Purposes

Since the first version of this book came out in 2005, the field of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has grown and changed. This update is the result of some of those changes. Our intent is to place pedagogical goals before technologies, as the literature advises but is not always followed in classrooms. In revising this book, as in the original, we assume that good teachers teach well because they bear in mind certain principles about how they can best help learners to learn language. Placing these principles at the center of attention makes it much easier for teachers to concentrate on the question of what constitutes effective computer-enhanced pedagogy and why.

This book takes as its organizing principles both the system of conditions that are known to support effective language learning and the goals that a variety of standards in the field have set out for us and our students.

Examples throughout the book underscore the need to consider theory in every aspect of the teaching and learning process. Some of the points in this book we have made in other places; other we discovered during the revision process. All told, this text provides a brief picture of what CALL classrooms can be like today. Of course, that could change tomorrow.