En una palabra, Córdoba, Argentina: A CD-ROM for
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1. However the program generated a loud noise when attempting to load the videos which can indeed distract users from listening to the audio input A solution to stop the noise is to copy the software s files to the computer s hard drive so the program runs from the computer with out having to use the CD ROM thus making the run from CD ROM feature obsolete It is clear that the noise comes from the CD ROM when information is read from it most likely the CD ROM that was tested by the reviewer was the source of the problem The CD may have been damaged or slightly warped this problem sometimes occurs in manufacturing CDs 675 CALICO Journal 26 3 Software Reviews On a more positive note this software is language lab friendly according to the devel opers statement on the CD ROM cover Language labs that purchase a copy of En una palabra Cordoba Argentina will automatically receive rights to a post an electronic copy of the CD ROM ona secure password protected network for use by current students and faculty at their institution and b loan the number of purchased copies to students En una palabra Cordoba Argentina is recommended because any language resource center can administer the content of the software to all students interested in the language The software can be used in and outside the formal classroom because of the great flexibility it offers as well as its ease of use Activities Procedure Th2. Possibilities 4 Pedagogical Features 3 5 Sociolinguistic Accuracy 3 Use of Computer Capabilities 4 Ease of Use 4 Overall Evaluation 4 Value for Money 4 REFERENCES Hoven D 1999 A model for listening and viewing comprehension in multimedia environments Lan guage Learning amp Technology 3 1 88 103 Retrieved May 27 2009 from http Ilt msu edu vol3numi hoven Krashen S D 1982 Principles and practice in second language acquisition Oxford New York Per gamon Levy M 2007 Culture culture learning and new technologies Towards a pedagogical framework Language Learning amp Technology 11 2 104 127 Retrieved May 27 2009 from http IIt msu edu vol1inum2 levy 682 CALICO Journal 26 3 Software Reviews Lynch T 1998 Theoretical perspectives on listening Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 18 3 19 National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project 2006 Standards for foreign language learning in the 21st century 3rd ed Lawrence KS Allen Press Meskill C 1996 Listening skills development through multimedia Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia 6 179 201 Schmidt R W 1990 The role of consciousness in second language learning Applied Linguistics 11 129 158 PRODUCER DETAILS Developers Emmanuel Paris Bouvret and Ana Maria P rez Giron s Distributor Georgetown University Press 3240 Prospect Street NW Washington DC 20007 Phon
3. the 15 speakers from Cordoba are found on the right side of the screen along with 10 specific concepts assigned to each one On the left side users are provided with the transcription feature which offers a written version of the oral text presented by the selected speaker The written support offers students the opportunity to eventually read the oral presentations without having to listen to them They can also play pause rewind or fast forward the video which helps students pay attention to the pronunciation unknown words or specific expressions Under the transcription label one can find that the glossary easily opens by clicking on the glossary label The glossary is easy to use and the font size is adequate The glosses feature Spanish synonyms that represent well the concepts by offering different expressions on how to use the words For example when perusing the word cuenta the glossary states the following 1 Darse cuenta Comprender to understand or 2 tener en cuenta considerar to consider Unfortunately no pictures associated with the words are provided which could serve as rein forcement to help the learner remember those words Nonetheless despite the authors belief that L2 explanations could be helpful to beginners in my opinion presenting material in the target language may be difficult for first year learners to understand Also the criteria used in the selection of which words to gloss were based on words that b
4. En una palabra Cordoba Argentina A CD ROM for Exploring Culture in Spanish Reviewed by CRISTINA PARDO BALLESTER Iowa State University PRODUCT AT A GLANCE Product Type Instructional software with emphasis on listening skills and culture Language s Argentinean Spanish Central Argentinean Variety Cordoba Level Intermediate advanced adult Activities Cultural listening comprehension native voice speech samples and vocabulary learning Media Format 1 CD ROM Operating Systems Windows 98 2000 XP Macintosh Power Mac G3 with OS 10 1 5 or later Hardware Requirements Pentium II or Pentium III 64 MB RAM for Pentium II 128 MB RAM for Pentium III can be run directly from CD ROM or from copy made available through a LAN licensing specifies use in password protected environment CD ROM drive sound card and speakers Supplementary Software QuickTime 6 0 or higher not provided on CD ROM Documentation Free online instructor s manual http press georgetown edu detail html id 9781589011861 Price 44 95 GENERAL DESCRIPTION En una palabra is an interactive software program that features authentic samples from Cor doba Argentina to introduce students with a variety of linguistic backgrounds and proficiency levels to the culture and speech patterns of the region It features three main areas a a pre CALICO Journal 26 3 p p 674 683 2009 CALICO Journal 674 CALICO Journal 26 3 Sof
