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Hikmah
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Skisme dalam Islam Tiga
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online English
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| CALL Software Evaluation (2000 words) Reviewed by Urai Salam (83043) u.salam@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au 1. Technical Information Software Title Word Find Puzzles for ESL Students (ONLINE) Level Beginner Author Charles I Kelly & Larry Kelly Address http://www.aitech.ac.jp/~iteslj/wf/ Machine Requirement JavaScript program Copyright Copyright (C) 1997-1999 by Charles I Kelly & Larry Kelly This is part of Interesting Things for ESL Students. 2. Criteria for Evaluation CALL practitioners give primary consideration to certain aspects when evaluating CALL programs as outlined in Healey and Johnson (1998). They say that before we buy a certain CALL software we have to consider three things, namely, the users, the goals, and the setting where the software will be used (see Healey and Johnson, 1998). In addition to Healey and Johnson’s guidelines, this paper considers the aspects of software learnability/teachability and ease of implementation into ESL curriculum. Those aspects are most likely to be considered when developing, evaluating, and writing effective programs for CALL. Beside those aspects (the users, the goals, the setting), the writer also bases his evaluation on Warwick's (1995) guidelines. They are ease of navigation, cognitive loads, media integration, aesthetics, and overall functionality. The writer considers the aspect of software learnability/teachability as an important factor when evaluating CALL software. The reason for that is the fact that some software packages are too complicated for students and teachers to start using. Since computer programs usually require a certain amount of operation skills that students need to learn to run the program independently, it is important to see how much instruction a program requires until students feel comfortable using it. The other factor used as a factor for evaluation is the software ease of implementation into the curriculum. This aspect refers to the extent to which software can be integrated into the curriculum to serve the teaching goals of any given ESL class. 3. Teaching Vocabulary One of elements in language learning is to acquire words (vocabulary) that make up the language. To know some words in language learning is essential due to that when we express our ideas, we need the words. Therefore, the lack of lexical competence will result in insecurity or eventually leads to the breakdown in communication. In resent days more and more language teachers pay their attention to vocabulary teaching. We know many approaches in teaching vocabulary. Horad H Keller (1978) introduces root approach (derivative) , etymology/mnemonic approach and topical vocabulary. Hurtado CJ, (1998) discusses how vocabulary is thought with an approach which is called lexical hierarchies. In this way words are presented in association with other words. Among these approaches, game is one of the ways of teaching vocabulary. Teaching language with games become more popular when computer is used integratedly in language learning (CALL). Game is interesting and challenging; thus, it is motivating (Mello, 1997). When playing a game, language learns are challenged to win the game. That is why computer games are very popular to day. Furthermore, the advancement of technology like the availability of online material through World Wide Web brings more benefits in language learning. On one hand, teachers can create games (and other teaching materials) and put them online. Besides, teachers can work collaboratively in creating games by inviting other teachers to put the games on one Internet address like Charles I Kelly does (the collection of interactive ESL games). On the other hand, learners can access the materials whenever they want to. The more frequent the learners access the learning material is better. Morgan and Rinvolucri (1989) describe this as making friend with the words of the target language. 4. Software Description Word Find Puzzles for ESL Students is a part of Interesting Things for ESL Students which is maintained by Charles I. Kelly and Larry Kelly, Aichi Institute of Technology, Toyota, Japan. These Quizzes have been written since 1997. Word Find Puzzles for ESL Students is designed to drill vocabulary and spelling. It is suitable for beginner students. It easy to play and has only one page display. There are 16 quizzes in total, 10 quizzes written in 1999, 3 quizzes in 1998, and 3 quizzes in 1997. The technical performance of the quizzes is slightly different in each year. However, the basic features are the same, they are Find Words, Rescramble, and Instruction to play the game. There is one for each vocabulary area, for example, Body, Colours, Months, Vegetables, etc. When we click on the category, it brings us to the display of the game. The game is very simple. The game display is divided into two columns. The left-hand column is scrambled letters and the right-hand column contains words that should be found in the left-hand column. Below the right-hand column are of instruction bars, Find Words and Rescramble. To play the game the students have to find the words that are listed in the right-hand column by circling them in scrambled alphabets. To circle a word, the students should click at one end of the hidden word and drag the mouse to the end of the word. If the students give up to, they can click on the Find Words bar, and if they want to replay they can press the Rescramble bar. This action will rescramble the letters so that the location of the words will change. 5. Class activity Good learning resources must be supported with well-planned and organized class activities. In order to gain maximum output. I would organize my class in to several stages. Introduction. In this stage there will be a short teaching of vocabulary. The teachers invite student to find words according to a certain vocabulary area. For example, body parts are eyes, arms, hands, nose, etc. These words are then used in sentences. For instance: 1. I have two eyes, but one nose 2. I write with my right hand. 3. The brain is in a head, etc. This activity will take no more than thirty minutes. The next step is an introduction to the game. This time students are taught how to play the game. Playing the game In this stage student are given 30 minutes to play the game. They have to finish a topic of the game and thy are free to repeat as many times as they want as far as in that length of time. The teacher can observe the student working and make notes for every interesting points. Evaluation In this stage the teacher asks the students how they feel about the game, how much they learn by this game. There will also be an evaluation to know how much the students get from this game. The evaluation can be a dictation, spelling test, or asking the students to recall as many words they remember as possible by writing them down in a peace of paper. 