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- The language needs of a student include: content area vocabulary, cultural references or idioms, and ability to negotiate meaning with teachers and fellow students.
- Children stimulated to learn will pursue the language that helps them express their ideas and increase their understanding.
- Social-emotional development is reflected in a child's more elaborate forms of language and inner thought that takes on an increasingly complex social dimension.
- Suggestions for developing the social aspects of language include providing semantic tasks at children's levels of individual development, providing varied experiences in using language, and offering a variety of materials and activities.
- Differences in acquisition exist in second language learning based on variables such as the degree of proficiency in the first language and the length of time and context of exposure a child has to the second language outside of the school.
- Dialects and culture-specific uses of language do not constitute speaking or language disorders.
- In today's inclusive classrooms, children with special needs, children with limited English proficiency, and "regular" children can all learn from each other.
- The number of LEP students was estimated to be between 1.2 and 1.7 million in 1989 and was expected to increase to as much as 3.4 million by the year 2000.
- Half of the population of students with learning disabilities may be misdiagnosed with many of them more accurately described as second language learners.
- Virtually all schools in the nation were expected to have Internet connectivity by the end of 2000. At the beginning of 2000, public schools had an average of one multimedia computer per 10 students, although there are certainly large variations from this average at individual schools (Guernsey, 2000).
- Teachers who know about computer-assisted language learning and how to make the best use of these resources will be increasingly in demand.
- Meta-analyses have found that CBI programs raised student scores on examinations a small but significant amount, use of these programs reduced the amount of time needed for instruction by about 30%, and student attitudes towards computers were improved.
- In a study conducted by Joyce Nutta, students with CALL experience performed significantly better on an open-ended grammar test.
- Regarding special education, Turnbull reports that computers effectively promote academic skills such as problem solving, and can provide one-to-one individualized assistance, self-pacing, positive reinforcement, and motivation in drill-and-practice activities.
- Research suggests that a more comprehensive use of computers to teach complex content through direct instruction may reduce the academic performance gap between students with learning disabilities and their peers.
- Benefits of CALL include students can work independently, proceed at their own pace, and repeat lessons as often as necessary.
- Computers can be used to provide specific activities for individual students at varying stages of language learning, enabling the instructor to focus on class discussions, facilitating small-group projects, or helping individual students personally.
- Computer-assisted learning can be categorized in two ways: instructional activities designed especially for language learners -- "computer as tutor"; and general resources that can be used for language instruction -- "computer as tool" or "worldware."
- Seven recommendations for learning to speak and understand include learners should hear large quantities of speech, listen to many different native speakers, produce large quantities of utterances on their own, and receive pertinent feedback -- ideally immediately and on a one-to-one basis. The context should be meaningful, learners should feel at ease, and there should be ongoing assessment (Eskenazi, 1999).
- With computer-assisted pronunciation instruction, students can listen to examples, record their own voices, then play them back and compare.
- Computer programs can visually display the position of the lips, tongue, and other moving mouth parts and can produce graphics demonstrating and comparing specific features such as stress, length of word segments, and so forth, produced by the student with those of native speakers.
- Word processing is a "worldware" tool that is very important in "process" writing for language learners, who usually must spend a lot of time and effort on creating their first draft and tend who to have many errors to correct.
- Spell checkers can help students struggling with strange English spellings by repeatedly showing them the correct spellings of the words they use most frequently.
- Using the "computer as tool" in learning and conducting Internet searches may help students improve vocabulary, reading ability, and facility in expressing ideas.
- For students studying a foreign language, the Internet offers a wealth of cultural materials as well as current, authentic language, which might otherwise be scarce in the local area.
- The Internet can provide the basis for group-project-based learning approaches, which have proven effective in successful second-language development (Garcia 1987/88; Thomas & Collier, 1997).
- Special education research reinforces the advantages of collaborative work (Turnbull, 1995).
- "TrackStar" is a free Internet tool that allows teachers to assemble lists of sites for students to visit, and to annotate these sites with questions or activities for their students.
- Research has shown that one of the main obstacles to L2 (second-language) reading comprehension is vocabulary.
- Leffa (1992) compared conventional and electronic dictionary use by students doing a translation task and found that students using the electronic version understood 35% more of the passage and spent 50% less time on the task.
- Implementation recommendations include: making computer activities an integral part of the course, using computers to give individual students additional practice, working personally with some students while others work with computers, buying programs with explanations as well as exercises, and buying programs designed to accompany textbooks (McCreesh, 1998).
- Guidelines for teachers include: carefully consider your goals and reasons for using computers, think integration, don't underestimate the complexity of the task, provide necessary supports, be available to the students, involve students in decision-making, be a "guide on the side" rather than a "sage on the stage."
- The results of Okolo and Ferretti's study, in which students in an inclusive classroom completed cooperative multimedia projects, showed improvements in students': opinions of their own abilities, attitudes towards cooperative learning, motivation to participate in social studies, ability to discuss the issues at greater length, depth of awareness of the topic.
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