Call in the K-12 context: Language learning outcomes and opportunities

This review of CALL research in K-12 contexts is structured around two distinct bodies of research, each of which generates different types of questions emerging from the diverse demands of elementary and secondary education. The first area focuses on learning outcomes and builds on the use of conventional measures of learner achievement and instructional efficacy to help guide systematic decisions about innovations in curriculum and assessment. At stake from an outcome orientation is how technology might amplify the pace, reach, and efficacy of using technology to move students toward established curricular goals. The second area views new technologies as the site of learning opportunities, and researchers in this vein ask how to rethink which goals are targeted, which assessments are retooled, and which new areas of learning are forged with digital tools. The affordances of new technologies are viewed as products of a steady stream of innovation that offers novel learning environments, expanded semiotic resources, and new modes of communication. We begin with an orientation to K-12 language education contexts as a backdrop to our central focus on synthesizing current CALL research, and we conclude by discussing the challenges and possibilities of integrating technology into K-12 language education.