Call activities: Are they all the same?

Abstract For effective use and study of CALL, teachers and researchers need to be able to assess the degree of similarity among CALL activities as well as the significance for language learning of any apparent differences among activities. This paper explains how the concept of genre is useful for investigating similarities among the types of language produced in CALL activities (i.e. CALL texts). Examples of CALL texts are provided to demonstrate how their functional elements can be analyzed and how their significant features might be identified in light of classroom research results. On the basis of this analysis, I conclude that apparent differences in the example CALL texts are not significant. Three relevant levels of analysis for CALL activities—text, genre, and context—are clarified and their implications for CALL are explained.

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