Rosetta Stone (software)

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Rosetta Stone

Rosetta Stone reading exercise in full-screen mode
Developer: Fairfield Language Technologies
Latest release: 3.0 (possibly)
OS: Mac OS, Windows
Use: Educational (foreign language instruction)
Website: http://www.rosettastone.com

Rosetta Stone is language-learning software produced by Fairfield Language Technologies. Its title is an allusion to the Rosetta Stone, a granodiorite rock with inscriptions that helped researchers to decipher Ancient Egyptian by comparing it to the Greek on the stone.

The Rosetta Stone software utilizes a combination of images, text, and sound, with difficulty levels increasing as the student progresses, in order to teach various vocabulary terms and grammatical functions intuitively, without drills or translation. The goal is to teach languages the way children learn their first language.

Contents

[edit] Use

Instruction takes the form of a unit of lessons consisting of ten groups (more in some of the later units of Level I) of four images each, with an associated word or sentence both written and spoken aloud by a native speaker of the language. Lesson topics range from grammatical concepts such as verb tense or mood to specific topics such as colors, hot and cold and associated words or the use of money.

Within each lesson there are sets of exercises testing listening and reading, listening, reading, and speaking (for which the computer must have a microphone). For languages using the Latin alphabet, there are also writing exercises. All sets except reading and speaking offer four exercises each; there are two reading exercises and one speaking exercise. They are identified by the software as A, B, C, D and E.

The user is offered either text, sound or image (and later, video), to match against four possibilities. With a mark and/or sound chosen by the reader from the preferences menu, the program indicates whether the right or wrong choice was selected. A score from 0 to 100 is kept; it is visible during the exercise in practice mode but not in test mode. The first choice in a group of images nets four points for a correct answer, the second three, the third two and the last one.

In all units, the last lesson is a review of the previous lessons, with each predecessor represented by one group of images. There are no formal grammar guides or instructions included with the software. The only documentation is a manual with written versions of the phrases and a word index.

[edit] Packages

Several different packages of lessons are available. The full course in each language is separated into three levels. There is only one level available for Latin. All retail software packages except the homeschool version contain two CDs, one with the application software and another with the instruction. The homeschool version also consists of disks for a server program and a student management program.

[edit] Levels

All languages save Latin use the same set of words and sentences in the same order, with the same images (some of which are recycled from lesson to lesson). There are three levels of instruction, each sold separately, or they can be purchased bundled for a discount.

  • Level I consists of eight units, starting from simple vocabulary such as "boy", "girl", "man", "woman", moving up through numbers, the past and future tenses and concluding with a unit on giving directions. Units 5 through 8 have 11 lessons plus a review lesson.
  • Level II offers units 9 through 19; however as a practical matter there are only nine units devoted to instruction since units 18 and 19 are "glossary" units devoted to single words having to do with a particular topic (school, nature, automobiles etc.). Level II units consider more advanced grammatical concepts, as well as specific subjects like banking, shopping and travel. These exercises also use short video clips in QuickTime format to illustrate some verbs. Units 16 and 17 consist solely of old Saturday Evening Post cartoons and their captions.
  • Level III, currently available only in American English and Spanish, offers several more conventional units but also uses longer video and writing passages to expand the level of instruction.

[edit] Other packages

  • An Explorer package consisting basically of the first three units from Level I was available for a much cheaper price than the full Level I. This product is no longer available from the publisher.
  • A Traveler version, consisting of several lessons focusing on basic terms as well as vocabulary important for travel, was produced in the late 1990's and is no longer available.
  • Languages of the World is a free demo version with excerpts from several different units from levels I and II in all languages.

[edit] Languages

The following languages are available as of 2006:

[edit] U.S. Army

The United States Army began offering a free, online version of Rosetta Stone software to its personnel in November 2005.

