apcampbell

I’ve spent the last few weeks introducing my EFL students to DynEd, part of a new CALL initiative in our department here at Sandai.

DynEd is a fully developed computer-assisted language learning system, comprised of a variety of different courses and modules.  After taking a placement test, the system recommends a course of study.  Students wear a headset with microphone, as there are interactive audio/visual exercises, including a voice recognition feature.  Also available to the students is a complete history of their usage, along with an ‘intelligent tutor’ feature, that makes recommendations based on their usage patterns.  Finally, there are mastery tests at the end of each module to test student acquisition.

From the teacher’s end, the most useful tool is the records manager, from which they can see an wide array of statistics for each student, which can be used for giving feedback, making adjustments in the range of what is available for study, and for evaluating student performance.  The real challenge is trying to fit the usage of such software into an institutional curriculum.  That has been the biggest learning experience for me thus far.

For all of the organic, self-directed, open-networked approaches to language learning I advocated, I can see the value of behavioristic CALL systems for training in the fundamentals of the language.   If blogs and social networking are the ring, systems like DynEd could be the training gym.

If you ever get a chance to see a DynEd demo, check it out and ask to see the records manager.  I believe Bill Gatton, the president of DynEd Japan will be presenting at JALT CALL 2006 in June.