5. ccent marks in the right place and the errors lay with the program publisher Some of these typos are presented below nos guid por la Manzana Jesu tica instead of Jesuitica nos diero n informacion esencial para nuestra estad a en C rdoba instead of estad a en Cordoba nos mostraron un pueblo entra able y un pa s bell simo a los que anhelamos volver instead of pais bell simo The same problem with the is found when one clicks on C rdoba en la red and finds Clar n instead of Clar n referring to one of the newspapers from Argentina Two other ty pos are found under the Caracter sticas del glosario link which is located under the Ayuda y navegaci n link M masculine should be written as M masculino and tiene una forma mascualina should be tiene una forma masculina In the written version of the oral text about the definition of ibertad there is the typo of vicu o instead of v nculo when one is listening to Eduardo In the same text the authors used the symbol of a line ___ instead of writing the continuation of Eduardo s speech Se___los medios de comunicaci n porque bueno sabe mos lo que pasa con eso It should read Si es libre arbitrio en los medios de comunicaci n porque bueno however it is difficult to hear because in this case two vowels from differ ent words meet and the first one is eliminated si es gt s es and libre arbitrio gt libr arbitr
6. e 202 687 5889 Fax 202 687 6340 REVIEWER S BIODATA Cristina Pardo Ballester is Assistant Professor of Spanish Linguistics and Spanish supervisor of the first and second Spanish courses at Iowa State University Her research interests include Spanish Linguistics with an emphasis in second language acquisition Her research focuses primarily on language testing technology and Spanish teaching She has taught a wide range of courses dealing with Spanish language between those beginning Spanish in distance and hybrid courses REVIEWER S ADDRESS Cristina Pardo Ballester Department of World Languages and Cultures Iowa State University 3102 Pearson Hall Ames Iowa 50011 2205 Phone 515 294 2134 Fax 515 294 9914 Email cpardo iastate edu 683
7. e interface is user friendly and users can easily go from the person of their selection to another without following any particular sequence of persons or concepts For example us ers can click on the concept orgullo or any other concept and then select any of the 15 native speakers e g Alberto Daniel Danuta Maria etc The program opens to a main screen with information about the program itself about the city of C rdoba and the speech of C rdoba see Figure 1 Three links are located on the upper left side of the screen When users click on Este programa this program they can find different links such as Ayuda y navegacion which aid in understanding the functions of the software Figure 1 Main Screen En una palabra for PC en una palabra yy pes rdoba ayuda y navegaci n Los Botones Objetivos informaci n de los autores y agradecimientos aai ncepios I Informaci n e im genes de C rdoba roan ae wh TA 6 ft U uno i a de los conceptos A For Abrir y cerrar la pantalla de la Exploring Culture in Spanish I E transcripci n Af d w glosario las personas para Abrir y cerrar la pantalla del Seleccionar una de J 4 e escuchar sus definiciones D t 4h g Guardar copia de transcripciones en un Bot n de entrada B archivo externo s Vf sees clic aqui para f Bot n de salida reducir el cuadro de personas 676 CALICO Journal 26 3 Software Reviews Images of
8. eginning and intermedi ate learners would find difficult to understand However this selection does not always match their criteria because the authors did not select all low frequency words they also selected some high frequency words but not others Some of the glosses provided are for advanced vocabulary e g ermita o gremio libertinaje dignificado consaguineidad rezongar and ciego but other advanced vocabulary items often do not have glosses e g ceguera deses perante and balizas In addition users find a gloss for cabeza head but not for manos hands which is also a part of the body that could be unknown to beginners Or one can find a gloss for v nculo tie bond but not for lazo which has virtually the same meaning as v n culo Because the software is specifically designed to learn Spanish culture by means of lexical words all expressions or words related to culture should be included in the glossary Why do the authors include the glosses for joder to annoy to be a pain and mierda shit but exclude cagada drag shit crap and puta whore All are colloquial words and presumably unknown to beginners Further the selection of glosses for some pronominal verbs such as evantarse to get up could also have been included for nonpronominal verbs such as evantar to raise to pick up to lift since both words appear in the same oral texts One helpful feature of the software is
