|
|
EuroTalk World Talk Intermediate CD ROMs: Dutch, French, German, and SpanishAuthors: EuroTalk Interactive http://www.eurotalk.co.uk Review Author: Jonathan Lippman, Language Centre Director, University of North London, February 2002 The EuroTalk sales pitch informs us that "research in the early 1990's�revealed that memory is greatly improved when accompanied by fun and laughter. Our quizzes, games and stories provide this and you will be amazed how much you remember after a surprisingly short time devoted to a disc". Having devoted myself entirely to the new World Talk Intermediate CD ROMs for the first time, I did indeed manage to raise the occasional chuckle. But laughter aside, what does the package have to offer? For those who have already used the WorldTalk Beginners CD ROMs, the Intermediate level is reassuringly familiar. All the family favourites are there, from the spinning roulette wheel with its various categories (the weather, describing people, giving directions, food and drink etc) to the hugely enjoyable interactive TV Quiz. If you are new to the World Talk series, it has to be said that there are some excellent features, such as the recording studio section which allows students to listen to dialogues, record themselves and then play back their version to compare with the original. Meanwhile, the dictation section will go down well with students who are keen to improve their spelling. In this section, students can choose from one of 6 topics, listen to a short story and compare their answers with the full text. Some of the features are perhaps less useful - whilst I had great fun choosing to have the instructions in Zulu (one of over 60 languages available), I can't honestly say that it was particularly beneficial. Most students, however, will probably be drawn to the roulette wheel and the TV Quiz. The roulette wheel has 10 different activities to choose from, all of which you would expect to find on a general language course. You can click on a topic of your choice or let the programme spin the wheel to choose a topic for you. Activities range from true/false questions, listening to information and then matching to pictures as well as the classic sentence re-ordering. The beauty of these activities is the randomised element of the vocabulary, enabling students to repeat activities without being presented with the same questions or vocabulary. This is particularly useful as students can go back and repeat an activity without getting bored. It's the TV Quiz, however, which is likely to prove the biggest hit, giving users the chance to pit their wits against a very life-like 'contestant'. The quiz consists of pictures followed by 3 possible choices - usually testing different vocabulary items - with the aim being to beat the contestant to the buzzer. Half the fun is undoubtedly watching the contestant's reactions - one moment punching the air in joy, the next holding his head in despair at being outdone! This can at times be overly distracting and I found myself a little frustrated at the lack of time to note down new vocabulary items or check the meaning of words. Throughout the package the visual stimuli are of a consistently high quality - the photos and graphics are excellent and the various characters who appear on screen are well animated and at times very life-like. Navigation is straightforward, with the screen well laid out, making it relatively easy to get from one activity to another. The CD-ROM is easy to use, with no special installation requirements and the actual activities load quite quickly. Where World Talk falls down, perhaps, is in the lack of support to users in terms of meaningful feedback. Sure, the characters, which pop up on screen here and there, make encouraging noises to the learner and most activities give a score at the end, but there is little to help the student in terms of actual grammatical explanations or with the meaning of vocabulary. With this in mind, it would have been nice to see a glossary and a grammar reference but the package as a whole tends to ignore structures and tenses in favour of vocabulary. Another slight criticism would be the inconsistency of the level of language used - for example, one activity jumped from basic greetings in one question to a complex grammatical sentence in the next. Some students may find this lack of progression rather disconcerting and for an ostensibly Intermediate package, the language could have been more challenging at times. Having worked with the World Talk Beginners CD ROMs, the feeling remains that the authors have tended to rely on the tried and tested formula of this series, rather than creating new activities or focusing on the specific needs of Intermediate learners. Taken overall though, WorldTalk Intermediate is unquestionably a useful addition to any Self-Access Centre and will certainly appeal to a wide range of users - I'm off right now to do the TV Quiz to see if I can win the holiday instead of just the teddy bear. |
 |
 |
 |
