If some readers are surprised to receive a copy of ReCALL at this early stage in the year, let me remind you that we are now moving from two to three issues a year, for publication in January, May and September instead of May and November. The changeover has proved rather difficult, in terms of allowing time for authors to make revisions in the light of reviewers’ comments, which is why this issue is rather late.

In this issue, as well as regular papers from Dermot Campbell, Fenfang Hwu and Elke Stracke, we have included two papers from the EUROCALL 2006 conference in Granada. Melor Md Yunus discusses Malaysian ESL Teachers’ Use of ICT in Their Classrooms, whilst Petter Karlström and colleagues explore Tool mediation in focus-on-form activities. Having received 39 conference paper submissions, so far 13 have been rejected (but some of these have been advised to submit a version of their paper to the EUROCALL Review) and the remainder are at various stages in the process of bringing them to publication. Tony Harris, organiser of the Granada conference, will have more to say about conference submissions in the next issue of ReCALL, where the bulk of the selected papers will be published.

Like a good deal of change in education, the integration of digital technologies into language teaching and learning has a tendency to be a slow moving, often uncertain, process, whose advance is punctuated by a series of political, administrative and educational filters. These operate at both a global (i.e. international and/or national) and local (i.e. regional and/or institutional) level. Like a train setting off from its departure point travelling towards a final destination – the “normalisation” of CALL perhaps, where computer technology becomes “an integral part of every lesson, like a pen or a book” (Bax 2003: 23) – we all see this process from the unique standpoint of our own institution, though in fact our journey takes place simultaneously within regional, national and international boundaries. Departure and arrival points will inevitably differ: delays may vary, but are to be expected. And although the view from the window, including the stations we stop off at, might look very similar, even identical at times, we will invariably recount different experiences at the end of our journeys – assuming, of course, we ever arrive!

Learner corpora, electronic collections of spoken or written data from foreign language learners, offer unparalleled access to many hitherto uncovered aspects of learner language, particularly in their error-tagged format. This article aims to demonstrate the role that the learner corpus can play in CALL, particularly when used in conjunction with web-based interfaces which provide flexible access to error-tagged corpora that have been enhanced with simple NLP techniques such as POS-tagging or lemmatization and linked to a wide range of learner and task variables such as mother tongue background or activity type. This new resource is of interest to three main types of users: teachers wishing to prepare pedagogical materials that target learners' attested difficulties; learners themselves for editing or language awareness purposes and NLP researchers, for whom it serves as a benchmark for testing automatic error detection systems.

This paper outlines the ongoing construction of a speech corpus for use by applied linguists and advanced EFL/ESL students. In the first part, sections 1–4, the need for improvements in the teaching of listening skills and pronunciation practice for EFL/ESL students is noted. It is argued that the use of authentic native-to-native speech is imperative in the teaching/learning process so as to promote social inclusion. The arguments for authentic language learning material and the use of a speech corpus are contextualised within the literature, based mainly on the work of Swan, Brown and McCarthy. The second part, section 5, addresses features of native speech flow which cause difficulties for EFL/ESL students (Brown, Cauldwell) and establishes the need for improvements in the teaching of listening skills. Examples are given of reduced forms characteristic of relaxed native speech, and how these can be made accessible for study using the Dublin Institute of Technology’s slow-down technology, which gives students more time to study native speech features, without tonal distortion. The final part, sections 6–8, introduces a novel Speech Corpus being developed at DIT. It shows the limits of traditional corpora and outlines the general requirements of a Speech Corpus. This tool – which will satisfy the needs of teachers, learners and researchers – will link digitally recorded, natural, native-to-native speech so that each transcript segment will give access to its associated sound file. Users will be able to locate desired speech strings, play, compare and contrast them – and slow them down for more detailed study.

