CALICO 98: New Directions –New Perspectives

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CALICO 98: New Directions –New Perspectives

Ana Gimeno­Sanz, Chris Hall and Isabelle Keindler

ReCALL / Volume 10 / Issue 02 / November 1998, pp 56 ­ 60DOI: 10.1017/S0958344000003761, Published online: 16 December 2008

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0958344000003761

How to cite this article:Ana Gimeno­Sanz, Chris Hall and Isabelle Keindler (1998). CALICO 98: New Directions –New Perspectives. ReCALL, 10, pp 56­60 doi:10.1017/S0958344000003761

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Conference reports

according to exercise type chosen by theteacher. The exercise is presented to thelearner on a web-based interface. SarahDavies (Edinburgh) reported on tests of simpleCALL prototypes that have been created usingCSLUrp, a graphical authoring system for thecreation of spoken dialogue systems. Since itis evident that today's dialogue systems areuseable in CALL software, it is now possibleand necessary to study the integration of cor-rective feedback in these systems. A system iscurrently being developed in order to study thesix corrective feedback strategies (Lyster/Ranta).

Ruslan Mitkov (Wolverhampton) outlinedplans for a new CALL project - The Lan-guage Learner's Workbench. This workbenchwill ideally incorporate text corpora, speechdatabases and text-to-speech systems, arepository of video materials, on-line dictio-naries, termbanks, spell, grammar and stylecheckers, machine-aided translation, text for-mats and templates, reference materials, key-word and term extraction, multilingualabstracting tools and design tools. This set oftools will be gathered in order to support(business) learners of English, French andPortuguese.

The variety of topics discussed at this con-ference was complemented by an informativeand interesting poster session.

Mathias Schulze & Marie-Josee HamelCentre for Computational Linguistics,

UMIST

Editor's noteIt is hoped that selected papers from the NLP inCALL conference will be published as a specialissue of ReCALL during 1999.

CALICO 98: NewDirections - NewPerspectivesSan Diego, California6-10 July, 1998

In addition to giving the general theme for

discussion, the title of CALICO 98, 'NewDirections - New Perspectives', was also areflection of the changes that have taken placewithin the Consortium's organisation. Thiswas the first symposium to be organised underthe management of CALICO'S new ExecutiveDirector, Robert Fischer, Professor of Frenchand Linguistics at Southwest Texas State Uni-versity in San Marcos. We'd like to take thisopportunity to congratulate Prof. Fischer onhis appointment and wish him all the best forthe years to come.

This year's symposium, held in the heart ofthe city of San Diego with all its amenities,brought together over a hundred presentations,twenty courseware showcase exhibits, a dozenvendor exhibits, eight pre-conference work-shops, a number of special sessions for presen-ters from sister organisations such as EURO-CALL and IALL, and the participation ofsome three hundred delegates from far andwide.

CALICO 98 opened with an entertainingplenary session by Ray Clifford (Defense Lan-guage Institute) entitled "Mirror, Mirror on theWall: Reflections on CALL" in which hestressed that computers have not deliveredwhat was promised. The basic reasons for this,he felt, were:

1. Language is much more complex than firstrealized and can be understood only incontext. He illustrated his point by manyamusing examples from printed sources.What for example is one to make of aheadline such as 'Iraqi Head Seeks Arms?'

2. If language is complex, the question of lan-guage acquisition is even more complex,especially second language acquisition.

3. Assumptions in CALL do not adequatelytake these complexities into account. Toooften, for example, it is assumed that presen-tation results in learning and that accesseliminates the need for presentation. Thespeaker spent the rest of the time on whatmust be done to help computers deliver ontheir promise, reiterating his prediction ofeleven years ago that soon 'though comput-ers will not replace teachers, teachers whodo not use computers will be replaced by

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those who do.'

The remaining two plenary papers were after-lunch and after-dinner sessions, never easyslots for a speaker. Gail Robinson (San DiegoState University) carried off her session on'New Perspectives in CALL: Getting to theHeart of IT' with bravura, including audio-visual clips, music, and even singing herself,to get over the message that an understandingof culture is essential in language teaming andthat IT can contribute to this. In her after-din-ner session entitled 'Media for the Message:Technology's Role in Delivering Standards',June Phillips (Weber State University) arguedthat technology is nothing without pedagogyand called for national standards similar tothose adopted in Australia in 1995. For aboveall, the message must be sound, which unfor-tunately is not often the case. Yet the speakerended on a positive note: though the combina-tion of sound pedagogy and technology is stillrare, it exists and is growing and she had seensome examples at the Symposium.