[edit] Awards

Rosetta Stone has won a number of awards from software magazines and associations concerned with language learning such as textbook publishers and homeschooling magazines, amongst them the Gold Awards for Best CD-ROMs Used in School and Best CD-ROM for Language Learning i-Magic Awards in 1996 and the Best Software in Second Language Foreign Language Learning Program annual awards by ComputED magazine in 1994 and 1996.

[edit] Versions

It is difficult to know what version number is current in any of the various forms in which the Rosetta Stone product is distributed, as Fairfield does not make this information apparent through their Web site. In mid-2006, the Web-based demonstration version was at 2.1.4[1] but Macworld had reviewed version 3.0 several months earlier.[2] Version numbers do not appear on the exterior of retail packages, and resellers cannot distinguish between current and old versions.

Fairfield does not make upgrades to the application software available online, instead preferring to ship a CD with every order. This has sometimes required users to maintain more than one version on their computers since older content CDs are often incompatible with newer application software, after several upgrade cycles.

Newer versions have featured a larger interface and better-quality pictures than their predecessors.

[edit] Criticism

The most frequent criticism of the program is its lack of sensitivity to the differences between the various languages it comes in and their respective cultures. All programs present the same concepts in the same order, using the same images taken mostly in the Washington, D.C. area near Fairfield's headquarters in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Reviewing the Russian version in 1997, Mark Kaiser, director of the Language Media Center at the University of California, Berkeley, was especially harsh. He called the program "woefully inadequate for a number of reasons."[3] Not only did he cite the lack of cultural context (saying he'd never seen a roll of paper towels on any visit to Russia at that point), and its lack of any way to test conversational skills, he also noted the tendency of some words and phrases to be too English-based.

As an example, he noted that one early lesson depicts two people rowing and associates it with the English phrase "They are using a boat." In the Russian, this is rendered literally as "Они пользуются лодкой." But, according to Kaiser, no native Russian speaker would use the verb "use" in that context, preferring instead verbs specific to water-based travel, "Они плывут/катаются на лодке" ("they are sailing/riding in a boat").[3]. He also noted that the prepositions introduced in the first lesson take several different cases with distinct endings, "rather overwhelming to a student just beginning to study Russian."[3]

"The entire package lacks any pedagogical foundation," he concluded. "Rather, it utilizes the glitz of the multimedia capabilities of the computer, a dearth of quality foreign language software, and clever marketing to create an economically successful product."[3]

A few months earlier, Donald McRae of Brock University had been far kinder to the German version, calling it "very good, but with some reservations."[4] In contrast to Kaiser, he called it "good pedagogy and extremely effective. The authors of the program never lose sight of solid teaching methodology."[4]

He did, however, take issue with Fairfield's claim that the software can substitute for a beginning-level language course. Like Kaiser, he noted one point on which the software didn't indicate a subtle distinction among the German verbs used for "to run." A running dog is shown using laufen, which normally indicates walking; and rennen, which means "to run at great speed" is used for a picture of a horse. McRae noted that without context, a student could reasonably conclude that rennen applied only to animals. "I am convinced," he wrote, "that any [foreign language instruction] program requires the timely intervention of a good teacher."[4]

Another frequent issue is the use of more formal vocabulary than that regularly used by native speakers. MacWorld reviewer Cyrus Farivar noted that the Farsi CD he had been using gave khodrow for "car," although most native speakers use a French cognate, masheen. He called the company regarding the picture sets, and was told that four are in use, one for Western languages, another for Asian, and two sets unique to Swahili and Latin.[2]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Full online demo at rosettastone.com, retrieved July 12, 2006.
  2. ^ a b Farivar, Cyrus; January 19, 2006; Foreign-language software provides a comprehensive approach to learning; MacWorld, retrieved July 12, 2006.
  3. ^ a b c d Kaiser, Mark; September 25, 1997; Review: The Rosetta Stone for Russian, CALL @Chorus, retrieved October 22, 2006.
  4. ^ a b c McRae, Donald; June 24, 1997; Review:The Rosetta Stone for German; CALL @Chorus; retrieved October 22, 2006.

[edit] External links

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