Product Information

Software title:  English Mastery, Alania Series A

Publisher:  American Language Academy

Address:  1401 Rockville Pike, Suite 550

Telephone: (301) 309-1400 or (800) 346-3469

Fax:  (301) 309-0202

Email address: software@ala-usa.com

Website URL:   http://www.ala-usa.com/software

Cost(s): Stand-alone Version (one copy): $285

Lab Pack:   5 copies included  Cost/copy: $199.50

Network Version : Not available for only series A (beginner level). Network Version available only for series A, B and C together. However, for adult learners, series A has the most appropriate level activities.

Site License :  No, quantity discounts offered instead.

Reviewer Information

Name:  Diane Paxton

Title:  ESOL Specialist

Program: The Adult Literacy Resource Institute

Address:  989 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA 02215

Phone: (617) 782-8956 x 20

Fax: (617) 782-9011

Email: dipax@tiac.net

Date of Review:  6/7/99

Description of Software Program

Instruction Type(s): ESOL, beginner to intermediate

Curriculum Area(s): Reading, grammar, spelling, listening, pronunciation

Software Type(s): This software is mainly designed for tutorial and drill and practice work, during which the student can go at his or her own pace and choose the skill and grammar areas on which to concentrate.
 

Network/Site License Available? No, they sell lab packs of 5 instead.
 

Inspection copy available? See below (trial period)

Demo disk available? Yes

Demo Free? Yes

Trial period? The full version is available for a trial period of 60 days, at which time, if the customer is not satisfied, ALA will refund the full cost of the program.

General Description: The Alania series consists of three levels, (A, B and C) but this review is only of "A" which is the beginning level. I limited my review to the first level because it progresses to a level of complexity in reading, listening and grammar that will be appropriate for beginning and intermediate adult learners, and to review all three levels would be prohibitive in terms of space. However, advanced ESOL students will probably enjoy the challenge of the activities presented in level B. I was not able to look at level C. Levels A and B have similar formats, but the grammar and conversations in level B are much more sophisticated in terms of language use and structure.  Level A is broken into 6 units: Verbs, Nouns & Pronouns, Verbs II, Questions, Prepositions & 2 Worded Verbs and Adjectives. Within each of these units there are 4-10 topics for the students to choose from. These are described on the content page with a more specific grammar sub-topic on the left and the content area listed on the right, such as: Lucky Roommates, Lost and Found, Fred Feels Sad and Filling Out a Form. Following this description, the learner sees a photo representing the topic, and can choose what language area s/he wants to focus on: Listening comprehension, vocabulary, dictation, grammar, crossword puzzle, pronunciation of words or phrases, or a quiz. It's a mechanics based program, good for practice in the above areas, but doesn't challenge the students to be creative, write or think critically. The topics are all presented in the form of dialogues which contain highlighted examples of the grammar points in context. The characters repeat in the vignettes throughout the program. The content is designed for college students, and some of the topics such as visiting a country house for the weekend, are not particularly relevant to our students, although others such as writing letters to family, visiting the dentist, and meeting friends in the laundry room might be more representative of familiar situations.

Purposes: This software is useful for practice with listening, reading, pronunciation and vocabulary in context. It encourages students to go at their own pace and choose what they want to focus on. It would be most helpful for the motivated student who wants to spend time in the computer lab in an individual learning situation. There are brief grammar explanations, but not enough to be useful. Ideally, students have already been introduced to related material in class and are taking advantage of the software for review and reinforcement.

Intended audience: The intended audience is college students. This is made clear through the choice of photos, which feature young adults in dorm rooms and other locations. However, some of the contexts of the dialogues are based on competencies general enough to be relevant to adult students, such as ordering in a restaurant, transportation and watching the news. The grammar, listening, reading and pronunciation practice have been designed carefully to be applicable to adult learners in that the lessons are embedded in conversations about things like asking advice, feeling sick and making plans. However, one of the problems I had with ALA's view of their audience is that it is narrow in that they show stereotypical foreign university students who appear to be from a high socioeconomic class and are living an idealized lifestyle without children, immigration issues or jobs. They tend to have an all-American appearance without much racial or cultural diversity, and this might tend to marginalize the typical adult student, as it is distanced from and not representative of their reality.

Instructional Mode

The software is intended for individual use, but it would require a thorough introduction so that the students could successfully utilize the parts which interest them. This could be done in a whole class format, making the introduction of the software a part of the class over several periods so that the students would become accustomed to the buttons and their functions, aware of the possibilities of all that the software has to offer, able to navigate their way around the program's options, and interested in the possibilities for practice that it offers.

Instructional Format

The directions are shown on the screen for each function of the program, although they are not written at an appropriate level for a beginning student. Lower level students will need basic instruction on some limited aspects of the units at first, so as not to become overwhelmed. There is a lot offered in each unit, but navigation of the reading, listening, vocabulary definition, pronunciation (record and listen to yourself in comparison with the model) and crossword puzzle functions is all built around a dialogue which can be reviewed at any time. Once a student becomes comfortable with controlling some of the basic features, she will be able to determine her progress and speed, reviewing or skipping lessons and emphasizing skills that she is interested in practicing over others. There is no automatic branching to move students to harder or easier activities based on their performance, students must make these choices themselves. There are two types of assessment, the crossword puzzle, and at the end of the units, multiple choice questions. These vary in that they progress from concrete description of content in the earlier units to inference and close reading of the dialogues later on. When a student misses a response, the program gives specific prompts to encourage her to rethink the wording of the question and for correct answers, there is an enthusiastic note: "That's good" or "You're becoming an expert."

