Russian is CALLing: a guided tour of modern Computer-Assisted Language Learning tools
Rob Reynolds, Brigham Young University

Computers and smartphones have become a ubiquitous part of modern society, opening many new and exciting possibilities for language teachers and learners. However, it can be overwhelming to keep track of new apps, websites, and browser extensions that may or may not actually help you and your students. In this workshop, I will give a brief overview of the different kinds of tools that are available, as well as issues to consider when evaluating whether to use them. The majority of the time will then be spent demonstrating and playing with a variety of Computer-assisted Language Learning (CALL) tools, with an emphasis on those that are free and/or open-source. I will also share some tools that I have helped develop in the field of “Intelligent” CALL (ICALL), so called because they rely on Natural Language Processing technology—a subfield of Artificial Intelligence—to dynamically process authentic texts or learner language.

Participants are encouraged to bring their own laptops to the workshop. If you have wordlists or texts that you use in your teaching, make sure that you have them available on your computer.

Time may allow for a few participants to share their own favorite CALL apps, so if you have a tool that you love to use, be prepared to briefly share/demo it.