technological change and the future of CALL

Technological determinism refers to the idea that all new technology brings to us a certain results and it is also a phrase that describes how technology influences human evolution.there are the ten development in information and communication technology.The first important change is from phone-based to wireless communication because of improved technology and telephone/Internet relay facilities. The second change will be a move from dial-up Internet connections to permanent, direct online connections. Then the third change will be from the use of mainly personal computers to the use of portable computing and online devices. A fourth change will be from narrowband which referring to the speed at which information passes over communication lines to broadband. A fifth change will be from expensive personal computing systems to widely affordable computers and other hardware, first in the developed countries and then in the developing countries. When we want to come to the sixth development then the Internet will change from being an exclusive form of communication and information, mostly limited to people in developed countries, to becoming a mass form of communication accessible to most of the planet. A seventh development will be a movement from text-based information and communication to audiovisual forms of information and communication. Next, the eighth change will be from use of English as the main online language to multilingual Internet use. The ninth change will be from “non-native” to “native” users of information technology. Finally, A tenth change will be the movement of CALL from the language laboratory to the classroom. the expected effect on English teaching that computer-based instruction it was completely removed from “real life.” Students could therefore learn English without having to participate in the real world.although, they had to come back to the real world to use what they had learned. Also the teachers will make the best use of computers in the classroom when students are encouraged to perform the most real tasks possible, taking advantage of the power of modern information and communication technologies to try to change the world in ways that suit students’ own critical values and the interests of humankind. This technology will improve student reading, writing, speaking and listening because they will read a lot when they search about any information in a lot of sources. And they will write an e-mail to communicate with their teachers for example. So the technology effect in a good way for English teaching.  when I want to talk about the first area and the first likely result of ICT development which is new contexts I will consider that because of the increased use of English in new globalized media and commerce there has been a major expansion in the number of second-language English speakers around the world. Also the Arab speakers use English language when they want to communicate with each other by e-mail. So, Effective CALL is no longer a matter of using e-mail and the Internet to help teach English but is increasingly directed at teaching English to help people learn to write e-mail and use the Internet.The second area which is new literacies, in the era of print,the act of reading consisted of an attempt to understand the meaning of a single author. In contrast, reading in the online era has become an attempt to interpret information and create knowledge from a variety of sources. And it is better because sometimes when we want to search about any thing we need to have many sources to be sure about the information we get. The third area which is new genres, Similar changes are occurring with respect to writing. It has been suggested that the essay will increasingly become a marked form. Although essays may still be studied as a literary form, it has been suggested that few people will actually write them since they will be replaced by multimedia presenting concepts through multiple technologies. This impacts upon the way English writing must be taught in the future.The importance of teaching new types of writing through electronic communication can also be illustrated by a situation that occurred in an ESL writing course. The teachers should to help their students to develop their online writing skills to achieve any tasks that need electronic communication. The fourth area is new identities, which describe that online communication is increased so the student who feel that he had a little confidence in his academic English ability he can to developed his own web site and talk to the people in English language. So, his English language will improved. And this skills must be taken into account in English teaching. The fifth area is new pedagogies, The progress of CALL has been based on evolution from the mainframe computer to the personal computer to the networked, multimedia computer, and corresponding changes have occurred in CALL-based pedagogy. there has been a general transformation in CALL over the years, with new ideas and uses of computers being introduced. There is three stages of CALL,the first stage of CALL development was structural CALL. Here the CALL took the form of drill and practice program and it is an approach used during the 1960s and 1970s followed the teaching techniques of structural linguistics. The second stage of CALL development was communicative CALL. Here the CALL took the form of communicative exercises and it is an approach used during the 1980s and 1990s to make students more fluency. The third stage of CALL development was the integrative CALL, an approach used from 21st century based on a socio-cognitive view of language learning. From this viewpoint, learning a second or foreign language involves apprenticing into new discourse communities. The purpose of interaction is seen as helping students enter these new communities and familiarize themselves with new genres and discourses.


Saudi Arabia did not witnessed all the ten developments in ICT, it witnessed some of them   ,For example the last development we did not have it in our classrooms in Saudi Arabia we did not have computers in every classroom but in the next 5 years we will have all these development in our kingdom. And when I want to talk about the five area in Saudi Arabia, unfortunately also not all the five area emerge in the kingdom. But we emerge some of them for example here in Saudi Arabia people communicate whit each other by e-mail in English language and also we try to have a website to talk with other people just in English language. So I expected in the next 5 of 4 years all these area will emerge in Saudi Arabia and the kingdom will be a good place for learning and we will use all the new technology in our classrooms to convey new information in a proper way.