Review of Teacher Education in Call.(Book review)

Online courses and computer-mediated communication

Christine Bauer-Ramazani's chapter 11 presents the design and application of asynchronous and synchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC) in online CALL courses. According to the author, CMC provides an effective community for students' interaction, feedback exchange, and collaboration. Bauer-Ramazani makes it clear that in addition to the content to be taught, the "human factor" (p. 191) is also critical in online CALL course design. For example, the design of a user-friendly "virtual cafe" (p. 191) allows course participants to discuss issues not directly related to the course.

Similarly, Christopher Jones and Bonnie Youngs (Chapter 16) stress the importance of an online component and the application of CMC in a hybrid CALL training course at Carnegie Mellon University. The authors consider such courses especially useful for in-service teacher training because they are flexible and affordable compared to regular degree programs, and because teachers have full control of their own CALL learning processes, depending on time available.

Collaborative development

A collaborative Internet project for students at Yakutsk State University, Siberia, is introduced by Larissa Olesova and Christine Meloni in Chapter 14. As the authors note, their case presents a context in which political, social, economic, and cultural situations pose challenges to CALL education, given that Yakutsk is located in a particularly remote area of Russia. In the collaborative Internet project described in the chapter, students were asked to find articles or websites on collaborative Internet projects, work with other students to evaluate these projects, and design their own collaborative projects which would make use of email, the web, Nicenet (a discussion board), and Tapped-In (an online chatting platform). Collaborative development was found to be useful as it promoted understanding among teachers and helped bridge gaps between participants.

Integration of CALL education throughout degree programs

Martine Peters (Chapter 9) discusses the development of computer competencies for pre-service language teachers in Quebec, Canada, and concludes with survey results indicating that a single course on technology in a teacher education program is not sufficient in preparing technologically competent teachers. While such a course produced quick results, it did not guarantee the development of technological competence over time. Thus, CALL courses should be integrated throughout a teacher education program.

Volker Hegelheimer addresses this same concern in Chapter 7 by describing the integration of technology components into students' coursework throughout the curriculum of the MA TESL program at Iowa State University. For example, the concept of learner corpora and computer analysis of texts is introduced when students are taking courses in English Grammar and Second Language Acquisition. Also, data analysis is integrated into the courses Teaching Methods and Language Testing. The author quotes Chapelle's (2003) remark that "the way that students will learn to do applied linguistics with technology is by learning applied linguistics through technology" (p. 31). Hegelheimer's approach is refreshing and engaging in that he sees computer competency not merely as a single component of the MA program, but as woven into every aspect of the learning process.

Communities of Practice in CALL education and learner autonomy

In addition to the approaches mentioned above, the concepts of self-learning and group learning are also proposed in the volume. Lave and Wenger (1991) describe Communities of Practice (CoPs) as occurring in a variety of settings where social groups naturally form to solve problems, share knowledge, mentor or assist apprentices, and collaborate to practice the skills of a domain. Elizabeth Hanson-Smith, in Chapter 18, concludes that the idea of promoting virtual communities (one type of CoP) among language teachers is promising because it allows teachers to interact with like-minded peers, adding the advantage of building their experience and confidence in using CMC.

Marinna Kolaitis and her colleagues also suggest that CALL teacher education is more likely to be successful if it is teacher-initiated (Chapter 19). Both pre- and in-service teachers, when participating in CALL training courses as learners, will benefit if they draw on support networks such as CMC and CoPs and develop learner autonomy. Learner autonomy is especially important for teachers' professional development in the long run after a training course is complete.

Theme 3: The Impact of Technology Education on Teacher Roles

The impact of technology and technology education on teachers' roles and identities serves as the final theme of the volume. Several chapters discuss how teachers experience changes in terms of their perceptions of their roles, and how teacher educators can prepare teachers for these changes. William Wong and Phil Benson (Chapter 15) report on an 18-month case study in which they compare the performances of two experienced EFL teachers in Hong Kong after these teachers completed an in-service CALL training course. The authors conclude that individual differences, such as the awareness of teachers' roles and identities, lead to differences in long-term outcomes; specifically, the teacher who was more comfortable with a student-centered and communicative approach to language teaching seemed to be the most successful in integrating technology into the class.

