Teachers' support in using computers for developing students' listening and speaking skills in pre-sessional English courses

Many computer-assisted language learning (CALL) studies have found that teacher direction can help learners develop language skills at their own pace on computers. However, many teachers still do not know how to provide support for students to use computers to reinforce the development of their language skills. Hence, more examples of CALL activities need to be offered to language teachers to help them use the computer in various teaching contexts. This article explores how teachers provide support to help students use CALL programs efficiently to improve their listening and speaking skills when learning English in pre-sessional courses in the higher education context. This discussion examines the perspective of both teachers and students through questionnaires, interviews and observations in the computer labs of two universities in the UK. The findings suggest several potential ways that teacher assistance may help students use computers more effectively for their language practice.