There’s been a long history of computer assisted language learning (CALL) in SLA. Most of it has been tied to pedagogy and developing instructional materials -- to be integrated into a traditional classroom experience, to be implemented in distance or online learning situations, and to help learners outside of the classroom. In the early days, this might have been as simplistic as technology being another source of input for students. Today, technology is much more active, with games, communication opportunities with other users of the “target language,” etc.

My interest -- and what I hope we can discuss further -- is how internet-mediated, socially-networked language learning and use relates to identity. I’m also interested in how issues of power are implicated in the technologies we use that appear to be “neutral.”

Consider how we construct our identities in spaces like Twitter and how these subjectivities connect with other contexts and realities.

Interactions: learner with computer=asking for help, getting feedback on errors, pronounciation, etc.
learner with others=computer-mediated communication (CMC) BUT a teacher needs to be the guide

Assessment: computer tracks student progress
error feedback
technology to gather data
surveys + questionairres

Research: can get at the truth better?
videoing, corpus use, Park & Kinginger (2010) use think aloud protocol to look at how a L2 writer uses a corpus in a writing task

A word about corpora: There are two kinds -- gathered from “Native speakers” and gathered from learners. Can be used to analyze large chunks of text and look for examples of language use.

This is part of the growing trend of big data being available for analysis.

An example: http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/

“The interface allows you to search for exact words or phrases, wildcards, lemmas, part of speech, or any combinations of these. You cansearch for surrounding words (collocates) within a ten-word window (e.g. all nouns somewhere near faint, all adjectives near woman, or all verbs near feelings), which often gives you good insight into the meaning and use of a word.”