Although the CALICO Symposium is notdivided into streams like many other confer-ences, it was apparent from the outset thatthere were a small number of topics underly-ing many of the papers. The main ones were:web-based applications; developments in mul-timedia courseware; Digital Video Disc; andthe use of the computer for teaching spokenlanguage. Topics which received less attentionthan they deserve were the evaluation ofCALL material and the use of the computer incultural aspects of language teaching. The fol-lowing is a highly personal selection based onthe papers we attended, grouped together ineach of these topic areas.

Web-based applications was undoubtedlythe most popular topic at CALICO 98,accounting for about a quarter almost a quarterof the papers presented. Jack Burston(Monash University, Australia) described thesolutions he adopted to overcome some of thelimitations of web-based delivery systemswhen converting a CD-ROM-based programto full web functionality with cross-platformcompatibility and centralised network deliv-ery. The result was the production of a multi-

media web-managed CD-ROM for learners ofFrench, Les Varietes de Frangais-WWW,which exploits the network potential of theWWW and maintains the rich multimediaenvironment. AH Moeller, Stephen Panarelli(both University of Nebraska, Lincoln) andEleonore Sylla (Goethe Institut, WashingtonDC) gave an admirable presentation on an on-line teacher development project for teachersof German. The large-scale project, known as'Going the Distance', is the result of a collab-oration between the Association of AmericanTeachers of German, the Goethe Institut andtwo German universities. The complete courseis to be made available on the Web after thespring of 1999 (see http://tc.unl.edu/calico98/for details). Satsuki Scoville (Duke Univer-sity, NC) gave a lively presentation on 'Lan-guage Learning on the Internet with Web-CALIS' in which she demonstrated the ease ofconverting an exercise to the Web. However,we shall have to wait about six months beforemost WinCALIS exercises can be so pain-lessly converted to WebCALIS. In an other-wise excellent presentation 'On Demand Gen-eration of Individualised Language LearningMaterials Across the Internet,' Andrew Lian(U of Canberra, Australia) hit a jarring notefor some of us by using a Hitler speech as amodel for German. Issues of language testingwere also addressed: Janine Spencer andFranziska Lys (Northwestern University)described on-line placement tests as a newway of assessing students' language skills.The main advantage of the Web over conven-tional tests is the ease with which text, soundand video can be incorporated, and accordingto the authors the students' reaction to the newtests has been enthusiastic. Sanford Schaneand Ezra van Everbroeck (University of Cali-fornia, San Diego) reported on grammar pre-sentation and testing involving Internet prac-tice (available everywhere via the Web) andIntranet exams (available only at UCSD),piloted at UCSD.

The papers on Multimedia Coursewareincluded a presentation by Christopher Jones(Carnegie Mellon University) on FortesOuvertes, a hybrid multimedia CD-ROM forfirst-year learners of French which contains a

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textbook with over 200 exercises, authenticvideo and 3000 pieces of media. Two presen-tations focused on CD-ROM-based multime-dia courseware for intermediate learners ofSpanish. Robert Blake (University of Califor-nia, Davis) dealt with issues relating to theinterface design of the cross-platform pro-gramme Nuevos Destinos and its underlyingpedagogy of task-based activities. AnaGimeno-Sanz (Universidad Polite"cnica deValencia, Spain) based her discussion on thedevelopment, use and evaluation of therecently published Espanol en Marcha, cre-ated within the EU-funded CAMILLE project.She also discussed the vast possibilities ofcombining CD-ROM-based multimedia mate-rials with WWW-based activities for distancelearners in order to enrich the learner's experi-ence. Another presentation dealing with theacquisition of Spanish as a foreign languagewas delivered by L. Kirk Hagen (University ofHouston-Downtown), who reported on thedevelopment and progress of Spanish for Busi-ness Professionals, an integrated multimediaintelligent tutoring system for students ofSpanish with business-related interests. Theprogram's most innovative component is itsinteractive writing tutorial built on a unifica-tion based natural language parser that sup-ports machine evaluation of open-ended writ-ing samples in Spanish. Bill McCartan (SetonHall University) and Howard Pomann (UnionCounty College) used an analysis of Englishstress patterns to develop a multimedia appli-cation for ESL learners wishing to improvetheir pronunciation and comprehension. Theirapplication is based on a 3500-word databasewhich can be used to generate word lists rep-resentative of stress patterns and to creatediagnostic and learning activities.

