Evaluation of Tell Me More

“Tell Me More” program was invented by Auralog Company, which is recognized as the global leader in multimedia solutions for learning and teaching language. This software is aimed at increasing language fluency through pedagogically grounded, yet highly engaging methods.

The Tell Me More software is offered by multiple languages, such as English, Spanish, Dutch, and Italian, and is designed for beginning to advanced levels language learners. The immersion method of Tell Me More is grounded in years of academic research and is aligned for ease of use. The program centers on developing the specific skills needed to success in a language, including: vocabulary and grammar, listening comprehension, oral expression, written expression, and cultural understanding.

It has two lesson modes: Free-to-Roma Mode, and Guided Mode. In the Free-to-Roma Mode, the language learners are allowed to create their own lesson by choosing the activities and workshops they would like to do. And in the Guided Mode, it offers personalized curriculum based on language learners’ specific objectives and time constrains. The language learners need to follow the instruction and fulfill the tasks to continue to the next step, however, they can skip to next activities by clicking the skip button. During the excise, there has no time constrain for the students, they can re-listen the dialogue, and also are allowed to use correction function or solution function to help them to complete the task. The learners can also access to the Explanations of Grammar to learn the grammatical rules or the Glossary to learn the vocabulary. The activities, such as crosswords, riddles, patchworks, and mapmania etc., can stimulate the language learners’ interests of participation. And also the language learners can check their credits or quit the program whenever they want. So basically, the Tell Me More is a convenient and target-aimed program, it offers language learners freedom and interest to practice their targeted language features at any time.

Moreover, the Tell Me More program utilizes the world’s most advanced speech recognition model, S.E.T.S. The “Spoken Error Tracking System” identifies speech deficiency by highlighting the portions of a spoken sentence that need additional attention from the learner, this interactive and targeted technology can be used to reduce accent, improve listening comprehension, and enhance target language literacy.

The Tell Me More offers more hours of content, in a wider variety of activities and skill levels. Equally valid for the beginning learner or the advanced speaker. And it encourages the language learners’ all stages’ advancement. The program captures the language learners’ interest in ways that are relevant to their experience motivates ongoing study. The result showed that the more the learners are engaged in the learning process, the more likely to success in their language acquisition.

However, the program is not 100% perfect, and some items cannot fulfill their goals. For example, in the crosswords section, the learners will listen to the word, and then find the hidden word from the letters. In this section, it aims to practice students’ vocabulary literacy. But for learners who have high level of phonological ability can still spell the word correctly without really know the meaning the word. And also for the reading part, if the learners had accent, there would have more portions of highlighting, etc.

Despite of a few deficiencies, this software is by and large valid and reliable. And has been using by many teachers as technology in education. By using the Tell Me More, teachers can control students’ progress by accessing summary of students’ work, as well as the answers and marks for each excise, whether written or oral. And the Tell Me More can be printed in excise book format for revising lessons or quizzes. Moreover, the teachers can also create their own educational paths by selecting the themes and activities they want their students to address. The software is really helpful in both teaching and learning language, and should be considered by language learners and teachers.

NCLR: Latino Children's Future Is Nation's Future

By Mary Ann Zehr on April 29, 2010 10:04 AM

The National Council of La Raza and Population Reference Bureau have compiled statistics about Latino children in the United States and their well-being to make the case that the group deserves focused attention by policymakers. The authors of the report, "America's Future: Latino Child Well-Being in Numbers and Trends," say that "the situation of Hispanic children and families is inextricably bound to the success of our entire nation." See what The New York Times wrote about the report here.

The report notes that, over the past two decades, the number of Latino children under age 18 living in the United States has doubled, to 16 million. Social strengths include families and communities that are intact, a youthful population, a strong work ethic, and parents' attention to the health and welfare of their children. But whether Latinos succeed in U.S. society can be influenced by a range of circumstances, including citizenship status, family structure, education, and English-language ability, according to the report.

Here are some facts that jumped out of the report for me:

—One out of five Latino children—mostly children of immigrants—don't have access to health insurance.
—Nearly 60 percent of Latino children have at least one foreign-born parent, but 92 percent of Latino children are U.S. citizens.
—Only 55 percent of Latino youths who enter 9th grade finish high school with a regular diploma, compared with about 76 percent of whites.

Another interesting finding: the circumstances of Latino children vary by state, region, and generation. For example, Latino children in Maryland and Virginia fare considerably better on several economic indicators than those in other states. The authors of the report interpret this finding to mean that state-specific policies affecting children are likely contributing to differences in the well-being of Latino children.

The authors highlight the fact that 92 percent of Latino children and youth are U.S. citizens, saying that they "represent a crucial segment of our country's future workers, taxpayers, parents, citizens, voters, and leaders."

