Foreign Language Study Taking advantage of personal computers in teaching and studying language Graham Seibert Copyright 2006

Foreign Language 2 Topics Overview of how computers handle characters from different languages Doing language homework on a computer Quick-and-easy flash cards Collecting and grading homework Machine translation Performance grading: Oral Proficiency Interviews and the like Advanced tools like speech recognition

Foreign Language 3 How Computers Store Characters Stone-age ASCII was English only: 127 (= ) letters, numbers, special and control characters. –A = 65 in ASCII a=97 in ASCII The Unicode system that finally dominates has 65535= characters, enough for European, Asian, mathematical and other symbols. –Each can have a unique graphic –Identified by 4-character base-16 (hex) number –In Word for Windows, get any one by typing those four characters and then Alt-X A=0041 (because 65 = 16 × 4 + 1) then Alt-X ⇔ = 21D4 then Alt-X (bet you never knew)

Foreign Language 4 How computers capture characters Computer software “knows” which combinations of keys are pressed at any time, and when a key is pressed and released. Software translates keystroke combinations into characters. There are different software and keyboard markings for different countries. Europeans have keys for their special characters. American keyboards use key combinations for special characters.

Foreign Language 5 Computers use multiple levels of keystroke translation Keyboard and computer hardware Operating system Your user profile The software package (Word, Excel) User preference settings, and lastly, Translation into the font graphic Take-home point: There are likely to be some keyboard quirks peculiar to your computer.

Foreign Language 6 About fonts and character widths A font is a style created by a graphic designer, such as Garamond and Bookman Characters in a font can be represented as –Bitmaps (can get ragged) –Vector images (like TrueType, scale neatly to any size) Each character is allotted a rectangle –Height is constant –Width varies by character

Foreign Language 7 How computers manage fonts How do they get on your machine? –Microsoft Office –Graphics (and other) software packages; don’t matter for foreign language –May download or purchase to handle special situations ( and in Latin are not in Unicode) Documents generally handle fonts by reference –Assume all necessary fonts will be on every computer that uses a document –Make substitutions when that is not the case Rule of thumb: stick with common fonts

Foreign Language 8 Setting Up your Computer PC with Office XP –Start→Programs→Microsoft Office Tools → Office XP Language Settings –Include all the languages you plan to use Mac with OS-X –System Preferences→Personal→International → Languages These apply to the User account on the computer, not the computer itself.

Foreign Language 9 European Language Keying Options You don’t need a foreign keyboard; they will cause trouble enough in Internet cafes Memorize special key combinations on your English keyboard –Menu→Insert→Symbol (Latin-1) –Pick the symbol, memorize the shortcut key (they are different between Mac and PC) On the PC: Ctl+, c ⇒ çCtl+` a ⇒ àCtl+shift+~ n ⇒ ñCtl+shift+: a ⇒ äCtl+shift+: shift+A ⇒ ÄCtl+‘ e ⇒ é Latin macrons work best as cut and paste

Foreign Language 10 Using foreign language spell checkers – get those diacriticals! Microsoft Word in Windows will automatically recognize a foreign language after a couple of sentences. Otherwise, you can set the language. Spell and grammar checkers have more to catch when conjugations come into play.

Foreign Language 11 Quick-and-dirty flash card lists Rote memorization is an essential part of language learning –Vocabulary –Conjugation and declension rules Foreign Language teachers increasingly are the first to teach memorization techniques It is easy for a teacher or a student to build a Word or Excel table with columns for English, the translation, and as needed the part of speech, gender, case, person, and tense Simple Example with programming Simple Example with programming

Foreign Language 12 Macro-Driven Flash Cards A project I started in fall of 2003 before returning to the University of Maryland Flashcard support for –All French and Spanish verbs, conjugated in all tenses Student indicates which verbs And which tenses to practice –Any vocabulary entered in a Word table Needed –Enthusiastic school to try it out –Apprentice programmers to make it smooth

Foreign Language 13 Making the Teacher’s Job Easier Teachers create homework by computer: Why not have students complete them as well? –Assignments are easier to read –Students can download assignments off the web, complete them at home and hand them in by –Use Word for a first-level check of spelling and grammar –Word has excellent markup features for corrections –“Compare documents” of homework vs. answer key –Keep a file copy of what you hand back

Foreign Language 14 The Cons (And Pros) Of Using Automatic Translation Software The translations are so ugly that the teacher is bound to know it was done by machine, however Translators are a good double-check of the work the student has done, especially Translating back into English. Text that won’t translate may have problems.

Foreign Language 15 Oral Performance Grading Language is performance: the ability to communicate is more than the sum of communications mechanisms Grading performances is highly subjective Schools benefit from a common rubric for OPIs across teachers and classes Multiple raters provide higher reliability and allow measurement of reliability Using videotaped performances, rating tasks can be split and shared over the Internet o Accent o Fluency o Vocabulary o Grammar o Context o Articulation

Foreign Language 16 Food for thought It would be fairly easy to write software to read written work products and –Measure vocabulary usage –Quantify tense and case usage Voice recognition software will soon be able to capture narrative (dialog will take longer) as text, for content analysis

Foreign Language 17 Conclusion Word processors can increase the level of student learning in the homework process The computer is a great device to aid memorization Facilities on the near horizon could radically change language instruction –Shared portfolios of student oral and written work –Voice recognition software

Foreign Language 18 Automated Portfolios: A Larger Theme Maintain computer records of student work products, not just rubrics and grades Assessing work products across classes, schools and districts can reduce need for standardized tests Facilitate communication among teacher, student, family, specialists and administration –Assignments –Student work –Ratings of work

Foreign Language 19 Integrating with University and Workplace Language Study: A Larger Theme Three groups now have different objectives: –K12: ACTFL 5 C’s: Culture, Connections, Comparisons, Communities, Communication –Universities: Literature, written work –Government and business: workplace oral proficiency K12 objective: make criteria as objective as possible: –Advanced Placement scores? –Nationally recognized oral proficiency criterion?