Students' and instructors' attitudes toward the use of CALL in foreign language teaching and learning

Abstract

This study examines the effects of educational technologies on the attitudes of both the instructors and the students. The results indicate that there is a discrepancy between the students' awareness of the instructors' goals for using new technologies and the importance instructors placed on computer assisted language learning (CALL). The data also indicate a disparity between the students' reported use of CALL and instructors' perceptions of students' use of CALL, as well as between the types of technologies instructors thought were useful for students' success and those that students thought were useful for their own success. A comparison of students' log-in frequencies and the average time they spent on CALL activities per week, with the instructors' daily journals for each class indicated that instructors' behaviour had an effect on students' patterns of CALL use. As very few studies have made a comparison between students' attitudes and instructors' perceptions of the use of educational technologies, this study helps to fill a gap in the literature and leads to a better understanding of the use of CALL in second language teaching.