This is a good news, bad news story, which — as is to be expected — makes the telling of it a bit awkward. Furthermore, there is a common-sense quality to much of what needs to be said, which may make some of it seem self-evident. Nonetheless, some benefit may well emerge from an overview, an attempt to assess both where we are and whither we might go in the use of computers and other products of modern technology for foreign language instruction.
The good news is that we are on the threshold of some very exciting developments. Indeed, some excellent and highly creative work has been done already. The bad news is that educators are floundering in the face of a computer flood. In the December 7, 1982 issue of The New York Times, under the title "Computer Pitfalls Spur School Vigil," Fred M. Hechinger wrote about a new service offered by Consumers Union and the Educational Products Information Exchange Institute (EPIE). The new alliance, he says, was formed with hopes of averting "the kinds of errors that killed earlier educational technologies and that already threaten to turn the current educational computer boom into a costly bust."
One thing is manifest. Anything having to do with computers is a hot topic at foreign-language meetings these days. Computers were the subject of one of the Northeast Conference's Winter Workshops in February of 1983, and the Pre-Conference Workshop on computers at the October 1982 meeting of the Massachusetts Foreign Language Association (MaFLA) was certainly not unique in being oversubscribed. All of the sessions with "computer" in the title at the Sixth Annual conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (at Youngstown State University in Ohio), also in October 1982, were jammed. But a paradigm for what we do not need is the presentation at one recent conference of "Some Trivial Ways of Using a Microcomputer in Language Teaching." The use of "trivial" was all too literally true, as it turned out. We are past the need for a sharing of the early experiments of an utter novice at programming, and the pedagogical gaffes in his work were embarrassing.
The perspective in this paper is that of a foreign-language pedagogue, not a computer specialist, an important point, since even as computer literacy increases, equal expertise in foreign-language pedagogy and computers is rare and likely to remain so. On the other hand, humanists really need not apologize for not being computer experts; unless, of course, they persist in a head-in-the-sand attitude. Not all scientists are completely at ease with computers, either. What humanists do need to do is to avoid trying to imitate scientists' uses of computers. Just as individuals in the humanities have always felt their educational tasks were related to but different from the tasks of scientists in education, their uses of computers should almost certainly be different.
This general commentary is less irrelevant to the issue of computer use in foreign-language education specifically than might first seem to be the case. The burgeoning field of computer-based education (CAI, CMI, CAVI, or whatever) is going to affect us all. The greater the cooperation among a variety of experts, the more beneficial the effects will be. No longer is it possible for a single "expert" to do all of what needs to be done in the development either of hardware or of software. The disadvantages of non-cooperation are all too obvious in the plethora of programs that already exist. A sense of this can be gained from looking at some of what is being promoted or discussed.
For example, in November 1982 Mark W. Seng (University of Texas at Austin) put together a list of articles on computer-assisted instruction (CAI) in the field of foreign languages, with close to one hundred titles. While hardly an exhaustive list, it is an instructive one. Included are reports of very general studies as well as analyses of specific concerns, suggestions for particular languages, research reports, and practical advice. Staying abreast of the literature, when it encompasses so much, is clearly impossible. Such lists, if properly updated, would have to change frequently and rapidly.
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In that range, however, lies both richness and the source of current difficulties. While there are those who urge that we must rush ahead full speed, and do as many different kinds of things with computers as can possibly be done, with attention focused on local needs, this may turn out to be the road paved with good intentions. In contrast to what has been happening in most instances so far, my judgment is that we should exercise caution, pay close attention to the special needs of foreign-language education, and concentrate on making programs and materials as widely usable and transportable as possible. Let us turn now to look at some of the concerns that face the foreign-language educator and would-be user of computer, in order to see more clearly why I argue as I do.
