Graham Davies

John asks: Ah - just like the scene in David Lodge's "Small World", where one of his characters, Robin Dempsey (reputed to have been based on a real person at the University of Birmingham) thinks he is interacting with an "Eliza" program but is actually interacting with the mischievous Josh Collins. When Robin finds out it ends in a brawl on the computer room floor. I am reminded too of Alan Turing. Alan Turing was one of the first computer scientists to set up a yardstick for measuring machine intelligence: the famous "Turing Test", which hinges on the ability of the computer, or rather the set of instructions with which it has been programmed, to convince a person communicating with it via a remote terminal that it is a human being and not a machine. Then there is John Searle's Chinese Room computer. A human being may ask the Chinese Room computer questions in Chinese by posting them into the room in written form. The Chinese Room appears to understand Chinese as it is able to deliver written answers to the questions. What is happening, however, is that there is an operator inside the room who identifies each character in a dictionary and checks the rules of grammar and usage in order to ascertain the meaning of the question. He then assembles an answer, again by checking his dictionary and the rules of grammar and usage. He does not, however, understand Chinese; he is simply manipulating symbols according to a set of elaborate rules.

Caterina asks: I agree with David. His example concerning "kerning" is highly relevant. If you want advice on using Pagemaker, who do you ask? I always ask my daughter, who is a trained graphic designer and highly skilled in the use of Pagemaker, Illustrator and Photoshop, which she uses in her own business. I wouldn't ask an ICT specialist because they are unlikely to know enough about graphic design and what all the different features of the packages are there for. Always ask a subject specialist who is ICT-literate, not an ICT specialist, if you want advice on using a package that has been produced for a specific profession or for a specific learning/teaching task.

An example of the , to which David refers is the BBC Languages site. The BBC has taken the decision to create no more broadcast TV language programmes for adult learners. Why? Creating a website is cheaper (v. the excellent old Buorgiorno Italia, A Vous la France and Deutsch Direkt series of the 1980s, which must have been expensive to produce). The BBC Languages website is good, but it's nothing like as good as the TV broadcasts of yesteryear - and it's pretty boring by comparison.

Learning a language takes time. If you grow up in a country or live in a country for a long period then you are exposed to the language continually and for many hours per day. This is why you make good progress. If you learn a language at school then you get very little exposure in comparison and therefore make slow progress. The Council of Europe calculates that you need around 350-400 learning hours to achieve Threshold Level (B1) on the Common European Framework scale. B1 corresponds roughly to a higher GCSE grade in the UK - but I wonder how many children get anywhere near enough learning hours in currently overcrowded timetables to be able to achieve this level. My former university was involved in developing French language training materials for the Eurostar train drivers. To get an English mother tongue train driver from scratch to a safe operational level in French takes 600 class-contact hours plus homework, including a period of residence in France combined with language training by native speakers. ICT - and other aids such as audio and video materials - can speed up the language learning process by offering additional opportunities for practice outside the classroom.

We use WebQuests (and Mazes) a lot in language learning and teaching. See the website of the European Centre for Modern Languages in Graz. This page is devoted to WebQuests: LanguageQuest: http://www.ecml.at/projects/voll/our_resou...quest/index.htm

Differentiation is a sine qua non of every software package that I have written.

Dalibor asks: The short answer is "yes". As a language teacher I have been using mixed media (books, tape recordings, video recordings, etc) for the whole of my career - which goes back to the mid-1960s. Multimedia is a tremendous advantage insofar as all the different media can be integrated and played back on a single piece of hardware. However, because language teaching is dependent so much on interpersonal communication, it would be unwise to think of multimedia as a substitute for face-to-face teaching and learning; rather it should be considered as a useful supplement. Bear in mind that we, as language teachers, are imparting four basic skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) that require many, many hours of intensive practice (like musical skills) as well as knowledge (of grammar, culture, etc). Multimedia lends itself well to practising and assessing some aspects of the four basic skills - but not all of them. See the ICT4LT site: http://www.ict4lt.org (ICT for Language Teachers), where we discuss the pros and cons of multimedia in detail, especially in Module 2.2.

John raises an important point regarding copyright. Coincidentally, three colleagues and I have just finished writing a guidance document on digital language labs that contains a substantial section on copyright. In our document we write: These two links may be useful: ICT4LT General guidelines on copyright: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_copyright.htm Casey John (2004) Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in networked e-learning: a beginners guide for content developers, JISC Legal Information Service: http://www.jisclegal.ac.uk/publications/johncasey_1.htm Our document was commissioned by a government agency. Needless to say, we have exercised our "paternity right" to be identified as authors. We have, however, assigned copyright to the government agency in exchange for a one-off fee. I have been aware for some time of the problem of an LEA claiming copyright to an employee's work. When I began writing seriously around 25 years ago, I made sure that everything I produced for sale or under a royalties agreement was done in my own time and could not be considered as part of my work for the LEA that controlled the college in which I was employed. I therefore set up a private business partnership with my wife, who owned 90% of the partnership, and all fees and royalties accruing from my publications were fed into the partnership. This worked successfully right up until my retirement in 1993 - and now there's no argument!