Program Format

Both the instructions and any lessons can be reviewed or bypassed at any time. It's easy to get back to the main table of contents to change units or topics, although the way to do this is not immediately clear. Teachers will need to show students some paths for navigation, gradually building on their skills so that they can have more control over their sessions.

Management Format

Students immediately receive scores for their individual quizzes and crossword puzzles. Included in the score is information about how long the student took to complete the work. There is a student record keeping system which can print the records out. The standalone system, which uses the CD ROM for the lessons has a class database on each hard drive of a workstation. Records are kept for each student as s/he progresses with the work on the lessons/exercises. However, there is no password for security of the record keeping system, unless you buy the entire network package.

Manuals and Student Support Materials

There is a teacher's manual available, and also a student manual.

Technical Support

Technical support is available online at the web site listed above. You can also call or fax for information. I have e-mailed twice and both times have received a reply during the following business day.

Hardware Requirements

Platform(s): Windows 95, 98; Windows NT; Windows 3.1

Storage Needed: Floppy drive: Not needed

CD-ROM  : Minimum speed=double speed. This program only uses CD ROM drives. For the non network version, you need the CDs for initial installation of the application and then for the content each time you run the application. However, if you buy the network version, after the installation is done, the CDs are not needed.

ZIP Drive: no

JAZ Drive: no
 

Hard Disk space required: 8 MB hard drive space.

RAM memory requirements:16 MB RAM,

Monitor: SVGA 640x480 256 color or better

Peripherals: earphones, mouse, 16 bit sound card

Keyboard Skills Needed: low

Curriculum Integration Comments

This program could be integrated with class work depending on the rest of the topics and activities students are working on. It could be used to give practice for grammar, but also for exposure to situational conversations and listening comprehension in a competency based curriculum. The use of it is complex enough that teachers need to spend some time with the class exploring and teaching the aspects of the program, such as reading the instructions, navigating through it and exploring the various choices it offers in each topic. I recommend trying the activities out and evaluating them as a whole class using a projector so that the image can be seen by all on the wall. This way, students can all go through the lessons slowly, repeating as necessary, and later students can discuss and learn from each other what is helpful for practicing and why they think so. Following this, students could work in pairs in the lab, navigating to and completing activities for a particular assignment. This will help set up a comfort level and framework in their minds for learning and practice on the computer, so they will be more curious to explore it on their own and see in what ways it helps them improve. If integrating activities from the program with the whole class is done on a regular basis, students will become more articulate about what parts of it help them review and remember, as well as more comfortable with and invested in using it on their own.

Evaluative Comments

There's a lot going on in this software, and students who are not familiar with computers may be intimidated at first. For this reason, teachers need to make the introduction of this program a part of the class process so that students can become comfortable with it. Beyond the initial challenges, there are several activities which can be interesting to students in terms of listening comprehension, pronunciation practice in a structured environment, reading and grammar in context. The program offers opportunities to focus on larger comprehension tasks as well as more specific details such as spelling and vocabulary definitions. Once students become familiar with the options, they can make choices to challenge themselves in ways that will keep their interest level up.

Strengths: The pronunciation practice is well done. I know a student who had a great deal of trouble being understood in conversation, and after working with this program on a regular basis, she showed dramatic improvement. There is a pattern from unit to unit which makes it easy to navigate the program, and I think students will enjoy having the power to determine what skills or grammar points they want to practice. The quizzes are well written at a level appropriate to the dialogues, and encourage the students to think carefully about the material they have been working with. The crossword puzzles are a fun addition, and easy to use for beginning learners.

Weaknesses: I have already discussed the limitations of this program in terms of its intended audience and lack of connection to adult learners' socioeconomic contexts. Teachers may want to preview the demo disc to see if they think it will be a problem for their students. They might also consider bringing up the issue with students to generate a discussion about what the differences are between their lives and those of the students represented in the program, why the program designers might have chosen to design it in this way, whether or not they feel excluded and how they feel about working with it. Another weak area is the dictation activities. They are designed with a memory for the correct answer, so as you type in your response, if you make an error, then what you typed will not appear on the screen. It's confusing because you don't know what you are doing wrong , and disconcerting to see the letters you are entering not showing up. Also, in the table of contents, the sub topics have names like: Demonstrative adjectives and Adverbials of manner, place and time. If students don't know the names of the grammatical categories, they may have a hard time choosing what grammar topic is relevant to them or be intimidated by these confusing titles. Teachers may want to give suggestions as to which topics students will be most helpful to students. See Curriculum Integration above for ideas about introducing students to the program to help them become comfortable with its array of functions, which can tend to be confusing.

Overall Rating:   (3) Good