Issues in English
Contents
1. SUMMARY The Issues in English program exploits the interactive potential of multimedia to present a wide variety of interesting and pedagogically sound language activities designed for self study and suitable for a range of proficiency levels The reviewer s observation is that students en joy using the program but from time to time experience problems many of which could eas ily be overcome with more extensive online help With attention directed to improving online help feedback options and use of video and with the provision of additional commentary on formal versus informal language use Issues in English Mark II apparently in the pipeline is bound to be another popular and successful CALL application SCALED RATING 1 low 5 high Implementation Possibilities 4 Pedagogical Features 3 5 Sociolinguistic Accuracy 4 Use of Computer Capabilities 3 Ease of Use 3 Overall Evaluation 3 5 Value for Money 5 NOTE The Australian Second Language Proficiency Ratings ASLPR Certificate of General English for Adults CGEA and National Reporting System NRS are recognized standards in Australia for measuring Eng lish language proficiency REFERENCES Burston J 1989 Towards better tutorial CALL A matter of intelligent control CALICO Journal 6 4 75 89 De Fazio T 1997 Review of Issues in English ON CALL 11 2 62 65 Dell Orefice Angela 1998 Review of Issues in English Australian Language2. to great advantage in video transcripts and in the writing and grammar sections with hot words being linked to explanations of meaning or examples of language use Although multimedia is used effectively in many ways to facilitate learning the com puter s capability for presenting audio visual material has not been fully exploited in this program Each issue is presented in a video clip with a person speaking directly into the camera as if addressing an imaginary listener i e the learner While this use of video does not exploit the media s full potential for delivering complementary visual and auditory cues in authentic contexts see Hoven 1999 the author of the program has intentionally used improvised contexts so that the user feels that the speaker is speaking to them This simple approach is quite effective but would perhaps seem more convincing with a less awkward and stilted delivery of the talking heads Activities Procedures Information about the range of language skills covered at each of the four levels and the as sociated exercises is provided in the section called Teaching Points which is accessible from the Main Menu as are the video clips of the eight topical issues To begin using the program learners select a level of difficulty and then an issue to explore This launches a video screen with video controls for playing pausing or rewinding the video There are options to listen with or without the tr
3. English At Level 4 the emphasis is on the more formal spoken discourse of public speaking CALICO Journal 25 1 p p 147 156 2007 CALICO Journal 147 CALICO Journal 25 1 Software Review The greatest strength of the program is the language teaching methodology adopted De Fazio 1997 p 62 and Dell Orefice 1998 p 18 also comment on its salient pedagogi cal aspects and the sound adult learning principles respectively in their reviews of this program A discussion of the language teaching approach taken by the author of the program is included in the latter part of this review The Manual A 23 page A5 size user manual for Issues in English includes clear instructions for installing and using the program on a stand alone computer or a network information about specific features and the exercises contained in the program guidelines for its use and student re cord sheets for photocopying The manual also includes a 1 page troubleshooting guide for users experiencing technical difficulties Contextualized online help for using navigation icons is available at all times written and spoken by clicking on a help icon EVALUATION Speed Reliability and Compatibility The program was trialed on different computers each with a Pentium processor but with dif ferent operating systems Windows 95 98 and NT The program speed and reliability were found to be generally good The main problem we have experienc
4. Issues in English Reviewed by JILL TURNBULL Monash University PRODUCT AT A GLANCE Product Type Multimedia language learning software Language ESL Level Beginning to Advanced Activity Self directed activities tutorial information and exercises based on video clips and written text designed to develop the language skills of reading writing spelling listening grammar vocabulary and pronunciation Media Format 1 CD ROM Operating Systems Windows 3 1 or higher including Windows NT Hardware Requirements PC 486 66 8 MB RAM 18 MB of hard disk space 256 color video display 2x CD ROM drive sound card preferably not on board type speakers or headphones microphone Price Individual copy 160 AUS 105 US license CD five computers 320 AUS 210 US 10 computers 480 AUS 315 US site license 1 physical location 640 AUS 415 US GENERAL DESCRIPTION The Issues in English program is an interactive learning program designed for self access It includes activities and exercises related to eight topical issues animal rights discrimination euthanasia gambling growing old public transport smoking and the environment Each issue is presented in video clips at four different levels of language difficulty from beginning to advanced The levels of difficulty are advertised as being suited to ASLPR CGEA and NRS Levels 1 to 4 1 The discourse type at Levels 1 to 3 is informal and personal spoken
