Successful online courses must incorporate this shift of locus from teaching to learning. Online instruction has a contrasting epistemology where knowledge is constructed through the social interaction of the teacher and students. Online pronunciation courses should have a cooperative or collaborative flavor. Cooperative Learning involves students working in groups on assigned problems under the guidance of the teacher. In contrast, Collaborative Learning is a step beyond and involves the teacher working with the students on a topic that does not have a predetermined answer.
Computer is a self-contained teaching machine.
However, technology is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for online teaching of pronunciation. Central to the goals of the Principles are the emphases on encouraging, focusing, communicating, respecting, and facilitating the students' learning process by promoting active learning. Augmenting technologies do not take away from the main business at hand, promoting improved pronunciation. In the classroom environment, a laborious time-consuming task is listening to each student's pronunciation profile. For the ambitious teacher, analyzing individual speech patterns at this level of thoroughness would consume several class sessions and require the discriminating ear of a trained listener.