Teaching a Foreign Language with Some Technological Help

REVIEWS Teaching a Foreign Language with Some Technological Help Sonja G. Hokanson Washington State University Reviewing the resources available in technology has finally become an enor- .. mous undertaking, because at last there is abundant variety and quantity of good materials widely available. This review will mention just a few ofmy favorite Spanish, French, and German web sites and CD-ROMs, with a briefdescription of their benefits and, inevitably, drawbacks. Text-Associated CD-ROMs One advantage is that learners can click exactly to the part of the CD-ROM of greatest interest, with no fast-forward or reverse overshoots. They can exit exercises that become stale and move ahead, or review, as they wish. Disadvantages are that CDs can be cumbersome to load or may not load at all on older computers ; and slower CD drives may produce incongruous games. I played a couple of games in Spanish which I could not win even though I knew all the right answers and responded swiftly: a definite ego blow! John Wiley & Sons offers a very interestingCD-ROM to complement its video with Visióny Voz, a first-year college Spanish text. The CD-ROM can stand alone, having a variety of vocabulary games and grammar tutorials, with some quicktime video segments that include tantalizing cultural segments as well. Commercially Available CD Programs The student compares his or her voiceprint graphically with that of the native speaker! This "biofeedback" approach to accent reduction is now available in the most recent releases from at least three publishers: Learn Spanish/French/German Now! (fromTransparent Language),Tell Me More Spanish/French/German! (from Auralog, a company based in France with offices in the USA; there are some "European " aspects to using this one from a fileserver, but it works fairly well on individual PCs), and the Rosetta Stone (which also comes in a wide array oflanguages, not just Spanish, French, and German). None costs more than $50 after rebates, SPRING 1999 * ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW * 95 so they are now affordable for most students and they usually come in dual format , for PCs or Macs. Graphic voice comparison is not foolproof, but it can be a tremendous help to the beginner in foreign language. Generally the student repeats a phrase that a native speaker has just said, usually also reading it off the screen. The visual (graphic) voiceprint ofthe native speaker appears parallel to the voiceprint ofthe student. The student can usually tell which sounds do not match up closely, and can focus effort on those sounds. The immediacy of the feedback is a powerful corrective tool, especially combined with the privacyafforded when such programs can be used out of the earshot of others rather than in a classroom. A drawback is dialect variability which none of the programs can yet adjust for; so, for example, the student who does not use the Spanish "theta" needs to be told to ignore the graphic feedback that says there is something wrong with the sounds being produced for fand ? for some ofthe programs. Another is the grammar -translation approach to syntax, although in the three programs mentioned above, explicit grammar is mitigated by context-rich, situational response choices based on meaning. Web Sites Help Getting Accents and Special Characters in Windows http://www.wsu.edu/-llrc/llrc_files/accents.html The site offers clear instructions but is no help in programs other than Windows (it won't apply to e-mail, for example). Spanish http://mld.ursinus.edu/-jarana/Ejercicios/ This is a good site for practicing basic Spanish grammar, a specific exercise ofwhich is found at this following extension: http://mld.ursinus.edu/-jarana/Ejercicios/Self-Check/ARverbs2 .html The site allows practice of -ar verbs and concordance within sentences, 1 1 ofwhich combine to tell a very short, simple story. Hypertext options not only provide correct answers, but explanations can be found as well. Completed exercises »///print out, so they could be used for student accountability for having done them. The disadvantage: who's to know whether the student's friend did the exercises? It won't identify the student. 96 # ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW * SPRING 1999 Reviews http://www.studyspanish.com/tutorial.htm For practicing basic Spanish grammar, this...