Advantage/Disadvantage of CALL
Computer assisted language learning (CALL) has always been encouraged to be practiced by teachers as people believe it can provide experiential learning to students, boost their motivation to learn and thus, enhancing their achievement. CALL is also really conducive as it is flexible and can be easily accessed besides it helps students to build greater networking. Once students can get access to unlimited resources of language learning platforms, it opens a window for students to not only learn the language but also learn the culture and be more familiar with it.
Those are some of the advantages of CALL that has been presented in the slides. I am here to discuss another advantage that I think students would benefit from CALL. For me, by integrating the use of computer and technology in language class, it gives a great exposure to students to familiarise themselves with the technology. Since we are now entering the world of high technology, we could expect that in future, everything will be technology-based. Therefore, through CALL, we have subtly prepared the students for the future especially for those who are living in the rural and remote area. It is like killing two birds with one stone, learning language while familiarising oneself with technology.
As for the disadvantage, it piques my interest to discuss further on the knowledge of teacher. I agree that teacher's knowledge of technology might hinder the success of implementing CALL. However, I believe that we can bring out the best in CALL by not forcing it to teachers to really implement it in class. Some teachers are already good at teaching but when they are stressing out with how to use technology and teach language, they tend to not perform their best. It reminds me of a teacher during my Field Experience. (Please note that the school I went to was one of the schools that fully utilised FROG VLE). She said to me that she no longer had fun teaching because for her, to cope with technology which is really not her style was really stressful. She used to be really enthusiastic in preparing teaching materials, but when everything was taken over by technology, she just lost her interest in teaching, basically because it was stressful for her. She was just in her mid 40s, an age that for me is not too old to learn new things, but everybody has their own style and to change by force, might not change something good to be better.
To conclude, I think everything has its advantages and disadvantages. We can always look for solutions to minimise the drawbacks and we should not only look at the advantages which eventually can bring overlooked downsides.
Those are some of the advantages of CALL that has been presented in the slides. I am here to discuss another advantage that I think students would benefit from CALL. For me, by integrating the use of computer and technology in language class, it gives a great exposure to students to familiarise themselves with the technology. Since we are now entering the world of high technology, we could expect that in future, everything will be technology-based. Therefore, through CALL, we have subtly prepared the students for the future especially for those who are living in the rural and remote area. It is like killing two birds with one stone, learning language while familiarising oneself with technology.
As for the disadvantage, it piques my interest to discuss further on the knowledge of teacher. I agree that teacher's knowledge of technology might hinder the success of implementing CALL. However, I believe that we can bring out the best in CALL by not forcing it to teachers to really implement it in class. Some teachers are already good at teaching but when they are stressing out with how to use technology and teach language, they tend to not perform their best. It reminds me of a teacher during my Field Experience. (Please note that the school I went to was one of the schools that fully utilised FROG VLE). She said to me that she no longer had fun teaching because for her, to cope with technology which is really not her style was really stressful. She used to be really enthusiastic in preparing teaching materials, but when everything was taken over by technology, she just lost her interest in teaching, basically because it was stressful for her. She was just in her mid 40s, an age that for me is not too old to learn new things, but everybody has their own style and to change by force, might not change something good to be better.
To conclude, I think everything has its advantages and disadvantages. We can always look for solutions to minimise the drawbacks and we should not only look at the advantages which eventually can bring overlooked downsides.
Ye should not force teachers to use technology. Some teachers teach very well simply by talking.
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