The Digital Video Disc is the latest devel-opment in language learning technology.Although there were only a few presentationsdirectly concerned with DVD, this technologywas present at the courseware showcase, andthe vendor exhibit aroused a fair amount ofcuriosity among participants. Michael Bush(Brigham Young University) argued that DVDhas the potential to reach far higher levels ofimplementation in language learning and

teaching than interactive videodisc or CD-ROM based systems. The capacity and flexi-bility of this new technology is impressive: aDVD can contain a film with up to 99 differentsound tracks and it allows users to adaptimage, sound and text with the appropriateDVD authoring tools. Alice Slaton (VenturaCollege) and Claire Saint-Leon (Paris) alsogave an informative overview of the new for-mat and its opportunities for language learningand teaching, demonstrating the possibilities(and limitations) of this new technology withclips from the film 'The Pelican Brief. It isclear that the price of both the videodiscs andthe players is coming down rapidly, whichpromises to make this a highly accessible toolin the near future.

Among the papers on Spoken Languageand the Computer was that of Charles Dock-ery (Davidson College), who demonstratedhow 'Le Visuel', a French encyclopaedia onCD-ROM, can be used to teach French pho-netics and vocabulary. Zheng-Sheng Zhang(San Diego State University) discussed how adetailed error analysis can be used to providemore helpful and intelligent feedback in pro-nunciation programs. Carolyn Fidelman(Northeastern University and Agora LanguageMarketplace) spoke on creating intonationlessons with the Speechlab authoring tool (notto be confused with the Speechlab pronuncia-tion package on CD-ROM produced by MediaEnterprise of Trier in Germany). The latestdevelopments in the use of the computer forspoken language involve speech recognitiontechnology, and a fascinating presentation onthis topic was given by Farzad Ehsani, JimMeador (both Entropic Research Laboratory),Kathleen Egan (US Government Office ofResearch and Development) and SteveStokowski (Federal Language TrainingAgency), who described the development ofSubarashii, a system that uses speech recogni-tion for computer-based exercises in spokenJapanese. They proclaimed confidently thatthere is no longer a missing link: speech tech-nology is an essential component of CALLand is ready to be deployed in CALL. SteveLaRocca, Marlon Ruiz, Sherri Bellinger (USMilitary Academy, West Point) and John Mor-

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gan (University of California, Irvine) deliv-ered a progress report on 'Project SANTI-AGO', aimed at the development and utilisa-tion of speech recognition for advancedlearners of Arabic and also of other languagessuch as Russian, Spanish and Portuguese.Amongst the vendor sessions we had thechance to see some of the advances that Inter-active Drama Inc. are making in creatingvoice-activated multimedia applications thatallow users to engage with full-motion videocharacters in realistic face-to-face dialogues.The results of an evaluation scheme showedan improvement in learners' speaking/listen-ing skills and an increase self-confidence aftertheir exposure to the programme. GeorgeErdos (Pro-Nunciation Software, Australia)gave an impressive demonstration of the Pro-Nunciation English Communication Toolkitwhich contains a 20,000 word phonetic dictio-nary and searchable databases organised bysound and written words.

There were about ten presentations devotedto Reading and the Computer, including twoon reading Japanese - Noriko Nagata's (Uni-versity of San Francisco) 'Japanese ReadingExercises in Java' which also included a dis-cussion on the relative effectiveness of differ-ent types of glosses, and Miki Ueda andSaeko Komori's presentation of a 'Dokudoku'a reading program which will allow teachersand students to input their own texts andreceive difficulty ratings, a dictionary andtemplates for creating questions. MinjuanWang (University of Missouri) demonstrated anon-commercial program, GALT (GlossingAuthentic Language Texts) which she uses toproduce glossed Chinese Readings. IsabelleKreindler (University of Haifa, Israel) dis-cussed the pedagogical principles in designingremedial CALL lesson for students failing tra-ditional reading courses and illustrated exam-ples of previews and guided reading. SuzanneHoffman reported on her PhD study in a paperentitled 'Hypertext and L2 Reading Compre-hension.' The 'hypertext' of the title turned outto be vocabulary and grammar glosses, whichof course does fit the definition of hypertext.She found that students receiving the hyper-text scored much higher, though they relied

almost exclusively on the vocabulary glossesonly. Sara Kol and Miriam Schkolnik (TelAviv University, Israel) reported on theirongoing research on reading longer texts fromthe screen in which they found that by usingthe 'find feature' of the word processer andnavigational aids such as a hyperlinked out-line, students can probably read equally wellon the screen as on paper - in scanning theyactually did slightly better on the screen, inskimming and close reading equally well.

