo unos días de descanso, o lo que es lo mismo, tratando de hacer sólo aquello que me apetece en la web y nada del trabajo que actualmente hago. Esto es una novedad en mucho tiempo y hasta es raro y difícil de llevar a cabo.
Como siempre descubro mil cosas nuevas. Estar actualizado es bien costoso. No time to read and experience all new tools and sites on the Web. What I'm doing most of the time is listening to French audios and videos, my French is terrible, but hopefully I will improve it (j'espère),
I love this song:


and don't miss the exercise prepared by Carmen Vera
http://platea.pntic.mec.es/~cvera/hotpot/le_papillon.htm

enjoy your time

I sometimes like to impress my students by telling them interesting stories about the origins of words. I like to think that a funny story will help learners to retain the word better. Well, I have a confession to make. Some of these etymological adventures are simply the product of my (or others') imagination. For example, it is a commonly believed in England that the word "butterfly" comes from reversing the first letter of "flutter" and "by". It would be lovely if it were true. It's not. Butterfly is a pure Germanic word. Not interesting at all. To see a "butterfly fluttering by" is a much more romantic and effective way of remembering the word. Another one that is completely of my own invention is the word "bee". I decided that because the English word "apron" came from French "naperon", the "n" becoming attached to article -"an apron", that the French word "abeille" could have easily become "a bee". Utterly false. I would like to take tbis opportunity to apologise to my students for all this misleading information. At least I have a vivid imagination! The one about "apron" is true, however.

It's the dawn of a new day, literally, a windy, rainy dawn in Abu Dhabi. It's CHRISTMAS day, and one of my New Year's Resolutions is to start using this blog more (I have several, blogs and resolutions) ... but I've started THIS one, as a central location to pull together some of my other projects (in which case if you want to track what I'm up to you could do so via this blog's RSS feed, in theory).

Right now, my project is Christmas. In Abu Dhabi, we work the day before and after Christmas, but our gracious hosts always grant us the day itself off. There is therefore a rare chance for pause and reflection in what is otherwise a routine work week.

I intend this blog to be about education, in particular adVances made possible through adVancED techniques in EDucation as facilitated through principled use of the read/write Web 2.0, but as I'm just starting out I'll introduce it as our annual season's greeting card. At this time of year, I try and spend time with family, friends, and community, and this post is addressed to all three.



Family: Dusty flew out from California and Glenn drove in from his workplace in the desert of Abu Dhabi, so the four of us were together again this Christmas, as you can see from our picture above or here: http://www.prof2000.pt/users/vstevens/homepage.htm#061225

Friends: For my friends I would like to offer a special holiday treat. The gift, properly wrapped, should appear below, and you can unwrap your gift by clicking here http://www.rsc-yh.ac.uk/advent/ or on the picture:

Community: For my friends online, educators all, we have our Wiki: http://happywebhead2006-7.pbwiki.com/ . Year after year we have what we call F.U.N. in this community, as you can see at the link and in the picture below.

You can click here or on the picture to see Vance's elf dance

Meanwhile, my family Bobbi, Glenn, Dusty, and (me) Vance and the cat, Musky, wish everyone a happy holiday season, and perhaps in this coming year, at last, an ascendancy of the common people, especially those in the groups listed above, whose collective activities online and elsewhere contribute to the realization of peace in the world.

I have to be careful who I say that to, or it might be misinterpreted, but we have just got hold of Nintendo's Wii, and after reading about how wonderful the revolutionary control is, and not really understanding, I finally appreciate just how great it is.



We only have the basic game that came with the console (Wii Sports), but it's a hundred times better than the way the Playstation 2 Eye Toy system works as far as recognition goes. It's great fun, and I'm sure it will be a huge success.



But, what about educational uses? Well, there's nothing out there yet that might tempt me to bring it to the classroom (unlike the PS2), but I like the fact that it's nice and light. Can't understand what makes Stephen Downes say that "Stuff like Wii and mobile computing are much more important" (than Second Life). Mobile computing I can understand, but what has he seen in the Wii to make that statement? Or maybe he's just being controversial? He's not really said much about the matter, but I am intrigued as I respect a lot of what he has written about educational technology. I'll be following this one.