6. Overall Software Evaluation This evaluation will follow the criteria mentioned above. These criteria will become subheadings of this evaluation. a. Navigation In order to play Word Find Puzzles, we do not have to navigate often because it has only one page display. However, it has three basic bar buttons (Find Word, Rescramble, and Instruction). These tool bars are available for the student’s convenience and are accessible for the student all the time. The mouse is effectively utilised to circle and highlight the words. Students who have been familiar with the mouse use should not have problem to play this game. b. Cognitive load Word Find Puzzles allows flexibility to the cognitive load to be reconditioned to fit the students’ abilities as assessed by the teacher. The students’ ability to cope with the program’s contents is well determined by the teacher’s planning and preparation. c. Media integration Word Find Puzzles lacks of the reinforcement signals (response) from the computer. The content is given more attention than the design. Therefore, there is no figures except the game itself. This might be meant to reduce time consuming when downloading the game. d. Overall functionality Word Find Puzzles is mainly designed for vocabulary and spelling drill. When student knew how to play the game, they were encouraged to take another challenge. They rescrambled the letters several times just for one vocabulary area until they got familiar with the spelling of the words. e. Learnability/Teachability Word Find Puzzles is easy to use. The student took a little time to know how to play the game. Word Find Puzzles is quite simple in terms of instructions. Considering the notion that a CALL software should be easy enough to facilitate the student’s learning of the language through technology rather than learning the technology itself. This software is a great choice for the minimum amount of instructions of how to operate the game. f. Ease of Implementation Word Find Puzzles has limited vocabulary topics (only 10 vocabulary areas) this means that this program is only possible to merge into teaching plans if a teacher presents the material which is relevant to Word Find Puzzles topic areas. g. Aesthetics Word Find Puzzles does not have any figures or decorative images. It a black and white layout. The program loads rather slowly when starting Java program even though the computer is equipped with 233 MHz Pentium processor and 64 MB RAM. Advantages The skills which this software can be used to teach are vocabulary and spelling. Listening could also be taught using Word Find Puzzles depending on the teacher’s creativity. For example, the teacher can read the words that the students are going to work with, and then ask them to start playing. One of the good feature of Word Find Puzzles is ‘unlimited’ rescrambling. The letters can be rescrambled up to unlimited times. This gives two advantages. Firstly, unlimited rescrambling gives unlimited exercises (repetitions). In addition, the students cannot cheat each other even though they work on the same topic. To do this, the students are set at different scrambled letters. Secondly, rescrambling means giving a new challenge. This can reduce boredom. When I tried this puzzle with my students, the students seemed to be challenged whenever they rescrambled the letters even though they had played the same topic for three times until I said to stop. Another good feature is the screen-size display of Word Find Puzzles. The students do not have to scroll up and down to play the puzzle. Besides, the buttons are made conveniently available to the students. Disadvantage Like many other JavaScript programs, Word Find Puzzles takes some time to begin the JavaScript program. However, when it has successfully been initiated, it works very fast. Another disadvantage is that Word Find Puzzles has limited topics (vocabulary areas). The teacher can neither put their word lists into this program. In other words, this program can only be used if the topics available in Word Find Puzzles are similar to the teaching plans. Otherwise, the teacher may present irrelevant vocabulary/spelling exercises. 7. Conclusion Multimedia applications have enhanced language teaching and learning. The use of Word Find Puzzles has proved to give significant contribution for language learning and teaching (vocabulary and spelling). This has helped the teacher provide unlimited exercises and the students get encouraged and challenged to do more exercises. When I used this software to my two students and I made some observation, I found that the students were so enthusiastic whenever they rescrambled the letters that they unrealized that they have memorized all the words in a given topic including their spelling. Therefore, I highly recommend to teachers who teach vocabulary and spelling for beginner whose topics are similar to this software’s to use Word Find Puzzles. Reference: (Note: All WWW documents in this article were valid as of May 23, 1999.) Healey, D., Norman Johnson. (1998). A place to start in selecting software. CAELL Journal 8:1 Winter 1997/1998. [Online] http://ucs.orst.edu/~healeyd/cj_software_selection.html Hurtado, Catalina J. (1998). Lexical hierarchies as a strategy of teaching vocabulary. In Gewehr, W. (Ed). Aspect of modern language teaching in Europe (pp.176-188). London: Rouledge. Interactive ESL games [Online] http://www.aitech.ac.jp/~iteslj/quizzes/ Keller, H.H. (1978). New perspectives on teaching vocabulary. Virginia: Center for Applied Linguistics. Kelly, C. (1999) Interesting Things for ESL Students [Online] http://www.aitech.ac.jp/~itesls/ Mello, V. (1997). Online quizzes-Are they worthwile? The Internet TESL Journal Vol.III, No. 7, July. [Online] http://www.aitech.ac.jp/~itesls/ Morgan, J., and Rinvolucri, M. (1989). Vocabulary (4th edn). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Warwick, J Thorn. (1995). Points to consider when evaluating interactive multimedia. The Internet TESL Journal Vol.II, No. 4, April. [Online] http://www.aitech.ac.jp/~itesls/Articles/Thorn-EvalueConsider.html |
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