TELL and CALL in the Third Millenium: Pegagogical Approaches in a Growing EU-Community

Abstract

Contained within this special issue is a selection of papers presented at the 2004 annual EUROCALL conference, hosted in early September in Vienna, Austria. CALL Austria, which is part of the great EUROCALL family, has played a major role in disseminating pedagogical approaches towards TELL and CALL within Europe since the early 1980s. It has always been a grass-roots movement, and its work has always reflected that fact that CALL Austria is run by active teachers, many of them teaching at secondary level. Thus the application of new ideas in the language classroom was a major consideration in the preparation of the 2004 Conference. In this context welcoming Eurocallers to Vienna in 2004 has been a crowning achievement and a reward for our attempts to promote the meaningful use of computer technologies in language learning. “TELL and CALL in the Third Millenium: Pegagogical Approaches in a Growing EU-Community”, focussed on the great variety of concepts, applications and best-practice models concerning pedagogy and methodology supported by technological developments, particularly in relation to language learning and teaching. As in previous conferences sub-themes focussed on the changes in practices involving literacy brought about by the World Wide Web; the need to re-interpret current teaching paradigms; the relationship between the more ‘traditional’ language skills and the ‘new literacies’; interactivity, learner interaction and feedback; and spoken and written corpora in language teaching and learning.