This article discusses the comparative effectiveness of student input at different times during the design of CALL tools for learning kanji, the Japanese characters of Chinese origin. The CALL software "package" consisted of tools to facilitate the writing, reading and practising of kanji characters in context. A pre-design questionnaire…

Over recent years, educational institutions have been making increasing use of virtual environments to set up collaborative activities for learners. While it is recognized that teachers play an important role in facilitating learner collaboration online, they may not have the necessary skills to do so successfully. Thus, a small-scale professional…

This study presents an efficient approach to personalized mispronunciation detection of Taiwanese-accented English. The main goal of this study was to detect frequently occurring mispronunciation patterns of Taiwanese-accented English instead of scoring English pronunciations directly. The proposed approach quickly identifies personalized…

Although the enormous potential of the Internet has gained attention in Internet-assisted language teaching (IALT), a solid background of research is still lacking about/investigating English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers' use of Internet assistive technologies. This study set out to determine Turkish university level EFL…

OpenCourseWare (OCW) has received increasing attention over the past few years in higher education. These courses provide appealing opportunities to view classes taught in well-established universities worldwide. The current study aims to examine how OCW lectures can serve as authentic learning materials to facilitate vocabulary acquisition for…

This article is an effort to add to computer-assisted language learning by extending a study on an essay critiquing system (ECS) feedback to secondary school language learners' writing. The study compared two groups of participants' performance, namely the treatment group which received both the system feedback and teacher feedback (i.e., blended…

English for academic purposes (EAP) has established itself as a considerable part of English as a foreign language (EFL) instruction in Iranian universities. Considering the Internet as a major educational source in EAP reading courses, it is highly important that the stakeholders have positive attitudes toward it and be aware of promises and…

Many computer-assisted language learning (CALL) studies have found that teacher direction can help learners develop language skills at their own pace on computers. However, many teachers still do not know how to provide support for students to use computers to reinforce the development of their language skills. Hence, more examples of CALL…

Informed by sociocultural theory and guided especially by "collective scaffolding", this study investigated the nature of computer-mediated interaction of three groups of English as a Foreign Language students when they performed collaborative writing tasks using wikis. Nine college students from a Chinese university participated in the…

Today Web 2.0 technologies, including blogs, are presenting both teachers and learners with new horizons in the field of language teaching and learning. A blog is an online journal which can be continuously updated by its users [Matheson, D. (2004). Weblogs and the epistemology of the news: Some trends in online journalism. "New Media & Society,…

It is beneficial for students to experience situational learning, especially for English as a foreign language (EFL) learning. Providing more listening and speaking opportunities could help EFL students with English learning. Our research proposes a listening and speaking practice system employing personal digital assistants (PDAs) for situated…

Based on various theories of human agency (Ajzen, I. (2005). "Attitudes, personality and behavior" (2nd ed.). London: Open University Press; Davis, F.D. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. "MIS Quarterly", 13, 319-340; Rogers, E.M. (1983). "Diffusion of innovations" (3rd ed.). New…

Usage-based theories of language learning suggest that native speakers of a language are acutely aware of formulaic language due in large part to frequency effects. Corpora and data-driven learning can offer useful insights into frequent patterns of naturally occurring language to second/foreign language learners who, unlike native speakers, are…

In this study a self-paced instructional method based on the use of Apple's iPod Touch personal mobile devices to deliver content was compared with a group-oriented instructional method of content delivery in terms of learner acquisition of course material. One hundred and twenty-two first-year Japanese university students in four classes were…

This study investigated the possibility that initial-level learners may acquire oral skills through synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC). Twelve Taiwanese French as a foreign language (FFL) students, divided into three groups, were required to conduct a variety of tasks in one of the three learning environments (video/audio, audio,…