Computer Conferencing Applications

The support which this medium can provide to all distant learners, as noted above, is equally applicable in the case of language learners. The normal goal of language acquisition is communication in the target language; even if oral communication is generally more highly valued than written communication, the close relationship between the two facilitates mutual reinforcement.

The BBC experience in teaching languages at a distance has shown that home-study students request and make good use of auxiliary support systems, including course-linked magazines, postal question-and- answer services, and study groups (Rybak, 1984). Notwithstanding the technological problems which different symbols and even alphabets may give rise to, these are the types of activities to which computer conferencing lends itself well. Moreover, they concern real-life situations which should require students to communicate in the target language in a natural way. While some of these two-way or multi-directional communications would be better served by oral exchanges, the implementation of a computer conference network would be a distinct improvement, whether or not tutorial support is already being provided by mail or telephone. Similarly, while the use of electronic mail would in and of itself allow for a much speedier exchange of assignments and their correction, computer conferencing would enable course designers to build peer review and assignment correction by students taking more senior courses right into the curriculum.

Conclusion

Teachers of second languages at a distance must make every attempt to provide students with the best possible learning experience. Classroom instructors have at their disposal an assortment of media and methodologies which they can blend to meet the needs of their particular audience. The good language teacher picks and chooses from amongst these in order to develop a personal methodology which maximizes both his or her ability as a teacher and the student's potential as a learner.

This kind of flexibility is not readily available to the distant educator, although innovative systems have been developed and are currently in use. (See Abrioux, 1982; Karpiak, 1985; Stringer, Shale, & Abrioux, 1982.) None, however, seems to have benefitted from the considerable work which has been conducted in developing and analyzing different computer applications to second language learning. Given that the separation of learner and teacher is common to both computer-assisted and distance learning, distance educators would do well to delve into this area more systematically.

Course designers, however, must be careful not to implement applications of CALL which are more expensive than other media, less accessible, or simply inappropriate. While this paper has argued for the utilization of random-access cassette recorders, it will have been noted that, with the exception of summative evaluation, speech generation is not presented as a useful application. To encourage such a use would be to ignore one of the principal lessons of the language laboratory experiences of the 1960s and 1970s: uncontrolled, unmonitored audiolingual drills are not only boring but also ineffective.