Yes, linguistic deprivation is a problem area - and growing. The following article at the BBC site reveals the extent of the problem: "Diabetes websites too complicated. Language used was beyond average comprehension. Online health advice for people with diabetes is often too complex to understand, analysis suggests. A scientist at Bath University looked at pages about diabetes on 15 internet health sites run mainly by charities and official bodies. He found people would need a reading ability of an educated 11 to 17-year-old to understand the sites. However, he said the average reading age of people in the UK was equivalent to an educated nine-year-old." Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3641634.stm In addition, one must bear in mind that reading from the screen is slower than reading from the printed page. Web guru Jakob Nielsen states that research shows that it is about 25% slower: Be Succinct! Writing for the Web, Alertbox for March 15, 1997: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9703b.html I must admit that I am getting concerned about the level of literacy in some emails that I receive from schools. This is a genuine email from a school ICT technician: "hi i have a few questions about [name of program] if i could contact u or u me so we can discuss manys thanks"

SIMKINS is one of those acronyms that appeared in the Thatcher Years. Remember, YUPPIE, DINKY, WOOPIE, LOMBARD, TINA? YUPPIE: Young Upwardly-mobile Professional Person DINKY: Decription of a married couple: Double Income No Kids Yet WOOPIE: Well Off Older Person LOMBARD: Loads Of Money But A Right Dickhead TINA: There Is No Alternative (a nickname for Mrs T.) SIMKINS: Decription of a married couple: Single Income, Married, Kids, In a Nice Semi

Derek writes: So, I wonder how my name was found so easily and ranked so high. I'm not the only Graham Davies in the world. I don't pay anyone to rank my Web pages and I don't feed my Web pages to search engines. I do, however, pay careful attention to the keywords that I list in the metatags - but in the case of my CV page there are only three keywords/phrases, one of which is my name. My Web page does not get a lot of hits - only around 40 per day on average - so hit-rate can't be an important factor. I have reason to be grateful to Google. Just before Christmas I posted a message to this Forum concerning my family background. A couple of weeks ago a long-lost relative of mine found the message via Google and contacted me via the Forum to check that we were actually related. Indeed we are. He's a second-cousin of mine (one I didn't know about), and we have since exchanged several emails and talked on the telephone. We are both keen on genealogy and between us we have managed to build up an impressive family tree. Google worked for us!

I log hits at my business website, and I can also identify which search engine and which search terms visitors use to find us. Here are the latest figures: Google - 69% Yahoo - 10% Alta Vista - 8% MSN - 7% Lycos - 1% Others - insignificant I searched for my name. Google found my CV page and listed it as No. 1. MSN also found my CV page and listed it as No. 7. Yahoo also found the page and listed it as No. 3 - but listed another of my pages as No. 1. Alta Vista found the same pages as Yahoo, listing them respectively as No. 4 and No. 2. I'm very pleased with this result!

Initially, I thought I saw a glimmer of hope in Tomlinson that might lighten the hearts of MFL teachers, but now I'm not so sure. I see nothing in Tomlinson that changes the situation whereby senior management teams in schools can juggle the subject options for their own convenience, i.e. as they do at the moment in order to make their performance tables stats look good. On the plus side, the core skills of Maths, Literacy and ICT are a good thing, but most European countries would include knowledge of a foreign language as a core skill. As a MFL teacher – in common with most other MFL teachers – I deplore the government’s decision to allow children in schools in England to drop the study of a foreign language after the age of 14. The effect of this is that in two thirds of state secondary schools in England children no longer study a foreign language beyond Key Stage 3. In the independent sector, however, virtually all children study a foreign language up to GCSE level. Thus the elitist system, whereby only “posh” kids in grammar schools and independent schools studied foreign languages, has now been restored. I am not an avid supporter of The Daily Telegraph, but its leading article of 19/10/04 contains some food for thought: >At the heart of Tomlinson, there is a colossal non sequitur. By requiring less academic pupils to learn only basic maths, functional literacy, "communication" and computer skills, it is hoped that more of them will discover an aptitude for "employment and adult life". But why should they? If science, literature, history, languages, music, art, geography, religion and politics are no longer considered essential attributes of humanity, then the effect will be to accelerate the infantilisation of adolescence. The motivated will still study these subjects, but the rest will prefer soft options.<

David mentions the Mazes book. I know it well - and its still as valid today as when it was first published: Berer M. & Rinvolucri M. (1981) Mazes: a problem-solving reader, London: Heinemann. I created a text-only version of this (with Heinemann's permission) for the BBC Microcomputer in around 1986 as part of the activities of the National Centre for Computer Assisted Language Learning (now defunct) at Ealing College of HE, London.

