12 Chairs Interactive: A Multimedia Russian Language Course
(Continued from Page One)

The right side of the screen comprises three tabbed sections, Summary, Transcript, Descriptions, any one of which is always visible (see screen shot below).

Sample Screen (74K jpeg)

The Summary provides a short description of the scene. Here students may button-click on individual words to obtain an English gloss. In many cases by clicking on a word one not only sees the English gloss, but also the action or object is demonstrated in the video. For example, clicking on "svoj chelovek" renders the gloss "an insider, one of us" and also shows one character self-assuredly entering the office of another and making himself feel right at home.

The Transcript tab provides a complete transcript of the dialog for the scene, including the narrator's parts. By clicking on any character, the video for that section is played.

A description of the setting and characters in the scene is given in the Description section. Again, one may click on individual words for an English gloss and/or stills or clips from the video.

EVALUATION
In summary, this software comprises a video accompanied by an electronic glossed transcript and other background information. I am very impressed by the program within the scope adopted by the authors. They have gathered an enormous amount of material and clearly put much work into a product that is attractive, functional, and easy to use. There is no doubt in my mind that Twelve Chairs Interactive is of great benefit to the students using it, and I recommend it to both teachers and students of intermediate level Russian language courses.

Within its present scope I have few criticisms: the program would be slightly more user-friendly if the episodes were not labeled 1, 2, 3..., but rather "Bender Meets Ippolit", "Bender at Ellochka's", etc. Also, as noted earlier, navigation between episodes should be possible within the program.

In my ideal world, however, the project would have taken on a much larger scope. One would like to see exercises testing comprehension, reinforcing new vocabulary, etc. For example, after viewing an episode, students might see a series of scrambled statements summarizing the events of the episode and be given the task of putting the statements into chronological order. Or, the user might be given segments of dialog and asked to assign them to one of several characters. There are numerous other exercises one could create to work with the raw material of the video. Yet, one can hardly fault the software or its authors for what wasn't done, given the excellent quality and value of Twelve Chairs Interactive.