Developing a Pedagogical Taste for Online Instruction with Teaching Projects through the Course of CALL Preparation

To prepare language teachers for technology-enhanced language instruction, relevant courses and programs should be designed. In practice, however, many of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) teacher education attempts fail to effectively prepare language teachers to integrate technology in the reality of their classrooms due to their purely theory-oriented lecture-based designs. Without an opportunity to put what is learned into practice prior to actual classroom instruction, teachers cannot be expected to acquire the knowledge for technology-assisted language instruction. Teaching practice projects have not received due attention in CALL teacher education research. To address this gap, a case study was conducted on a group of in-service English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers (N= ۷) who were attending an online CALL course, to explore the extent to which practice can enhance their pedagogical knowledge of CALL. Each participant was required to take charge of an online session as the course instructor and practice defining the session, developing presentation materials, uploading the files, and directing and managing classroom discussions. Drawing on the data obtained from participants’ post-teaching-practice journals and CALL Pedagogical Knowledge Questionnaire responses, it was observed that teaching projects in an online classroom combined with peer observation helped participants enhance their knowledge of learning management systems, digital materials development, technology-related potentials and drawbacks, and strategies for managing online sessions. The findings of this study provide implications for online CALL teacher education research.

Keywords:

teacher education , CALL , teaching practice , language teachers