Like Andrew Field, I'm going to be cheeky too. My business, Camsoft, has been selling software to schools in the UK since 1982. Our best-seller, an authoring package called Fun with Texts, is in use in over UK 3000 schools. It's geared mainly to Modern Foreign Languages and English as a Foreign Language. Further details at: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/fwt.htm - although this site is playing up a bit today. Try the mirror site at: http://www.camsoft.f9.co.uk Hot Potatoes and Quandary, by the way, were also designed initially for Modern Foreign languages and English as a Foreign Language. I know the designers personally: Martin Holmes and Stewart Arneil, University of Victoria, Canada. They make regular appearances at EUROCALL conferences: http://www.eurocall-languages.org

I read an article in Newsweek by Andrew Moravcsik, 31 Jan 2005: "Dream on, America". It's a good read, focusing on why the American Dream has turned sour for many nations that once admired it and - more importantly - why Americans cannot understand why this has happened and why other nations don't want to emulate the USA.

David writes: "Just Grandma and Me" and various other publications in the same Talking Books series were beautifully produced, but on their own they had limited value. Interest quickly waned once the kids had clicked on every possible object on the screen. However, I once saw an interesting presentation given by a teacher of English in France, which centred on "The Tortoise and the Hare" CD-ROM in the Talking Books series. His approach was to use it for whole-class teaching, projected on a large screen. The pictures and the animations became stimuli for the learners to describe what was happening on the screen, what had happened, what might happen, etc...

Governments are pretty good at wasting public money. The UK government is pouring money into ICT in education, but its impact is debatable. Here are just a few examples:. Curriculum Online: http://www.curriculumonline.gov.uk - A funding initiative, whereby schools get special funding for buying ICT resources. It’s a dreadfully bureaucratic initiative, and relatively few schools seem to search its database of resources. Most schools use Google. ICT in Schools - http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/wholeschool/ictis/ The e-Learning Strategy Unit - http://www.dfes.gov.uk/elearningstrategy/ Languages ICT - http://www.languages-ict.org.uk - A new initiative managed by CILT, the National Centre for Languages. Includes a discussion forum. This may have an impact in the longer term – but lets see… BECTA (British Educational Communications and Technology Agency): Tends to be very “techie” and overlaps with lots of other initiatives, e.g. the National Grid for Leanring: http://www.becta.org.uk I was recently invited to contribute an article entitled "Aspects of technology enhanced language learning: a UK perspective". This forms part of an international report commissioned by UNESCO (edited Anthony Fitzpatrick) entitled "An Analytical Survey on Information and Communications Technologies in the Teaching and Learning of Foreign Languages: State of the Art, Needs and Perspectives." You can access my article here: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/docs/UNES...hams_Report.htm The whole report should appear on the Web later this year.

Dalibor asks: The short answer is "no". As a teacher of modern languages, I have used different media for the whole of my career, dating back to the 1960s: tape recordings of authentic human voices speaking foreign languages, video recordings, overhead projectors for making presentations, TV and radio. All of these different media have proved very useful and they can now be combined in a computer connected to the Internet - which makes it more convenient, but this does not - and should not - remove the human being from the teaching process. I tend to take the same view as Angela McFarlane, Professor of Education and Director of Learning Technology, Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol, who writes: "What we do know, whether from personal experience as teacher or learner, or as the result of 20 years of research into the question, is that ICT has an impact on learning, for some learners, under some conditions, and that it cannot replace a teacher. We know that a key factor in impact at school level is and remains the teacher, whose role in managing and integrating the ICT-based experiences learners have with the rest of the curriculum and culture is vital and probably always will be." Times Educational Supplement, ICT in Education Online, 26 April 2002, p. 17.

I think you have to have experienced hard-left politics in action to assess just how awful they were. I did in 1976 while attending a course at Karl Marx University, Leipzig, lodging with a family: the generally depressing feel of the place, my landlady having to get up at 5 in the morning in order to join the queues for basic foodstuffs such as meat, bread, coffee, etc, constantly being bombarded by slogans extolling the virtues of Socialism, the restrictions imposed on East Germans' freedom to travel - oh, and not forgetting the people that were shot trying to "escape" from East into West Berlin. Hitler's Germany was, of course, worse, but the East Germans learned a lot from him. I went back to East Germany in 1989 in order to visit students of mine who were studying in West Berlin, followed by a visit to the Humboldt University in East Berlin, where I gave a guest lecture, followed by a conference in Rostock - all of which was taking place during the week following the opening of the Berlin Wall. "Ich war dabei!" http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/berlin.htm I must put in a request to see my Stasi file sometime...