Caution. The explanation of interest, available hardware, and in some instances even adequate funding, has not surprisingly resulted in a sense of urgency, and a strong inclination to take prompt advantage of the opportunities. Carpe diem. Foreign language education in this country is clearly in trouble (despite a shot in the arm that the President's Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies in 1979 was intended to give it). Help is needed fast, and even if computers are perceived as little more than a source of increased motivation, it is no wonder that computer fever has become a contagious disease among foreign-language instructors. As a group, these educators have a history of jumping on passing bandwagons, perhaps even more than some of their colleagues in other disciplines. Apparently they need to be reminded that wen the music stops they may find themselves far from home with nothing but broken instruments and badly frayed sheet music, though painful memories of language laboratories ought to be fresh enough to keep us from making the same mistakes again so soon. Computers will prove no more to be panaceas than did anything that earlier technological developments brought us, and we would be will to act cautiously and patiently.
Of course, too much caution amounts to an unwillingness to experiment; clearly this is not what we need. Rather, thoughtful careful steps need to be taken with full knowledge that CAI does not invariably provide improvements for all instructional tasks. For any use of technology to bring benefits we must make certain we know what we want; the miracles will not happen by themselves.
Above all, we need to be willing to acknowledge that technological developments have far outstripped pedagogical insights. If we try to utilize the latest technology without testing our pedagogical assumptions first, we are bound to end up with a mismatch of more-or-less serious proportions, to say nothing of misspent monies and time, and quite likely unreasonable raised expectations.
Specialization. Generally we view some degree of diversification favorably, but when the diversity becomes as extensive as it now is when people talk about computers, it is important to narrow the field of vision in order to achieve better focus. Even within education, the myriad kinds of computers and computer-related materials are too varied to be of relevance for everyone. On eof the most manifest examples of the problem is the way many papers are written and sessions at conferences are run. Even where the audience is largely made up of people in the foreign-language field (no doubt giving authors the feeling that they are specializing), a high percentage of the performances showcase writers and presenters who feel constrained to run the gamut from "This is thy the 'Return' key matters" to a sophisticated description of a computer program. Happily, both the level of awareness and the level of discourse are rising, but it is still true that too many people are trying to cover too much in twenty minutes or twenty pages, thus showing their unwillingness or inability to specialize.
More useful for a short general session is the kind of concrete information-sharing that James Soper (of the Institute of International Studies in Monterey, CA) engaged in at the November 1982 Annual Meeting of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) in New York. Part of his hour-and-a-half presentation (at least he had more than twenty minutes!) was devoted to a quick run-through of the diverse hardware and software currently available. By reviewing their relative usefulness or appropriateness for work specifically in foreign-language education, Soper was able to guide those in attendance in their own investigations and planning. But even such a practical session has severe limitations; within a very few months the guidelines are likely to be outdated. Newcomers to the world of computers (which still includes most foreign-language teachers) need to be on the alert.
Foreign-language education is by its nature a discipline with considerable diversity, providing a built-in safeguard against overspecialization. Not only are there innumerable languages to be taught; those languages are typically taught at many levels within the educational system for widely varying reasons, over very different periods of time to audiences of all possible sorts and sizes. Yet there are special needs. One as-yet-largely-overlooked area of concern is figuring out the ways in which the processes of learning or teaching foreign languages make the use of computers peculiarly relevant. We know, for instance, that computers are especially valuable tools in any kind of data storage and sorting. Specialists need to look more closely at the possibility of a significant connection between the artificial "languages" needed to program computers and the natural languages we seek to teach.
At the very least, we should be unwilling to make do with second-hand authoring languages developed initially for other disciplines, which do not really fit our needs. Nor should we put up with printers not designed to deal with the diacritical marks and other special features of the languages we teach. Typing accents in the space following the accented character or using an apostrophe for an acute accent and a comma for a cedilla, as Geoffrey Hope reports that the elementary French program FRELEM requires (in use at the University of Iowa), is not really satisfactory, despite Hope's contention that "Users quickly adapt to the system and have apparently not carried the process over into their own writing habits." Since, as Hope goes on to say, "some computers, notable the Apple, do allow for the creation and proper placement of accent marks," we do not have to accept distortions of the written language. We would not accept an a factor for every e in English, for example, even if we thought we could adjust to it; neither should we have to accept ae for a or ss for B in German, or odd spacings and wrongly placed accents in any language.
