Analysis of 4 CDs of COMPUTER-ASSISTED
LANGUAGE LEARNING (CALL) Program entitled
English Words, Vocabulary, Talk Now Beginner, and Talk
More Interactive
This paper reports the analysis of four CDs in Computer-Assisted Language Learning
Program, entitled English Words, Vocabulary, Talk Now Beginner, and Talk
More Intermediate. Hartoyo (2012) stated that there are five basic principles in designing
and testing CALL Program. Firstly, interactivity which means the program should be good in
interaction between the computer and the user, and it includes the effectiveness of the
instruction and feedback provided in the program. Secondly is usability (flexibility,) which
means how easy/difficult the program used by the learner. Thirdly, content appropriateness
which means that the content should be appropriate for the user for instance in the amount of
material presented, is it easy for the learner to learn and understand it, or is the material meets
the students’ need. Fourthly is effectiveness which means how effective the program assists
the language learners to improve their skill. Fifthly is performance (attractiveness) which
refers to the presentation, lay out of the screen, the color, and the illustrations (picture,
diagram, charts, etc.) used in the program. Therefore, the analysis of these four CALL
Program CDs will be based on those five basic principles.
I. The 1st CD: ‘English Word’ from:
This CD is an educational software for children of 3 to 11 years old in learning English
word/vocabulary, and was created in 1999. There are four kinds of games for children to
learn vocabularies in this CD. They are Roadhog, Rescue, Night Search and Frozen Food.
a. Roadhog. The instruction given
in this game is to guide a
hedgehog safely across the road
to enter the correctly colored
drainage pipe. The color is red,
green, blue or yellow. The user
has to choose the color of the
drainage pipe that is the same
with the color of the frame of the
given picture of a word. There
are some challenges found: 1. The user should choose the color carefully because it may
confuse them in choosing between the color of the picture inside the frame and the color
of the frame itself. 2. The user needs to move the hedgehog carefully in crossing the
street without being hit by the car.
b. Rescue. The instruction given is
to guide a plane in rescuing a
colored man. The user has to
choose the right colored man that
is the same color with the color
of the frame of the given picture
of a word. There are some
challenges found: 1. The student
should be carefully in guiding the
plane to avoid bombs aired from
the ground and to avoid being crashed with another plane. 2. The student needs to look
carefully at the color of the colored man to be saved because of their small size.
c. Night Search: The instruction
given is to search the sky for the
correctly colored saucer that has
the same color with the frame
color of the given picture of a
word, and firing laser to it. The
challenge found that the user
should move the fire laser faster
to search the saucer to avoid the
battery run out which will cause
of losing a ‘life’.
d. Frozen Food: The instruction
given is to feed the fish to the
correctly colored creature that
has the same color with the
frame color of the given picture
of a word. The challenge is the
student should move and match
them faster, otherwise the time
will be off, the fish disappeared,
and the user lose a ‘life’.
All of those games use similar themes which are people, the home, the street, animals,
shopping, the body, clothing, transport, color, shapes, number, games and pastimes, the park,
and the last is the country side. They also use four similar colors in each game which are red,
green, blue and yellow. In each of the games, the users will be given three ‘life’ to complete
the game, and they could get extra ‘life’ if they complete the step of the games faster without
a mistake.
ANALYSIS:
Interactivity: The program can stimulate interaction between the computer and the user,
because the instructions given in each game are very clear. Moreover, the attractive audio
visual of the game enhance not only the learners’ interest to interact with the games but also
their motor and sensory skills. On the other side, this interaction will enhance the learners’
vocabulary proficiency in English learning attainment since this CALL application is
considered more interactive media compared with the traditional learning aids such as book.
Usability: The usability of this program is good because the learners could easily choose
their preference level of game without have to starting it from the beginning (non-sequential).
The vocabulary list in the game could be easily traced back to cross check the unknown
words. And this usability assists the learners to memorize and practice the target language.
Content Appropriateness: This program is intended to be learned by learners with the age
group range from 3 to11 years old. The English vocabulary of this program is considered too
advance for Indonesian learners at the same group of age since they learned English as a
second language. Therefore, these differences will affect them that they need more time to
finish the game compared with the learners at the same group of age who study English as
their first language.
Effectiveness: This program is effective to assist language learner in improving their mastery
of vocabulary.
Performance: The performance at the first display before opening the game is not so
attractive, but the second display is attractive enough with good colorful layout. But still there
are two weaknesses found in this program performance. First, the display of the game is too
small, especially for young learners. Its size is 17.5 cm in length x 12.5 cm in width. It would
be better if it is in a full screen format, so that the user will feel more comfortable in using it.
And the second, the music is considered very monotone and boring for young learners, which
may affect their interest and curiosity in finishing the game.
