Software Review

Title of Software: EUROPlus+

Product name: Flying Colours

Version/Date: 1995

System Requirements

Computer:

Prcessor: 386x or higher

Memory: 4MB or more (8 MB recommended)

Mouse: Microsoft compatible mouse

Hard disk: Minimum 10 MB free disk space

CD-ROM drive: double speed CD-ROM drive

Sound board: Microsoft Windows compatible (16 bits pref)

Graphics: SVGA graphics adapter and monitor with a minimum screen resolution of 800x600 with a 256 colour palette

Software: MS-DOS 3.1 (or higher)

Microsoft Windows 3.1 or 3.11 (or higher)

Microsoft Video for Windows 1.0 (or higher)

ODBC Microsoft Access 1.0 driver (or higher)

ESL/EFL Levels: Basic, Low Intermediate, Intermediate

Age group: Middle grades, High school, College students,

Adult Interest.

Learner group size: Individual, Pairwork, Small

group, Large group, whole class.

User friendliness: average

The Program is available in four versions: English, German, French and Polish. The Windows language version determines the user interface language and the text translations (i.e. in dialogues and instructions). For other interface languages, the English version is installed.

Prerequisites Skills and Activities

Before using the program, during the installation procedure, teachers will be asked about the number of users. There are the options of ‘One User configuration’ and ‘Multiple User configuration’. If we select the second we are asked for a supervisor password which will allow us to access every user’s data. The user of the multiple user configuration is asked for his/her name and a password every time he/she starts the program. This is used to create or find the corresponding sub directory under the USER directory.

To use the program students must have knowledge of computer; that is, using the mouse skillfully, typing and browsing.

Program Description

The program consists of three levels: beginner, lower intermediate, intermediate. Each level is found on a separate disk and each disk is available separately but there is also a 3-disk Professional Pack. Each level is divided into six units containing five lessons and a sixth revision lesson. Therefore, each level has a total of 36 lessons.

Each lesson consists of a quite big number of different activities (between 20 and 30), which usually take four hours to be completed in the classroom. These activities are grouped under Learn, Study and Practice categories and are displayed by selecting the corresponding menus on the toolbar and highlighting the options.

Apart from the main program, there are also five tools programs, independent from the course. These are: The Browser: It allows the user to search the course for a specific topic or grammar item or activity: The Audio Dictionary: It contains all the vocabulary from the course with sound recordings and a short text containing the word. The Spelling Teacher: It allows listening to the spelling of any text the user types and there are some activities testing spelling. The Tape Recorder: It enables the user to look at any sound recordings included in the course material, record his/her voice and graphically compare it to the model’s recordings. Irregular Forms: It contains lists of irregular verbs, adjectives and nouns, with sound recordings and examples of use.

Objectives

The program claims to help the learner learn, test and improve all aspects of the language effectively and pleasantly. For this it offers, in my opinion, a large amount of material, provides a big variety of activities, makes use of multimedia features and the supplementary, independent tools programs. It gives users the possibility to modify the program’s appearance (I explain below). There are always help options with instructions and plenty of information with links to other related parts of the course. There is also a notebook. Feedback is available.

More than one user can work with the same installed copy. The results from the tests are stored on a separate disk, which is available to the teacher. It contains all the correct, incorrect and missing answers. The program creates many disk files for each lesson.

Type of Program:

· Drill and Practice

· Student Tool

· Teacher Tool

· Non-ESL Specific

· Testing

· Text Reconstruction

English Language Areas Covered: Reading,

Speaking, Vocabulary, Grammar, Computer

Pedagogical Considerations

The first time we open the program by double clicking on the EuroPlus icon and we see a list of all the lessons in the course. The next time the program automatically starts from the last lesson used.

The student is advised not to skip lessons as the material is presented in a sequence according to the level of difficulty.

In my opinion, the program cannot be easily used. I had to spend hours reading the manual and trying the many options to understand how to use the program. Students cannot start working on it without training and without computer knowledge. In my opinion, this might be challenging for some students who like ‘playing’ and experimenting with various options but for other kinds of learners it would be very intimidating and distracting.

It is obvious that the authors have tried to make use of as many multimedia features as possible. The result was a program overwhelmed with too many menus and buttons, each of which drops several submenus and options.

I had difficulty in understanding the use of several of these submenus. I would need many pages to describe all of them. For example, clicking on Lesson drops a box with the options: Open, Next, Previous, Delete, and Exit. You click on Open and it drops a box showing the three levels of the course (from which only the third is available in this disk). You have to double click on the third level and it drops another box containing the titles of the six units. You double click on the first unit and you have the six lessons. Again double click on the first lesson and you are welcomed to the first page, containing a lesson description. Then you have to push one of the three buttons, Learn, Study, Practice, to see the available activities in each group, highlight the one you choose and enter it. Or you can start with the first activity by clicking on View. This drops a box with the options: Next activity, Previous activity, Toolbar, Status bar and Current Activity Only. I think this button like many others could have been omitted, as it does not offer something essential since there are other buttons for moving forwards and backwards and so on.

	Each activity has its own window. You can have many activities from one lesson open at one time. Each activity window can contain up to four windows inside, one of which can be active.
	The help option provides a whole page with information with links to other relevant parts of the course, too much for the students to read.