The use of technology in language teaching and learning has been the focus of a number of recent research review studies, including developments in technology and CALL research (Zhao, 2003), CALL as an academic discipline (Debski, 2003), ICT effectiveness (Felix, 2005), and subject characteristics in CALL research (Hubbard, 2005), to name a few. Such studies have contributed to clarifying how language learning technologies have been investigated, but questions remain regarding how these technologies have been used in achieving learning objectives. In other words, what technologies do CALL practitioners select for the teaching of a certain language skill or area such as listening, grammar or pronunciation? Are the decisions to use these technologies made on pedagogical grounds, or alternatively, are there other aspects that are more instrumental in influencing what is used in the language classroom? The purpose of this study is to review the literature to examine what technologies are used in the teaching of the language skills and areas. All empirical research articles appearing in four major English-language journals in the field of CALL (CALICO Journal, CALL, Language Learning & Technology, and ReCALL) from 2001 to 2005 were examined and the results collated to determine (1) what types of technologies are being used in the teaching of specific language skills and areas, (2) whether researchers had a clear idea in mind regarding their choice of technology or technologies in relation to their learning objectives, and (3) whether the researchers attempted to capitalise upon the features inherent in the technology or technologies as opposed to traditional, non-CALL means. The paper concludes with a discussion of the relationship between technology and pedagogical goals.

This case study investigated the ways pre-major and pre-minor students of Spanish interacted with a grammar application from four perspectives. Firstly, using the computer’s tracking ability to collect learners’ behaviors, the study set out to uncover the different ways learners approached the application. Secondly, the study assessed the influence of two learner variables on learning behaviors: language abilities determined by a placement test and personality preferences measured by Jung-Myers-Briggs-Typology based approach. Thirdly, the study assessed whether the frequency of various behaviors resulted in different knowledge increases. Finally, the study categorized the uncovered behaviors into the learning strategies covered in the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) (Oxford 1990). The study concludes with implications for software improvement, as well as with indications of likely directions for future research.

Corpora and concordancing have become much more widely available as researchers recognise that they can significantly enrich the language learning environment. There is still, however, a strong resistance towards corpus use by teachers and learners (Römer, 2006:122). An understanding of the implications and relevance of corpus use for pedagogy may help teachers and learners overcome this resistance, and hence accelerate the process of “percolation” (McEnery & Wilson, 1997:5) or the “trickle down” (Leech, 1997:2) of corpus research to language teaching and learning. The pedagogical context in which learners' consultation of corpora (corpus consultation literacy) can be developed is fundamental in understanding this new literacy and developing it so that it leads to successful language teaching and learning. This paper seeks to investigate the role which corpus consultation literacy plays in enhancing the language learning process and, consequently, aims to establish whether this new literacy can contribute to a process-oriented approach to language learning. Firstly, a theoretical overview of a process-oriented approach to language learning will be outlined, before investigating if corpus consultation can potentially enhance such an approach. This will be supported by evidence from a number of published empirical studies, covering aspects such as learning within a constructivist framework, and the development of cognitive and metacognitive skills through the use of cognitive and developmental tools. Learners' comments from related studies, namely Chambers and O'Sullivan (2004), O'Sullivan (2006), and O'Sullivan and Chambers (2006), which pertain to the learning process and the influence of corpus consultation literacy on this same process, will also be considered. The hypothesis presented here is that corpus consultation literacy can enhance a process-oriented approach to language teaching and learning. It is envisaged that this research will contribute towards the establishment of a sound theoretical and pedagogical foundation for the integration of corpus consultation literacy into language teaching and learning.

This paper is a descriptive summary of a research project on blended learning in the Faculty of Arts at the University Complutense Madrid. The project was conducted as action research in 2002-06 by the research group LEETHi. LEETHi’s projects focus on the teaching of literature from an intercultural perspective while helping to develop new media competence. The project also addresses – among other objectives – the intercultural potential of literary tests used in second language acquisition where their practical applications include the development and use of digital material for the study of European literatures with the integration of multiple languages and perspectives. A central issue is the potential of blended learning (i.e. the integration of e-learning and contact learning) and the development of autonomy and communication between students and instructor. The online scenario focuses on the performance of tasks following sociocultural and constructivist theories and concepts borrowed from research on multimodality.

