Multimedia CALL

Early personal computers were incapable of presenting authentic recordings of the human voice and easily recognizable images, but this limitation was overcome by combining a personal computer and a 12-inch videodisc player, which made it possible to combine sound, photographic-quality still images and video recordings in imaginative presentations - in essence the earliest manifestation of multimedia CALL. The result was the development of interactive videodiscs for language learners such as Montevidisco (Schneider & Bennion 1984), Expodisc (Davies 1991), and A la rencontre de Philippe (Fuerstenberg 1993), all of which were designed as simulations in which the learner played a key role.

The techniques learned in the 1980s by the developers of interactive videodiscs were adapted for the multimedia personal computers (MPCs), which incorporated CD-ROM drives and were in widespread use by the early 1990s. The MPC is now the standard form of personal computer. CD-ROMs were used in the 1980s initially to store large quantities of text and later to store sound, still images and video. By the mid-1990s a wide range of multimedia CD-ROMs for language learners was available, including imaginative simulations such as the Who is Oscar Lake? series: http://www.languagepub.com/. The quality of video recordings offered by CD-ROM technology, however, was slow to catch up with that offered by the earlier interactive videodiscs. The Digital Video Disc (DVD) offers much higher quality video recordings, e.g. the Eurotalk Advanced Level DVD-ROM series: http://www.eurotalk.co.uk/. A feature of many multimedia CALL programs is the role-play activity, in which the learner can record his/her own voice and play it back as part of a continuous dialogue with a native speaker. Other multimedia programs make use of Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) software to diagnose learners' errors, e.g. Tell Me More Pro by Auralog: http://www.auralog.com/english.html. Most CALL programs under development today fall into the category of multimedia CALL. See ICT4LT Module 2.2, Introduction to multimedia CALL: http://www.ict4lt.org/.