Another interesting point is made about teachers as producers rather than consumers of knowledge (Freeman, 1998). Hubbard and Levy argue that teachers have "the potential to be much more than consumers, and we want them to be regarded as having the capacity for research and development in CALL and performing in functional roles beyond practitioners" (p.12). In fact, a very similar view is put forth by Kessler in Chapter Two: "Teachers and developers of teacher training programs should approach development not in terms of what a computer can do, but in terms of what a human can do" (p.26).

As far as teachers' roles and identities are concerned, Chapter 5 by Diane Slaouti and Gary Motteram exemplifies the reconstructive processes of how teachers changed their roles in the classroom. The study was conducted at Manchester University in the UK. The key component in reconstructive processes, as indicated by the authors, is to raise teachers' awareness of the changing role of teachers with technology integration into the classroom. In their study, teachers were asked to reflect on their teaching practices and report how their perceived roles in the language classroom changed over a period of time. In this way, the authors expect to trace the cognitive and psychological development of teachers as technology is integrated into daily classroom activity. As Biggs (1999) pointed out, learning is a process that allows people to explore their understanding of the knowledge they have gained and to develop a layer of knowledge that allows for transformation of learning-at-a-time into learning-over-time. Once again, readers are reminded of the potential of language teachers to be much more than technology consumers; rather, teachers participate actively in the transformation of learning, weaving their background, experiences, goals, and expectations into the process.

Final Thoughts

This volume consists of twenty chapters which are further divided into five sections, and the bulk deals with the first two central themes, that is, the existing problems and complexities in CALL teacher education and current practice in diverse contexts. Questions such as "What courses are appropriate for CALL training programs?" and "Is there a best practice for CALL teacher training?" have been puzzles for CALL teacher educators for a long time. Zhao and Tella (2002) also pointed out that the issue of what organizational arrangements promote technology use by teachers needs to be addressed. This volume is the first attempt to address these questions. It provides practical information by reporting the authors' experiences in a wide range of educational environments and contexts. Most chapters are written as personal or institutional stories. In addition, the complexities that have been or still need to be addressed in teacher education in CALL, such as the lack of human and technological resources and institutional support, are also given considerable discussion. It introduces a variety of CALL training frameworks (e.g., integration of CALL across the language teacher curriculum, project learning, situated learning, and online courses) that will fit the needs of a particular institutional environment and is therefore a useful handbook for language teachers, teacher educators, and program administrators.

Particularly interesting about this volume is the discussion of the third theme: cognitive and psychological development of teachers as technology is integrated into the language classroom. Zhao and Tella (2002) note that the relationship between teachers and technology has been a long-standing issue that is yet to be resolved. Some argue that technology will replace teachers, while others contend that there is no need for technology. Hubbard and Levy's volume indicates that the truth lies somewhere in between. The volume's discussion of the changing roles, self-perception, and motivation of language teachers will contribute to defining the different roles that technology and teachers should play in the language classroom.

However, the volume is lacking any type of comparison study of other critical issues such as the differences and similarities between different training modes (e.g., on-line versus face-to-face teaching). For instance, one possible question in this line of research could be "Since online discussions are completely text-based, are we expecting more critical thinking from discussions that take place in the forums than we do from verbal classroom discussions in residential classrooms?" (Pawan, Paulus, Yalcin, & Chang, 2003) In a nutshell, Teacher Education in CALL addresses existing problems and complexities in CALL teacher education, current practice in diverse contexts, and the impact of technology training on teachers' roles and identities. The intertwining of policies, research, theoretical frameworks, and practical experiences makes this edited volume a valuable reference. It presents the status quo of CALL teacher education and informs future research.

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