A Showcase of Animal Concept Logo Designs

Are you in a dilemma? Running out of ideas? Searching for inspiration to create a quality logo design? Well then, this post will help you overcome your designer’s block! A Showcase of Animal Concept in Logo Design is made to fuel your mind. Scroll through this collection and be inspired!

China faces drop in recruitment

In China, a survey of multinational companies has found that nearly 70% of them plan to cut recruitment this year. The survey of more than 350 companies found that finance, communications and IT companies were hardest hit. Chris Hogg reports:

Jobs in multinational companies are highly prized in China, especially white-collar jobs. For a start the pay is often better than you might get as a public servant or the employee of a state owned enterprise. The jobs tend to be concentrated at the moment in the larger cities, like Beijing or Shanghai, or in the areas where there are many factories making goods for export.
Two years ago the multinationals were competing to hire the brightest talent from China's universities but since the financial crisis jobs in multinational firms whose parent companies have run into trouble overseas, like CitiGroup or Motorola, no longer look so secure.

This year there was a record number of applications for the civil service, more than three quarters of a million people applied for 13,500 places. The surveys of the multinationals reported in the state media suggest that those applicants were wise to seek safer alternatives.

Almost 7 out of 10 of the firms polled made clear they planned to recruit fewer staff in the year ahead. That will make life even harder for this year's graduates. There are fewer jobs available than before and they'll be competing with other unemployed graduates from previous years and with newly laid off workers who already have experience. The graduate employment market has always been tough in China but this year it is looking like it will be tougher than ever.

Chris Hogg, BBC News, Shanghai

Teaching English in China

Every Teacher Soon Becomes a Student
By Smitha Murthy

Landing in China can be either a rewarding, learning experience in this eastern land of adventurous promise or a frustrating, chaotic, experience in an Oriental morass. The choice of this experience lies partly with the teacher and mostly with a bizarre combination of factors that go by various names such as luck, destiny and yes, even karma.

Having just completed a 10-month assignment teaching spoken English in East China to a group that ranged from teeny kindergarten kids to scrawny teenagers to adults in all shapes and sizes, I could sum up my experience here in one word: learning. No matter how lousy the conditions or how fantastic the adulation showered on you, ultimately this is what it boils down to. Teach in China and you end up being a student yourself. An unwilling, grumpy learner or a grateful and eager learner, the choice is yours.

Practical Considerations

The ways to get into China are fairly straightforward, be it through the friendly contacts or through the omnipresent Internet or through placement agencies. The way doesn’t matter really. But investing ten months of your life and your career in a new land is a risk you have to consider, and the success of this investment depends sometimes on just a roll of the dice.

First, you could run the risk of being cheated out of your experience by crooks who run scams in the name of schools. I taught in China’s biggest education group, which runs more than nine boarding schools all over the country and still had to face an initial harrowing time with visas and bogus work permits that the concerned school conveniently chose to pass off as its own. In reality it had no license to hire foreign teachers. Make sure you have armed yourself with facts. Check, check, double-check, and verify the credentials of the school, university or institute that you are considering. The Internet is a wonderful source for such information, a few hours on the Web would always land you with someone who knows someone who knows someone who was teaching there. The shape of your journey would be molded here.

The location of your school is equally important. There is more to China than Beijing and Shanghai. A fair number of cities are quite well-developed and can certainly provide you with a wonderful peek into the heart of China. Looking for a mild winter? Head to South China. Prefer a balanced mix? Consider East China with its beautiful beaches. Avoid as much as possible the Northwest, generally the least developed section of China, unless you are really looking to rough it.

After location and the school comes your contract. This is your lifeline. Make sure you have the original stamped contract with you before you even set foot on these shores. The sign of authenticity in China is the red stamp on the contract. Make sure your contract states the pay, the number of hours to be taught, and the airfare reimbursement…all the little details necessary and needed. Clarify with the school whether weekdays are free and whether you get paid holidays. Clarify anything and everything. Better to sound like a fool than be one. The Z-Visa is a must; landing in China on a tourist visa is fraught with dangers.

Although most schools in China wouldn’t negotiate, there is no reason why you should settle for anything less than RMB 4000. A school or university which offers you less than this is really trying to cut corners and should be avoided. Don’t be persuaded by glib claims that the average salary of the Chinese teacher is only half of yours. Maybe true, but then the average Chinese teacher hasn’t left his country. So state your price, especially if you have a fancy degree. Inquire about your living conditions. Does your apartment have heating or an air conditioner? Small matter, but considering that I nearly froze to death in winter when the school decided to switch off the heating, you would feel cozier if you know these details.

Are there other foreign teachers around? Other Chinese who know reasonable English? When my International Officer suddenly left my school I was in a sorry situation where communication with the school’s Chinese-speaking "leaders" turned out to be virtually impossible! Such a big difference these little details make.

