Expert views on how language education may develop in the next 20 years and what CALL could contribute

Abstract

The celebration of EUROCALL’s twentieth anniversary provides a proper occasion to reflect on the future of language teaching and the role of CALL in these developments. In this paper we present the views of six authorities on language teaching and learning from different EU countries. All of them have a special interest in CALL and/or are CALL experts and well respected EUROCALL members, such as the late Graham Davies. We present a selection of their observations based on a summary of the Skype interviews in which they contributed to a symposium entitled ‘And now for another century of modern language teaching...’ organised by the Dutch national Association of Language Teachers on the occasion of its first centennial in 2011. To provide a more global (or at least European) perspective, the interviewees were asked to cover the same topics that were central to the live panel discussion delivered by six Dutch participants representing a variety of perspectives: secondary and university teachers, students, curriculum experts and teacher educators. By way of preparation, all involved had been given a number of challenging statements related to some aspects of the discussion theme: the characteristics of the future learning environment, teacher, learner, pedagogy and technology. In this audio-supported document we will focus on interesting points of view particularly related to pedagogy and technology expressed in the interviews. A video report summary of the live discussion (in Dutch) is available on the limited CD edition with recordings of the centennial festivities. For an impression of the panel discussion and other symposium activities see this video report on YouTube.