Didn't the 1944 Butler Education Act specify "sessions" rather than "days" - a "session" being a morning or afternoon? I seem to recall this vaguely from my training back in the 1960s, but my memory may be failing... Was it 400 sessions?

As a (retired) teacher of Modern Foreign Languages I was initially a bit concerned about capping downloads. MFL teachers and learners make a lot of use of audio and video files - which can be streamed, of course, but you get higher quality (high quality sound is crucial in MFL) and better interaction if you can download the file once and then work with it offline. However, I think my concern is unfounded. As Andrew says, it has more to do with people (mainly teenagers, I guess) who are grabbing all the pirated stuff.

John writes: Indeed! It's very easy and maybe even fashionable in some circles to mount continued attacks against the far-right (whom I detest), but John is absolutely correct in pointing out that the far-left are equally bad. I experienced a far-left government at first-hand on a month-long visit to Leipzig in 1976, which was then in the "sogenannte Deutsche Demokratische Republik" ("so-called German Democratic Republic") as the West German government referred to it. It was an illuminating experience. Essentially, the GDR was a centrally-controlled police state that had adapted many of the institutions set up by Hitler, e.g. the Gestapo (which became the Stasi) and the Hitler Youth (which became the Freie Deutsche Jugend), in order to further the causes of Socialism - the GDR always called itself a Socialist state, not a Communist state. After one month living in this repressed society I radically changed my views about left-wing and right-wing politics and their relative merits/demerits. Both sides are equally good at using "the boot and the fist" (v. Derek Macmillan's contribution). So where have I ended up? Somewhere in the middle I guess, but I have also developed a healthy disrespect for all politicians and anyone actively involved in politics.

John writes: I am inclined to agree. I was very impressed by the materials produced by the Open University for the Philosophy and Logic modules that my wife took. They included many examples of authentic texts, written and broadcast, that contained flawed arguments, and students were set tasks in which they were encouraged to tear the arguments to pieces. I believe that students of all ages should be given thorough training in spotting a flawed argument, whether it contains a false premise, begs a question or contains a logical fault. I appreciated the sixth-form classes in Philosophy and Logic that were compulsory for all students at the grammar school I attended. I am sure they helped clarify my thinking and changed my attitudes to a wide range of beliefs. However, this experience still doesn’t stop me getting hot under the collar when I hear someone spouting forth and expressing views that I fundamentally disagree with and feeling like thumping them in order to shut them up. I can be completely unreasonable at times – but I know when I’m being unreasonable. I am rather glad that I took up a career as a Modern Languages teacher. We don’t seem to get embroiled in the same kinds of heated discussions that affect teachers of History and Politics.

My Internet Services Provider - in common with many other ISPs - is about to introduce a sliding scale of broadband charges reflecting users' monthly downloads. I was a bit concerned about this as I use the Internet for several hours every day, but when I looked at my average monthly usage it was well within the usage recommended for the cheap broadband rate that I currently pay. I use the Internet mainly for email and for browsing Web pages, and I hardly ever download large files. My ISP indicates that I could browse up to 5000 Web pages per day before reaching my bandwidth limit. That'll do! It appears the sliding scale is being introduced to curtail the activities of "bandwidth hogs", who download hundreds of gigabytes of music and video files and clog up the ISP's system, thereby slowing it down for moderate users. The "bandwidth hogs" will be cut off as soon as they reach their limit and may be forced to pay a higher charge as high as 300 pounds per month. This appears to part of a growing trend to make the costs of Internet access reflect usage, i.e. pay as you go. An increasing number of websites levy subscription charges, for example, and now ISPs are raising their broadband charges to reflect usage. I had a look at the language courses offered at the LearnDirect site: http://www.learndirect.co.uk Fun With French (Intermediate) is available only on CD-ROM, and other courses, e.g. Everyday French (Beginner) is available in mixed mode, CD-ROM and online, described thus: "With these courses you have a choice. You can choose to learn over the Internet, or combine using a CD-ROM with the Internet. If you have a slow Internet connection, we recommend you use the combined Internet and CD-ROM to get the most out of this course. If you have a faster connection, such as broadband, you may prefer to learn online without the need for the CD-ROM." If heavy users of broadband, i.e. those who download a lot of audio and video files, are to be penalised with higher charges, then this mixed mode approach appears to be likely to become the trend. This should also be a warning to Web page designers not to clog up their pages with large image files, audio files and flashy animations, and to to software designers to stop producing "bloatware".