Imagine speaking Spanish!
What is described as "a radical new system for learning
foreign languages by computer" — called Linkword — has been
launched by Acornsoft. Each course teaches a 400 word vocabulary
and "enough basic grammar to enable the user to understand
and be understood in a foreign country." Here MAX PARROTT
tries out the first in the series — Spanish. Other Linkword languages
are French, German and Italian.
THAT'S how I learnt French and German at school. Needless to
say I cannot speak a word of either language today.
Just after I left school the great vogue for language laboratories
started. These, while not discredited, play a smaller part in
language teaching than they once did.
The traditional way of such teaching is to learn grammatical
technique by exercise, and vocabulary by rote learning, listening
and repetition.
Linkword applies psychology to language teaching in an attempt
to aid memory and word recall. A vocabulary is built up by associating
a foreign word with a mental image, not necessarily of an object.
Mental tableaux are also created.
By using these techniques it is claimed that Linkwords can cut
learning time for basic vocabulary and grammar by up to 70 per
cent.
My favourite image from the Spanish set is for raton (mouse)
- "Imagine a RAT ON a mouse, squashing it flat".
The set of 10 Spanish programs proceeds by presenting on the
screen an English word, its Spanish equivalent, an indication
of the pronunciation and a sentence (in English).
Thus a screen (in fact the first of the set) may look like:
The instructions at the beginning of the first program tell
you to imagine this picture in your mind's eye as vividly as possible.
After reading the image you think about it for about 10 seconds
before pressing Return to move on to the next word. If you do
not spend enough time thinking about the image it will not stick
in your memory as well as it should.
Hence the space bar option given at the end of the screen by
which you can ensure 10 seconds' worth of time.
There is nothing new in associating images with words.
My Latin teacher always questioned one's lack of knowledge of
a particular word by insisting that careful thought be given to
the position in the text book where it was first encountered.
On a left or a right facing page, at the top or the bottom of
the page, etc.
Where Linkword differs is that the imagery is much more vivid.
The screens are displayed as white words on a black-ruled blue
screen [MODE6:VDU19,0,4,0,0,0] which I found too bright to look
at while trying to form my mental images, so I looked down at
my lap.
This helped, but some of the suggested images I could not accept.
The Spanish for duck is pato and to remember it I was supposed
to imagine patting a duck on the head. All I could think of was
duck pate!
Still, any image will do - at least I imagine it will - so the
technique should work.
However there are problems with it. The image given for cabra
(a goat), is that of a cobra attacking a goat. This made me think
that the Spanish was cabro (the reason being that the O of cobra
I assumed had to be in the word but I knew it wasn't cobra so
it had to be cabro).
After 10 words or so have been presented (these generally relate
to each other - animals, motoring words or leisure activities,
etc.) you are asked for the translation of the words in straight
reverse order.
First having been given the Spanish word, you supply the English.
Second, having been given the English, you supply the Spanish.
Further on into the set, when armed with some verbs and prepositions,
sentences and short phrases are also given for translation.
No attempt at marking is made. On pressing Return the correct
translation is given and the next question becomes available.
Spanish uses an accent to mark stressed syllables of words which
do not conform to the usual rules of stress. These accents, ene,
and those punctuation marks peculiar to Spanish (the upside down
question and quotation marks) are all drawn on the screen. Unfortunately
they cannot be typed at the keyboard.
After the translations comes a short text on some aspect of
simple grammar. The first concerns masculine and feminine words
and the word endings o and a.
The last of the set mentions how to form adverbs by adding -mente
to the end of adjectives in the feminine form. In between, adjectives,
simple verbs, the time, prepositions, and the use of negatives
are all lightly covered.
Each of the 10 programs of the Spanish set then continues with
more words and grammar. When the keyboard work is finished a supplied
audio tape should be played. This gives the pronunciation of each
new word encountered.
My copy tended to vary in volume and there was a slight echo
on it, but each word was very clearly pronounced. The teaching
concept does not aim for complete grammatical accuracy. For example
no mention is made of the Spanish treatment of a person when the
object of a verb nor of the Spanish dislike for referring to one's
person with personal adjectives.
The object is clearly to enable one to remember and speak Spanish
words quickly without the worries of grammar getting in the way
- after all, this is how little Spaniards learn the language.
But little Spaniards do learn the usage of words as they grow
up, whereas here they are not always given.
For example the word soy is given for I am and/no for cold,
which will tempt the user into saying soy frio when he should
say tengo frio (I am cold).
If you are thinking of using Linkword in a formal teaching environment
then, as in all such cases, a disc based system is really needed
because the cassette loading times are quite long as each program
has about &40 sectors.
Acornsoft appear to have thought so too because each program
(after the initial one) sets PAGE to &1900.
I had no trouble transferring the pre-production, review copy
of the cassette to disc. I sincerely hope that the production
model is similarly unprotected or that the system is also sold
on disc.
I have a couple of small grumbles about the programming of Linkword.
Between each new word a clear screen with the phrase 'The next
word is: ...' appears. The actual word screen then says The Spanish
for...'. This doesn't read as proper English.
The other grumble, I suspect, will gladden all BBC programmers
- it did me. The upside down question mark, created as a user
defined character, has one bit misplaced so that it is not quite
perfect.
The big question is does Linkword work?
In order to answer this I persuaded several people to spend
time in front of the machine. People with no prior knowledge of
Spanish were definitely able to learn Spanish words and simple
sentences quickly and accurately.
The imagery didn't always work. One person faced with cajon
could remember it involved a car horn but not where. (It should
have been "imagine a car horn sounds every time you open
your drawer".)
Heavy reliance is placed on imagining bullfighters in weird
and wonderful situations - imagine a bullfighter with a coat of
many colours (for color) — imagine a bullfighter in sandals (for
sandalia) - imagine thinking "NO! NO! Mr Bullfighter"
(for no) — and so on.
There also seems to me to be too much reliance on the relation
between the imagery and the spelling of the word, rather than
the pronunciation.
I'm thinking of "being cosy in a kitchen" for cocina,
"a parade" for pared, "playing polo with a chicken
instead of with a ball" for polio.
The audio tape has castellano (Terry Wogan-type Spanish) pronunciations
but mentions 'south of Spain' and Latin American pronunciation
at the end after all programs have been covered.
I believe Linkword to be a very good attempt at a new technique
of computer learning.
Each program cassette, audio cassette and instruction booklet
costs £14.95, and if Acornsoft's claim that users become
highly motivated, recalling as much as 98 per cent of 400 words
after a three day course of 12 hours total is anywhere near true
then it represents good value.
It would be interesting to know if the use of media other than
the computer, such as slides or cartoons, but with the same psychology
works as well.
!Hasta la vista!