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One excellent example of the sort of specialization we do need is James Pusack's DASHER. Written in a BASIC dialect, DASHER is a language-processing program developed explicitly for work with foreign languages. But Pusack is very clear about the limitations; it is, he says, good for dealing with a small number of discrete items, for practice and review of elementary language work. So far it lacks graphics capabilities, and its answer-processing methods restrict what it can do. Still, Pusack has worked hard to make effective use of computers in foreign-language instruction a reality.
Transportability. As ever greater number of individuals become interested in computers, an increasing tendency has developed on every local scene to get involved and to use computers in some fashion. While much of such armchair planning and small-time programming is interesting, some of it clever, and very likely most of it usable by those who create it, the usefulness usually ends there. The reason that reading reviews of the existing literature and attending sessions on CAI and related concerns at foreign-language meetings tend to be boring activities is that-in addition to trying to cover the waterfront-most writers and speakers are talking about materials with very limited appeal. Of course, there are exceptions, but even though in individual cases papers may be well written or well presented or have some intrinsically interesting aspects, there is a kind of adult "Show and Tell" quality to most of it. The problem with presentations that begin with the equivalent of "Look at the clever little program I've put together for a select group of my students at East overshoe University with a Mini-Miracle Grant over a three-year period" is that these people rarely have hard data to show the effectiveness of what they've don. (That the students "seems' to like it or "apparently" have fun is insufficient evidence of pedagogical validity.) Worse yet, such programs and materials typically lack altogether the critical feature of transportability. What works in one setting may be impressive, entertaining, or instructive — or even all three — but if it cannot be replicated elsewhere with little or no adaptation, its value is greatly diminished.
For example, at the Foreign Language Instructional Technology (FLINT) Conference in Monterey, California, in September of 1982, two of the best sessions — Randall Jones's description of "The German TICCIT CAI Program" (at Brigham Young University) and Sue Otto's report of her work on "Video Retrieval Systems for Foreign Languages" (at the University of Iowa) — presented work so complex in its conception that, however useful it is, could only be implemented at other institutions only with great expense. (Jones and Otto are clearly aware of this, and are concerned — to their credit — about making their work more transportable.) At the same conference Joan Rubin made strong case for the use of interactive videodiscs, but she ended more lamely than she probably intended or perhaps realized by acknowledging that costs continue to put all of what she was recommending out of reach of virtually everyone.
Most of the dozen or more computer sessions at the 1982 ACTFL meeting reflected a variant form of the problem of parochialism: "Microcomputers in the Foreign Language Program," "Easy Access to Foreign Language Computing," "Computer-Based FL Learning," "Computer-Assisted ESL/ESP," and "Computers as Instructors" sounds distressingly similar. Since these sessions were (presumably deliberately) not scheduled simultaneously, many of the same people attended several (maybe even most) of them. The overlap in content was considerable, and for the novice such a proliferation of information dissemination is bound to be more confusing than helpful. A joint effort by those presenters for a more substantial block of time (though in fairness it should be pointed out that one was a two-day workshop) might have been more beneficial to all concerned, in the long run.
Clearly local triumphs should be celebrated, and word o f them should be spread. To think, however, that this is the best route to great breakthroughs is to ignore what we have learned about the relative merits and usefulness of other kinds of instructional materials. The best teaching tools, whether exercises or activities or something else, are not those that depend on peculiarities of the originator's personality or on teaching conditions unique to one set of circumstances. We cannot expect computer materials to be commercially viable, if they work only in one way, or in only one place, or with only one textbook, any more than printed materials usable only by the author(s) ever get published. In any case we need to be honest about whether our aim is to have fun playing with computers or to develop genuinely effective instructional materials using the unique capabilities of the new media now available to us.
One excellent approach to what is needed was illustrated by Glyn Holmes (from the University of Western Ontario) at the FLINT Conference. While eager to talk about the work he and some of his colleagues have done on a free-form system for French instruction called CLEF, Holmes is also both ready and eager to talk about the importance of developing template systems that make available as much as possible of the good aspects of free-form systems, because the latter simply cost too much. Some kind of hybrid system may be the best thing to aim for, he argues; he is a strong proponent of the need to cooperate and to standardize software materials. Most impressive is his undaunted enthusiasm for the microcomputer as a presenter of information and as a tool with great potential for local programs, even while he continues his quest for ways to share what has been done so far.
