CALL, Culture and the Language Curriculum

What does it mean to learn a language within a broad cultural context? What does it mean, moreover, to learn a language within the cultural framework of CALL technologies? Whereas there seems to be general understanding and tacit consensus over the importance of culture in the language curriculum tout court, if foreign language education has as one of its objectives the fostering of cross-cultural awareness and self-realisa tion, can we be certain that such an objective may eventually be achieved with the use of the technology? We feel that what we have to do is not just define precisely what we understand by "cultural context", but also consider whether discourse practices can be taught by technological means without reducing them to simply mechanical drill-and-practice exercises. In order to provide a forum for highly focused discussions this book contains contributions from practitioners in language teaching involved in the integration of non-specific linguistic information into the language curriculum by means of Educational Technologies (ET). Information technology indeed helps to bridge carious sorts and levels of information that do not always blend easily together by making available an íntegration tool'where input from different sources can be monitored and to which access can be had at the correct time and place. This book will be of interest to academics and university administrators involved with curriculum development and methodology in the field of foreign language teaching as well as for teachers who want to extend their growing computer abilities into the fi eld of cultural studies and researchers and students in the humanities who will want to use it as a reference book.