--- 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 *********************************************** LLTI is a service of IALLT, the International Association for Language Learning (http://iallt.org/), and The Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning (http://www.languageconsortium.org/). Join IALLT at http://iallt.org. Otmar Foelsche, LLTI-Editor ([log in to unmask]) ***********************************************