Week5's reading reflection

Levy, M. (1997). Theory-Driven CALL and the Development Process. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 10(1), 41-56.

The paper of week 5’s reading talks something about the natures of theory-driven CALL, particular as it relates to development process.
First, the author gives a brief introduction, review and discussion about theory-driven CALL. Theories derived from cognitive psychology and SLA are the most common points of departure. One question is that some studies testified that not all the CALL projects were driven directly by theories. Some projects began with a theoretical orientation, some started at a lower level and more determined by conditions in which governed actual practice or problems arising directly from it. The other question is about the reliability of theories which were used to instruct theory-driven CALL. A theory may be well-testified and widely accepted in some fields, but in other fields may be less certain.
Second, the author gives a literature review of the development process, and a CALL development survey is described and discussed in this paper for further investigation the processes of materials production.
The conclusion is that the development process is first and foremost a dynamic process. The theoretical orientation should be reconciled with technological environment in which it is realized and the working CALL program should be well-validated within the context.
I am most interested in the difference between formalists and proceduralists. Formalists represent people who prefer to apply theory at first to solve a problem, a deductive approach. Proceduralists represent people who prefer to write CALL programs to solve specific language learning problem, an inductive approach. The weakness of proceduralists is that they may be led purely by what the technology can do without any coherent theoretical basis to support their work. The disadvantage of formalists is that the theory they applied may not exert the technology to best effect, which means the power of the theoretical basis is not powerful enough and the effectiveness of the technology is overlooked.