ABSTRACT

Far from a comprehensive survey, this chapter attempts to identify some notable developmental trends in CALL for Chinese and at the same time underscores several unchanging desiderata, such as ease of use, gentle learning curve and most importantly, the overarching consideration of pedagogical soundness. In view of the trends of standardization and normalization, the chapter counsels better tapping the full potential of general resources, of both the high and low tech variety, and the innovative repurposing of such resources. In a world where basic digital literacy can be increasingly assumed, many free, widely available general resources can be put to good use for language teaching and learning, such as OCR, voice input, acoustic analysis, and online search.