Development of a multilingual web-based teaching and learning software
for engineering students
Cheng K.W.E.
Department of Electrical Engineering
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hung Hom, Hong Kong
Email: eeecheng@polyu.edu.hk
ABSTRACT
A software package is developed especially for engineering students. The software
aims to improve the language skill of the students who are Chinese origin but the
learning medium is English.
The paper first discusses the common English
mistakes for the students and how the new software package can help them. The
software developed consists of many functions to help both students and teachers.
The software provides basic web-based lecture materials and animations. It also
provides a scan-dictionary. Its function is much better than web-based dictionary.
It can give pronunciation in English and Mandarin and Cantonese; explanation in
English and Chinese. The database consists over 60,0000 words which cover
general English and Engineering jargons. The software also provides chat room, diary,
student monitoring system and engineering graphic tools. It also consists of search
engine, html generator and spelling-check and oral form of lectures. HTML generator
is very useful for converting some text into HTML for posting in a web-page in a
customized format. The student monitoring system is especially useful to record the
diary of the students and understand their learning progress, so that the teacher can
offer helps to some weak students.
The software is written by a number of computing languages. It is initially used for
electrical engineering in the universities. The software can also be used in many
other disciplines because the format is very general and user friendly. The
questionnaires collected from both students and teachers also say that the developed
software is very useful for the teaching and learning.
This software is now being
used in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
The web-site is
http://eelearning.polyu.edu.hk.
INTRODUCTION
The Web-based approach to deliver a lecture is now very common. However, most
of them concentrate on converting the document into HTML and in some cases with
some animations.
This is only a basic approach for web-based teaching. A
web-based teaching should look after a number of concerns or problems of both the
students and teacher. A simple HTML file posted on the web is not different from a
paper-copy of lecture.
It is necessary to make use of the advantage of the electronics
and Internet to enable the web-based teaching to be more helpful and fully utilized.
(Oliver, 2001).
Besides the above common problem of web-teaching, there is a growing concern of
the English standard of the engineering students in the university.
Employers keep
complaining that graduates now have difficulty to write a proper article which is
always filled with simple grammar mistakes. The situation is astonishing for both
Eastern and Western countries.
In the Eastern countries, the engineering materials
are very often using English as the teaching medium, the students who are not native
English speaker will even find it harder (Cheng, 2001).
With the rapid development
of Internet technologies and the widespread of distant learning courses, web-based
teaching and learning is not more a new topic. E-Learning is now a widely accepted
method of learning. It not only represents as a new method of teaching, but also as a
network that can store, share and update the learning resources, so that the students
can gain access through a networked computer (Rosenberg, 2001) at their own
convenient time. There is no restriction of the timetable and location of the study.
It is therefore very much welcome by students.
But the language concern for
web-teaching is still a major issue. The existing web-based teaching has not taken
into the account for the language concern in their software. We believe that a good
web-based teaching and learning system should be programmed for multilingual
application and also provided with many facilities to non-native English speakers
without degrading the quality of teaching..
The current project aims at providing an environment for the Engineering students to
study subjects online through Internet.
The web-based package developed not only
to provide on-line learning materials, it is also a multi-functional teaching and
learning system for engineering.
In fact, the package is not restricted to engineering
subjects, it can be used for any disciplines.
Because the package is designed to be
multilingual, it is found to be very useful for students whose mother tongues are not
English.
The exercise, electronic books and materials are also very useful for
improving their English standards. Another advantage is that the materials can be
input easily by the lecturers who do not need to have any prior knowledge of HTML
or web-programming.
The package should also be provided with management of the
students, lecturer, file and database including news, message, broadcast and
monitoring system.
THE SOFTWARE
The web-based multilingual software is designed to provide language assistance and
especially oriented to engineering. The main feature in assisting the language is
itemized as follows:

Produce dictionary for the web-site

One-line web-translator for word and sentences

Produce pronunciation in oral form

Give examples in various applications and also produce various formats of
writings

