Tech ToolKit #7

Rosetta Stone

 I remember using Rosetta Stone during my freshmen year in high school in order to learn English, I used to be in it every day just trying to learn how to put a sentence together, trying to learn how to speak English, write it and read it, and today I can say that Rosetta Stone have helped me a lot. Rosetta Stone is a proprietary computer assisted language learning software which uses images, text, and sound to teach students words and grammar by spaced repetition, without translation.

“In a Rosetta Stone Language Learning exercise, the student pairs sound or text to one of several images. The number of images per screen varies. For example, the software shows the student four photographs. A native speaker makes a statement that describes one of the photographs, and the statement is printed on the screen; the student chooses the photograph that the speaker described. In another variation, the student completes a textual description of a photograph.

In writing exercises, the software provides an on-screen keyboard for the user to type characters that are not in the Latin alphabet. Grammar lessons cover grammatical tense and grammatical mood. In grammar lessons, the program firstly shows the learner several examples of a grammatical concept, and in some levels the word or words the learner should focus on are highlighted. Then the learner is given a sentence with several options for a word or phrase, and the student chooses the correct option.

If the student has a microphone, the software can attempt to evaluate word pronunciation. Each lesson concludes with a review of the content in that lesson, and each unit concludes with a milestone, which is a simulated conversation that includes the content of the unit.”

As a future ESL teacher I’m sure that I will provide Rosetta Stone account for all my students who are new to American and to those who don’t speak English well yet, to use it an hour daily after school or during their free time, so they learn English the fun and fast way. There’s nothing better than Rosetta Stone or more helpful when it comes to learning a new language, and the visual aids totally helpful.