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Goethezitat: "Meine Ruh' ist hin, mein Herz ist schwer." 25+ years of work in this field have shown me: • The "default" computer-based activities are grammar and vocabulary drills, because: 1) That's the easiest thing to do technologically. 2) That's the "default" pedagogy. • Extremely rare are language teaching professionals who can also do technology. Therefore: 1) Technology people who get the wild idea of producing language-learning software will adopt the default pedagogy, probably because that's what they encountered (and hated) language courses as students. 2) However progressive the general pedagogical approach of the book and its author, the software will be produced by someone else who lacks pedagogical sophistication and has a limited budget. • It takes SEVEN years for students to become comfortable with a major new technological implementation in their learning. The first stage is severe resistance (1-2 years). The next stage is mostly struggle (4 years). The final stage is indifference ("Oh yeah, thanks, prof, whatever."), with here and there a few words of appreciation. ("modern technology", "saving us money", "going easy on trees"). • Some students think technology = pedagogy ("this crazy computer proficiency learning stuff"). • (Here's where we get to the Karl Marx stuff): The commercial textbook publishers will go no further and no faster than they absolutely have to. It's a market and distribution thing, and they also know their audiences. |