There were a small number of papersdevoted to the Evaluation of the Effective-ness of CALL Software. Samantha Earp(University of North Carolina, Charlotte) gavean overview of the research methodologiesand evaluative instruments used for the assess-ment of technology enhanced language learn-ing. Chris Hall (University of Leicester)reported on a project to evaluate the effective-ness of CALL in grammar teaching. An erroranalysis of students' written work showed thatstudents who had attended CALL classes hada better knowledge of certain aspects of Ger-man grammar than those who had not. JayKunz (Mississippi State University) comparedthe effects of a traditional and a computerisedGerman workbook on student study strategies,attitudes, achievement, and retention scores. Acombined use of CALL exercises and theworkbook proved superior to the workbook onits own. A note of caution was introduced byKarina Collentine (Yavapai College) andJoseph Collentine (Northern Arizona Univer-sity), who reported on the cognitive effects ofgrammar slide shows for foreign languagelearners. Their research showed that a multi-media-based inductive approach was not nec-essarily better than traditional paper/textualapproaches, in fact for some structures, thenon-multimedia approach may have beenmore effective.

The Computer and Cultural Aspects ofLanguage Teaching was addressed in only asmall number of papers at CALICO 98.Franziska Lys (Northwestern University) dis-cussed the boundaries and limitations ofteaching culture with technology, givingexamples from German materials. RainerKusslex (University of Stellenbosch, South

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Africa) spoke about his experiences authoringa hypertext application, Landeskunde PC,which is available from the German govern-ment-funded organisation Inter Nationes. JohnBrine and Marcia Johnson (University ofWaikato, New Zealand) addressed the culturaldimensions of CALL on the basis of theirexperience in teaching English to students inJapan.

A number of Special Interest Groups heldmeetings at the symposium, but the only oneeither of us managed to make it to was theCAPITAL (Computer Assisted PronunciationInvestigation, Teaching and Learning) meet-ing, in spite of this being given a slot at 7o'clock in the morning! Not unsurprisingly,the meeting was poorly attended, but CAPI-TAL has now reconstituted itself with a newexecutive committee. Those who got up earlyenough were rewarded with more details onthe speech recognition software used in theSubarashii package mentioned above.

Some of the software exhibited in thecourseware showcase has already been men-tioned in conjunction with presentations, butthere were also hardware exhibits and litera-ture, e.g. the digests and mini-bibliographieson linguistic topics, including CALL, pro-vided free of charge by the US government-funded ERIC Clearinghouse on Languagesand Linguistics (available via the Internet onhttp://www.cal.org/ericcll).

The conference was a success in everyrespect: apart from many interesting papersand exhibits, the participants enjoyed thepleasant environment, the wonderful SouthernCalifornian weather and the friendly atmos-phere. Thanks are due to the competent andapproachable CALICO organising team, espe-cially Robert Fischer and Esther Callais, andalso to David Herren and his assistants for theflawlessly functioning technology.

Ana Gimeno-Sanz, Chris Hall andIsabelle Keindler

Editor's noteThis year no proceedings will be published. All abstractshowever, will be placed on the CALICO site with the pre-senters' URL whenever available.

What is Global aboutWorldCALL?A personal view of WorldCALL98University of Melbourne13-17 July 1998

This first WorldCALL conference was thelongest, densest, and most stimulating CALLconference I have attended. I congratulatethe organisers, for their vision in puttingtogether a substantial programme of varietyand quality, and for the technical and admin-istrative competence with which it was deliv-ered. Plus, in the middle of it all, we wereable to share the excitement of our Frenchcolleagues as their national football teambeat the World for the first time sinceCharlemagne! At the end of this article Ihave attached some reports on individualpapers. This is a selection from a larger num-ber of reports on the conference written byseveral different people and published on theWeb. Here I am simply trying to give a tasteof what the sessions covered. My commentson the conference itself, below, areaddressed to the more general issue of whatshould be special about a "World' conferencein the field of CALL, in the hope of influenc-ing the design of the next WorldCALL,which I sincerely hope will not be too longin coming.

WorldCALL98 attracted over 300 dele-gates from 28 countries and would have hadan even greater presence from China, Japanand South East Asian countries if it had notbeen for the weakness of currencies in theregion. The organising committee respondedto this situation by subsidising six delegatesfrom developing countries: India, China, Viet-nam, Malaysia and Georgia. These 'scholar-ship' delegates conducted a joint symposiumon 'CALL in the Developing World', whichwas chaired by one of the keynote speakers,Madanmohan Rao, from India. Several ofthem also gave papers in the parallel sessions.A breakdown of the country/region of originof presenters in these sessions (excludingkeynote speakers) is given in Table 1.

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