Another of the most useful presentations at the FLINT Conference was by James Pusack, author of the DASHER program previously mentioned. In Monterey, however, Pusack was concerned less with explaining DAHSER itself than with more general "Design Criteria for Authoring Systems in Foreign Language CAI." In his own words, "successful foreign language CAI requires that a proven teacher/learning strategy reach language instructors in a flexible and adaptable form. The ideal authoring system must provide tools which are specifically designed to support the production of foreign language CAI materials. This presentation discusses the flexibility, control, and documentation necessary to an authoring system to stimulate creative exploitation of its features." Pusack was as good as his word. Stressing that flexibility and adaptability have to be the chief criteria for authoring systems, he wen ton to list several other rules of thumb: Assumptions should not be made about users,
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options should be built in, extraneous features (e.g., color, blinking lights, jokes) should be deletable, changes should be easy to make, sequences should be alterable, and praise and criticism responses should be modifiable. Above all, wherever possible, programs should not be language specific.
Perhaps the most important point Pusack made was that the computer, properly programmed, has no difficulty storing options. Even what seems like the worst option to the author will probably appeal to someone. As long as it does not violate our pedagogical principles, it should be included. If we do not make such options available, we end up locking ourselves into the rigidity of book format, and fail to take adequate advantages of the technology.
Solid foundations have been laid, with some very creative work by both foreign-language and computer specialists. Technological developments clearly have worked as teachers, as Edward Schneider has pointed out. The problem lies, in his opinion, not so much with the technology as with the integration of technology into school instruction. How long what Schneider calls the "intrinsic motivation" of using computer technology will endure is an open can help us escape the immediate environment of the classroom more easily and with greater realism than any visual aids previously used. More interesting is Schneider's insistence that the pedagogical proficiency of the teacher can be increased by proper use of computer technology, inter alia by fine tuning the sense of when (and how) to bother with asides, and by allowing for adjustable criteria on the acceptability of student responses. Technology can enable us —if we use it appropriately — to escape the traditional lockstep of the print media and most current methodology.
In apparent agreement with this position, even the federal government has gotten involved. Near the end of 1982, the congressional Office of Technology Assessment (O.T.A.) released the final version of its report: "Informational Technology and Its Impact on American Education." The report includes "a detailed discussion of the United States as an information society, with a look at the future" as well as the "effects the emerging technologies could have on the 'provision of education.'" Preparing ourselves to anticipate changes we cannot yet imagine is crucial. "The anticipated 'information society' will create new demands for education and training. Computer-based automation […] will create a need for workers who can be continually retrained as changes occur and new technologies are developed." Since learning how to learn is the primary aim of any worthwhile educational endeavor, we should welcome federal awareness of this need. Others, in the private sector, have also noted that we are facing "a veritable explosion in new technology," which places home entertainment "in the throes of a revolution that is […] reshaping what we can do without ever leaving a room."
If we are to reap the benefits of this new awareness, the exploding field of technology, and what has been done so far, we have to face up to two very large challenges. The first is recognizing and understanding (and then acting on the understanding) that computers really do represent an altogether new medium. To date there has been a pervasive failure to grasp that novelty, let alone to understand its full impact or all its ramifications. The second challenge is every bit as grave, but it constitutes a much older and in many ways more difficult set of concerns. Simply put (though hardly a simple matter), this is foreign-language pedagogy. The very newness of the medium we face in the computer makes it more important than ever for us to be able to state our educational goals clearly. Only if we have evaluated with precision and care what we want and need to teach and how best to achieve our objectives is there any hope that we can make appropriate and effective use of new media.
