The Application Of CALL To The Teaching Of Listening And Speaking Of College English

Computer assisted language learning (CALL) originated in the 1960s. Since the first day it came into being, its role has been defined as an assisted way of language teaching and learning. That is to say, the CALL alone does not constitute a method. It should be integrated into a certain school or method of teaching as supplement. This paper means to explain and illustrate how to make use of the current CALL technologies to promote the teaching and learning of college English in terms listening and oral competence in accordance with the latest Teaching Syllabus of College English (for non-English majors). In the last 40 years or so, CALL has gone through three different phases, i.e., the Behavioristic CALL, Communicative CALL and Integrative CALL. Each phases corresponded to a certain level of technology development, from the earliest mainframe to the later personal computer and multimediated networked computer, as well as to the dominant linguistic and language teaching theories of the time. The structuralism represented by Leonard Bloomfield, Charles Fries and Robert Lado, cognitive theories represented by Noam Chomsky and Stephen Krashen and socio-cognitive theory by Dell Hymes and Michael Halliday are the theoretical basis for the development of CALL. The usual CALL components are software programs, multimedia, the Internet and the courseware.One of the domestic CALL software programs, NEIE (New Era Interactive English), developed and published by the Tsinghua University in association with other universities means to take the advantage of the network (both Intranet and Internet) and multimedia technology to enhance the teaching and learning of college English in terms of listening and oral competence. The teaching practices in two experimental schools have showed, the course has made quite some progress to some extend. However, it fails to give full play to the advantages of the Internet and the courseware made by teachers themselves. The paper specifically analyzes different requirements stipulated in the latest Teaching...