JAC's Language Exercises This program is designed for language teachers and learners who have limited access to the much more sophisticated but also much more expensive software which is commercially available. With the program a variety of language learning exercises can be created by the teacher and performed by learners. It is assumed that the user is not so totally addicted to "communicative" methods of teaching and learning that he or she cannot allow at least a modest place for more traditional drill and practice exercises for confidence-building through regular reinforcement of basic grammatical structures and vocabulary. TYPES OF EXERCISE Two main types of exercise can be created and executed- (a) Phrase-based Exercises in which chunks of the target language are presented in sequence for translation or for manipulation in order to reinforce particular expressions or grammatical patterns. These are of four main types- (a) Text Translation Exercises in which a passage is translated phrase by phrase (Example= Letter to Solange) (b) Grammar Exercises in which phrases are manipulated and transformed with respect to grammatical categories like tense, number and gender agreements, voice, mood etc. (Example= Plural of German Nouns) (c) Vocabulary Exercises in which useful phrases are studied in advance then recalled through translation of equivalent phrases in the native language, presented in straight or random sequence. (Example= Everyday French Phrases) (d) Dialogue or Role Play Exercises in which the learner takes part in a language situation, responding to or interrogating an interlocutor (Example= A la Douane (At the Customs)) (b) Information-Gap Exercises in which a situation (passage or picture) is presented as a stimulus for questions by the learner, who is asked to find out all the information he/she can about the situation. FORMAT OF EXERCISES (a) Phrase-based Exercises. A target phrase is presented to which the learner enters his/her response in the text box provided. A prompt may also appear. (In the case of Role Play exercises the prompt is an essential component) The program scans the learner's input and compares it with anticipated responses. A comment appears approving the input or drawing attention to particular errors. Finally a score is displayed indicating acceptable or unacceptable inputs to date. The learner clicks a button to move on to the next phrase. When the exercise is completed the learner can read a transcript of his performance and if required send it out to the printer. Except in the case of role play exercises the learner can set the program to present the phrases in randon order. He/she can also set the number of attempts allowed at each phrase before moving on. Before he/she starts the exercise the learner can study a model version and commit important language data to memory. Help with accented characters and with grammar and vocabulary data is available from a HELP menu. (b) Information-Gap Exercises. A picture or a passage is displayed describing a particular situation. The learner inputs a series of questions until he/she has acquired the information which is the goal of the activity. The program scans the learner's input and compares it with anticipated data. A comment is displayed in response to each question. A score is provided indicating the number of questions successfully processed by the program. When the exercise is completed the learner can read a transcript of his/her performance and if required send it out to the printer. PARSING INPUT The parsing engine used by the program is relatively simple but quite effective for enabling a reasonably flexible handling of the learner's input. In the light of experience of user input the scanning of learners' responses in exercises can be refined and improved. By setting a number of parameters in advance the learner's input can be converted in the following ways to facilitate and simplify parsing by eliminating features from the learner's input which may be considered non-essential e.g. all spaces removed all question and interrogation marks removed all periods (full stops) removed all commas removed all hyphens removed all colons and semi-colons removed all letters converted to lower case all letters converted to upper case all accented characters ignored The program can parse learner input in three possible ways- (a)Exact matching. The input has to be identical to the anticipated string of characters (matchitem) e.g. Learner Input="Yes, I'm British. And you?" Converted Input="yesi'mbritishandyou" Matchitem="yesi'mbritishandyou" (b)Single string fuzzy matching. The anticipated string of characters must be found within the learner's input e.g.Learner Input="I've got no money with me, I'm afraid" Converted Input="i'vegotnomoneywithmei'mafraid" Matchitem="nomoney" (c)Multi string fuzzy matching. The anticipated sequence of character strings must be found within the learner's input e.g. Learner Input="What on earth is the height of the mountain?" Converted Input="whatonearthistheheightofthemountain" MatchItem="wh/heig/mount/" Exact match searches are appropriate for scanning for anticipated correct responses, though single string fuzzy matching can also be used for this purpose if there are many possible variations of the correct answer. Fuzzy matching is useful for scanning for anticipated errors which can be drawn to the attention of the learner. Each matchitem is associated with a comment number. The comment represented by that number is displayed each time the relevant matchitem is successfully found. FILES Phrase-based exercises have three files. The first file which has the suffix '.lxa' contains all the general parameters for the exercise, including the settings for conversion of user input and the comments to be displayed. The second file, with the suffix '.lxb', contains the phrases,the prompts, the model responses, and all the match data. A third file, with suffix '.lxh' contains all passages, instructions and help data. Information-gap exercises