Gives web-based exercises
Also in order to make the software be useful in engineering, the above features are
designed to be oriented to engineering. Some additional software is added to enhance
the web-based teaching. Only direct conversion a document into Web-format is not
satisfactory because there is no difference from reading a book. Although some
web-site add animation into the materials, but the animation must be designed
according to the teaching materials. It is impossible to make it be generalized.
Therefore the following additional software is needed:

The HTML Producer which to converter into HTML format

WORD200 to HTML converter - a simple method to change to HTML

Waveform recorder - store your pronunciation and compare with a standard
Some other tools are also added to make the software become a complete package.
These are:

File management - manage the students and lecturers' record

Communication tool: diary, email, broadcast are all available.
The above features are explained in details in the following sessions.
BSE Dictionary
It is very often to look up words from a dictionary when we are reading materials
from a web-page. Besides the paper-dictionary, we can also look up from software
package installed in a computer, or search from some dictionary web-site.
www.dictionary.com is a typical example. The distraction will therefore slow down
the reading speed and may lead to lose the interest of reading. Therefore an
interactive dictionary based on very simple way of access is therefore very useful.
The BSE software developed is an enhanced dictionary to give interactive translation,
usage and pronunciation in two languages (English and Chinese) and 3 dialects
(English, Cantonese and Mandarin). The request from users is accepted by
highlighting the text using right-clicking of the mouse. Then, the explanation of the
word is given immediately by popping up a dialog box. The list of the text description
and pronunciation options is shown in Fig 1. The software package “BES” makes
users use the translator more flexibly and efficiently in the browser (IE). The
programming flow is shown in Fig 3.
Figure 1 BSE Dictionary
Figure 2 BSE Dictionary
Actually the BES is a plug-in program of Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE). It provides
a text-to-text presentation and text to speech presentation (English, Cantonese &
Mandarin) of selected text under the IE. Users are only required to install the BES
program in their computer. The software is very small size but it involves a very
large database. About 60,000 words have been stored and required over 3 GB of
memory. Each word has 6 associated fields stored. They are: Chinese translation,
Pronunciation in English, Mandarin and Cantonese, Usage in Chinese and English.
Because the software has to handle a huge number of data, the data management is
very important. For example, a Pronunciation Search Request is processed as shown
in Fig 3.
When a request is “Pronunciation Search Request”, the Server Program will open the
sound file from pre-defined Sound Track directory. After compression of the sound
track file, the system will convert the output into Byte Array, and send this Byte
Stream to Client Side Program.
Fig 3. Pronunciation Search Request Work Flow
Scan Translator
This translator is designed especially for the translation from English to another
language. Its style is different from language translation. It is for users to input an
essay and then transfer it to a Chinese word displayed with link as shown in Fig 4.
The essay input from users and then processed by a CGI engine.. Engine matches
word by word from essay and produces Hype-Link for each word. Finally, the user
can read the essay and word’s meaning together. What the user needs is to place a
mouse on any word, the associated Chinese translation will be pop-up in a small box
next to the cursor as shown in Fig 5. The thesaurus is also shown on the top of the
windows frame.
The voice is available when user installs Speech SDK Engine
which is the mouth engine for pronunciation. The mouth engine is described in next
section.
Fig 4.
Scan translator
Figure 5
Scan dictionary
Mouth engine
Mouth engine is like a mouth stalled in browser. It is interactive tool provided
by Microsoft Company, called Speech SDK Engine. It is built-in in Operation
system (Windows Family). The Mouth engine is shown in Fig 6. There are two
input areas and one action button. The first input area is for controlling the speed of
the speech. The other is for entering the word or sentence which will be spoken by
Active X Control.
The Voice Page is developed by VBscript and Active X Control. Active X Control
provides a mouth in the web page. Active X Control is inserted into web page by
using the insert object method. After that, the mouth is not already activated.
VBscript is used in Client side program. The Active X Control is activated by
clicking a voice button. This button calls VBscript Function when on-click event
happens. The advantage of this software is that it can give pronunciation of any
words with a selected speed. This function is especially useful for non-English
