A MINIMALIST APPROACH TO MULTI-LEVEL IT-HUMAN INTEGRATION IN TRANSLATION WORK'

Abstract

This article attenlpts to define the intimate relationship that is intended between c1assroon1-based and laboratory-based activities, between private study and language class, between individual and collective effort and between computer-centered and teacher-led learning. We tend to take it as an axiom o€ CALL that the place of IT is beside the teacher, its function complementary or suplementary. Typically. the teacher's role is usually one (occasionally just a couple) of these: designer, author, editor, tester, provider, trainer, checker or supervisor. Except when in a supervisory role, the teacher's role is taken over by the computer when the teacher's own activity stops. This is what we tend to call computer-aided instruction. In the vast majority of cases, the role of IT is extrinsic to the teacher's own activity. I shall try to demonstrate here that the aid that the coMputer is able to provide can be effectively brought right into the classroom as an integral, intrinsic part of the teacher's own activity and that, by doing so, it can enhance not only the teacher's activity but also the complementary role which is traditionally assigned to the computer. The processes described here were developed with a specific situation in mind, not atypical in, at least, British Higher Education: increased mixed ability and reduced teaching time. In a pedagogical context that, in spite of mission statement protestations, usually attempts to make the most of the average, they specifically target the lower and higher ability student ranges. New funding has been secured to continue with this research from September 2002.