This study introduces a new computer-based methodology, ‘concgramming’, that has as its primary aim the automatic identification of the phraseological profile and hence the ‘aboutness’, of a text or corpus. It is argued that this methodology can be employed by language learners and teachers to raise awareness of the importance of the phraseological tendency in language. The methodology is outlined, and examples of its potential for use by language learners in a data-driven learning mode are described. The wider implications of concgramming, and the concgrams so generated, are also discussed with regard to CALL.

We present two case studies of two different pedagogical tasks in a Computer Assisted Language Learning environment called Grim. The main design principle in Grim is to support ‘Focus on Form’ in second language pedagogy. Grim contains several language technology-based features for exploring linguistic forms (static, rule-based and statistical), intended to be used while writing. Our question is, in what ways does Grim support Focus on Form in actual classroom use. We have explored this question within sociocultural theory, emphasizing tool mediation and how tools shape the learner’s activity. The first case concerns a text-reconstruction exercise in which students worked in a pair within the Grim environment. The second case was conducted with another group of students, who engaged in collaborative revision of texts, written in advance by one of the students, in student pairs. In both studies, students were instructed and encouraged to use the different features of Grim. Data was collected by recording dialogue during the sessions with Grim. Our results show how learners put the features of Grim into use in their writing tasks. In some instances, the program was used creatively, in combination with external tools such as the users’ own dictionaries, knowledge of other languages, or teachers. In other instances, we note that Grim was used for error correction, rather than as a language resource. The learners’ activities are thus transformed by their use of the program, from the tasks of revision and text-reconstruction into error correction. The application shapes the activity, in conjunction with the pedagogical tasks. We argue for studying the activities of students with CALL tools, in order to find out in detail how tasks and technology concur in use and what view on language and pedagogy they mediate.

This paper presents FipsOrtho, a spell checker targeted at learners of French, and a corpus of learners’ errors which has been gathered to test the system and to get a sample of specific language learners’ errors. Spell checkers are a standard feature of many software products, however they are not designed for specific language learners’ errors. After a brief review of the state of the art, we describe the system’s architecture and interfaces. Then we describe our error typology and detail the techniques used to retrieve words and to order proposals appropriately: alphacode, phoneticization, ad-hoc, capitalization, apostrophe, and word separation error methods. Proposals are sorted by a score depending on the method(s) used to retrieve them, on the expected lexical category, gender, number and person, and on the string proximity with the unknown word. Then the test results are presented: a list of individual words containing errors was submitted to the alphacode and phoneticization methods; a corpus of authentic learners’ errors was gathered and analyzed. Finally we conclude the paper with some limitations of the system and ideas for future research.

Despite the increase of teacher preparation programs that emphasize the importance of training teachers to select and develop appropriate computer-assisted language learning (CALL) materials, integration of CALL into classroom settings is still frequently relegated to the use of selected CALL activities to supplement instruction or to provide additional practice. For the most part, we are still quite a way from what Bax (2003) calls the normalization stage of CALL, i.e., the stage where CALL becomes invisible and truly integrated. Podcasting, a new method of delivering on-demand audio and video files via the Web, shows promise as a technology that may allow teachers to expand the confines of their classrooms, and is becoming increasingly popular in educational contexts. Current use of podcasting in education remains, however, limited primarily to the delivery of recorded lectures in a portable, online format. We believe podcasting has the potential to not only act as a rich source of input and instruction for students in the language classroom, but also to transform instruction. Consequently, this paper describes a structured attempt to integrate CALL activities in the form of podcasts into an academic English as a Second Language (ESL) course on listening strategies. Preliminary evaluation of this ongoing project suggests that both the teacher and the students find the podcasts to be a positive component of the course.

