Revisiting Computer-Assisted Language Teaching: What Else Do Tertiary-Level EFL Teachers Need to Know?

Computer-assisted language teaching (CALT) is widely used in teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) in college. As illustrated by the existing research, CALT is valuable in that it can leverage technological affordances (e.g., multimodal resources or interactive spaces) in motivating students’...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Xiaodong Zhang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Kassel University Press 2021-08-01
Series:International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET)
Online Access:https://online-journals.org/index.php/i-jet/article/view/21815
Description
Summary:Computer-assisted language teaching (CALT) is widely used in teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) in college. As illustrated by the existing research, CALT is valuable in that it can leverage technological affordances (e.g., multimodal resources or interactive spaces) in motivating students’ learning interest. However, beyond the technological level, CALT treats language (i.e., vocabulary and grammar) separately from content de/construction (e.g., questions-based content comprehension). This means that to further improve CALT in the EFL context, the students’ understanding of the relationship between language and content, which contributes to the success of literacy activities, must be fostered pedagogically. As such, this paper introduces systemic functional linguistics and argues for its use as a complementary tool for students’ improved engagement in CALT. It also offers recommended practices for teachers in this regard.
ISSN:1863-0383