native speaker.
Fig. 6
Voice pages
Extended Glossary Page
A teaching materials posted on the web may not contain all the necessary
information for students to understand the materials completely. Additional
explanation can be performed by creating a hyperlink with any word or sentences that
may have queries or the teacher wants to explain in more details.
In order to make
the procedure more user-friendly and automatically, extended glossary page software
is developed.
Extended Glossary input page is an interface for a teacher to input the detail
explanation of the word or sentences which the teacher wants to describe further..
Hence students can understand more detail about the word during revision and
learning from the Web. After teachers have made notes as html files and they want
to add the description for the word, this software will not change the original
web-page. The glossary explanation is embedded and stored in a database. Fig 7
shows the system flow of glossary
Fig.7 Glossary Input page
When the lecturer login to the Administration page where contain the link to the
glossary input page. In this page the left hand side is the directory that displays the
file path for editing and change of the history. The right hand sides divide two parts.
The top displays the change page. The bottom is the area for input and editing the
lecturers' additional description of the word. When the lecturer press the edit button.
Then the edit page will appear. In this page the lecturer can edit the description for the
word that can edit both the Chinese and English meanings for the word. When the
lecturer presses the submit button then the server side receive the new data and
automatically to update the new data to database without any change in the HTML
page.
Fig 8. Glossary Edit Page
On-Line dictionary
It is a simple dictionary/translator which can give a translation from English to
Chinese and vice-versa. The translated English word and its associated thesaurus
will also be given. It is similar to a web-based dictionary but its meaning is designed
to more oriented to Engineering therefore it does not like the original dictionary that
gives many meanings to confuse the users. The voice button also gives a synthesis
of the pronunciation.
Fig 9.
Fig. 10.
The input web-page for on-line dictionary
The output web-page for on-line dictionary
Text-to-Speech Synthesizer
Ordinary web page only gives you the video form of the materials.
In many
applications, it is necessary to listen a web-page that will give more interactive feeling
for users. It is also usual for disabled person and someone wants to know the
pronunciation of the words in the web-page. The text-to-speech software allows
users to input any text in the software and a wave file will then be generated and can
be played in any associated Real-Player in the users' machines. This section is
particular interesting to users especially for the non-native English Speaker. Fig 11
shows the input page for the software and Fig 12 shows the output page where a
real-player is activated by the window to show the audio form of the materials.
Fig 11 The input page for the text-to-speech Synthesizer
Fig 12.
The output page of the synthesizer with a Real-Player.
Spelling Check
Spelling-check software is also written and included in the web-site. The function of
spell-checking is obviously useful for writing article. On-line interactive spelling
checking software is particular useful as it is no need to make use of other type-setting
desktop software such as MS Word. Our software is driven by the server and no
local software is needed. Fig 13 shows the input field of the spelling-checking
software. After a text is pasted on the window and submitted to the server, the server
will return with the article with the wrong spelling highlighted. Using right-click by
placing the mouse cursor on the highlighted word, a list of suggested word will be
popped out for users to select for replacement..
This software is very similar to the other spelling check included with a
word-processing package. The main difference is that our software is online and
does not require to start up a second window and occupy additional memory space.
The database used for the spelling-check is oriented to Engineering words therefore it
can understand all the engineering jargons and does not like other word-processing
packages which do not have an Engineering dictionary.
Fig. 13
Fig 14
Spelling check's input page
Spelling check's output page where the wrong spelling is highlighted
Fig 15.
The suggested word for replacement
Waveform recorder
Besides the above functions, we also have waveform recorder based on Active X
(Microsoft Text To Speech Engine) to record component in Delphi as shown in Fig 16.
The recorded voice from users is stored in the upper waveform and the bottom
waveform is a standard version from the database. Users can listen to the standard
waveform and try and replay his own voice until he feels satisfactory.
Fig 16.Waveform Recorder to compare your voice with standard
Other Tools
