Lingus applied to distance education

IT-based distance education can utilise different models:

In some systems then main objective is to transfer the functions of the conventional school and class room to the Internet by building communication channels like video conferences, chats, Net meetings, e-mail etc

Another strategy relies on Web-sites which are prepared to work without any interference from the teacher.  The Web-pages can be made interactive but this requires programming skills. When it comes to handling sound there are however some limitations. Transmission of sound is relatively simple and straight-forward, but recording and analysing sound would be complicated and has not been successfully applied yet (to our knowledge)

Language learning differs from many other studies because overview and understanding is not enough. Training your skills, especially in spoken language, requires training and exercise, hard and tiring work. The main task of Lingus in distance education is to support and stimulate the student in his/her work and in the learning process itself.

The user interface of Lingus is very well proven both from the student's and teachers perspective. The Internet can be used both for distributing the necessary software and the training material and for receiving automatic progress reports and even pronunciation samples from the student.

Advantages

• The student's work is highly stimulating, interactive and well proven also for pronunciation training

• In some cases, readily available training material can be used to help rapid start-up

• Authoring tools do not require programming expertise

• New tools for working on the internet

• An alternative: Lingus WebLing, a plug-in for the Web browser

• Flexible and safe licensing

• Why is Lingus not completely Web-based?

Lingus is a well proven and stimulation work station for the student. He/she can practice any skill where the computer is a good tool. Of special importance is the possibility to train pronunciation. The computer is here used to analyse and visualise the student's pronunciation in relation to the desired pronunciation.  One analysing tool is used for studying prosodic elements of the speech (intonation, rhythm, stress) and sounding/non-sounding phonemes. With another tool different vowel sounds could be recognised and hence trained. Listening comprehension, reading comprehension, spelling, grammar and vocabulary are other skills which can be trained

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There are some30 cd-titles available for Lingus. These could be used for off-line distance training. Vi ses - Vi hörs and some other exercise collections will be made available on the Internet as a standard resource to combine with specially developed material.

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The tools to develop training material are the same as those use for working on local area networks and cdroms. They have been designed to be used by specialists in pedagogy and language education, not by computer programmers. Of coarse computer handling ability is useful, though!

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• Automatic distribution of training material to the student via Internet (ftp)

. This is done via an FTP-server from which the material could be retrieved by the students. The distribution is normally linked via conversion of all sound files to the mp3-format.

• Automatisk follow-up of the student's performance and tracking via the Internet. (This function should of course be used in understanding with the student and with respect for his integrity).  Each time a student works with an exercise his performance will be recorded. In the first place this is for the students own overview and stimulation, but it can also be used as at tool for the teacher to see the progress so that measures can be taken for supporting the student's work. The student will be automatically alerted when tracking of for instance pronunciation is activated.

• Diagnostic test and examinations. Exercises can be assigned restrictions which makes performance measurements more strict. Examinations are however not to be performed via the Internet, but on a Local Area Network a test can be performed with reasonable security.

• Individual advice. After diagnostic tests the teacher can set up individual lists (recommendations) of exercises suited for training the abilities which need to be improved. These list will be automatically distributed an the teacher can restrict the students work to the recommended exercises.

• The use of the Web. In Lingus there is a built-in Web-browser. It can be used to integrate any material available in the internet into a Lingus exercise.

A special version of Lings , the Lingus WebLing makes it possible to expose complete exercises an a Web-page. It works like a real audio file or a Adobe Acrobat Reader file, i.e. the student needs a client installed on his computer, which will start when the Lingus Webling file is to be opened. This way of using Lingus does not allow automatic distribution and follow up as does the normal FTP-based Internet-Lingus.

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A licence control which is more strict than by using Password, can be done in Lingus. This makes it possible to minimise illegal use of training material and facilities.

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There are advantages with a Web-based platform because the only program the student needs is the Web browser. A feasibility study has indicated that even with very advanced techniques it will be impossible to achieve the the same level of interaction as is available in the Lingus system today.

The Lingus system is very cost effective.

• The day-to-day authoring and distribution is made by the language teacher. Computer expertise useful for planning and system setup, though.

• The training material can be used in the LAN language laboratory, distributed on cdrom or via the internet without (manual) modification.

• The material downloaded by the student will be administrated on his computer and only updated when necessary, which makes Internet solutions possible even without Broad band connection.

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