by Maggie Sokolik, Ph.D.

Pronunciation

Users have the opportunity to listen and record throughout the program. Although this is a feature many students will enjoy, the option to "compare" your voice to a native speaker's is, in my opinion, of questionable value. Students at this level do not typically have the linguistic sophistication needed to hear the critical differences between their own speech and that of a native English speaker without some other kind of feedback. In addition, the ability to say the name "Irene" just as the speaker from Scotland said it (i.e., with the correct regional accent) is also of marginal value to a low-level English learner. In fact, the interviewer in the video apparently had a difficult time understanding Irene, even when she spelled her name twice. 

However, this said, these challenges make the videos richer for the user. It becomes clear, even to a learner new to English, that the idea of "speaking" or "understanding" English is a complex one, even for native speakers.

Listening/Watching

Clearly the highlight of the program is the opportunity to listen and watch native speakers responding in an impromptu fashion. After viewing the videos, there are a variety of activities including drag-and-drop ordering of letters and words, cloze activities, spelling activities and more. 

Some of these exercises are quite challenging. For example, again in Lesson 5, "What's your name? How do you spell it?", I (a native speaker of American English) had to watch the video five or six times to spell the name "Giollaiosa" correct. This is not a flaw in the course design, however; instead, it challenges the user into careful listening, no matter the skill level.

Grammar Presentations

Grammar points are presented within the context of the questions being asked or the dominant syntactic feature of each lesson. The grammar is often presented in tabular form, with very brief explanations. 

This feature is the weakest part of the program. The presentations are dry, factual accounts unadorned by graphics or other interesting visual or interactive elements. 

In contrast to the rest of the program, the grammar portions seem less well-developed. Again, translations and comparisons with the native language are presented, but if a user isn't familiar with the grammatical terms to begin with, in either English or her/his native language, the details of these grammar lessons would be difficult to understand. 

Other Features

Glossary

The glossary is nicely done, and includes the word or phrase, its definition, translation, use in context in the sentence from the video, as well as the opportunity to listen to it in context and repeat and record. These features make the glossary an excellent learning tool in itself.

Numbers & Alphabet

From the main menu, the user can access interactive screens on numbers and the alphabet. These allow the user to click on a number or letter and hear its pronunciation. The alphabet page includes the distinction between British zed (27K .wav file) and American zee (31K .wav file). The number page presents the numbers 1-10, as well as many other commonly used words. Again, the user can listen and record on both of these pages.

Voice Recognition

I'm sorry to say that I cannot fairly judge the voice recognition feature of this course. Various attempts at configuring my system resulted in no response. This is not a reflection of the program; rather, of my new computer system that apparently has the wrong microphone installed. In all other ways, the program worked as expected. Furthermore, even without the voice recognition aspect, this program is worthwhile.

Conclusion

If I were beginning to learn a language, either on my own or in a class, I would certainly benefit from the fresh approach that Real English takes. Even as a native English speaker, I enjoyed watching the video sequences and trying the activities that accompanied many of them. Although the grammar presentations are its weak spot, they do not detract from the overall quality of this series. I'm sure users are eagerly awaiting the release of Disks 3 and 4 in September 1999.

Screenshots
(Note: I chose to see the direction lines and translations in French. English, German, and Spanish are also available.)

(Sample Full Screen View) 

(Sample Grammar Presentation) 

(Sample Glossary Entry for a lot--31K .wav file)