© 1988 by Oxford University Press
Articles |
Using the computer to teach reading comprehension skills
Roland Nyns has an MA in Romance and Germanic philology from the University of Freiburg (FRG) and has been teaching EFL to adults since 1980. Since 1984 he has been research assistant at the Free University of Brussels (ULB), where he has taught EFL and ESP, while working on a research project on reading comprehension. He is currently writing a PhD on text processing and production.
This article claims that despite the shortcomings of current software for Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL), the computer is an adequate medium of teaching (some) reading comprehension skills. The author stresses using the computer as a tool at the teacher's disposal, as opposed to using the computer as a surrogate teacher. Three examples of exercises which are part of a semi-structured CALL system are given, following which there is a short description of how users have access to a database system which is designed to correspond to a student population's specific vocabulary requirements, while keeping the teacher informed of these.