Developing and evaluating language courseware

The paper sets out twenty proposals for the development and evaluation of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) programs. These proposals emerge from special characteristics of language instruction and of the use of computers to assist in language instruction. We combine theoretically-based assumptions with empirical findings drawn from investigation of language courseware for Hebrew speakers in Israel. We first list four unique features of language instruction: (1) the object-language-meta-language distinction; (2) computer as written medium vs. language as primary spoken medium; (3) teaching of second language skills vs. linguistics; (4) the computer as an electronic tool vs. the computer as a cognitive entity simulating the speaker. We then show how these unique characteristics of language instruction (mother-tongue and foreign language) impose special proposals on language courseware. These proposals should be observed in the development of language courseware and in the evaluation of such programs. Clearly, these proposals integrate with general courseware proposals.Michal Ephratt (Ph.D., computational linguistics) completed post-doctoral studies at the University of Rochester. She has been on the staff of the Dept. of Hebrew Linguistics, University of Haifa, since 1988. Some of her publications include Root-Pattern Array: The Main Tool of Hebrew Word Formation (Hebrew University, 1985); and What's in a Joke? in Advances in Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language and Knowledge-based Systems (Springer-Verlag, 1990).This paper is based on work the author did as a consultant in the National Courseware Evaluation Department of the Ministry of Education. I wish to thank Esther Diamant, head of the department, for making the study possible.