Now comes the easy bit, the teaching. Insist on co-workers or Chinese teaching assistants to be present for your classes at least during the initial period. If you are walking into a classroom full of running, scampering, and screeching kids alone, then good luck! It would be helpful if you could take some books on teaching Conversational English with you, and certainly even more helpful if you are a born linguist who can pick up Chinese faster than your students pick up English.

Most classes are generally unstructured, and as the “foreign expert” you are given a lot of independence in the framing of your lessons. Some schools might provide you with instructional material. Even so be innovative. The Internet is a wonderful storehouse of lessons. It doesn’t matter whether you are here on a lark or with the serious intent of adding pages to your CV, the fact is that your school is paying you to teach.

Interlanguage Chinese ESL

The interlanguage Chinese ESL students develop while acquiring English presents a unique set of challenges for both teachers and language learners. All students working to acquire a second language (L2) incorporate, as part of their learning process, an interlanguage.

What is an Interlanguage?

Much like the word suggests, an interlanguage is an intermediate language that students develop between their native language (L1) and the target language (L2). When students are in the process of learning a L2, they are using a language that is not the L1 or the L2, but a third language. This interlanguage has its own grammar, its own lexicon, its own phonetic rules, etc. Chinese ESL students develop an interlanguage that reflects the differences between Chinese and English and highlights the specific challenges they face in acquiring English.

Verb Tense

English is a language with a very complicated verb system. Important information in English is performed by auxiliaries and by verb inflections. For example, the verb be in English can be used convey a progressive state such as I am brushing my teeth. In addition, the verb have can convey a perfect state, such as in the sentence I have become a man. Chinese, on the other hand, is an uninflected verb language, meaning that other aspects of the language like word order and adverbials carry out this information. Also, verbs do not handle the concept of time in Chinese the way they do in English through the use of past and present tenses. Combined with the irregular verbs English uses (I go, I went, I have gone, I will be going), the issue of verb tense is particularly challenging for ESL students whose L1 is Chinese.

Production of Consonant /r/

Proficiency in consonant production in Chinese ESL students depends greatly on the student’s consonant production proficiency in their L1. How students pronounce the four sounds of (r) in Mandarin ([r]/[?], [z]. and [l]) foreshadows how well they will acquire the skills to pronounce English /r/. For most Chinese ESL students, inter-vocalic pronunciation of /r/ as in the word hairy develops easier that word-initial /r/ as in rabbit or post-vocalic /r/ as in car. In addition, students tend to be able to produce consonant sounds with a higher proficiency when reading a list of words than when telling a story or orally reading a narrative.

Vowel Production

One of the fundamental differences between Chinese and English is that Chinese is a tonal language. This means that by altering the pitch of a phoneme sound, a speaker can change its meaning. In English, changing a phoneme’s pitch doesn’t change its meaning, but rather is a technique used to express emotion and enthusiasm. Factoring in the fact that English has more vowel sounds than Chinese does creates a complicated scenario for Chinese ESL students. The high front lax vowel sound in a word like bit will often sound like beet and the high back lax sound in put will often sound like poot. Diphthongs also tend to be shortened to one sound in the Chinese language learner’s interlanguage. The low central back-gliding diphthong as found in a word like crowd is typically shortened to one sound.

Articles

Unlike the English language, Chinese does not use articles and the interlanguage spoken by students reflects this. These language learners often omit or misuse articles, and this issue is one that tends to linger until the later stages of L2 proficiency. The reason for this lies in the fact that article omission typically doesn’t interfere with the conveying of meaning in the same way that other aspects of the English language do. For example, the sentence I need to bring note from doctor can be easily understood as I need to bring a note from the doctor. If, however, the same sentence was phrased I need to bring story from pharmacist the vocabulary issues would prove to be more problematic than the misuse or omission of articles. Since any language’s primary function is to facilitate communication, those who are learning a new language learn the most crucial aspects first.

Simplification and Generalization

Simplification and generalization are inherent traits of any interlanguage. Chinese ESL students are no exception. At the lexical level, general words are substituted for particular words. For example, big rock might be substituted for boulder and horse might be used to describe a donkey or a zebra. At the discourse level, ESL students have difficulty mastering the social contexts in which to use a certain expression or colloquialism.

Understanding Interlanguage Chinese ESL Issues

Chinese and English are very different languages from two different language families. English features a very complicate verb system, the use of articles, and consonant and vowel challenges that all create difficulties for Chinese ESL students. By understanding how the interlanguage Chinese ESL students is developed provides both students and teachers with specific tools to move continually towards L2 proficiency.