In one of the groups of activities, the so-called study activities, the user can add his/her own text (comment), which can be saved and later identified with the icon of a paperclip (like an e-mail attachment). It is also possible for the user to modify the program’s appearance by changing the background colors, the text colors and the font types of the activities, and by underlining or italicizing the text..

Feedback

	Feedback is provided by the test menu, which drops a box with the following options: Reset, Check All, Learning Mode, Check Each, Audio Stimulus and Video Stimulus. If the Check All option is selected, it shows the user’s score in the current activity. You can select the Reset option and try again. If you want to check your answer one by one you select the Check Each option and start the activity from the beginning. In this case, if your answer is correct it becomes accepted by the computer and goes on to the next question. If it is wrong, it is not accepted (deleted). In some activities, a dialogue box appears with “the answer is incorrect. Do you want it to be cleared up?” The Learning Mode option provides all the correct answers. The Audio Stimulus and the Video Stimulus are activated in listening exercises obviously to provide confirmation. (Again these options could have been omitted since there are buttons on the toolbar for this purpose).
	Apart from the fact that the feedback provided is not informative, it often causes frustration. This happens because there was a good effort on behalf of the authors to escape from the multiple choice type exercises and apply other techniques for responses like typing. So, little spelling mistakes, punctuation mistakes (a full stop, for example) and paraphrasing in the typed responses make them appear completely wrong. Of course we recognize the computer’s inability to read open-ended questions, but all the same, this may cause the learner to be disappointed with his/her performance, unless the teacher tells them not to pay attention to the score and gives feedback him/herself.
	The time spent on each activity is measured.

Content

Well organized, Well sequenced, Factually correct, Helps learning, Provides effective Practice, Provides meaningful interaction between computer & learner, Provides communicative interaction between students, Free of excessive violence, Free of stereotypes, Takes advantage of computer's unique capability.

	The program contains medium sized texts dealing with general issues of everyday life like jobs, people, school, sports etc. with no cultural information.
	I was impressed with the big number of activities included in one single disk. The activities offered cover all aspects of language and in my opinion provide adequate practice and help learning. The majority of them are really communicative activities focusing more on meaning than on form and encouraging thinking. For example:

- Pre-reading and pre-listening questions activating the students’ background knowledge (prediction, describing pictures, commenting on the title etc.) some of which are answered on the screen while others stimulate discussions in the classroom.

- Reading comprehension is practiced through skimming and scanning.

- There are audio texts and videos with native speakers followed by activities which can only be answered with the help of note taking. Both reading and listening activities can be used for individual, pair or group work

- Writing is encouraged mainly through the construction of predictable sentences.

- Students are often given the opportunity to speak and express their own opinion about various subjects deriving from the reading or listening. For example: What is your attitude to work? Which quotation do you agree with? Which of the quotations do you think are serious, humorous or ironic? (Identifying author’s attitude).

- New Vocabulary used in the lesson is also used in different texts, which can be more than one new sentence.

- In the German, French and Polish versions, translation of the vocabulary is provided but there is the option of hiding it and transforming it into a translation exercise.

	The user can also make use of the audio feature and listen to each word separately, record his/her voice and then check his/her pronunciation. More vocabulary exercises follow.
	New language used in the lesson is presented again with explanations and more sample sentences followed by grammar exercises. However, I think this language presentation is not enough, the teacher should elaborate on it.
	There is always a revision chapter every five lessons with more activities rounding up what has been done previously.
	All these activities are carried out through different techniques. For example, drag and drop, matching or connecting by drawing lines, typing in gaps or typing sentences in a separate window, ordering, simple and multiple choice questions, underlining, picture labeling, dictation, jigsaw, and filling in charts.

Program Output

	I would say that the program’s appearance is not particularly attractive. It looks and it is quite old fashioned (1995). There are not enough pictures or any other graphics and the ones that exist are not especially interesting. There isn’t any music either although there is the possibility of sound.
	The learner can only print the information available on the help pages.

Incorporating the Program into the Curiculum

I think the program can be easily incorporated into a curriculum. As it offers a lot of hours work, it can be used as a course by itself in a lab setting or as supplementary stuff to what they have done in the classroom for further practice. The Browser enables teachers to find the activities they think will best serve their lesson at certain instances. Also, it can be easily used by students for individual study, beyond class time.

Strengths

· The program offers plenty of material, which can cover many hours of work.

· There is a big number of activities, covering all aspects of language and encouraging thinking and interaction.

· It gives students the opportunity to interact with the computer actively, by doing things, e.g. dragging and dropping, typing, underlining, drawing lines, underlining etc.

· Students can adjust the background colors, and the fond types according to their preferences.

· It offers practice on computer skills.

· It provides multimedia features like audio texts, videos and sound recording facilities.

· Students’ scores can be saved and accessed by teachers.

Weaknesses

	The feedback provided does not help the learner; on the contrary, it often causes frustration.
	The program is not easy to use. It requires computer knowledge, training and is overloaded with unnecessary buttons and menus.
	Its appearance is not particularly attractive.

Overall Opinion

On the whole, I think that the program serves its purpose and it is worth using. Some modifications could make it much better.