Besides the above tool for assisting students and teachers in learning and teaching, the
software is also implemented with other tool to make the package to be a complete
version for general purpose. Therefore the file, data, students and lectures'
management are also written to the software as a complement. The tools are
summarized as below:
HTML Producer
The HTML Producer helps the administrators (lecturers) to manage their own web
teaching material without prior knowledge of html of other web-package. It is only
accessible by administrators. The web-page is protected by password access. The
function of HTML Producer includes: Upload lecture notes, Post the photos on the
web and Create the HTML notes by the HTML Producer. The procedure is very
simple as just by filling in the fields as shown in Fig.17. The HTML Producer
provides a few HTML layout formats for selection. The lecturer just provides the
Output file name, Header and the text content to the server then it can automatically
produce the HTML format.
Fig 17 An HTML producer
Authentic Writing
Far-East students are weak in technical writing because its context is not their daily
conversation and reading. We have developed Authentic Writing software that gives
examples for them to follow so that they can try on their own. A huge database that
stores various types of examples has been implemented. Fig 18 shows one of the
examples. So far, our web site has already stored examples of letters, minutes,
technical paper, report, agenda, product specification, fax, etc. The example also
includes some salient points for the writing and remarks for the general style. The
content of the examples is biased to engineering topics. Students can follow a menu
to select the required examples to study and follow. It is very user-friendly.
Fig 18. Authentic writing online examples
Search-Engine
Our search engine is for looking up item in our web-site that gives a quick method to
search in terms of some keywords. The search engine is written especially for our
web-site which the main keyword of all the web-pages or software are registered with
the engine. It is very easily to use and very useful for users to get access to a page
directly. Fig 19 shows the web-page of the search engine. The return of the search
engine gives the context of the keyword and the owner of the origin. The owner of
the web-site is the name of the lecturer.
Fig 19. The output page of the search engine
Discussion and message
The news, email, and broadcast of messages by lecturers are one of the useful
communication channel in the Web. Our software also includes this software. Fig
20 shows the News/message posted by the users. To reply a message is
straightforward. It is simply to click the message and a reply box will then be
displayed as shown in Fig 20.
Fig. 20.
The News and discussion of the web-site.
Administration
The files, students and lecturers' management has also been included in the package.
It gives various management on the insert and delete users., mapping subjects with the
students and lecturers, and security control. The software is indeed a complete
version for online teaching and learning. A administration page is shown in Fig 21.
Fig 22 The management web-page for the package
CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
The proposed web-based teaching and learning platform is an integrated package with
all the necessary and best functions. It has combined all the useful features. The
package is now in use in the Department of Electrical Engineering of HK Polytechnic
University. A survey has been conducted to the lecturers and students for their
comment on the package. A sample of 25 persons has been used in the survey.
Table 1 shows the questions used in the survey. The scale used in the survey is that:
"1' represents 'Strongly agree" and "5" represents 'Strongly disagree". From the
survey, it is obviously both teachers and students believe that Web-based approach is
useful for the engineering teaching. They also agree that the package developed is
very useful for teaching. The last question is to see the best percentage for
web-teaching. It seems that most of them prefer a large portion in web-teaching
rather than classroom teaching. Finally, our web-site can be reached from the URL:
http://eelearning.polyu.edu.hk.
Table 1:
Survey from the Department of Electrical Engineering
1
(a) Web-based lecturing materials assist teaching 48%
and learning
(b) Web-based exercises improve students’ 44$
learning and help revision
(c) Online-translation helps students to learn 48%
better
(d) Web-based writing examples are useful to 52%
improve students’ writing skill.
(e) On the whole, the software is useful for 60%
teaching and learning
(f) The portion of web-teaching compared to 0:10
class-room teaching should be
0%
2
40%
3
12%
4
0%
5
0%
40%
8%
8%
0%
44%
4%
4%
0%
40%
8%
0%
0%
36%
4%
0%
0%
1:10
2:10
4:10
6:10
32%
32%
20%
16%
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to thank the financial support of the Hong Kong UGC for this
project (no: 1999/PolyU/15).
REFERENCES
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