Editorial (special issue on CALL, e-learning and m-learning)

Technology has, in one form of another, been a part of self-access learning since the very first self-access centres (SACs) of the 1980s. Some of the better-funded centres featured elaborate listening and recording machinery and (occasionally) early personal computers. Early software programmes and language-learning websites available for self-access use tended to be aimed at individual study, initially following the language lab model, and were often designed to teach or test discrete language points. Of course, in 2011 programmes aimed at individual study do still exist and certainly have a place in self-access learning, particularly if a learner has identified a target language area that the software or website covers. However, in this special issue we go beyond language learning software and look at tools and technologies currently available to the learner as self-access resources.