Computers as expensive electronic workbooks

[Rudy Troike]

Re Mia's comments, it has been my experience that most of the highly touted
work in "CALL" (Computer-Assisted/Aided Language Learning: a misnomer, since
we don't know how much learning occurs -- it should be Teaching, "CALT", but
it doesn't make as cute an acronym) is really the old paper workbook trans-
ferred to a computer costing a thousand dollars, and the software costing
several hundreds. I once challenged the editor of a CALL newsletter to give
me an example of a program that was not like this, and out of scores or
even hundreds of programs, she could cite only a few. Things have improved
lately, and the military are using virtual reality software to teach language,
but this software is not publicly available, or even viewable. Some of it
is outstandingly sophisticated, and is based in part on computer games
technology, which Susan Penfield is also working on with a faculty member in
the English Dept. here at the University of Arizona. I saw a bit of a report
on CBS the other night that said a national study was questioning how much
computer programs were in fact improving students' learning. Computer programs
are not panaceas, and for child language learning, will never replace the
personal interaction with grandparents in the Native language. The most
effective -- and least expensive -- way to preserve a language is to have
children spend time living with grandparents who are fluent in the language.

      I've recently begun experimenting with using Power Point to illustrate
stages in linguistic change, and I think that it will be effective. I'm
trying to show how the famous "Great Vowel Shift" in English operated (where-
by words such as "ride", originally with the vowel /iy/ [the vowel of present
day "he"] came to be pronounced as /ay/, as it is now. If this works all
right, I'll try it to illustrate a shift in language usage spreading
geograhically and between age groups. In any event, PowerPoint offers
quite a bit of flexibility that can be exploited.

      Rudy