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Larysa Kudryavtseva
Call 570 Introduction to CALL Professor: Leo van Lier
Summary of Part 3: Authentic Task
Chapter 10 Classroom Practice: Content-Area. Tasks in CALL Environments
Elizabeth Hanson Smith
This chapter describes types of software that support authentic tasks and activities for the language learner at a wide variety of levels in all content area.
Word computer games improve estimating abilities, deductive and inductive reasoning, and prediction strategies:
? Hangman (Winograd, 1985, for Macintosh computers
? Hangman Plus (Winograd, 1991)
? Thinkin’ Things Collection 3, 1995 Redmond, WA: Edmark
Crossword puzzle software can help students practice vocabulary, word definitions, collocations, part-to-whole relations.
? CD-Rom TESOL/CELIA’96 (1996)
Simulations for Social Sciences
Technology-enhanced simulations include realistic color and sound, respond instantly to students’ decisions in multiple ways, and can be deeply absorbing:
? SimCity (1995). The software’s goal is to build an entire urban environment from scratch.
? Simtown (1995) Students can be put in and take on the roles of members of a town council which will produce a discussion about urban design and ecology.
? Maxis’s CD-ROMS involve tasks ranging from building an ant farm to creating new species on a virtual planet; Demo version is available from Maxis’s Web site (
For advanced students in the area of business and economics:
? Capitalist Pig (1994)
? Capitalism Plus (1995) provides futuristic or historical scenarios. Students plan production by using maps to locate raw materials and react to events such as riots, plagues, and technological breakthroughs.
The social sciences are particularly fruitful territory for curriculum-related simulations:
? Oregon Trail (1991)
? Go West! The Homesteader’s Challenge (1997)
? Wagon Trail 1848 (1997). Each computer station becomes a wagon in the train, and the groups can communicate from wagon to wagon by email. The students travel to the WEST in a 19th-century wagon train. They must decide how much to spend on oxen, provisions, and bullets to hunt game and then determine the best route to follow to the Pacific Ocean.
History and Geography Simulations:
? Sid Meier’s Civilization II (1997) provides scenarios from various historical eras. Understanding historical processes, the students can make diplomatic, political, and if all else fails, military choices.
? Ingenuity Works’ Crosscountry USA (1992) and
? Ingenuity Works’ Crosscountry Canada (1992 include maps and charts of products and the places they are grown or manufactured. Students drive a truck across the country, pick up and deliver products.
? Demo version of Crosscountry USA is available from Ingenuity Works’ Web site
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? Tom Snyder Production (TSP) provides lesson plans for research-based decision-making activities.
? Decisions. Decisions (1996) focuses on such historical issues as colonization, immigration, and revolutionary wars.
? (TSP) Cultural Debates (1996)
Search and Research in the Sciences
? Rain Forest Researchers (1996). Students address research questions as they watch videos, analyze information, share results, and explore the use of biological resources.
? Our Environment (1996; CD-ROMs plus a 14-book library, two audiotapes, bug-collecting bottles, and a tree-ring kit)
? Map Room (1996). The students create their own maps.
? Violent Earth (1996; on volcanoes)
? Light and Sound (1996; on Physics)
? Message in a Fossil (1996). Students become paleontologists and prepare presentations of their findings.
The imagination Express series By Edmark combines the sciences, social sciences, and language arts in a whole language approach:
? Destination: Rain Forest (1995)
? Destination: Ocean (1995). The students find facts and details on the rain forest or ocean habitat, copy pictures of rain forest or the ocean and record their voices as part of the presentation.
? Multimedia Literature CD-ROMs have been devised based on a number of texts and stories in the upper elementary and middle school curriculum.
The Arts
Music
Numerous software programs allow the computer to record and play music and even generate a written score. The computer allows instant replay of any word, expression, or the bar of music.
`?The Cat Came Back (1996). The tasks with picture prompts include singing along while viewing either the text or the music only.
? MTV Online ( This Web site has an extensive archive of music clips and interviews with rock celebrities as well as a live chat area.
ART
The CALL environment demonstrates considerable power in the area of graphics.
? Kid Pix(1997). This clip-art collection and a simple graphics program works equally well with both older students and youngsters.
?Museum sites include biographical backgrounds of the artists, interesting comments on art history:
?HyperCard (1997)
Literature
The following on- line sites provide the enormous bank of resources and activities to accompany reading.
? The Comenius English Language Center ( offers a classic literary genre, Aesop’s fables, followed by comprehension questions scored on line and writing prompts to help the students create their own.
? Web -sites of the professional writers. Interaction with the author by e-mail can generate considerable motivation for the students who are interested in writing.
Reference Software and Web Sites for Content Searches
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? Discovery Channel (Nile: Passage to Egypt, 1995)
? Microsoft Cinemania 96 (1995)
? Hypermedia Microsoft Encarta 1998 Word Atlas (1997)
? The Complete History Through Art (1994)
Content-Based Tasks for On-Line Learning
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Designing a Content-Based Multimedia Task
The by-now traditional I-search paper is the important authentic task in itself. This task can incorporate many of the other conditions for optimal language learning, including interaction, authentic audience, exposure, production, and intentional cognition.
?Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 98 (1997)
?HyperStudio (1997)
?Microsoft PowerPoint 97 (1996)
Curricular Exchanges at a Distance
Content-based multimedia presentations authored by students are an appropriate resource for the growing number of worldwide curricular exchanges.
? ( supports the HUT Internet Writing Project, based at Helsinki University of Technology. The project operates among adult classes in intensive and college programs in Northern Europe. The project brings together classrooms from different countries in virtual and real-time adventure tasks.
Conclusion:
Technology has given an interesting twist to the idea of Task as a language learning strategy in the content-based classroom. Technology allows to comfortably accommodate the variety of the students’ learning styles and strategies in their quest to understand content and language.