Definition and History of CALL

         The origin of CALL(Computer-Assisted Language Learning) can be traced back to the year of 1960 as the first tool prior to an enhancement in computer usage in classrooms. Up until the late 1970s CALL projects were implemented mainly to universities, where computer programs were developed on large mainframe computers. The PLATO project, initiated at the University of Illinois in 1960, is an important landmark in the early development of CALL (Marty, 1981). In the late 1970s, the arrival of the personal computer (PC) brought computing within the range of a wider audience, resulting in a boom in the development of CALL programs and a flurry of publications. 

          Early CALL favoured an approach that drew heavily on practices associated with programmed instruction. This was reflected in the term Computer Assisted Language Instruction (CALI), which originated in the USA and was in common use until the early 1980s when CALL became the dominant term. There was initially a lack of imagination and skill on the part of programmers, a situation that was rectified to a considerable extent by the publication of an influential seminal work by Higgins & Johns (1984), which contained numerous examples of alternative approaches to CALL. Throughout the 1980s CALL widened its scope, embracing the communicative approach and a range of new technologies. CALL has now established itself as an important area of research in higher education as an integration of knowledge.