I find amazing material every day, like this video.



Could this be used to teach Maths in English? to introduce a lesson on logarithms? to teach some expressions in English? or even pronunciation? or to talk about relationships? Great anyway,

What’s the key to success in learning a foreign language? Surely it’s a genuine desire to communicate with other people. I can’t think of another valid reason. That’s why in general women are better than men at learning languages. If you’re a man and you want to learn a language, I’m going to tell you why you will find it more difficult than a woman and what you can do about it.

I’m probably going to be accused of stereotyping men and women here, but time and time again studies have shown that generally, (there are always exceptions) men score higher in maths tests and women score higher in language tests. I’m not a scientist, and I don’t want to bore you with scientific detail, but my experiences as a teacher pretty much confirm the scientists’ view.

When I’m teaching a conversation class, it’s instantly obvious who are going to make the fastest progress because these are the ones who quickly get involved by asking questions. And more often than not, it’s the female members of the group that ask the most questions.

Women are simply more interested in human beings than men. They genuinely mean it when they ask “how are you?” Being wives and mothers may have something to do with it, I mean, they are conditioned by society to be the ones that care. Men, on the other hand, are less interested in people and more interested in things, notably, cars, computers, gadgets, etc.

If you are man reading this article, you have to get out of your macho cave and learn to be more interested in people. And swallow your pride when it comes to making mistakes. Women have fewer complexes about committing errors, because the important thing for them is building relationships. We all learn by making mistakes, it’s a natural part of the process. Learning a language is not a competition – men sometimes see their limitations as a “defeat” so they prefer not to speak at all. Giving up the idea that your are in a competition to see who's the the best would be a good start for a lot of men.

What made Shakespeare the greatest writer in English literature? His stories were good, for sure - but a lot of them were simply re-workings of historical events or legends. His rhythm and rhyme were good, too - but everyone else was doing the same. What made Shakespeare great, and what can make you great too, was the size of his...

Vocabulary! It is believed that the average person is able to recognise between 10 and 15 thousand words. Shakespeare used 35,000 words in his plays and sonnets, thus making him the ultimate communicator in history.

What are the benefits you can derive from improving your vocabulary?

1 Greater understanding means being better informed. So it's easy to read comic books but a bit more tricky reading "the Times". Want the edge on your colleagues or competitors? You must be at ease with your language, and have a good understanding. it can be embarrassing and even destructive to find yourself in a situation where everyone is using a word that you don't know. Knowledge is power!

2 Add spice to your public speaking. Using the same words over and over gets boring. Having a large vocabulary will always keep your audience keen. Be careful though, using long words just to impress will always have the opposite effect, people will switch off if they think you are being pompous.

3. Get your message across more effectively. Many people believe that the word 'synonym' means 'another word for the same thing'. This is not true. If two words meant exactly the same thing, we wouldn't need them. Synonyms are similar words, but not the same. Having a good range of synonyms can add not only richness to your speech, but also make you communicate more effectively. The nuances that you create in your choice of vocabulary will hit the nail on the head as far as your listeners are concerned. They will go away knowing exactly what the message was, not just some vague idea.

The best way to improve your vocabulary is get a thesaurus and start adding words to your active vocabulary. Using mind maps is great way to organise your ideas: write a word in the middle of blank sheet of paper and use colors and images to build associations. If you've never used mind maps before, now's the time to get started. You can see some examples at my site.

I've just finished a video presentation that I was asked to make for a publisher's in-house conference in Mexico next week. It's not great, but I found making it a lot of fun. I must do more of this!







Here is a better quality version (requires Quicktime 7.0): Web 2.0 & Language Learning

You may be tempted to invest in some language-learning software that you have seen advertised. Don’t be fooled by the advertiser’s claims. All that glitters is not gold – so it may have lots of fancy colours and use all the latest technology, but is it actually more effective than other, more simple methods? In my opinion, no. Here’s why the humble flash card out-performs software every time:

1. They’re cheap
Go to any stationer’s and buy some blank cards, the size of a business card. They cost next to nothing. A language learning CD-ROM will cost you at least 20 dollars, perhaps as much as two hundred!