Non-integrative approach to CALL

Submitted by rachid on Monday, 9 March 2009


It is widely accepted that meaningful interaction with the target language helps learners develop their L2 in many ways. This interaction allows the learner to not only produce the language, but also manipulate it, in an effort to fully understand its inner workings (Foster, 1998). That is, the learner needs to be able to synthesize new ideas by connecting them to existing information. Carey and Crittenden (2000) investigated the effectiveness of electronic bulletin boards as a tool that supports such meaningful learning with language learners. They argued that language programs generally do not provide an environment for the language learner to engage sufficiently in meaningful communication. Interactive technology, they believe, has the potential for filling this gap by allowing learners to further engage in meaningful interactions of interest to them. The authors came to this conclusion by comparing the benefits of interactive bulletin boards to successful real life models of authentic language exposure, such as immersion programs. They conclude that, today, interactive technology is fully capable of simulating social interaction, which in turn leads to a high degree of interaction among language learners. The authors, however, seem to neglect one major aspect of social interaction which is nonexistent in online interaction: emotions and body language. Communicating via bulletin boards is limited to just text. This is particularly hindering for the language learner who has linguistic constraints and is not able to use body language to overcome these limitations. Podcasting as will be implemented in this research project, on the other hand, could provide a suitable platform for authentic language interaction. As learners develop group podcasts, for example, they gather information, write scripts, do group corrections and read their parts. At the same time, they are interpreting each others’ movements and body language as an additional form of input to help validate their understanding.

Another study, by Wagener (2006), looked at the value of using online digital video to help adult language learners develop independent language skills. According to the researcher, video serves as a helpful instrument for exposing the language learner to authentic language. In addition, digital video facilitates the process of acculturation through socio-cultural information. In the study, participants were required to use the video lab individually for a specific number of hours each week. Video segments were collected from various sources on the Internet and were deemed of particular interest to the learners. The main focus for some students was to improve listening skills and vocabulary development. For others, the aim was to instantly translate video segments. The results of the study indicate that the majority of participants responded positively to the use of online video as an instrument for language learning. Participants found online video to be especially helpful for improving listening skills, expanding vocabulary and widening their knowledge of current affairs. Video, as was used in this study, adds an important dimension to authentic language exposure, and fosters independent learning. A major limitation to this approach, however, is its lack of social interaction as each learner is confined to a separate area in the computer lab, in isolation from other learners and with no opportunity for language exchange. Brown (2001) argues that direct interaction is a critical element in the language classroom that needs to exist at all stages of language acquisition. It is this very limitation that this study aims at addressing vis-à-vis one-teacher and other native-speaker-generated audio, which is the predominant form of podcasting today.

Ayres (2002) investigated how language learners respond to CALL and its relevancy in the context of language learning. The study was conducted at New Zealand’s School of English and Applied Linguistics with 175 non-native undergraduate students enrolled in various language programs. In the study, participants were given the opportunity to use various types of software they had to use but were not instructed on which part of the software to use or how to use it. This flexibility allowed students to freely interact with the software and guide their own learning of the target language. Follow-up surveys were administered to assess participants’ attitudes towards using the software. The study concludes that learners clearly favored classroom language instruction as opposed to strictly CALL instructions. However, most participants reported a high level of motivation with CALL and considered it to be a very useful tool for improving writing and spelling. These results clearly indicate that successful implementation of CALL is dependent on how it is integrated within the existing environment of the language classroom. It is important to understand that computer-based technology by itself is often irrelevant when implemented in isolation from the learning goals and objectives of the class. Implementation, therefore, needs to be aligned with the goals of the existing curriculum in order to provide a meaningful learning environment for the student.

In 2004, a study conducted by the Defense Language Institute looked into the efficacy of CALL in the process of vocabulary acquisition. Tozcu and Coady (2004) hypothesized that there is a universal model for word recognition that applies to both native and non-native speakers of a language. Automaticity, they argue, is an essential variable for successful vocabulary acquisition. A total of 56 intermediate level students were selected to investigate this question. 28 of them were placed in the treatment group using computers and the other 28 in the control group using only print material. A pre-test and a post-test were administered to assess the degree of vocabulary acquisition with both groups. The research concluded that using a computer to learn vocabulary results in faster and more successful acquisition of frequent vocabulary. In addition, students in the treatment group showed major improvement in their reading comprehension skills. The study recognizes, however, that students in the control group showed a level of improvement in vocabulary acquisition using solely print material that is noticeable, although not as significant as that of the experimental group. Even though the results of the study appear to be quite encouraging, they do not provide any evidence of long term retention of vocabulary as the interval between the pre-test and post-test is only two months. Furthermore, all students’ activities were completed in isolation from the environment of the classroom, making it difficult to empirically attribute vocabulary gains strictly to the use of technology.