The use of chatbots in language learning has been on the rise. In recent Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) research, there is a consensus that rule-based, scripted voice systems are optimal for language learning. Such systems integrate well into instructed language learning in that interactions with the user are predictable and…

Looking at human communication from the perspective of semiotics extends our view beyond verbal language to consider other sign systems and meaning-making resources. Those include gestures, body language, images, and sounds. From this perspective, the communicative process expands from individual mental processes of verbalizing to include features…

Complexity Theory (CT) provides a useful framework for understanding Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Using an ecological model, CT studies the dynamic processes of change and emergent outcomes over time, tracing back how trajectories may have been affected by changes in and interactions among multiple variables and subsystems. Language learners…

Data collection and analysis is nothing new in computer-assisted language learning, but with the phenomenon of massive sets of human language collected into corpora, and especially integrated into systems driven by artificial intelligence, new opportunities have arisen for language teaching and learning. We are now seeing powerful artificial…

This column traces the evolution of electronic resources for language learning over the past 25 years, focusing on the arrival and transformation of the "world wide web", the dramatic changes in mobile technologies, and the movement towards commercial and all-in-one solutions to online learning. In the choice and use of learning…

The rapid developments today in artificial intelligence (AI), supported by massive language data collection, are resulting in ever better digital language assistance/translation. Advances in the capabilities of intelligent services lead naturally to envisioning a future where there might be a quite different context for second language (L2) use…

From its earliest days, practitioners of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) have collected data from computer-mediated learning environments. Indeed, that has been a central aspect of the field from the beginning. Usage logs provided valuable insights into how systems were used and how effective they were for language learning. That…

In the 20th anniversary issue of this journal, Reinders and White (2016) describe the relationship between computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and autonomy as having become "both more complex and more promising" (p. 143). This is, they assert, in large part due to the rise of informal language learning online, with an accompanying…

Although data collection has been used in language learning settings for some time, it is only in recent decades that large corpora have become available, along with efficient tools for their use. Advances in natural language processing (NLP) have enabled rich tagging and annotation of corpus data, essential for their effective use in language…

Language teachers are working in a world which has changed in the past decades in fundamentally disruptive ways, through profound changes in the role that networked computers play in everyday life and through the social and demographic shifts brought on by an increasingly globalized society, bringing together more than ever before people from…

Over the last 20 years Robert Godwin-Jones has written 48 columns on "Emerging Technologies"; an additional six columns have been written by guest columnists. Several topics have been re-examined in regular intervals of approximately five years, namely digital literacy (Vol. 4, Num. 2; Vol. 10, Num. 2; Vol. 14, Num. 3; Vol. 19, Num. 3)…

Anyone in the United States who wants to learn Spanish can easily find local instructional options. Opportunities abound as well for maintaining one's Spanish: all-Spanish television stations, widely distributed print media, and an abundance of native speakers. Learning opportunities and resources for other commonly taught languages (CTL) such as…

Using computers to recognize and analyze human speech goes back at least to the 1970's. Developed initially to help the hearing or speech impaired, speech recognition was also used early on experimentally in language learning. Since the 1990's, advances in the scientific understanding of speech as well as significant enhancements in software and…

Discusses issues involved in creation and use of course Web sites for language learning. Examples are drawn from a German course taught at Virginia Commonwealth University. Course Web sites created from scratch are compared with sites created with a template-based authoring tool, "Web Course in a Box." (Author/VWL)