As you get going with developing your CALL skills you will find that the following two concepts will help you a great deal.  In fact they will help you with any element of your teaching.  They aren't hard, but many people seem to struggle with them, and as a result, struggle with their teaching.

Be consistent with your CALL lessons

Consistency is essential to your success and sanity as a language teacher.  It also helps with classroom management and dynamics.  What I am suggesting here is that you give yourself a hand by trying to make at least some times, places, materials, activity types, topics to cover consistent.  This way you know what needs to be prepared for when, and your students know what to expect at certain times.

What does this have to do with using computers for learning? Well, really all it means is that you commit to having a set time each week or day where computers are involved in the lessons you teach.  It could also include a standard set of activities or tasks.

As an example, I take my writing class into the lab every Wednesday afternoon and have them write a blog entry in their personal blog.  What they write has been previously assigned to them so they have had a chance to prepare for the blog entry.  You could do something similar with pronunciation practice, online research, listening activities, or whatever.

The point is to be consistent, and regular.  This is particularly helpful if you are new to CALL.

Be honest with your computer abilities and knowledge

Now I know some will argue with me on this one, but I really believe that you need to be up-front and honest about what you know and don't know.  If you don't know very much, or aren't really confident about what you are doing, it will never pay to lie or try and fake it. 

"Fake it till you make it" - is only OK if you can do it without looking like an idiot.  the instant you look the fool, you are doomed.

It is MUCH better to let your students know that you are learning too, but that you feel there is great benefit in what you are all about to try and work on.  There is NO shame in not knowing but showing you are trying to learn.  There is a ton of shame in pretending to know and getting caught out.

If you are really unsure about how to do something, ask for help from someone who knows more than you.  Another teacher, or even a student.  I've found that asking students to help with things in class - especially technical things in a computer lab - really can add to the students' engagement in class and overall feeling of value and importance.

One of the best ways to learn and gain confidence is to work through the process you are trying to teach.  Whether is it setting up a language learning blog, learning a new piece of pronunication software or whatever, just working with it will make it easier.

That's really all I have to say today.  It is a bit of a rant I know, but well worth keeping in mind as you develop your computer assisted language learning toolkit and start to incorporate CALL into your language classroom.

Consistency and honesty as a teacher will take you a very long way.

Cheers,

Eric

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