The Novelty of the Medium. Statements about computers being a new medium are apt to be greeted with a ho-hum shrug of the shoulders and a "So what?" response. Yet having given lip service to acknowledging the point, too few teachers look at the consequences of the computer medium or analyze what their acknowledgement should mean. Moving from books to computer programs is not like moving from easy books to more difficult books or the reverse. Much less is the move from a microcomputer, even with a television, to interactive videodiscs a simple one with self-evident connections. Each such move — into the world of technology and then from one kind of technology to another (however related) — requires a quantum leap. Perhaps the apparent familiarity of the computer keyboard is, in subtle ways, a disadvantage. Remembering Marshall McLuhan's claim that color television is a different medium from black-and-white television may serve as an indication of the fine distinctions that need to be made.
Because extreme cases present the clearest examples, and because interactive videodiscs right now seem destined to offer the most exciting possibilities, I would like to look briefly at one such project already well under way. I will then review some of the factors that will determine the answer to practical questions about tapping the potential of this medium for foreign-language instruction.
Junius Bennion and others at the David O. McKay Institute of Education (at Brigham Young University) have been working from some time on "Montevidisco," an interactive videodisc program for students of Spanish. (Editor's Note: See the article on Montevidisco by Larrie Gale in this issue.) The basic format is a four-phase one of shoe, freeze, choose, and branch. Students have an opportunity to choose from among options for answers to questions raised by one of the characters in the film being shown. At present, those options are presented on the screen of the computer terminal where the student is working, in English; the student gives the Spanish version of the option selected, orally (it is recorded on a cassette tape), and then watches the TV screen as a "surrogate student" continues that segment of the film with the correct version of the chosen response. Numerous branching possibilities exist and immediate feedback is available (capabilities of the medium are being utilized), and the peculiarities of the language are taken into account (both male and female "surrogate students" have been filmed so that correct gender ending and cultural references can be required.) But as the "Montevidisco" team would e quick to admit, despite the clever twists to the story that unquestionably add fun and motivation, the repetitious aspects of the program may well bore students before mastery of any segment has been attained. Additional
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pedagogical concerns have to do with the way the answers are stimulated (as it now stands, students are confronted with what amounts to a translation exercise) and with the built-in limitations and the length of the required responses. Finally, the costs in time, money, and personnel have been enormous. A critical point has been reached with the development of a general purpose programming template; it remains to be seen, however, how transportable any of this commendable effort will turn out to be. In the meantime, there is no question that "Montevidisco" is fun — and that it represents a major step forward.
That interactive video has great potential is obvious to anyone who has worked with it or even just seen a demonstration, particularly for the teaching of specific skills. The American Heart Association, for example, uses a thirty-minute interactive videodisc program to teach CPR; various programs have also been developed to train airplane pilots by simulating real situations that let the novice pilots "see" and respond to the consequences of their choice(s) of action. But beyond recognizing that interactive video is truly a new and different medium (among other things, because of the compression of information that the medium allows, using visual technology requires a team effort and lots of time — the "Montevidisco" project exemplifies this), those who wish to exploit the potential of interactive video have to deal with several other factors. In a very helpful and clearly written article, Willard Thomas of Organizational Media Systems (Fort Worth, Texas) gave a list of such factors, including these: the integration of visual logic into programmed instruction methods, the evolution of a visual syntax, the development of specialized high programming algorithms and language for handling visual syntax and images, and the use of digital video signals for recording images as well as controlling playback sequence and rate. More research, highly specialized at that, is needed. In particular, we need to figure our how to relate research results to our practical efforts as developers of educational materials. As Thomas goes on to point out, "If we are going to segment material into coherent but 'branchable' frames, we must use the same procedures that successful programmed instruction writers use. However just as the text of a book is not suitable as the script for a videotape, the programmed instruction procedures are not directly adaptable to visual instruction." We have to modify our methods to match the medium.
Foreign-Language Pedagogy. Among the earliest uses of computers in foreign-language instruction were programs in Spanish at Dartmouth College, done on a time-sharing basis for simple drill and practice. The fact that Dartmouth continues to use the computer extensively now, especially in German, has more to do with the continuity provided since 1970 by Bruce Duncan's ongoing interest than with further sophistication of the programs. What is done at Dartmouth is tied to one textbook, even where the drills are supplemental and is still a pretty routine sort of practice, though random access at least means this is not just a workbook on a computer.