5. Matters 6 1 Hoven D 1999 A model for listening and viewing comprehension in multimedia environments Lan guage Learning amp Technology 3 1 88 103 Retrieved May 16 2007 from http Ilt msu edu vol3num1 hoven index html Hubbard P 1988 Language teaching approaches The evaluation of CALL software and design impli cations In W Smith Ed Modern media in foreign language education Theory and implemen tation pp 227 254 Lincolnwood IL National Textbook Company Laurillard D amp Marullo G 1993 Computer based approaches to second language learning In P Scrimshaw Ed Language classrooms and computers pp 145 165 155 CALICO Journal 25 1 Software Review Leech G Deuchar M amp Hoogenraad R 1982 English grammar for today A new introduction Lon don McMillan Wakabayashi S amp Morishita J Y 1994 The implications for different types of help in listening com prehension with the assistance of a personal computer In Conference Proceedings 19th Con gress of Applied Linguistics Association of Australia University of Melbourne PRODUCER S CONTACT INFORMATION Designed produced and published by Protea Textware P O Box 49 Hurstbridge Victoria 3099 Australia Phone 61 3 9714 8660 Fax 61 39714 8644 Email protea mpx com au Web http www proteatextware com au REVIEWER S BIODATA Jill Turnbull is a lecturer with the Language and Learning Ser
6. anscript visible and when the text is visible it is possible to listen to individual sentences by clicking on the text with the mouse There is also a facility for clicking on hot words in the text for an explanation of meaning The video screen controls and the hypertext links facilitate a focus on language in con text and meaningful communicative interaction between the learner and the computer When ready to continue learners select from a list of exercise types which are based on the video content These follow up exercises provide opportunities for focusing more intensively on and extending the language presented in context The exercises are presented within the frame work of the specific macro and micro language skills found in the Teaching Points menu The Getting Started section of each issue and level presents comprehension questions cloze spelling and dictation activities The Listening section contains exercises at Levels 1 and 2 These require learners to match spoken words or sentences with written text or pic tures Matching exercises are also used in the Vocabulary section at Levels 1 and 2 for similar and opposite meanings The Vocabulary section at Levels 3 and 4 introduces additional activi ties involving writing definitions for words 150 CALICO Journal 25 1 Software Review In the Speaking section of each topic and level learners can record their own voice and compare their pronunciation of words from the
7. ed in running the program is hardware related With on board sound cards rather than stand alone types installed in our lab computers the sound quality of a user s own recorded pronunciation in the speaking activities is very poor User Interface Screen Management and Navigation The Issues in English interface is user friendly in its simplicity of design although it is not entirely intuitive see Figure 1 While an online help function is provided it is limited to pro viding information about the use of the icons in the interface and is a little awkward to use at first It is easy to forget that the help feature is turned on and to get trapped in a help maze Whereas adequate information about icon functions possible learning paths and learning strategies are provided in the printed manual this information is not provided online Many first time users of the program could benefit from access to this type of online help Hoven 1999 The video screen see Figure 2 provides quite intuitive icons for controlling the video and the speaking activity screen also has easy to understand icons for controlling listening and recording functions One constraint is that the rewind button for the video will always re turn learners to the start of the video Only with text displayed can learners move to different sections of the text 148 CALICO Journal 25 1 Software Review Figure 1 Program Interface et o Fi
8. gure 2 Video Screen l The issue E ep Watch the video and read the text Education Levelt gt Getting started gt Listening Vocabulary Grammar gt it Pronunciation I d like to leave school at the end of this year My parents want me Writing to finish high school but want to get a job I d like to buy a car think I can get a job at the local newspaper I d like to be a journalist I think your parents are right It s important to finish school You need a good education You can study journalism at college after 149 CALICO Journal 25 1 Software Review Easy access to the printing facility is available on each video and exercise screen The printer lock is a useful feature for controlling access though its presence on the Main Menu may be a little confusing for students Locking the printer helps to avoid its overuse if left unlocked one click on the icon launches a printout of the current screen s contents The re quirement to enter a password before printing acts as a check on users intent to print Exploitation of Computer Potential The computer s potential to provide an interactive multimedia learning program is well dem onstrated in Issues in English Audio and text alternatives are provided for the transcripts the help and some of the exercises and feedback Graphics are used to convey language mean ing in some of the transcripts and exercises at the lower levels Hypertext is used
9. ing activities involve open written responses which require teacher feedback Figure 3 Expressing Opinion ised Ordering eit TA Drag the words into the right place to make a sentence Media 4 Level4 the end wam diversity of Getting started of opinion Listening ownership sj Vocabulary rules brings about inevitably cross media rte Grammar Abolition of Pronunciation D Writing menu Sentence a of fio The writing activities are well structured and appropriately scaffolded from level to level with tutorial support provided for the Punctuation What Do You Think and Summary 151 CALICO Journal 25 1 Software Review Writing activities However there are a number of problems relating to response handling and feedback which could have been avoided to some extent by providing additional instructions and information at various points in the activities First the open ended written exercises require teacher feedback but the program does not notify the learner of this Thus students tend to become confused when the com puter does not provide feedback Second the open ended exercises often do not include a clear instruction notifying learners of the option to use pen and paper Learners who find typ ing in text boxes slow and tedious may not be aware that the handwritten approach is an op tion they may after all be expecting feedback from the computer Third a more significant problem prese
