Rosetta Stone

[Pendergast, J. Mr DFL]

We have been using Rosetta Stone at West Point in all seven languages
for about five years, and all of the observations and frustrations that
have been noted in this e-mail trail have been expressed at one time or
another by the instructors here, as well.  The key issue for us has been
the fact that the organization of the presentation of phrases and syntax
is entirely out of synch with our textbooks.  The degree to which this
is the case is directly proportional to the degree of linguistic
variation a particular language has from English grammar, which was the
organizational basis for the Rosetta Stone "Ur-course."  As an example,
the phrase "the boy is under the plane" occurs in the first lesson,
which for Russian obviously requires the use of the instrumental case.
Unfortunately, our textbook, Nachalo, does not introduce the
instrumental case discretely (other than in idiomatic expressions) until
book 2.  For this reason, it is NOT used as a primary study medium.  As
Paul Gallagher aptly observes, however, some (far from all) of our
cadets respond very positively to the program, because it feels a little
more like a game than study.  Apparently, the grammatical features of
Spanish and Portuguese are on some level "closer" to English, and
therefore some instructors in those languages here have incorporated
Rosetta Stone much more successfully.   

A big advantage we have here is that we have access to the program
on-line and can monitor each cadet's amount of activity.  West Point's
use of Rosetta Stone was initiated as a test case for the eventual
establishment of a contract with the software developer to make a
version similar to the West Point on-line program available to the
entire Army.  The Army pays the company, and soldiers have free access
to the program in 27 languages, plus two dialects of Spanish and a
specialized Arabic course designed for soldiers heading to the Middle
East.  Some reading this may now be wondering: but if the program has
all these problems, what use is it?  The train of thought to which I
personally subscribe is that if a student is working for an observable
number of hours with Rosetta Stone, it becomes a part of his overall
contact time with the language.  I think we all know the importance of
contact hours.  The challenge is for the instructors to monitor the
concepts that the program introduces and either elicit questions about
them from the students or incorporate them overtly into the classroom
discussion.  Admittedly, this does not argue for the stand-alone nature
of the program, but it shows that the program has considerable merit.  

John Pendergast (MAJ, USA ret.)
Assistant Professor of Russian
United States Military Academy
745 Brewerton Road
West Point, NY 10996
845-938-0310
    

-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Paul B. Gallagher
Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2008 10:02 PM
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Rosetta Stone

Ruby J Jones wrote:

> I have only worked with one student who turned to me for private 
> tutoring because she had purchased Rosetta Stone to learn Russian and 
> was totally frustrated. As Richard Robin noted, the lack of 
> contexualization was a major hindrance. The orthography was not 
> related to the individual sounds, but simply presented as words, which

> left the student with no idea of which sounds were associated with any

> individual letter. I am relying on a two-year old memory; but, I think

> the first lesson was about a woman riding a horse in a city park. I 
> never saw the applicability of that vocabulary for everyday 
> conversation. Although the student had been assiduously working with 
> the program for months (in preparation for a year's study abroad in 
> Moscow), we had to start from the basics.
> 
> I never bought the program, but only examined my student's copy. I was

> not impressed.

I probably would not be impressed either, because this teaching method
would clash with my individual learning style.

But it may work for some students -- one of the most valuable and most
difficult lessons I gained from my limited experience as a teacher was
that different students have different learning styles and what works
well for some will be useless with others. An effective human teacher
integrates a variety of techniques and adapts to the student's needs in
ways no computer program can -- except of course on Star Trek.

--
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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