ENGLISH LEARNING THROUGH CBT COURSES: AS ANALYSIS OF THE ENGLISH TEACHER

Abstract

This article presents the result of the analysis of the CBT course The English Teacher (1996), which was done as a final monographic paper to the lato sensu course on distance learning. It aimed at verifying whether the exercises found in the CD-ROMs are close to the characteristics of communicative activities, since the course claims to teach vocabulary, grammar and conversation perfectly. Fifteen vocabulary words and sentences, nine grammar rules and one conversation activity were analyzed. These exercises were chosen randomly and this selection was possible due to the fact that all the vocabulary, grammar and conversation activities follow the same pattern. It was verified that only the conversation exercise has a communicative characteristic: contextualization. Moreover, no authentic material nor tasks were found. It was possible to conclude, thus, that the course The English Teacher (1996), despite its educational design’s being ergonomically conscientious, contributes very little to the development of the communicative competence of the self-directed adult student since the exercises found in it are closer to the behaviorist drills of Audiolingualism than to the tasks of the Communicative Approach. Among the various proposals made to the software’s producers and/or editors, it was emphasized that the activities should be more contextualized and that they should be separated thematically, not structurally.