10. ized by long sentences that make much use of commas but are not always linguistically accurate Sociolinguistic accuracy With the inclusion of a mix of 14 speakers from different age groups and ethnic backgrounds the program conveys an authentic sense of the multicultural flavor of Australian society and a variety of English accents None of the speakers has a very broad Australian accent but there is a good deal of variation evident The themes of the video clips are not culturally specific and would thus be of interest to students across the globe The content is both informative and comparative of the Australian and international contexts A more distinctive Australian flavor emerges by way of the language used in some of the more conversational clips for example chooks chickens and pub bar 153 CALICO Journal 25 1 Software Review Learner Fit Design The Issues in English program gives learners choice of content level task type sequence learning approach and pace and thus gives learners greater control over their own learning to accommodate individual needs Learners are also given the option to read video transcripts while listening if this is their preferred learning strategy While learners may find this a useful feature it is possible that they are not always the best judges of the most effective strategies to use when such options are given Wakabayashi and Morishita 1993 in an evaluation of an in
11. l 25 1 Software Review This reflects the preferred current CALL strategy Laurillard amp Marullo 1993 p 147 whereby once learners have absorbed some chunks of language and patterns of communication they should be given access to the underlying model via a guided discovery approach that uses both learner controlled exploration and teacher controlled demonstration Linguistic theory and linguistic accuracy De Fazio 1997 notes the ambitious nature of Issues in English in the diversity of its material and in the levels of proficiency it addresses It is perhaps also overly ambitious in attempting to incorporate instruction about writing conventions when the only models used are tran scripts of spoken language Since there is no discussion within the program of the differences between spoken and written modes of language e g functions forms and linguistic char acteristics or more specifically the differences linked to levels of formality that exist between personal and academic writing this could lead learners to false notions about the nature of writing see Leech Deuchar amp Hoogenraad 1993 for a discussion of these differences Certain vocabulary and grammatical constructions though normally avoided in formal writing contexts are acceptable in speech and personal forms of writing For example even in the Gambling Level 4 transcript the most formal level of spoken language in the program informal language such a
12. nts itself if learners wish to refer back to a video clip to complete a task because the video clip is located on a different screen from the response box This occurs with sum mary writing activities at Level 3 in which the task is to identify and record the main ideas Learners who attempt to respond to the task on screen rather than on paper are faced with the additional cognitive load of retaining information while moving between screens At Level 4 the same type of activity works well as the video clip appears on the same page as the response box for recording main ideas After completing the main ideas exercise it is intended that learners will print the response if pen and paper is not used for reference in the following summary writing exercise If learners do not print a response however before moving to the summary exercise the response is lost This could be easily avoided with the inclusion of more explicit instructions regarding the use of pen and paper and the printer A similar problem occurs in the vocabulary exercises on same and opposite meanings at Level 4 Once again the preferred approach in this activity is that learners will print the text rather than switch backwards and forwards between screens to consult the video transcript The program comprises a number of other useful features to complement the learning activities described above These include feedback options of instant or delayed feedback and the provision fo
13. provided This requirement removes control from the learners locking them into a tedious path of negative feedback as they work their way closer and closer toward the correct answer Also not built into the program is flexible anticipated response handling arguably the most important aspect of tutorial CALL Burston 1989 p 75 Predetermined feedback is limited to an indication of correctness or incorrectness there are no contextualized explana tions linked to the correct and incorrect answers Explanatory information on teaching points is available in a separate information section but is decontextualized and could easily be over looked Linguistic level A comparison of the discourse functions associated language and text length of the Level 3 and Level 4 texts indicates quite a leap between text levels of difficulty If we look at the four levels of the issue Gambling the discourse function at each level could be described as follows Level 1 narration of a recent personal experience Level 2 reflection on personal experience and expression of an opinion Level 3 narration of past and recent personal ex perience and Level 4 presentation of information and evaluation of issues This reviewer is therefore inclined to agree with De Fazio s comment 1997 p 62 in relation to text difficulty that the scaffolding process from level to level may not be entirely robust 154 CALICO Journal 25 1 Software Review