9. ented in the manual are focused on the five goals i e communication culture connections comparisons and communities of The National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project NSFLE 2006 As a consequence the activities prepare learners to listen to the videos or read the written version of the oral text Some activities are based on word identification vocabulary improvement oral and written production debates group work individual work for home work oral presentation and oral interviews with people other than classmates 679 CALICO Journal 26 3 Software Reviews Current theory advances beyond Krashen s 1982 idea that target language input fa cilitates L2 acquisition when learners perceive the language input by noticing aspects of the input Schmidt 1990 Unfortunately the authors did not make any linguistic features salient in the written versions or transcriptions of the oral texts Since this software is designed to help students learn more about culture in Cordoba Argentina the authors when possible could have highlighted the pronoun vos and the verbal forms indicating voseo in a different color since these are linguistic terms frequently used in Argentina With respect to linguistic accuracy in the software several typos are noticeable When one clicks on Este programa and then on Muchas gracias a one finds some accent errors on the vowel in some words It seems that the developers placed the a
10. from the basic concepts e g family friends work and country to more advanced ones e g ambition pride freedom success happiness and individualism Finally they teach culture as group membership because they offer a varia tion on learning culture by a wide variety of means the individual experiences of 15 differ ent people of varying ages e g 20 28 31 35 53 63 years old with different professions e g hairdresser engineer professor artist librarian taxi driver etc and different political views It is obvious that this program provides input in order to prepare learners to work on listening culture reading and vocabulary Those teachers who want to use the software to provide opportunities for learners to work on their linguistic output such as speaking or writ ing must design their own tasks in order to focus on these skills Learner Fit Design En una palabra is intended to be used as a tool by the teacher who gives suitable direction to learners on what to listen to and how to use the material However advanced learners could use the program for self learning Learners who wish to work on their pronunciation or who desire to have a Spanish Argentinean accent and accompanying vocabulary can take full ad vantage of using the software According to Meskill 1996 learners interacting with the different modes of input must be guided oral texts need to be adjusted to the learner s level of development in o
11. io Moreover the speaker aspirates the s in the word es eh which makes it even more dif ficult to understand the utterance When Veronica defines ambici n another error occurs in the written transcription algo que no me gusta muchoero pero instead of algo que no me gusta mucho pero The program provides language samples that are both linguistically and sociocultur ally varied and derived from the spontaneous speech of 15 people from C rdoba Argentina Nevertheless the developers should have paid more attention to the selected samples when explaining the speech of C rdoba First of all according to the authors there is deletion of the final d in the word felicidad in three selected samples However no deletion is found in those samples but rather a reduction of the final consonant which is very common in collo quial speech Then the first sample es o que conozco provided to show a tonada cordobesa should be removed because there is no presence of such a tonada in the selected sample Third the samples depicting the yeismo are not adequate because the pronunciation of the consonants y and are from different speakers using different articulation i e voiced frica tive and voiceless affricate of the consonants and both consonants are not present in the same sample To really understand yeismo they should have selected a sample with one speaker pronouncing both consonants The same problem is found in the sectio
12. n of aspiraci n o p rdida de la s aspiration or deletion of the s The authors should change the title to as piracion de la s because the samples provided do not show any deletion of the s 680 CALICO Journal 26 3 Software Reviews This program is not appropriate for those teachers who do not follow a communicative or natural approach Likewise it is not suitable for those teachers who believe that students have to learn Spanish based on their own native language or who are accustomed to teach ing grammar rules or vocabulary out of context Fortunately the majority of teachers today believe that in order to learn a language students must be exposed to authentic language from the beginning of their contact with the language without leaving aside the culture of that language The program developers guide teachers to help shed light on how to teach culture Levy 2007 discusses five facets of the concept of culture culture as elemental culture as relative not absolute culture as group membership culture as contested and culture as individual Three of these facets are incorporated in this program The authors implemented teaching culture as elemental each of their 15 speakers has a cultural background based on his or her emotions attitudes beliefs and values and this cultural background is shown in their audiovisual input They also teach culture as relative by framing culture around 10 common concepts which are studied