have two files, a '.xig' file which contains all the essential data, and a '.lxh' file. DOING LANGUAGE EXERCISES For Phrase-based Exercises- Click menu-item LOAD EXERCISE FILE and then LOAD PHRASE FILE. Select .lxa file from the directory containing the language exercises. Click menu-item DO PHRASE FILE. If the file has more than one topic the TOPICS menu will be displayed. Click on a topic and the .lxb file will be loaded. If the file has only one topic the .lxb file will be loaded automatically. Click on HELP-Instructions for exercise instructions Click on HELP-Gram/Vocab for grammar/vocabulary data Click on ACTION-See Task for passage (if appropriate) Click on ACTION-See Model Version to study the exercise in advance Click on ACTION-Set Tries to set the number of tries Click on ACTION-Set Random to present phrases in random order Click on ACTION-DO TASK to proceed with the exercise Enter your response to the phrase presented Click on DO PHRASE or hit RETURN Note the comment on your response If you are asked to TRY AGAIN enter a response and DO PHRASE Click on GET NEXT PHRASE to continue When TASK COMPLETED appears click menu-item ACTION-See Performance to review your performance Click ACTION -Print Performance for a print-out if required Click EXIT to leave exercise screen For Info-Gap Exercises- Click menu-item LOAD EXERCISE FILE and then LOAD INFO-GAP FILE. Select .xig file from the directory containing the language exercises. Click menu-item DO INFO-GAP FILE. Click on HELP-Instructions for exercise instructions Click on HELP-Gram/Vocab for grammar/vocabulary data Click on ACTION-DO TASK to proceed with the exercise Enter your question when YOUR QUESTION is displayed Click on DO QUESTION or hit RETURN Note the comment on your question Click on NEXT QUESTION to continue When TASK COMPLETED appears click menu-item ACTION-See Performance to review your performance Click ACTION -Print Performance for a print-out if required Click EXIT to leave exercise screen CREATING LANGUAGE EXERCISES It is important to write down all the data required for an exercise and to think the parsing (matchitem) strategy through carefully before you input data to the program. You can of course amend your data later by editing the file you have created but it is better to aim at maximum accuracy at the first attempt to avoid complex problems at the re-edit stage. Start with short simple exercises until you have mastered the techniques required for more complex products. Study carefully the examples given. (Be sure to make BACKUPS of the files before you submit them to the EDIT process in order to study them!) Note that once you have decided on the number of topics and the number of phrases within each topic you will be unable to change these parameters when you edit the exercise. NB The order in which matchitems are entered may be crucial to the success of the exercise. e.g. it is pointless to have a fuzzy matchitem "dogfish" coming before a matchitem "dog" To create a phrase-based file- Click menu-item CREATE PHRASE FILE Enter a NAME for the exercise Enter the number of separate TOPICS included in this exercise Click the button corresponding to the required EXERCISE TYPE Choose the MATCH OPTIONS for converting the learner's input by clicking on the check boxes corresponding to the required parameters Normally you would choose to ignore spaces and question marks etc. However for a language like German commas may be essential and the difference between upper and lower case may be significant. Once the choices have been made they will apply throughout the exercise and your matchitems must reflect the conversion in question. The LIST BOX contains a number of frequent COMMENTS on user input. Add to these in the light of anticipated input for this exercise and remove unwanted comments if required. Click on DONE when this form is completed. The TOPIC INFORMATION screen is now displayed Enter a TOPIC NAME Enter the NUMBER of PHRASES for this topic If the exercise is a dialogue enter a name for the INTERLOCUTOR Click TOPIC (topic number) and repeat for further topics Enter a FILENAME for the exercise (up to 8 characters) The .lxa file is now complete Enter TOPIC NUMBER for data input (start normally with topic 1) Enter target phrase, model(anticipated) response, and prompt (if required) for PHRASE (phrase number) These strings should not exceed 60 characters in length. Select MATCH METHOD for matchitem (item number) Enter MATCHITEM (item number) NB each matchitem will be entered into a string of matchitems with each separated with a "!" Three are three strings-String 1 for exact matches, String 2 for single fuzzy matches and String 3 for multi fuzzy matches.(You can access these strings later if required when you load the file in for EDIT.) NB when entering matchitems of type 3 you must separate the strings in the sequence with a "/" NB In the case of matchitems of type 2 the sign '%' can be used after the item to indicate that a space normally follows the string (e.g. 'work%' cannot part of 'working' or 'worked') Click on the comment which corresponds to this matchitem NB The number of the selected comment is added to a string of comment numbers. There are three comment number strings corresponding to the three match types. (These can also be accessed when you EDIT the file) Click on the button 'MATCHITEM (item number)' Continue to enter matchitems as above until you have run out of anticipated data (You can add more later at the EDIT stage) NB There is a limit of 250 characters for each matchline and of 100 characters for each comment data line. This allows a maximum of 50 matchitems per phrase for each of the three match types, which should be ample to handle a short phrase. Complete the matchdata entry by typing a "*" and clicking 'MATCHITEM (match number)' Click button 'PHRASE (phrase number OK' Continue to enter data as above for each phrase of this topic Continue as before with each subsequent topic of the exercise To create an info-gap exercise- Click menu-item CREATE INFOGAP FILE Enter a NAME for the exercise Choose the MATCH OPTIONS for converting the learner's input by clicking on the check boxes corresponding to the required parameter. For this type of exercise it is better to set as many of these options as possible to encourage the learner with maximum tolerance of variations in input. Select MATCH METHOD for matchitem (item number) Enter MATCHITEM (item number) NB each matchitem will be entered into a string of matchitems with each separated with a "!" Three are three strings-String 1 for exact matches, String 2 for single fuzzy matches and String 3 for multi fuzzy matches.