--- Forwarded Message from Hans Gilde <[log in to unmask]> ---

>User-Agent: Microsoft-Entourage/11.3.6.070618
>Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 10:10:09 -0600
>Subject: Re: #8704 MySpanishLab
>From: Hans Gilde <[log in to unmask]>
>To: Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum   
<[log in to unmask]>
>Thread-Topic: #8704 MySpanishLab
>Thread-Index: AcgxD/tGOdt4dp0DEdyjgAAWy4nVyg==
>In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>

Greetings from Nebraska,

We are currently using MySpanishLab, and so far it has not been a
satisfacory experience. The following is what I wrote to someone who wanted
my opinion of it.

I'm very ambivalent about MSL (MySpanishLab) because I think the Web site
still needs a lot of work before it is functional and userfriendly enough,
not to mention pedagogical aspects. I do believe that enventually MSL can be
a great program. Yet I also believe that a great deal is lost having
students just do a bunch of button clicking and doing absolutely no writing
by hand. There's too much use of multiple choice items simply because they
can be computer graded. In my methodology there's not much room for multiple
guess/choice whether in out-of-class assignments or tests.
In their present form, the exercises do not provide enough aural exposure to
the language, and oral production is at an unacceptable minimum. It just
doesn't suffice to have students read disjointed words into the recorder.
Such an activity is fine for practicing pronunciation, but is totally
insufficient for oral practice within sentences of vocabulary, idiomatic
expressions and grammar principles.

As MSL is now, it is actually being beta tested by the users. There are too
many exercises that don't work properly.

At present I would therefore recommend neither the text "Arriba" nor MSL.
They both need to mature.
-- 
Hans Gilde, Ph.D.
snail mail: 
1111 Oldfather Hall
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Lincoln NE 68588-0315
phone: 402-472-1786
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Office: Burnett Hall 304




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