Gone are the days when an instructor can choose a textbook and methodology that fits the

needs of a particular class or when a period can be devoted to communicative skills,

pronunciation, and grammar. Instead, todays ESL classroom within public education is often
driven by the same force that drives all of contemporary education within the United States,
standardized tests. Consequently, general content areas such as biology, history, mathematics,
and literature have taken precedence over the distinction between simple present and present
continuous, which is not necessarily a bad thing. However, for academic success, ELLs still
require a working knowledge of the more mechanical aspects of the language, for they are still
required to write essays and give presentations, learn from lectures as well as from books.
Therefore, it is up to the ESL instructor to find practical ways of addressing specific linguistic
areas within this new educational context. This can be achieved by extending the classroom to
after school hours, by encouraging the student to take charge of their own learning, and by
optimizing classroom time, all three of which are now possible through Computer Assisted
Language Learning (CALL).
Web 2.0 tools, such as wikis, blogs, podcasting, YouTube, and social networking sites
now allow for the creation and holding of lessons, even those of a communicative nature (Blake
154), outside of the classroom. Considering students spend an average of nine hours weekly on
social networking sites (Blake 153), some may even prefer this sort of learning environment.
Furthermore, it has the potential to free up class time for answering questions, providing
feedback, giving additional practice, or instructing on the metacognitive aspects of language
learning (Blake 155). In addition, it allows students to work at their own pace, for they can
pause, rewind, and repeat; it allows them to collaborate with other students synchronously or
asynchronously; and, it allows them to engage with lessons that are catered to their individual
needs. Sites such as Livemocha and Duolingo even offer language curricula that are almost
entirely student centered in that they allow students to choose specific areas of focus; though
these may fail to supplant in-class instruction, they still have the potential to frontload grammar
and vocabulary, thereby reducing the amount of class-time required for the instruction thereof.
CALL also has the potential to carry students beyond the classroom led solely by the
teacher and into a realm where they are at the helm of creativity. Now, whatever, wherever, and
whenever they want, students can acquire new information, utilize on-line tools to help them
decipher that information, and create projects that contribute to classroom activities through
mediums other than text. For instance, if a student wanted to know about trade routes from
Timbuktu, they could research it in their L1 from their phone using resources that employ audio,
video, and/or text. They could use L1 - L2 translators as well as English dictionaries and
grammar-checking software to assist them with their monologue before making a recording.
They could then listen to the recording over and again, send it out to friends for comments and
make the necessary revisions before finally sending it out to their teacher and peers (Blake 119),
all of which could be done while swinging in a hammock in their own backyard. In addition, by
providing new mediums for student productions, there are new opportunities for the detection of
errors and reception of feedback (Blake 83). Therefore, the benefits are twofold, for we are both
increasing the likelihood that students will obtain new information, which satisfies content-area
objections, and increasing opportunities for the negotiation of meaning, thereby also satisfying
language development objectives.
However, CALL is not only applicable to distance learning and out-of-classroom
instruction/activities, for teachers can also utilize it within the classroom to provide better
quality, individualized instruction in a less amount of time. For instance, in pronunciation drills,
which may enable the learner to participate in discussions and possibly even comprehend
lectures (Levis, J. 184), teachers are now freed from having to rush from student to student as the
rest of the class attempts to listen in silence. Instead, students can have unlimited access to input
and unbiased, immediate feedback on output while working at their own pace in an anxiety-
reduced environment (Neri 1). Furthermore, instructors can cater tasks to meet individual needs;
whereas such quality and individualized instruction once took an entire period to provide, it can
now be done within the first ten minutes of class.
In short, CALL allows for out-of-class instruction, which can be used to teach, drill, or
frontload the mechanics of the language. It enables students to take greater control of their
learning by providing ready access to information along with the tools necessary for the output
thereof. And, it enables instructors to use class time more efficiently when addressing specific
linguistic areas within the classroom. Therefore, even if contemporary ESL instruction within
public education is forced to focus on content-area instruction, I believe that CALL enables
teachers to continue addressing the linguistic areas that are not only necessary for L2
development but also for academic success.