This paper reports on an empirical case study conducted to investigate the overall conditions and challenges of integrating corpus materials and corpus-based learning activities into English-language classes at a secondary school in Germany. Starting from the observation that in spite of the large amount of research into corpus-based language learning, hands-on work with corpora has remained an exception in secondary schools, the paper starts by outlining a set of pedagogical requirements for corpus integration and the approach which has formed the basis for designing the case study. Then the findings of the study are reported and discussed. As a result of the methodological challenges identified in the study, the author argues for a move from ‘data-driven learning’ to needs-driven corpora, corpus activities and corpus methodologies.

This paper addresses the views of students of blended language learning (BLL) – a particular learning and teaching environment, that combines face-to-face (f2f) and computer-assisted language learning (CALL). In this instance, the ‘blend’ consisted of learners’ independent self-study phases at a computer, with a CD-ROM, and traditional f2f classroom learning. This paper explores this BLL environment from the participants’ perspective and focuses on three learners who left the class. The aim of the study was to understand the reasons behind those students’ decision to leave, so that ideas might be developed for the successful implementation of BLL environments in the future that would appeal to all learners. The analysis showed that students left the class for three reasons: a perceived lack of support and connection/complementarity between the f2f and computer-assisted components of the ‘blend’; a perceived lack of usage of the paper medium for reading and writing; and the rejection of the computer as a medium of language learning. The paper concludes by pointing out implications for the possible future of BLL.

Corpora have been used for pedagogical purposes for more than two decades but empirical studies are relatively rare, particularly in the context of grammar teaching. The present study focuses on students' attitudes towards grammar and how these attitudes are affected by the introduction of concordancing. The principal aims of the project were to increase the students' motivation by showing them that English grammar is more than a set of rules in a book and to enable them to assume more responsibility for their own learning. The idea was to introduce the use of language corpora into the curriculum for first-semester English at Växjö University in Sweden, as a complement to grammar textbooks and ordinary exercise materials. Between classes, the students worked with problem-solving assignments that involved formulating their own grammar rules based on the examples they found in the corpus. In the classroom, a system of peer teaching was applied, where the students took turns at explaining grammatical rules to each other. Besides presenting a new way of working with grammar, we also provided the students with a tool for checking questions of usage when writing English texts in the future, since the corpus we use is free of charge and available to all. The work with corpora and peer teaching was evaluated by means of questionnaires and interviews. This article describes and evaluates this initiative and presents insights gained in the process. One important conclusion is that using corpora with students requires a large amount of introduction and support. It takes time and practice to get students to become independent corpus users, knowing how to formulate relevant corpus queries and interpret the results. Working with corpora is a method that some students appreciate while others, especially weak students, find it difficult or boring. Several of the students did not find corpora very useful for learning about grammatical rules, but realized the potential of using corpora when writing texts in English.

English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers in Malaysia, as in many other countries, are anxious to exploit the potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to enhance the teaching and learning process. Given the increasing pressure exerted by technological developments on language education, it is important to understand the underlying factors behind teachers’ decisions regarding ICT. Egbert et al. (2002) state that few investigations have been conducted on computer-using language teachers’ development. According to BECTA (1999) the learning potential of ICT is not being realised, because many teachers are not familiar with ICT and do not use it in their teaching. This study investigates the present use of ICT among ESL technical school teachers in teaching, factors that affect the use of ICT and perceptions of their skills in ICT. The theory that frames this study is drawn from theories of learning. The model adopted is Davis’ Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (1989) which provides a basis for determining ICT attitudes and factors affecting the usage of ICT in teaching. Data was collected via a questionnaire survey of ESL technical school teachers in Malaysia, and followed by semi-structured interviews with them. The questionnaire data was analysed using descriptive statistics and later triangulated with the interviews. The findings will be presented and elaborated upon in this paper.

