French Vocabulary

Crash

Rosetta McLeod

CRASH COURSE By Rosetta McLeod ... ON THE NEED FOR DOCUMENTATION AND BACKUP MATERIAL I imagine that many readers of this column will have been watching the series of programmed The Learning Machine on BBC television, which look at the use of computers in education. One point that was made quite forcibly by teachers and educationalists who were interviewed about the merits or demerits of educational software, was that publishers are simply not listening to what they require for school use. Few teachers would buy a textbook to use with their pupils which was not written by someone with teaching experience: they are, however, expected to purchase educational software which has not been designed by experts. Even well-known and respected educational publishers like Longman and Macmillan are not exploring fully the potential of the software they are marketing. What is needed, both for use in the home and in schools, is greater documentation to accompany the software. The Postman Pat program reviewed in this month's column, for instance, is very good as far as it goes but even Nicholas, the three year old who tried out the game for me, was quick to point out the demerits. Although it gives useful practice in directional skills, this game does little to extend the child's creative imagination, and Nicholas said he would have liked a story to go along with the package. There is now an increasing number of programs, particularly those written for children, which have the potential for directing the user towards literature or other textual materials and could easily be used as a springboard into other related areas of activity. Programs intended for use in schools should be accompanied by reasonably comprehensive notes for the teacher, it the very least, and ideally by workbooks for the pupils. Unfortunately, though, software producers seem to consider the programs as entities in themselves, and not as a core or stimulus for other related tasks. These producers bemoan the fact that their products are not being purchased as avidly as they would have liked by parents and teachers, yet they fail to realise that the purchasers want more support and direction. If more publishers were willing to provide additional material for use with their educational software, they would be meeting a real need and encouraging micro users to make much more constructive use of their machines. No doubt they would also sell more software! FRENCH VOCABULARY Producer: Rose Software Memory Required: 16/48K Retail Price: £6.95 Age Range: Aimed at 'O' Level pupils This French vocabulary package contains six short programs aimed at the 'O' Level pupil. The first three test knowledge on specific topics such as shopping, weather, the home and travel. The user can choose from several options, translating from English to French or vice versa and can opt to either key in the answer or just think it out! The fourth program is the homework tester, which allows the user to type in words in order to test vocabulary, while programs 5 and 6 revise common expressions and irregular verbs respectively. The main problem I found with the programs in this package is that they demand complete accuracy. In the section on personal descriptions, for example, the program will not accept the answers 'I am ten' or I am 10' as the translation for 'J'ai dix ans'. The only acceptable answer is 'I am ten years old' Having said that, however, I am sure that the package will be of use to pupils studying for the 'O' Level examination, although I found it to be rather dull and repetitive but studying for exams can he dull and repetitive at the best of times! I doubt, though, that the incentives for achieving success in some of the programs (building a wall with the words 'Tres bien' written on it, in one case) will have much appeal for sixteen year old pupils! COMMENTS Control keys: answers are typed in with number keys being used to insert the various accents in the English to French options Keyboard play: very slow Use of colour: adequate Graphics: reasonable