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Software vs Textbook Courses | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Kyrie Senior Member United States clandestein.deviantaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5728 days ago 207 posts - 231 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Portuguese | Message 1 of 9 06 October 2009 at 6:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm not sure if this has been covered before but here goes.
I've been looking up software courses for a little while now. I'm not necessarily looking for a way to effectively learn a language, (because no software is going to do that alone) but I am looking for a fun way to go about tracking my progress and reviewing grammar and the like. I've tried Transparent Language products and have seen screenshots of the Teach Me! Portuguese and I am wondering, is any language teaching software any good at all? Also, what do you think, is it better to buy a textbook like Brasil! Lingua e Cultura or perhaps Linguaphone, or is software better? Thanks, Kyrie 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 7145 days ago 1152 posts - 1818 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 2 of 9 07 October 2009 at 12:17am | IP Logged | ||
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I like textbooks that you can carry with you and access any time you like. I read Linguaphone, Assimil, Hugo's, and the textbooks for a host of language courses that I own.
I have some good software courses (like Lernu for learning Esperanto) but I still print out what I can and put the pages in a folder for easy reference. Assimil have made some courses available as either software or books and audio and I would choose the books every time unless I can have both. Edited by fanatic on 07 October 2009 at 12:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ennime Tetraglot Senior Member South Africa universityofbrokengl Joined 5903 days ago 397 posts - 507 votes Speaks: English, Dutch*, Esperanto, Afrikaans Studies: Xhosa, French, Korean, Portuguese, Zulu | Message 3 of 9 07 October 2009 at 12:23am | IP Logged | ||
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well Lernu is website that acts more like a textbook with a sort of Anki function and
sound I guess... I've use some Declan software but didn't find it as useful as textbooks. Firstly I hate being dependent on computers and laptops, limits where I can use them and how (although PDA software might relieve that particular drawback). Secondly, I find it annoying to read screens, in general most people only read at 1/3 speed when reading from screens as they would reading from paper (I hear it somewhere from this communications expert when I was attending a conference on communication strategies for NGOs) and I guess this has an impact... Perhaps the thing is that most software is still using the thought process of textbooks, translating one way of learning onto a new medium, while perhaps it would be more effective to rethink it first to make sure it would effectively fit the software model. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chris Heptaglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7120 days ago 287 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, Indonesian, French, Malay, Japanese, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Korean, Mongolian | Message 4 of 9 07 October 2009 at 8:30am | IP Logged | ||
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I think it depends on the course. I've found some software to be excellent, in particular for learning Chinese, whereas I've found other types to be lacking, to say the least.
For example, I wouldn't touch Rosetta Stone software with a barge-pole! It's nothing more than a very expensive, and now very outdated gimmick, which is why they keep revamping the product boxes. This is the danger with some software programs, as they imply that using a computer will take the hard wor out of learning a foeign language. However, if you look at a software course like China Panorama, which can be used with, or without the text book series that runs with it, there's no comparison. I once reviewed several software programs for learning Chinese with a view to writing an article for a well-known language magazine, but it ended up on the back-burner due to other committments. Guess which program I rated bottom. On a different note, have you heard of the Rocket Language courses? They use software to supplement the main course, which is taught through a lesson with two teachers, revolving around a simple conversation, and contain language notes and more traditional grammar exercises for the more linguistically inclined. The contents are somewhat limited, in relation to a first level course like Teach Yourself, but I'd say, from what I've seen, that they would be an excellent choice for someone just starting out in language learning, and who doesn't want to be overwhelmed. In this case, the software adds a futher dimension to learning, rather than claiming to replace it. When they release Rocket Hindi, I'm planning to give the method a try so I can review it, as it's a language I've had no contact with before, to speak of. I'd say that software that follows the same lines as a regular language course would be most effective, but that uses some of the features only a computer-based course could provide would be the most effective. There is a lot of scope for speech recognition software that can recognise what the student is asking and respond accordingly. When computers are talking to use like people, Rosetta Stone learners will still be clicking on pictures and trying to guess what they mean! 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Kyrie Senior Member United States clandestein.deviantaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5728 days ago 207 posts - 231 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Portuguese | Message 5 of 9 07 October 2009 at 11:16am | IP Logged | ||
Thanks for your input, you guys.
I have heard of Rocket languages actually. It sounds like it'd be a great choice. But unfortunately, they don't have a Portuguese version (and that's what I'm looking to learn at the moment :/) Have you tried any other software besides Rocket or Rosetta Stone? I've got my eye on the Teach Me! series but I'd like to know who's all tried it so that I don't waste 50 bucks on a hoax. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Leopejo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6108 days ago 675 posts - 724 votes Speaks: Italian*, Finnish*, English Studies: French, Russian | Message 6 of 9 07 October 2009 at 11:18am | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with everything Chris said.
Forget Rosetta Stone. Try BYKI if you want, but an SRS is better for many reasons. Another one I hate is EuroTalk (?). All of these basically try to improve your vocabulary while being "easy". (Transparent Language) LanguageNow Russian (the 2004 version!) looks like assembled in a hurry from different sources, but nonetheless I found it more interesting. All of those above (but EuroTalk?) have one advantage over traditional textbooks: they effectively correct your spelling. For now, I much prefer internet. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6782 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 7 of 9 07 October 2009 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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I haven't had much luck with software courses so far. Last year I discovered the latest Rosetta Stone and I thought it was fabulous. For about two weeks. Then the repetitiveness of it started really getting to me, the programmed in delays before the buttons would become active even though I could have clicked sooner, the whole thing just started to gnaw at me a little.
Besides which these courses tend to be identical in all the languages so by the second language you're not really learning the words so much as remembering which picture means what. But what I think is the biggest flaw is the lack of revision methodology. At the end of a unit you get a dialog with a lot of pictures where you're supposed to fill in words, but it's very short and not very much practice. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6010 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 8 of 9 07 October 2009 at 3:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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Teach Me! is almost good. It hasn't fallen completely into the trap of "template" teaching that most courses do -- instead it does make an attempt to take into account the grammar of the target language. (There are one or two points where you can see some sort of template -- eg good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good night, good luck: good luck is a different structure from the others in the target languages I've looked at.)
However, the set of prompts for the "grammar" exercises is too small to properly generalise the rule -- I feel like I'm just memorising the prompts and response rather than internalising the grammar. Also, the prompts are a bit too consciously grammar-focussed, rather than being meaningful. For example, what does "the white horses" mean? Without context -- without a verb, I suppose -- it's really quite meaningless. In fact, here it also falls down on grammatical grounds, because there's no indication of case -- I did this in Gaelic which has nominative (which doubles as accusative, genitive and dative cases. The answer was nominative as a default. It also has too many user-configurable settings, so it's all too easy to cheat without realising you're doing it. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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