Numerous other examples exist of instructors in both high schools and colleges preparing materials for one sort of practice or another for computers. David Gill at Upper Arlington High School near Columbus, Ohio, for instance, has turned his attention, with the help of a colleague in mathematics, to using computers for vocabulary development in particular. Starting with the vocabulary in the textbooks his students are using, he has now expanded his computer dictionary well beyond that. Students can be assigned words to study either by chapter, or be sections of the alphabet — and either in a set pattern or randomly. He has begun to spread the word, as he has developed the program to the point where it can be utilized by others and for other languages with relative ease. Although Gill does not have statistically reliable data yet, he does have at least some evidence that the availability of vocabulary practice on the computer has increased both the speed with which most students learn the vocabulary, and — more importantly — the level of retention. In one sense, Gill's work is not very sophisticated, but it appears that the programs accomplish what they set out to do.
Another Ohio language instructor, Roger Neff at Otterbein College in Westerville, has also begun to make extensive use of out-of-class computer drills, first for Spanish and now also for French and German students. He has supplemented commercial programs, most of which he finds lacking at least in some of their technical features, with his own "home-grown" materials, developed by him to accompany specific textbooks. This is thy typical pattern followed by most instructors who get interested in using computers with their students. Neff has not run any experiments to determine the degree of effectiveness, but points out that since use of the computer materials is completely optional and the number of students who avail themselves of the opportunity is growing, the students, at least, must think they are beneficial. Also like many others, Neff's interests have expanded no to include computer-assisted video instruction; his first materials of this sort are being given their initial introduction to students in 1982-1983. Convinced that "CAVI offers can even greater potential for foreign language instruction," Neff also realizes that costs are likely to be a hindrance to any immediate significant expansion.
Beyond the rather run-of-the-mill drill-and-practice exercises being developed and used by more and more students and teachers, the most common use of the computer in foreign-language classes, as elsewhere, seems to be for games. Many of the "drills" in use are in fact self-consciously made game-like. In the popular view of computers, games come to mind before anything else. "Pac-Man" and "Adventure" haunt us all. When the FLINT Conference was reported in the Monterey Peninsula Herald, the only presentation specifically referred to was the one on games. Yet for all Ruth Sander's efforts to make SPION into an "intelligent game," what is most easily comprehended is that it is a game. Sanders has tried to go beyond a purely "fun and games" approach, but she is the first to admit that her program works only if one is willing to accept it as a mage and work within certain artificial limitations — the "rules" of the game.
Probably the chief reason so many instructors and programmers have turned to the game mode is the motivation games are thought to provide. Yet there
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are problems with using either apparent or supposed student motivation via games as a major criterion for the development of programs. In the first place, this is unlikely to work on a long-term basis. Even in the short run, we are about to face a generation of students who know far more about computers than we do, and who have had far more experience with highly sophisticated games than the ones we are thrusting in front of them. What we think will motivate students may very well appear laughable to them; the thrill, if any, will wear off fast. What we present to our students must be of pedagogical value and not merely entertaining, if we are to be true to our task.
An example of the attempt to take advantage of the current fascination with computer games is the 1983 catalog of "Selective Audio Visual Teaching Materials" put out by Wible Language Institute, Inc. Special attention is drawn on the cover of the catalog to "Exciting Instructional Games…for your APPLE II Computer." On the page referred to "Game Features" is highlighted more dramatically than even the name of the language for which the materials are intended. Such catchy phrases as "creative and Interesting Games," "Students love to play Schoolhouse games and they learn faster and better," and "Randomization presents a new game each time it is played" along with the reassuring "Teachers need no computer skills" are bound to attract a lot of people. One wonders whether they will come away satisfied and whether students will assess the games favorable after the first use. These offerings are aimed more at the quick fix than at sound educational benefits.
