Tell
Me More 2
Publisher:
Auralog S.A.
Age
group: 13-15
yrs
Year
published: 1998
Curriculum:
Spanish
System:
PC
Min
spec to run:
· DX4 100 MHz
· 8 Megabytes RAM
· Microsoft Windows 95
· 30 MB required on hard drive
· 16 bits Windows compatible sound card
· 2x Cd-Rom drive
· Microphone / Headphones and loudspeakers
· SVGA video card in 256 colour-mode
Summary
Tell me More 2 covers all the areas which are essential to learning
a foreign language:
· spoken and written language,
· comprehension,
· pronunciation,
· vocabulary and
· grammar.
Thanks to speech recognition, you can have the starring role in
a natural, interactive conversation with your computer, no matter
what your level is. The enhanced technology enables Tell me More
to understand what you say, then guide the dialogue according to
your responses and correct your pronunciation mistakes.
The complete programme (beginners, intermediate and advanced) includes
over 300 hours of lessons, over 105 hours of conversation practise,
over 1,500 sentences, 6,000 words covered by speech recognition,
over 3,000 exercises, a glossary of 4,500 words and two video formats:
MPEG and AVI.
Content
The contents of Tell me More 2 have been carefully selected to suit
a communicative approach to learning. However, grammar is also very
much on the forefront: it is present throughout the whole programme
at a click: the explanations are concise and give relevant examples.
The type of language used is suited for a good and committed beginner.
It is always based on feedback from the learner: the programme is
designed for speech recognition. Therefore, the student has a starring
role in a natural, interactive conversation with the computer. Tell
me More 2 guides your dialogue according to your responses and corrects
you pronunciation mistakes.
Tell me More 2 2 covers the following areas:
· breakfast and daily routine,
· menu orders,
· hiring a villa,
· leisure activities,
· inviting friends and
· the weather.
Teaching with this Title
Tell me More 2 works well in a classroom where the students are
not too near each other. The use of the microphone to provide feedback
had a twofold effect: initially, it inhibited people from speaking
into it for fear of being heard by the rest. Secondly, the students
thought they were disturbing the rest of the class. It needs to
be clearly explained to pupils that it is supposed to be a 'noisy'
class.
The main problem that arose at the beginning was the sound quality
of the microphone / headphone when the students were recording themselves:
sometimes there was too much background noise. However, all this
can be fine-tuned by changing the settings for speech recognition
and audio.
Installation
Initially the programme is loaded with the installation disk. On
subsequent occasions, insert the CD-ROM and start it from the Windows
menu.
The programme loads quite fast. Once it has been installed and picked,
you do not have to choose the help language again (English, French,
German, etc.). You are then presented with the main menu screen.
From there you can access any of the Tell me More 2 scenes (the
dialogue, pronunciation, video, exercises, glossary and grammar,
and options).
The programme can be used on one computer at a time. These CD-ROMs
are licensed for use on a single system. Unfortunately, this means
that the school has to purchase multiple copies of the programme
to cover every computer. The alternative is to purchase Tell me
More Pro, which is designed for network servers (This programme
also offers additional exercises and teaching tools).
Navigation
The interface for this programme is designed to resemble a scenario.
You become an actor and begin your interactive dialogue with Tell
me More 2 2.
The various icons represent the skills you will be working on: microphone
(pronunciation), video camera (video comprehension), note-book (exercises),
books (grammar and vocabulary). Other icons represent other functions:
cup and oscar (lesson reports), mixing table (options), flag (translation)
and question mark (autocue and help).
The help button is always ready at hand at the top of the screen
to get further explanations. You can click it or simply click the
right mouse button anywhere on the screen and select help.
This programme uses a sophisticated and colourful way to monitor
your progress: it records your percentage of hits and misses in
all exercises and displays them in the shape of elongated bubbles.
Documentation
The User's manual is very complete: it covers all the installation
procedures, display settings, audio checks, general settings, use
of the toolbar, tips and troubleshooting, and how to use the programme
bit by bit. It also includes a table of contents. The manual comes
in English only. Along with the manual is a 'Guided Tour' booklet
covering the basics for learning how to use the programme. It is
also a little more colourful than the 'User's Manual'.
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