13. not have much difficulty in comprehend ing the input SUMMARY En una palabra Cordoba Argentina is appropriate software for intermediate and advanced students when the linguistic and cultural content of the videos are linked to the Spanish cur riculum Because not all high frequency words are included in the glosses it is obvious that beginners would not be prepared for the complex speech patterns and vocabulary of the na tive speakers The program is suitable to receive linguistic and sociolinguistic input from na tive speakers of Argentina but not for drill and practice activities unless the teacher creates these types of tasks The clarity of speech speech rate with inserted pauses and variety of accents from people of this Argentinean community offers exposure to authentic language which is crucial for students to learn the target language However the video segments pres ent only monologues i e a person describing or explaining a word and the effectiveness of the program could be improved by including different listening situations e g dialogues and monologues Perhaps the authors did not include dialogues because when listeners have to pay attention to two speakers instead of one the task becomes much more difficult Learners could also benefit by using not only written support from the oral texts but also picture sup port to better recall some words appearing in the passages SCALED RATING 1 low 5 high Implementation
14. ntino y tambi n del uruguayo es la pronunciaci n que suena como la sen la palabra inglesa measure A veces la pronunciaci n se acerca alos sonidos de shoch y ayudarlos a ayudar a ser uno Yo no puedo Teacher Fit Approach With the help of their teachers all students regardless of their proficiency level can use this software The instructor is to select videos according to their teaching program and the dif ferent levels of a Spanish curriculum The authors do not explicitly state which methodologi cal approach they support in En una palabra Instead in the online instructor s manual they provide different activities according to different proficiency levels e g novice intermediate intermediate advanced advanced superior The authentic material found in the software also provides learners with comprehensible input since the authors provide definitions for the majority of the words in the glossary sections It is apparent that the authors believe that one way of learning a language is by being exposed to natural and spontaneous language while focusing on a list of concepts supported by audiovisual and comprehensible input which cor responds to the idea of Krashen s 1982 natural communicative input Further it is stated in the online instructor s manual that teachers must prepare beginning learners psychologically for the difficulty of understanding native speakers The samples of activities pres
15. ocabulary embedded in Hispanic culture and in the diverse pronunciation of the texts Some pronunciation samples are intro duced when clicking on the speech of C rdoba see Figure 3 The interface for these samples is poor primarily because users are not given the option of stopping the oral input This is not a problem for the short samples e g from 1 word to 13 words but when the sample is longer e g 28 words for tonada cordobesa and 41 words for aspiraci n de la s not being able to pause the recording could be frustrating to learners One must keep in mind that vo cabulary learning is included at a discourse level through authentic monologues from a variety of people The developers also mentioned that beginning learners can understand the general meaning of the texts without knowing all the words This claim is absolutely accurate but the presence of the instructor is crucial for explaining and introducing some texts especially those spoken at a faster pace Without some kind of help learners could be easily disap pointed or frustrated listening to difficult to understand authentic target language samples 678 CALICO Journal 26 3 Software Reviews Figure 3 Pronunciation Sample En una palabra for PC en una palabra a FI doba habla de C rdoba Yeismo El yeismo consiste en pronunciar la como la consonante y Es un fen meno muy extendido por todo el mundo hispanohablante Lo que destaca del yeismo arge
