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Chapter 19Simon SergeantCALL INNOVATION IN THE ELTCURRICULUMIntroductionH E C 0 M PL EX IT Y 0 F I N FO R M AT I ON T EC H N 0 LOGY (IT) innovationT and the speed of diffusion antl technological advance sccm to haw lcft the Englishlanguage teaching profession searching for ways of integrating IT usefully into thrcurriculum. While there seems to be little doubt ofthc potential of 1'1; it is difficult to specifythe nature of the new learning opportunititx Papert (1987) and l'erkins (1985) highlightthe fact that there is much still to 1~ tliscovcrctl about the placc of computer-assisted learning(CAL) in education, and this is still the case totlay.'I'his article does not claim to produceanswers, but I hopc it \vi11 contriliutc to awareness of the problcm. The aims of the articlearr:to cxamine thc nature of CALL (coniputcr-a tee] language learning) innovation ant1its potential as a force for curricular change hvith cxamplcs tlrawm from my work ina language ccntrc in Singapore;to invrstigate reasons fbr the shorttall Iictwccn thc potential ot' CALL and actual use,and discuss reasons why CALL opportunities arc not taken;to indicate strategies by which a changc agent may add valuc, to a CALL facility.Computers in commerce antl industry arc associated with higher cfficiency.This assumptionhas been carried into the educational arena, antl into language teaching in particular, withvarying degrees of succcss. CALI. as a discipline is cstablishing a rcsearch basc after severalyears' local trial and error supportcd by anccdotc. Hohvevcr, rcscarch is oftcn carried outunder ideal conditions \vhich arc only partially realizable \vithin the constraints of everydayuse. These local constraints arc informed tiy attitudes of the major stakcholdcrs in CALL:managcrs (usuallj non-users), CALI. pcrsonncl (initial users), and tcachcrs antl studcnts(entl-users). Students, who arc thc recipients of CALI,, arc thc least consulted during thcdwision-making proccss.Thcy arc also thc ones lvho arc most tlisadvantagetl if CALL is noteffectiwly implcmcntcd.The full potential ofintcgrating computers into the ELT curriculum has not yet beenreached and their use is still limited. CALL is trcatcd as a separate entity antl boltrd on tothe existing curriculum. I will suggcst in this articlr that duc to the additional complexity