I am the Vice President of a college in the sector of tertiary education that offers a number of degree and postgraduate programs in the area of Theology, Comparative Religions and Cultures, Linguistics and the Study of Foreign Languages. This includes a full English Teacher Training program for English As A Second Language consisting of 12 compulsory course modules ranging from subjects like Educational Psychology of Languages, Lesson Planning to Methodology and Linguistics, and some other optional areas like cross-cultural competencies in foreign language teaching.

One of these compulsory 12 course modules includes CALL, computer-aided language learning and instruction. In addition to the theoretical foundations, this course also covers practical training project assignments on how to create multimedia-featured and interactive lessons and practice materials for the web and/or a school intranet. Teacher trainees are introduced to using the relevant software and are given the opportunity to become creative and to impart this eventually later on their students in class.
Our school mostly serves those underserved in education in the poorer parts of the world like Africa and Asia. Computer-based technology is a very good and useful way to compensate for certain other shortcomings like the lack of other expensive technology (language labs, for example). Computer-based technology also includes video and live communication via Skype, Yahoo Messenger or Windows Live. In Far Distance program delivery options, direct live communication between teachers and students is enabled, etc.

With this in mind, computer-based technology like CALL offers a number of wonderful options that can be useful and make a difference to less efficient, more traditional ways of teaching ESL to students in so-called Third World countries, and that is why we are training our ESL teacher students in it intensively.