(You can access these strings later if required when you load the file in for EDIT.) NB when entering matchitems of type 3 you must separate the strings in the sequence with a "/" Enter a comment to correspond to the match item If you wish to use a previously entered comment click on the menu-item VIEW COMMENTS and click on the required comment in the drop-down list (To close the list double-click on the first line) Click on the button MATCH ITEM (item number) Continue to enter matchitems as above until you have run out of anticipated data (You can add more later at the EDIT stage) Complete the matchdata entry by typing a "*" and clicking 'MATCHITEM (match number)' CREATING/EDITING .lxh FILES For Phrase-based exercises Click (during the CREATE or EDIT process) on the menu-item CREATE/EDIT TEXTS. Select Instructions, Passage/Situation or Grammar/Vocab and a Text Box is displayed into which you can enter the appropriate information (see examples). Click DONE when entry is complete. For Info-Gap exercises Click (during the CREATE or EDIT process) on menu-items CREATE/EDIT INSTRUCTIONS, CREATE/EDIT PASSAGE or CREATE/EDIT HELP DATA and enter the appropriate information in the Text Box. Click DONE to finish. EDITING LANGUAGE EXERCISES For Phrase-based exercises- Click on LOAD PHRASE FILE Click on EDIT PHRASE FILE Select Topic to start editing The general parameters are displayed Amend EXERCISE NAME if required NB You cannot amend the number of topics Amend MATCH OPTIONS if required Amend EXERCISE TYPE if required Add or Remove COMMENTS if required Amend TOPIC NAME for Topic (topic number) if required NB You cannot amend the number of phrases For a Dialogue Exercise amend INTERLOCUTOR if required Click on TOPIC (topic number) Repeat for remaining topics The data for topics is displayed starting with the selected topic Amend if required target phrase, model response, and prompt for phrase number. You cannot exceed the maximum of 60 characters Amend match data lines if required. You cannot exceed the maximum of 250 characters NB Each matchitem must end in a "!" Each string in a type 3 matchitem must be separated by a "/" Amend comment number lines if required. You cannot exceed the maximum of 100 characters NB Take care that any changes in the numbers correspond exactly to changes made in the match datalines NB Check comments by clicking on the menu-item VIEW COMMENTS NB Comment numbers must always consist of TWO digits. Single digits must be prefixed by a zero (e.g. 01, 05) Click on PHRASE (phrase number) OK to confirm completion Repeat for subsequent phrases A message will indicate resaving of the topic to file Repeat the process for other topics if required NB Do not EXIT until the topic is re-saved to file otherwise any changes will be lost For Information-Gap Exercises- Click on LOAD INFO-GAP FILE Click on EDIT INFO-GAP FILE The general parameters are displayed Amend EXERCISE NAME if required Amend MATCH OPTIONS if required Click on CONTINUE The match data is displayed Amend match data lines if required NB Each matchitem must end in a "!" Each string in a type 3 matchitem must be separated by a "/" There is no limit on the length of matchdata lines for info-gap exercises Amend comment number lines if required There is no limit on the length of comment number lines NB Take care that any changes in the numbers correspond exactly to changes made in the match datalines NB Check comments by clicking on the menu-item VIEW COMMENTS NB Comment numbers must always consist of THREE digits. Single digits must be prefixed by two zeros (e.g. 001, 005), double digits by one zero (e.g. 023,056) Click on DONE to confirm completion GENERAL INFORMATION The program is placed in the public domain. It may be distributed freely but must not be altered, adapted or used for commercial purposes without my permission. The program is an update of software which I produced in the 1980s for use in Scottish schools on the BBC Microcomputer, when I was involved in curriculum development in language teaching. (I am now happily retired and have time to indulge my computing hobbies) Other programs by JAC of interest to language teachers and learners are as follows- -CLOZE (Cloze or gap-filling exercises for language learners) -FLCLOCK (Analogue Clock for language learners with exercises involving numbers and times) -JACMIDI (MIDI song player with display of song words) All these are available for download from Compuserve and AOL forums The program is written in Visual Basic Version 3 and will run in both Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. The design is purely functional and lacks the sophistication and visual appeal of commercially produced programs. No guarantee is given that the program is completely free of bugs. I have done my best to test it thoroughly before distribution but, inevitably in the case of a product developed by an amateur programmer without the backup of commercial resources, a number of imperfections will reveal themselves. I will be glad to hear comments from users about possible bugs and suggestions for improvements which may lead to a new version at a later date, or even to further programs of use to language teachers and learners. I can be reached by EMAIL at 100117.1573@compuserve.com and jacampb26@aol.com, and by 'snail mail' at- Mr J. A. Campbell 26, Manor Gardens Blairgowrie Perthshire Scotland, U.K. PH10 6JS