After attending the 1989 Exeter CALL Conference, David Shaw and John Partridge, two teachers from the University of Kent, recommended to the School of European and Modem Language Studies that the School should establish its own Computer Assisted Language Learning Laboratory. Several of us had been ‘keeping an eye’ on CALL for quite a few years, from the days when BBC micros were innovative marvels. The Applied Languages Board had acquired a BBC and some software and had gained some experience with it in postgraduate courses. David Shaw had been supervising practical programming projects for MSc students in Computing in the area of CALL and natural language processing. Our recommendation was that, with a new generation of microcomputers supplanting the trusty but limited BBC micro, a point had been reached where it would be realistic for the School to establish a CALL teaching laboratory on a more ambitious scale.

The retrieval of information by electronic means can involve several media: remote searching of large commercially-produced databases, utilising CD-ROM and multimedia applications, and electronic mail. Both the information retrieval techniques used in this process and the information retrieved are of relevance to those involved in computer-assisted language learning.

This database, containing information about articles in the Madrid daily El Independiente, fills a major vacuum in Spanish information sources. It started off as a personal tool to help the author update information on specific topics and prepare teaching materials. It is now used both by staff and students of Spanish at Newcastle Polytechnic for a variety of purposes. The purpose of this contribution is to offer Spanish colleagues a brief insight into the system and its possible use.

This paper looks at a variety of CALL systems on offer to the learner of Japanese. Systems developed in America and the UK as well as in Japan are reviewed, with particular focus on systems to help the learner read Japanese. Comparisons are made with conventional leaching methods. From this a summary is produced of how computers are currently used to help the learner read Japanese.

LLCP - the acronym covers the Learning Latin Computer Package and the Learning Latin Computer Project - started as a Computers in Teaching Initiative project under my direction in April 1986. Its aim was to create PC software to support Latin parsing and metaphrasing exercises based on the course book Learning Latin: an Introductory Course for Adults by John Randall et al, which was published to coincide with the project. Learning Latin is unique among Latin courses in a number of ways: it uses only real Latin, that is, Latin by classical Latin-speaking authors, it is in essence intelligence-based rather than rote-memory based, and it was designed to lead to computer assistance. Learning Latin is aimed primarily at beginners; but it can and does function also as a rapid revision course for students who have already studied and gained qualifications in Latin al secondary or high school.