2. You can use them anywhere
I started learning French when I was living in London and travelling to work by bus. Even if you do have a laptop computer, try getting it out when you’re the last one the bus or train and there’s only standing room left! With a small pile of flash cards in my pocket, I could be learning French anywhere, anytime – even while walking down the street.

3. You won’t get eyestrain
Even while writing this article, my eyes are starting to hurt. I don’t know many people who can honestly say they like reading off a computer screen. With your flash cards you can create the right learning environment for you, whether it’s at your desk, on the sofa, or out in the garden.

4. They don’t break down, and they never go out of date.
I still use mine to remind me of things that I’ve forgotten, even after several years. They have an unconditional lifetime guarantee – just don’t lose them! And you’ll never have any “down time” because your computer’s being repaired.

5. They work!
The first set of flash cards you make should be single words. So you write the word on one side and the translation on the other. Test yourself until you have a good vocabulary of about a hundred words. Then you are ready to use your flash cards to learn complete sentences. Use the words that you have already learned to make sentences to remember. Be sure to ask someone who speaks the language you want to learn to check your flash cards for errors – you don’t want to practise mistakes!

Start learning those words with flash cards and you’ll soon be ready to join a real language class. Once you’ve got a few words and sentences, you’ll really benefit from making conversation with native speakers – it’s up to you to start speaking!

Another form of English is that of Australia, a commonwealth country that still has the Queen of England as its head of state. Australia was at one time the world's biggest open prison, the British would send their unwanted criminals there, many of whom never returned (even after serving their sentence, the chances of surviving the return trip were so slim it was better to stay put).

Many convicts were Londoners or Irish immigrants, and the Australian accent today still has traces of these influences. Other European immigrants later on have made a contribution to the accent and intonation too.

Australian has its own words and expressions, some of which have been exported successfully to the rest of the English speaking world. However, some that are claimed to be Australian are highly doubtful, for example, rhyming slang has certainly come from Cockney London.

Some of my favourite words that are commonly known in Europe and elsewhere are "smoothie" for milkshake, "Sheila" for woman (Sheila was once a very common first name), "tucker" for food, although "tuck shop" exists in English - a kind of snack bar found in schools. A "Matilda" is a sleeping roll, from where the song "waltzing matilda" has its origins. "Walkabout" was first used to describe the lone journey a young aborigine made as part of his initiation into adulthood, but now refers to any kind of absense - "he's gone walkabout".

The first settlers in Australia also used the aborigine words for the new things they discovered: kangaroo, koala, wombat, boomerang, didgeridoo, etc.

Here is a link to a website that lists some common words and expressions in Australian English. Some of the words listed for me can't be sure to be 100% Australian, but don't throw a wobbly, it's just for fun!

Dictionary of Australian slang

The largest community of English speaking people is not American, as one would believe, but India. English and Hindi have been happily mingling together for a centuries now, just like Fench and English did after the Norman invasions.

The fact that there are more people speaking English in India than Britain, America, Canada and Australia combined raises an important question about the way we teach grammar "rules" to foreign students.

If one billion people find it normal to say "are you liking your meal?", what right do we have to say it's wrong? Grammar is merely an attempt to find order in what we say, it wasn't there before language itself. So the majority rule applies - if most people say it - it must be right.

Even back in England, many people (myself included) say "I was, you was, he was, we was, they was", paying little regard to whether they should use "was" or "were".

English has also benefited from the influence of Indian speakers of English with the many news words that they have given us. There's an interesting article on the BBC about "Hinglish".

Hinglish article

Online educa Berlin took place last week. I spent a busy week in one of the biggest conferences of elearning. Too much input to digest. The Web 2.0 was in the air of the conference. Many interesting sessions, but one I especially enjoyed was one of the last on Friday "Role of Game-Based Learning", with the participation of Maja Pivec, the project coordinator of
Sig-Glue,Graeme Duncan, Chief from Caspian Learning Euan Mackenzie, CEO 3MRT, and many others. More info on the sessions at http://www.online-educa.com/?a=1&b=2&c=1.

I see games as an emerging new light in the future of elearning, especially in schools, let's see what's the future brings to us.

Watch a video with several interviews in French at Jean Michel Billaut's blog . i don't know if there are any others in English.