This study was carried out in a language centre, in French higher education. Teachers and researchers had contrived a pedagogical system labeled guided autonomy which combined class attendance in groups and self-study in the self-study room. This kind of autonomous and technologically enhanced learning system will be referred to as CAALL (Computer Assisted Autonomous Language Learning) in this paper. To investigate and reflect critically on the students’ practices in CAALL, it was decided to carry out an extensive triangular study, cross-checking different data (Raby, 2003, 2005). The data pertained to what students did (physical behaviors while working), and to how they felt about it (verbal behaviors in the form of journals). Six students volunteered to take part in that experience. They were observed six times consecutively while working autonomously. In addition, we analyzed the journals in which they wrote about their feelings in connection with the CAALL system. From the students’ observations, three strategic models emerged (epistemic, procedural and mixed). From the journal analyses, different motivational attitudes appeared, ranging from enthusiastic appraisal to stark rejection. One unexpected result yielded by the triangular approach was the importance of internal factors (the learners’ characteristics) versus external factors (the learners' environment) in the process of appropriation of the new learning system.

Until recently, use has been made almost exclusively of text-based concordancers in the analysis of spoken corpora. This article discusses research being carried out on Padua University's Multimedia English Corpus (Padova MEC) using the multimodal concordancer MCA (Multimodal Corpus Authoring System, Baldry, 2005). This highly innovative concordancer enables the retrieval of parts of video and audio from a tagged corpus and access to examples of language in context, thereby providing non-verbal information about the environment, the participants and their moods, details that can be gleaned from a combination of word, sound, image and movement. This is of use to language learners of all levels because if “communication is to be successful, a relevant context has to be constructed by the discourse participants” (Braun, 2005: 52). In other words, transcripts alone are not sufficient if learners are to have anything like participant knowledge and comprehend spoken language. In the article it will be demonstrated how language functions expressed in the multimedia corpus of spoken English are retrieved using MCA. Online learning materials based on the multimodal concordances take into consideration not only language, but also the way in which it co-patterns with other semiotic resources, thereby raising the issue of the importance of learner awareness of the multimodal nature of communication.

Computer-mediated-communication (CMC) tools allowing learners to be in contact with native speakers of their target language in other locations are becoming increasingly flexible, often combining different modes of communication in a single web- and internet-based environment. The literature on telecollaborative exchanges reveals, however, that online intercultural communication between language learners “often fails to achieve the intended pedagogical goals” (O’Dowd & Ritter, 2006:624) and warns that “exposure and awareness of difference seem to reinforce, rather than bridge, feelings of difference” (Kern, 2000:256). Yet, research into the reasons for lack of success in CMC-based partnership-learning has, so far, only been carried out on a relatively small scale (see, for example, Thorne, 2005, Ware, 2005, O’Dowd & Ritter, 2006). In autumn 2005, students of French at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), USA and adult learners of French at the Open University (OU), UK were joined by native French speakers studying for an MA in distance education at the Université de Franche Comté (UFC), France in a pilot Tridem project in which all participants worked on the completion of a series of collaborative tasks. The Tridem partners met over several weeks in an internet-mediated, audio-graphic conferencing environment. The project output, a shared reflection in French and English on cultural similarities and differences, took the form of several collaborative blogs. The paper draws on data from pre- and post-questionnaires, from the work published by the learners in the blogs and from post-treatment, semi-structured interviews with volunteer participants. Beyond considering some of the known factors influencing success and failure in CMC-based collaborations such as discrepancies in target language competence among learners, this article also explores affective issues and difficulties arising from varying levels of multimodal communicative competence. The insights gained are mapped against O’Dowd and Ritter’s (2006) ‘inventory of pitfalls’ in telecollaboration. The result is a tentative framework which allows those involved in setting up and running telecollaborative exchanges to gauge both degree and nature of some of the risks they are likely to encounter.