In Mark Warschauer paper about technological change and the future of CALL he discusses and talk about the future of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and he mentions a lot of important factors, the changes in the status of languages, language learning and sociological changes in schools and education. But the one important factor is technological change. Warschauer first started by clarifying the relationship between technology change and other factors. The idea of introduction of new technology automatically brings certain which he referred to as technological determinism and that the certain logic of that is since there is sometimes a correlation between the presence or use of particular technologies and other outcomes but it doesn't imply causation.
Warschauer noted that it is important to look broader than the classroom itself and that the role of ICTs in enabling change must also be examined at the individual level. After he talked about the ten developments in information and communication technology which are: first: the change from phone-based to wireless communication, second: the change from dial-up internet connections to permanent, direct online connections, third: the change from the use of mainly personal computers to the use of portable computing and online devices, forth: the change from narrowband to broadband which refers to the speed of information passing over communication lines, fifth: the change from expensive personal computing systems to widely affordable computers and other hardware, sixth: the internet will change from being an exclusive form of communication and information, seventh: the movement from text-based information and communication to audiovisual forms of information and communication, eighth: the change from using English as the main online language to multilingual internet use, ninth: the change from “non-native” to “native” users of information technology and last: the movement of CALL from the language laboratory to the classroom.
After that Warschauer mentions and explains the five future development which are: new contexts: the projected developments of ICT will have a profound influence on the context in which English is taught, new literacies: this leads to another likely result of ICT developments which is the emerging of new important literacies, new genres: it has been suggested that the essay will increasingly become a marked form, new identities: the importance of online communication is increasing and it is also contributing to new kinds of identities, new pedagogies: the progress of CALL has been based on evolution from the mainframe computer to the personal computer to the networked, multimedia computer and corresponding changes is occurring and have occurred in CALL-based pedagogy.
Later he mentioned the first three stages of CALL and they are: 1970s01980s: structual CALL, 1980s-1990s: communicative CALL, 21st century: integrative CALL. and finally Warschauer talks about his conclusion and how technology changes in ICT can enable students to read, write and rewrite the world in their English classes as never before.
Saudi Arabia sadly, has witnessed some of the ten developments in ICT, hopefully in the near future the rest of the developments will be applied in the classrooms. As for the five areas emerging in Saudi Arabia; again, not all five areas has emerged, only new context and new identities have. I believe the rest will emerge, slowly but surely. Finally I truly believe that the effect of all what Warschauer mentioned if it were applied in classrooms in Saudi Arabia; English teaching will be a better experience for the students and for the teachers.
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