CALL and New Digital Technologies

Abstract

Innovations in computer technology have a history of use in language education dating back over five decades (Davies 2007; Kerth 1995). Davies (1997, 27) observes that computers and computer-based technologies have been in use in language education since the 1960s. The early uses of computer technologies were influenced by the computer-assisted instruction (henceforth CAI) movement, and development continued with the eventual emergence of CALL in the 1980s. In order to obtain a broad perspective on the potential of computer gaming in language education, an examination of how three significant developments in computer technology were applied in the past is instructive, as it provides valuable insights that are highly relevant to the needs of the present.