14. r printing tutorial information transcripts worksheets answer sheets and completed activities Teacher Fit Approach CALL methodology and language acquisition theory The Issues in English program combines a variety of facilitative interactive and instructional CALL methodologies which reflect elements of acquisition explicit and behaviorist second language acquisition theories see Hubbard 1988 for a discussion of these theories In using an interactive CALL methodology the program is able to partially compensate for an absence of interpersonal interaction The design of the program facilitates a commu nicative style of learner interaction with the computer and negotiation of meaning through a variety of media including print audio visual and audio visual The inclusion of contex tualized tutorial information for various teaching points immediate feedback on most tasks and learner control over learning paths and strategies set the scene for active participation in learning However the program would be more instructive if learners were more informed online of the choices available to them in learning paths and strategies Hoven 1999 In the program an instructional teaching methodology supplements the communica tive approach of learning language in context A variety of practice activities provide opportu nities for learners to analyze and synthesize their communicative experience of the language 152 CALICO Journa
15. s contractions e g there s and can t and other expressions e g So I guess and guesstimate are used At Level 3 the language is less formal e g Well Anyway to cut a long story short and Oh it wasn t too bad While the program does provide meanings for some of the informal expressions it would perhaps also have been use ful to include comments on language use that is information about levels of formality and the appropriateness or otherwise of using informal expressions in written texts In the Grammar section of the Gambling Level 4 issue the rules for transforming direct speech into reported speech are prescriptive rather than descriptive and therefore most relevant in formal writing contexts Referring to the transformation of the example She didn t want to it is difficult to imagine a formal context for reporting Andrew said that his wife had not wanted to Arguably such information is more likely to appear in an informal written context perhaps a letter and would be written as it might be spoken that is Andrew said that his wife didn t want to The exercises in the program do not provide a formal context yet responses which use informal language are judged as incorrect Punctuation is also a fuzzy area if applied to spoken texts because it presumes that we speak in full and linguistically complete sentences The Gambling Level 4 transcript for in stance is character
16. spoken text with that of a native English speaker The pronunciation activities provide meaningful language practice to the extent that the words and sentences included in the practice activities are extracted from or based on the language from the video clips While this approach is a pedagogically appropriate use of context based language it is unfortunate that opportunities are not provided for learners to practice and compare their pronunciation of larger sections of the continuous speech from the video clips Such interaction can enhance awareness of the prosodic features of natural and continuous speech accent intonation and rhythm Hoven 1999 The Grammar section adopts a structural approach to the organization of grammati cal structures across the four levels that is it sequences them according to a particular view of the levels of grammatical difficulty Exercise types include multiple choice fill in the gap or complete the sentence Mostly these involve transformation of a given grammatical structure for which feedback is provided Tutorial information is available to support the activities The Writing section of the program includes activities and exercises on punctuation comprehension and expressing opinion at each of the four levels see Figure 3 In addition Levels 3 and 4 introduce the steps involved in summary writing Apart from punctuation which is a multiple choice type of exercise at Levels 1 to 3 all other Writ
17. teractive listening comprehension program suggest that help mechanisms of this kind may be counterproductive for some visually trained learners who may be inclined to try to comprehend the audio inputs by substituting reading for listening To encourage learners to listen first before reading the text in the video activities the author has built into the design of the program a no text option as the default However for learners who are inclined to substitute reading comprehension for listening comprehension more explicit guidance in appropriate strategies is likely to be required Learners will benefit most from this program working in Learn Mode rather than Test Mode In Learn Mode feedback after each response rather than at the end of an exercise en ables further attempts at a correct answer The program attempts to compensate for the lack of interpersonal feedback by responding to answers with encouraging expressions such as Excellent or No with a rising intonation to encourage another try It is possible to browse questions before attempting them and to skip questions or exit the activity at any time What is not provided is a give up feature to enable quick reference to a correct answer for learners who do not know and do not want to guess the correct answer In the opposite meaning activity in the Vocabulary section for example students are required to make three attempts before a clue the next letter in the word is
18. vices Unit at Monash University She coordinates CALL activities in the Unit s computer writing lab and is also currently involved in a research project for developing online academic skills and language learning materials Her teaching background is in ESL EAP and Adult Literacy In addition to web based learning her CALL research interests include applications for concordancing in language learning REVIEWER S CONTACT INFORMATION Language and Learning Services Unit Monash University Clayton Victoria 3168 AUSTRALIA Phone 61 3 9905 4026 Fax 6139905 3060 Email Jill Turnbull CeLTS monash edu au 156
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