II. The 2nd CD: ‘Vocabulary’ from:
This CD is an educational software for children of 7 to 11 years old in learning English
word/vocabulary. There are four kinds of games in this CD. They are Balloonz, Haunted
House, The Bats, and Stuntman.
a. Balloonz: The instruction given
in this game is to shoot the dart
at the correctly colored balloon.
There are four colors (red, green,
blue and yellow) to be chosen to
shoot that should be matched
with the color of the balloon of
the
answer.
The
challenges
found: 1. The student need to use
their language knowledge to
analyze the answer related to each category of the question. 2. The student needs to
overcome the time limit which is moving faster and faster when answering the question.
b. Haunted
House:
The
instruction given is to use the
torch to find correctly colored
spooky. The challenges found
that the student should utilize
the torch well to avoid the
battery runs out faster which
will cause of losing a ‘life’; and
they also need to analyze the
questions before choosing the
correct answer and balloon.
c. The Bats: The instruction given
is to feed an apple to the
correctly
challenges
colored
are
bat.
The
similar
with
previous games.
d. Stuntman: The
instruction
given is to guide the stuntman to
the correctly colored pool. The
challenges
are
similar
with
previous games.
All of those games use similar themes which are nature, science, the body, occupations,
religion, education, verbs, adjectives, technology, aquatic, music and poetry, miscellaneous.
They also use four similar colors in each game which are red, green, blue and yellow. In each
of the games, the users will be given three ‘life’ to complete the game, and they could get
extra ‘life’ if they complete the step of the games faster without a mistake.
ANALYSIS:
Interactivity: The interactivity of this program is good because the instruction is very clear,
and it can stimulate interaction between the computer and the user.
Usability: The usability of this program is good, the same as ‘English Word’ program,
because the learners could easily choose their preference level of game without have to
starting it from the beginning (non-sequential). The vocabulary list in the game could be
easily traced back to cross check the unknown words. And this usability assists the learners to
memorize and practice the target language.
Content Appropriateness: This program is intended to be learned by learners with the age
group range from 7 to 11 years old. The English vocabulary of this CD is considered too
advance for Indonesian learners at the same group of age since these games required not only
English proficiency but also science and social. The vocabulary in this CD is appropriate for
the junior high school learners in Indonesia because they have studied English vocabularies
related to science and social knowledge.
Effectiveness: This program is effective to enhance the students’ interest in improving their
mastery in vocabulary.
Performance: The performance of this program is the same as the ‘English Word’ program
which have two weaknesses in its performance. First, the display of the game is too small
with the size 17.5 cm in length x 12.5 cm in width. It would be better if it is in a full screen
format, so that the user will feel more comfortable in using it. And the second, the music is
considered very monotone and boring that it may affect their interest and curiosity to finish
the game.
III. The 3rd CD: “Learn English – Talk Now! Beginner”, from:
This CD is an educational software to help students/learners with their speaking. The
program is intended for the beginner level, and provides nine kinds of topic which can be
chosen based on the user needs or interest. The topics are Numbers, Body, Phrases, Colors,
Food, First Words, Countries, Shopping, and Time, and each topic consists of five menus, i.e.
Word Practice, Speaking Practice, Easy Game, Hard Game, and Print Dictionary. The
challenge found in this game is the flexibility level provided in this game. There are two
levels offered, the easy and hard one. This type offers flexibility for learners to turn back
from hard game to easy one once they got stuck in there and vice versa. The branching
system used in this program made the learners easier to find their proficiency level.
ANALYSIS:
Interactivity: The interactivity of this program is good because the instruction is very clear
and easy to be understood. The program can stimulate interaction between the computer and
the user in an interesting way, for instance learners could record their voice after hearing the
pronunciation of a word from the narrator, and after that they can hear it again an repeat it.
Usability: The usability of this program is good because it can be used and navigated easily.
Furthermore, the learners could easily choose their preference level of game without have to
starting it from the beginning (non-sequential), which makes them curious and to play the
game again and again.
Content Appropriateness: This program meets the learners’ expectation to learn English
conversation at beginner level. The contents are varied and they deepen the topic itself. The
material is also easy to be learned and understood. Moreover, the audio visual and recording
system provides the learners flexibility to copy the native speaker’s pronunciation and
recording it without being ashamed to be judged for their mistake. The program also
provides final test of the nine games compilation. This is used to test the learners’ memory
for overall games.
Effectiveness: this program is effective to assist and enhance the students’ interest in
improving their English.
Performance: The performance is interesting with colorful circle icons to be chosen; so that
the young learner will be interested in playing the game. The layout of the game is bigger and
illustrations are more attractive compared to ‘English word’ and ‘Vocabulary’.
III. The 4th CD: “Speak English – Talk More! Intermediate”, from:
The fourth CD could not be analyzed due to the continuity error while opening/running it.
Bibliography
Hartoyo, M.A., Ph.D.2012..ICT in Language Learning. Semarang: Pelita Insani.