more flash fun

[Jordan Lachler]

Hi all,

>I tend to concur with Mia on this -- I think it 
>is really a great example of how technology can 
>offer a clear immersion-style teaching 
>environment -- but using English kind of defeats 
>that purpose. It might, however, depend on the 
>actual goals of the community and, since I know 
>nothng about that, nor who the specific audience 
>is, I'd like to hear from Jordan more about it...

I suspect English is included because it's not 
always 100% clear what each of the objects 
is.  For example, when you click on the top of 
the house in the first screen and hear the word 
<hít>, it seems reasonable to me that some 
students would think that means "roof" and not 
"house", since that is what they clicked 
on.  Unless they then decide to click elsewhere 
on the "house", there isn't anything in the 
program that dissuades them from their first hypothesis.

There are lots of potential confusions like that...

Does <gán> mean "firewood", or any kind of "wood"?
Does <s'íx'> mean "bowl with fruit in it", "fruit 
in a bowl", "fruit", or "bowl"?
Does <x_'aháat> mean "cupboard", "cupboard door", 
"yellow cupboard door", or just "door" of any kind?
Does <keitl> mean "dog" or does it mean "border collie"?

While it may seem unlikely that students would 
get confused in this way, my experience tells me 
that it does happen from time to time, no matter 
how clear the material seems to other people.

Clearly, adding English translations is not the 
"best" possible solution to this problem -- it 
would be better to develop more and better flash 
programs which would carefully disambiguate all 
the possible meanings.  On the practical side, of 
course, that would be extremely time consuming 
when compared to simply slipping in some English 
to make sure the students are following along.

(I'm leaving aside the issue here of whether, for 
instance, <keitl> *really* means "dog", or 
whether <gán> *really* means "firewood".  That's 
obviously an important, but much more complex, topic.)

In the end, though, the main goal of the program 
is just to show people that they can in fact 
learn some Tlingit and have fun while doing 
it.  And if they feel successful and realize that 
language learning doesn't have to be stressful 
and frightening, they may just sign themselves 
and their children up for some community language classes.

Jordan