Let’s say, English teaching in high schools of mainland, China, without any difference between CMI and EMI language teaching, all depends on whether the teacher is capable to use English as the only teaching language in class, and also the students are able to follow the lesson only in English. Usually, for convenience and effectiveness, except the open class, teachers use English in a quarter of each lesson, perhaps. Let alone communicating with students in English in class with almost 60 students. That’s why the students in China always are good at reading but poor in listening and speaking because lack of immersing in an authentic leaning environment. That’s why even after six years intensive learning, students still have not got ready for the necessary language proficiency for college study.
Actually, this program in Liou’s study (1994) is the most practical one for EFL students in China I have ever met in CALL course. There are three main advantages I found in this project. First, definiteness. Based on a well-grounded theoretical motivation not only in technological innovations but also in SLA, it has a quite clear objective to meet students’ needs of improving language skills in exploring a movie, like reading comprehension and speaking skills, active use of language, and access to the culture of a language. Second, systematic. The whole program contains four units, which are designed in order based on SLA theory, and every step with sufficient assistance in both language and operation. Third, it is operational. The minimal requirement for this courseware project is a multimedia classroom with this courseware, and teachers are not essential because every possible problem can be solved with the help of this software. Therefore, this EFL IVD project is really suitable for individual students’ learning and students can learn at their own pace without any interfering with others.
However, I also have some doubt on this project. Due to its design for individual learning, how to define communicative objective here? Of course, learners can communicate with the computer with this software, which means the tasks designed cannot be as flexible as what it says. That is why in the last unit, it follows the traditional teaching approach. Then, even though, teachers can find out the timing and process of each learner through the platform, it is very difficult to control the whole procedure of the whole class. So it is necessary to have a learning or a teaching plan for this program. In the process of individual learning, students can look up difficult vocabulary or any background knowledge through the learning “help”, but is it possible to conclude for the information which the user looked for at the end of the process?
Actually, this program in Liou’s study (1994) is the most practical one for EFL students in China I have ever met in CALL course. There are three main advantages I found in this project. First, definiteness. Based on a well-grounded theoretical motivation not only in technological innovations but also in SLA, it has a quite clear objective to meet students’ needs of improving language skills in exploring a movie, like reading comprehension and speaking skills, active use of language, and access to the culture of a language. Second, systematic. The whole program contains four units, which are designed in order based on SLA theory, and every step with sufficient assistance in both language and operation. Third, it is operational. The minimal requirement for this courseware project is a multimedia classroom with this courseware, and teachers are not essential because every possible problem can be solved with the help of this software. Therefore, this EFL IVD project is really suitable for individual students’ learning and students can learn at their own pace without any interfering with others.
However, I also have some doubt on this project. Due to its design for individual learning, how to define communicative objective here? Of course, learners can communicate with the computer with this software, which means the tasks designed cannot be as flexible as what it says. That is why in the last unit, it follows the traditional teaching approach. Then, even though, teachers can find out the timing and process of each learner through the platform, it is very difficult to control the whole procedure of the whole class. So it is necessary to have a learning or a teaching plan for this program. In the process of individual learning, students can look up difficult vocabulary or any background knowledge through the learning “help”, but is it possible to conclude for the information which the user looked for at the end of the process?
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