Beg – Cog – Con continuum

From the continuum above, I am inclined to believe that the behaviorism along with the constructivism theory should be combined to create the efficient CALL tools for the second language learners. The following three values from both theories will promote a more effective CALL tool:

1.Giving rewards on good performance

In behaviorism theory, it has been believed that rewards can help motivate learners to move further to the next level of the exercise. According to Shield (2000), the way that students were rewarded before moving on to the complex level was obviously seen in the computer games which were highly addictive to teenager. Giving rewards can be enjoyable and it pushes students to study harder for the reward. Therefore, the language learning can be seen as a game, encouraging learners to reach the higher level of success.

2. Practicing doing exercises

I agree with the behaviorism theory that drills help learners in learning a second language. However, drills, designed in this period, solely focus on grammatical issues which do not encourage learners to produce a target language. To combine the two theories, it would be more useful and interesting if the exercises contain the ideas from the constructivism theory which promotes collaboration and negotiation of meaning. Apart from doing the exercises on grammar, leaners can be asked to produce a target language by writing a paragraph using the grammar they just learn, or discussing the general issues with the classmates through the media. Dooly (2008) stated that “collaborative learning, the fact that students are actively exchanging, debating, and negotiating ideas within their groups increases students’ interest in learning.”

3. Learning language through content

The idea of learning language through content from the constructivism theory can help learners enhance both their academic growth and their language proficiency. Content that meets learners’ interest will motivate the learners in studying the language. It is easier for the learners to learn the language when they have the prior knowledge of that particular content. For example, learners can guess the meaning of the unknown words from the context clues easily if they are familiar with the content. According to Amiri and Fatemi (2014), they believed that teaching language through content can increase learners’ language acquisition and “the learners achieve more when the emphasis is more on the meaningful and relevant content other than the form itself.”

Each theory has its own values and important features; however, from my point of view, combining the values from different theories across the period of time would be more beneficial since some practices that used to be effective might not be practical in the present. Therefore, adapting the old and inserting the new practices can certainly create the effective learning tools.

References

Amiri, M. and Fatemi, A.H. (2014). The Impact of Content – based Instruction on Students’ Achievement in ESP Courses and Their Language Learning Orientation. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 4(10), 2157-2167.

Dooly, M. (2008). Constructing Knowledge Together. In Dooly, M (ed.) Telecollaborative Language Learning: A Guide Book to Moderating Intercultural Collaboration online, 21-44.

Shield, G. (2000). A Critical Appraisal of Learning Technology Using Information and Communication Technologies. Journal of Technology Studies, 26(1), 71-79.

Bonk, C. J., & Cunningham, D. J. (1998). Searching for learner - centered, constructivist, and sociocultural components of collaborative educational learning tools. In C. J. Bonk & K. S. King (Eds.), Electronic collaborators: Learner - centered technologies for literacy, apprenticeship, and discourse (pp. 25-50). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.