Using Multimedia in the Foreign Language Classroom | Page 7

Section I
1 A rationale for the exploitation of computers in ELT
It should be stressed from the beginning that, as Garrett (1991: 75)
emphasizes, the use of computers does not constitute a method but, rather, it is a
medium in which a variety of methods, approaches and pedagogical philosophies may
be implemented. According to Warschauer (2000), the way computers are used in the
classroom is highly dependent on the teachers’ beliefs about the teaching and learning
process. Thus, as according to Nyns (1989), computers should be used for a better
achievement of our syllabus aims than the opposite, Jones (1991: 7) puts emphasis on
the existence of a valid methodology without which, he claims, technology has little
purpose.
Warschauer and Healey (1998) note that with the reassessment of
communicative language teaching theory in the 1990’ there was a shift from a
cognitive towards a more social or socio-cognitive view to communicative teaching
which, as Warschauer and Meskill (2000) stress, although it does not abort the
cognitive view, it places greater emphasis on the social aspect of language acquisition.
Such an approach views language as a process of apprentiship or socialization into
particular discourse communities (Schiefelin and Ochs 1986) and considers that
students need to be given maximum opportunity for authentic social interaction in
order to negotiate meaning, something which Ellis (1990) considers essential for
language acquisition to take place. Kern and Warschauer (2000) claim that with
socio-cognitive approaches to CALL we move from learners’ interaction with the
computer to interaction with other humans via the computer. Such a view, emphasise
Warschauer and Healey (1998), leads to a new perspective on technology and
language learning, which has been termed ‘Integrative CALL’ (Warschauer, 1996a), a
perspective which seeks both to integrate various skills (e.g., listening, speaking,
reading, and writing) and also to integrate technology more fully into the language
learning process. Thus, in integrative approaches, the computer takes a central, albeit
not exclusive role in the teaching process, while students learn to use a variety of
technological tools as an ongoing process of language learning and use, rather than
using the computer for isolated exercises.
The reasons why integrative CALL is capable of bringing innovation in ELT
can be summarized to the following:
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