More Than Just the Internet: Other Technology for Language Teaching
Samantha Earp

At a time when many people and institutions associate technology-enhanced learning with Internet-based applications, such as the World Wide Web, it is important to remember that non-Internet technologies remain very useful aids for language students and teachers. This article discusses several of these non-Internet technologies.

Language software for personal computers or lab networks is becoming more flexible and powerful, both in the types of media it can include and in the design features it offers. A single CD-ROM can offer comprehensive reference materials, such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, and atlases. Commercial language instruction programs use interactive games and conversations to teach words and basic phrases and use speech recognition technology to allow users to record their speech and compare it with a model of how it should sound.

Authoring programs--software that allows teachers to modify or develop language-learning materials--are becoming increasingly more sophisticated. They incorporate multiple media resources, flexible feedback mechanisms, and, in many cases, a database system for tracking user performance. Teachers and students of grammar, stylistics, and translation may find a concordancer program helpful in searching for occurrences of particular vocabulary and grammar usage in texts. For example, a Spanish-language news article downloaded from the Internet could be analyzed with a concordancer to display every occurrence of the word "hasta" to give examples of the word's usage in context.

Language lab systems make audio, video, and digital resources available to students at workstations. They are being upgraded to allow the incorporation of multiple media resources--such as audio, satellite, and video--into the lab. These systems have the potential to support several groups of users simultaneously. They may also be adapted to include computer stations at some or all lab locations.

Smart classrooms, which are set up to display video, videodisc, and computer output to a roomful of students, allow faculty members not only to "take their office to the classroom," but also to "take the lab to their classroom" because they can demonstrate networked lab resources and incorporate them into their regular instruction.

Efforts are under way in many states to offer distance-learning language courses. In this type of technology, live or "real-time" instruction is beamed via satellite to one or more remote sites. The most common form involves the use of two-way video and audio. Special distance-learning classrooms have been set up in many institutions, where video cameras allow instructors and participants at remote locations to see, hear, and interact with one another. Distance-learning courses are often further supported by Internet applications such as electronic mail (to allow question-and-answer interaction and let instructors set up electronic office hours) and the World Wide Web (for the distribution of course materials and information).

Although much emphasis is placed on new applications of the Internet for language teaching, other technologies continue to advance as well. These innovations are an important part of the technological toolbox for language learners and teachers alike.

Samantha Earp is Director of the Language Resource Center in the Department of Foreign Languages at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She is a fluent speaker of French.

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