THE WEAK LINK IN THE LANGUAGE TEACHING SYSTEM AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

This thesis answers the questions: How should the terms interaction, individualization, and personalization be applied to Computer Aided Language Learning (CALL) software? What progress has been made in their implementation? How can CALL software developers better incorporate them in the future? For each of the three terms, I explain how it is applicable to the CALL software environment by defining it, describing the pedagogical research supporting it, and then giving general guidelines for incorporating it into a CALL software program. I measure the progress of the implementation of the three terms in CALL software through compiling and analyzing data from reviews of 44 software titles. The publication dates of the software titles are from 1981 to 2008. I propose through description and a proof-of-concept software program ways to improve the incorporation of the terms in question into CALL software. As a result of answering the three questions, this thesis shows that the current accepted definitions and ways of implementing interaction, individualization, and personalization need to be improved in order to comply with pedagogical research and make full use of current technology. The general guidelines given in the explanation of each term relative to CALL and the attributes under eac