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These pedagogic, interactive exercises will help students to review the material from lessons on buying a car and to deepen their understanding of it. By exposing the learners to a different format than was used in the classroom setting, the learners will have a broader base to work from when recalling the material. Furthermore, since the vocabulary will be reviewed, the students will be more likely to readily recall it. During class time, the learners should be given the dialog lessons, as well as practice time to become familiar with different ways to communicate wants and needs when buying a used car. These web-based exercises may then be used as homework or as an optional activity, depending on the availability of Internet access. Because all computers are not able to handle sound, movement, and video, listening and speaking exercises were not included. It is believed that having something that could not be accessed, or that would take a long time to open, would be frustrating for the students and thus should be avoided. It is hoped that these interactive activities will help the students to view learning as fun. These activities, and the classroom instruction, have been devised specifically for learners of English as a second language in a Japanese junior college. This is not to say, however, that the lesson and the corresponding interactive activities will not be helpful to other second language learners of English. Every activity has a link to an online English dictionary that is easy to use and provides example sentences. This link allows quick access so the learners are not distracted by looking up words in a regular dictionary. The users will find this dictionary to be the most effective when it is opened in a second window. In so doing, the learners will be able to move back and forth between the exercises and the dictionary. When a second window does not open, the learners will need to use the browser's back key to return to the activities after they have finished with the dictionary. There are six different activities, developed using Hot Potatoes Half-Baked Software, version four (http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/halfbaked), that become more involved as the learners progress. The activities may be accessed directly by using the addresses found with each activity's explanation or indirectly through the index page at http://www.geocities.com/smenking/index.html. The activities have been put in this order so that learners review vocabulary and previously studied sentences before doing the reading comprehension activity, which uses new words and sentence patterns. In this way, the students start from a grammatical understanding and move to a more global comprehension of communication. Of course, the activities may be used in a different order, or only selectively used, if the instructor sees fit. Jumbled sentences http://www.geocities.com/smenking/carmixsent1.html There are four different scrambled sentences that could be said by a salesperson and a customer when the customer first comes to the car dealership. In each of the four scrambled sentences, the learners must drag the words with the computer's mouse so that a correct sentence is formed. Although grammatically incorrect, the sentences will not have a capital letter for the first word. It is believed that most Japanese students will view the web page with Internet Explorer version five and doing so will cause all the words to highlight if a function to capitalize the first letter is included. It was determined that the highlighting could be more worrisome to students than the lack of a capital, since these students are beyond making the mistake of not capitalizing the first word in a sentence. For instructors who find a missing capital to be unacceptable, these exercises should not be used. By clicking on "Hint", the learners will be informed what part of their sentence is correct and will be provided with the next word. The learners will also be asked to try again to complete the sentence. These scrambled sentence activities also have a "Check" icon. This is not a scored exercise, so when "Check" is clicked on, learners will be informed what part of their sentence is correct and will be asked to try again. Unlike the "Hint" function, the next correct word will not be supplied to the students. These functions are designed to help the learners construct sentences and to help them think through what they might want to communicate. Matching sentences http://www.geocities.com/smenking/carmatching.html The next activity has two columns of sentences/questions that the learners must match. The left column, containing utterances a customer might say when buying a car, is stationary. The learners must choose the salesperson's response from the right column and then drag it to the appropriate sentence using the computer's mouse. After the learners have matched the items, they may click on the "Check" icon. The program will move the incorrect matches back to the right column so the learners can try again. This is not a scored activity. Fill in the blank http://www.geocities.com/smenking/carjcloze.html This activity was designed to help the learners remember specific vocabulary, not to test reading comprehension, which is the last activity in this set of exercises. As this is not a cloze reading comprehension activity, the blanks are vocabulary needed for this subject. This gap-filling activity is in the form of a car dealer's newspaper ad. As the learners read, they can type their answers into the empty spaces in the text. Although a "Hint" icon and "?" icon are provided, clicking on them will reduce the final score. For scoring, each gap is of equal weight. There is a "?" icon next to each gap. When clicked on, a short clue is given without giving the learners a letter in the actual answer. Using "?" reduces that question's score by half. Each time a letter is added through "Hint", that question's score is reduced proportionately. In a four-letter word, for example, receiving a letter will reduce the score by one-fourth. It is, in fact, possible to utilize the "Hint" and "?" functions to the point where that question's score is reduced to 0%. These functions are presented so students do not become frustrated while attempting to find the answer. If, however, students overuse the functions, they may be discouraged by the reduction in their score. Students should, therefore, be warned of the penalties built into this activity. When "Check" is clicked on, a score is given and incorrect answers are removed. Learners may then continue, filling in those words that were wrong. This exercise is a learning tool rather than a testing instrument, and it is hoped that the learners do not become too concerned with scoring. Crossword puzzle http://www.geocities.com/smenking/carjcross.html As with the mixed sentences and matching sentences, the crossword puzzle is not a scored activity. The purpose of the exercise, instead, is to engage the students in using their new vocabulary and thus gain confidence. This activity is similar to a crossword puzzle written on paper, but the learners have added assistance through the use of the "Hint" icon. Clicking on "Hint" gives the learners a free letter in whatever box the cursor is in. With this added support, it is hoped that students will not quit in frustration. When the learners have completed the crossword puzzle, they may click on the "Check" icon. Incorrect letters will be erased, and the learners will be allowed to continue until all of the spaces are correctly filled in. Quiz http://www.geocities.com/smenking/carjquiz.html This activity is in a basic quiz format, where students must type in the missing word(s) in a statement. In the quiz activity, each question is equally weighted, and the learners are penalized for using the "Hint", "Check", and "Show answer" functions. Students who rely on the "Hint" function, which supplies the next correct letter, will find that their score decreases proportionately. If, for example, two letters are supplied in a six-letter word, the score will decrease by 2/6. If students check an answer and find that it is incorrect, the computer will note which letters are correct. In exchange, the students will lose 10% of that question's score each time this is done. For example, if a student answers "brake", checks the answer, and then correctly answers "brakes", the score for that question will be 90%. The 90% will not be displayed, however, since only a cumulative score is shown after each question. When "Show answer" is utilized, all possible answers are shown, and the computer calculates the cumulative score using 0% for that question. Because this exercise penalizes the learners for asking for help in finding the answer, it is more challenging. Reading comprehension http://www.geocities.com/smenking/carmultiplechoiceread.html To eliminate stress associated with timing the reading, a clocking mechanism is not used. As a result, the learners have as much time as they need to read the text. The learners may also go back and forth between the reading and the questions. The questions are multiple choice questions, so the students should click on the letter of the answer they would like to select. If the learners select a wrong answer, the program will often give a hint about the correct answer. Because this is a tutorial rather than a test, learners are given as many chances as they need to answer correctly. The score is calculated by taking the number of correct answers and diving by the number of attempts made to answer the questions. For example, if a student answers the first and third question on the first attempt but answers the second question on the third attempt, he/she would have 3 correct answers after 5 attempts, resulting in a score of 60% (3/5). As with the quiz, rather than displaying the percent score for each question, a cumulative score is shown when each question is answered correctly. Reference UVic Humanities Computing and Media Hot Potatoes (No date). Hot Potatoes Half-Baked Software (version 4) [Online computer software]. Available: http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/halfbaked [July through October, 2000]. |