Rosetta Stone
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Rosetta Stone
Anyone recommend Rosetta Stone? Which software is "best" overall for teaching English?
.....
What exactly do you mean?
here is a link to some of the software I use in our computer centre where I work:
for English! http://www.vhs-hagen.de/cult/englische_software.html
General software: http://www.vhs-hagen.de/cult/startseite.html
Siân
here is a link to some of the software I use in our computer centre where I work:
for English! http://www.vhs-hagen.de/cult/englische_software.html
General software: http://www.vhs-hagen.de/cult/startseite.html
Siân
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LarryLatham
- Posts: 1195
- Joined: Thu Jan 16, 2003 6:33 pm
- Location: Aguanga, California (near San Diego)
Rosetta Stone
Matthew,
I have a fair amount of experience with Rosetta Stone. My reaction is mixed. I believe it is generally good for beginning level students who need to increase their vocabulary quickly. It would be fairly good for more advanced level students too if they would use it properly. But the system is, I believe, counter-intuitive in that it presents students with a stimulus (which can be varied depending on the mode chosen either by the student or the instructor) and then presents four possible choices for the student to consider and choose the best one. What invariably happens is students begin to think of this as a multiple-choice 'test', and that their objective is to choose the 'right' answer. Nothing could be further from the truth. Their objective, in my view, is to learn the English involved in all of the choices by studying them, making sure they clearly understand the language of each one. They then can make a choice about which they feel is "best", but that is merely a sub-function of the program, in my judgement. Students often get to clicking rapidly through the set, picking the 'right' answer often by noting a single word in the response, rather than by looking at the whole response. I don't think it's doing them much good if that's how they use it. However, that's how students intuitively interpret the software. I found that I constantly stopped the class working on Rosetta Stone, and reminded them to slow down, take their time to study the language, and learn the English from all of the choices.
That said, it is still perhaps the best CALL program I've encountered. I make no claim to expertise in CALL. In fact, I don't really put much stock in it--don't like it much. But I have looked at maybe several dozen different software programs for English learning, and overall I'd vote Rosetta Stone the best of the lot.
For what it's worth!
Larry Latham
I have a fair amount of experience with Rosetta Stone. My reaction is mixed. I believe it is generally good for beginning level students who need to increase their vocabulary quickly. It would be fairly good for more advanced level students too if they would use it properly. But the system is, I believe, counter-intuitive in that it presents students with a stimulus (which can be varied depending on the mode chosen either by the student or the instructor) and then presents four possible choices for the student to consider and choose the best one. What invariably happens is students begin to think of this as a multiple-choice 'test', and that their objective is to choose the 'right' answer. Nothing could be further from the truth. Their objective, in my view, is to learn the English involved in all of the choices by studying them, making sure they clearly understand the language of each one. They then can make a choice about which they feel is "best", but that is merely a sub-function of the program, in my judgement. Students often get to clicking rapidly through the set, picking the 'right' answer often by noting a single word in the response, rather than by looking at the whole response. I don't think it's doing them much good if that's how they use it. However, that's how students intuitively interpret the software. I found that I constantly stopped the class working on Rosetta Stone, and reminded them to slow down, take their time to study the language, and learn the English from all of the choices.
That said, it is still perhaps the best CALL program I've encountered. I make no claim to expertise in CALL. In fact, I don't really put much stock in it--don't like it much. But I have looked at maybe several dozen different software programs for English learning, and overall I'd vote Rosetta Stone the best of the lot.
For what it's worth!
Larry Latham