This is not to say that games cannot serve pedagogical functions; of course, they can. Still, both David Weible (University of Illinois at Chicago) and Frank Otto (Brigham Young University) have stressed — albeit in rather different ways — the importance of making sure before we use computers to "entertain" our students that we are helping rather then distracting or possibly even annoying them. Weible feels that while computers may make it possible for the best students to learn faster, weaker students have even greater needs for strategies and techniques than for entertainment of gimmicks; Otto suggests that we should perhaps use games as a bonus for students who achieve satisfactorily in a given time and who want the game rather than as primary techniques for carrying the burden of our course content.
Like James Pusack at the end of the conference, Michael DeBloois spent his time before the FLINT audience talking about the need to develop new concepts for instructional design along with the improved tools that technology is providing us. His rapid-fire list of pedagogical assumptions we need to alter and his insistence that "Foreign language instructors are by and large not using what they already know about foreign language instruction" were both a ringing indictment and a challenge to members of the profession, thanks to technology. We now have capabilities we could not even have dreamed of five years ago; accordingly, we need to create new models for materials design and development. As Willard Thomas is fond of saying, "we have jet-age technology but an educational system that is still in the age of railroads. The problem is that you cannot land a 747 on a railroad track."
And so it comes back again to a matter of needing to know where we are trying to go before we decide which mode of transportation to use. Computers can probably be made to do anything we want them to do, but we still need to think through the purpose before we grab at new means for each and every learning activity. Once again, an excellent analysis of the problems, the challenges, and the pedagogical principles comes from James Pusack. Although he knows that "the computer cannot master the complex grammar structure of a natural language," he is also confident that "Foreign Languages are by nature an area where computer-assisted instruction should thrive." In a brief paper where he makes these comments, Pusack gives the best short course I know of on how to use computers effectively for the different kinds of tasks the foreign language instructor faces. Those who fancy they would like to "do a little software work" would do well first to study that paper carefully.
If all of this sounds like an insistence that we all go back to school for a refresher course on methodology, let me hasten to add that while I definitely think some re-evaluation and further analysis of our objectives are in order, I am also certain that real excitement and challenge await us. Voice recognition and voice simulation are two areas where work has been done that has potentially very great significance for the teaching and learning of languages. "Translating machines" are still a popular goal for some researchers. While I am skeptical about how soon even the most sophisticated computer programs can be developed to cope with all the intricacies and nuances that separate natural languages from artificial ones and from each other, I am confident that right now a program could be developed where the computer would generate a "translation" of a passage into the student's native language (so that the student is in a reasonable position to evaluate its possible accuracy) as a tool for helping students develop greater linguistic sophistication and sensitivity. If the student had to "correct" the computer until an adequate sentence or passage emerges, the student would have had to think very carefully about why a word can be translated in one way for one context, but "means" something quite different elsewhere. Such an exercise, where students are interacting with the language itself in an unthreatening setting rather than with the instructor or the native speaker, is one of the kinds of uses to which machines might sensibly be put.
Yet even that, though it has not to my knowledge been done, is still a pretty mundane use of technology that takes advantage of only some of the capabilities potentially offered by a computer. We ought to be able to dream much more creatively, and to work towards pedagogical tools that will give us all of the benefits together that we are only just beginning to utilize separately. An interactive videodisc program with a vast library of discs that could be retrieved instantaneously to provide students with access to socio-cultural subject matter and geographic settings of their choice, an extensive system of techniques for immediate feedback in all relevant areas (voice recognition and syntax/grammar correction), coupled with audio-video recordings so that students could truly become part of the lesson they are studying (and thus helping to create) — that would be a teaching machine worthy of the jet age technology we are acquiring . But it would be of little use if we had not sorted out the pedagogy adequately before imposing it on our students.
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Finally, it may be that the most important thing to remember right now it that we do not really have any idea how much we may be able to accomplish. If we look carefully, thoughtfully, and openly enough at what our options are, we might even discover, as Dr. Doug Richards of the Dolphin Language Project at the University of Hawaii has predicted, that "we're going to end us redefining language, essentially." If so, foreign language specialists had better be on hand to help — and they had also better be prepared to use computers and other products of modern technology.
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