16. rder to improve their recall of the material The use of transcriptions and glosses give learners written support to help them better comprehend the passage One of the characteristic traits of the program is that the video segments include lin guistic and paralinguistic features such as body language gestures prosody and so on that can help to convey meaning to the learners Hoven 1999 Learner decisions about when to listen and derive meaning from the input available can be measured by using the audiovisual or written input Rate of the speech and frequency of pausing are some factors influencing listening comprehension Lynch 1998 Apparently inserting pauses in normal speech e g bueno eh ummm no and este facilitates comprehension Accordingly learners benefit from this aspect because all videos in En una palabra are full of pauses and the students generally have the option to stop the video or rewind it Moreover the rate of speech is adequate for begin 681 CALICO Journal 26 3 Software Reviews ners and the written support will help comprehension if revised in order to add all high fre quency words The 15 speakers featured in the program use pauses to think about their next utterance The memory capacity of listeners with limited knowledge of L2 is another issue to understand the message but again if developers revise the written support to take some of the issues mentioned here into account learners will
17. stence of a multiplicity of voices within the same community Finally the software provides written support such as transcriptions of each video and a selective glossary If students do not understand a word they can click on it to obtain the definition in the glossary EVALUATION Technological Features Instructions on how to run the program are included with the software in a Read Me file in html format This file explains how to launch and run certain files included in the CD ROM by clicking on En una palabra for Mac osx or En una palabra for PC However the instructions could be made more accessible directly from the start up menu because it was initially unclear how to proceed It is important to point out that it remains the responsibility of users to make sure that QuickTime is installed on the computer and if this has not been done users can install it from the link provided on the CD ROM http www apple com quicktime located under Ayuda y navegaci n help and navigation or in the ReadMe file Additionally it should be noted that when users attempt to read texts using the transcription support the scrolling function of the mouse does not function properly Different computers two of them were Intel Core 2 Duo CPU 2 0 GB of RAM Windows XP and Intel Core Solo CPU 1 99 GB of RAM Windows XP were used for testing En una pa labra The PCs used for the review have sufficient CPU power for playing audio and video files
18. the opportunity to copy the transcriptions of the oral texts The program allows users to export selected transcriptions as a text file for future reference As described in the Ayuda section users have to click on the Copiar button each time they want to select a transcription to be saved When ready to export all the transcrip tions they then click on the Guardar button which prompts them for a location to save the text file see Figure 2 677 CALICO Journal 26 3 Software Reviews Figure 2 Transcript En una palabra for PC en una palabra 6rdoba conceptos Libertad Siempre una noci n relativa Digamos libertad as como absoluto no me parece que exista ni desde lo social ni desde lo econ mico ni desde lo ideol gico Como valor relativo es como tener el el mayor espacio posible para para las elecciones no Poder ir lo mas lejos que uno pueda en diversos rdenes en el amoroso en el econ mico en los traslados en las maneras de pensar libertad f 1 Facultad natural que tiene el hombre de obrar de una manera o de otra y de no obrar por lo que es responsable de sus actos 2 Estado o condici n de quien no es esclavo 3 Estado de quien no esta Learners are exposed to listening and reading materials that can be viewed simulta neously when playing the video and opening the transcription label for a specific word The features of the videos and readings are focused on learning v
19. tware Reviews sentation of the authors pedagogical goals followed by the history of Cordoba through analy ses of several web sites and the speech of Cordoba b the introduction of culture through single word identification made possible by audiovisual files and c written transcriptions of the oral texts and glosses that help define specific words orally produced by the speakers The program begins with a written explanation of the pedagogical goals suggesting that students learn Argentinean culture through word identification The software features a section based on the history of Cordoba and some places of interest e g la Ca ada as well as several links to online Argentinean newspapers and other important web sites Moreover another section based on the speech in C rdoba introduces different linguistic terms such as yeismo the lack of contrast between the sounds corresponding to the II and y Spanish letters Each term is explained in Spanish and samples are drawn from the video files used in the software The general intent of En una palabra is to provide users with the opportunity to learn Spanish culture through vocabulary and listening comprehension This goal is accomplished through video files in which 15 people from C rdoba define the same 10 concepts according to their individual perspective The selected speakers represent a variety of ages and educa tional and professional backgrounds demonstrating the exi
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