Computer-Assisted Language Instruction: Needs and Means

Foreign language teachers are sometimes hesitant about using computers to aid their instruction either because the technology may not seem readily applicable to their courses, or it may seem overly time consuming to prepare the materials. In reality, computer software can be easily learned and used by instructors to support any type of teaching situation. In this paper, the author will discuss the various ways in which computers can be used to assist the instruction of English as a foreign language (EFL). Various practical uses for computer-assisted language instruction (CALI) will be explained, along with a detailed description of a project in which student-created vocabulary quizzes were uploaded to a teacher-made homepage accessible via the campus intranet.