REVIEWS
That's Life!: conversations and
exercises in easy English
Hajncl, Liliana, Livingstone, Jan, 2002
Adult Multicultural Education Services (AMES)
Availability: Adult Multicultural Education Services (AMES)
255 William Street, Melbourne 3001
Cost: $85 for single user licenses, multi-user licenses also
available
Reviewed by Michael Lomas. Michael is the manager of the
Self Access Centre of the Department of Language Studies at
Victoria University of Technology
Those of us who have worked with elementary level
learners know the value of keeping things simple. We
know that carefully crafted, accessible stimulus
materials are rich in potential. We know that to design
materials that provide roughly the right amount of
input, at, or just slightly above the level for our group,
increases the opportunities for the learners to take away
something of real value, even if its not exactly what
was written down in the teacher's lesson objectives. We
weed out wordy or confusing instructions, we try hard
to anticipate and redraft any ambiguous questions and
we like to make sure we provide plenty of
opportunities for meaningful feedback. The constant
challenge, however, is to maintain a sense of
authenticity in the language models we provide - not to
simplify so much that the material becomes wooden or
sterile. It is clear that the creators of That's Life! have
had a life of working with their target audience. This
new CD-ROM from AMES is simple, clear, and
uncluttered. It is also full of engaging material that will
provide hours of focused interaction for lower level
learners. That's Life! will also be a welcome sight in
the catalogues for those teachers who have bemoaned
the fact that there seems to be very little out there in the
way of good computer assisted learning resources for
this group.
CONTENT
That’s Life! is built around 36 short dialogues on topics
drawn from everyday life. Divided into four main
categories (Home and Work; Around Town; Health
and Emergencies; Free Time) these model
conversations provide the scaffolding for a series of
language activities recognisable as the stuff of
elementary ESL classrooms everywhere. Each category
has nine units. Each unit is fronted by an easy level
conversation and backed up by a set of language
activities arranged as word related skills (vocabulary
and spelling), grammar skills (predominantly fill-thegap activities) and listening and speaking practice, with
an option for voice recording. This provides a neat and
consistent structure for learners to work within but the
designers have provided enough variation within the
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activities to maintain a sense of curiosity as to what
might be coming up next.
The materials are presented in such a way that they
provide their own logical path. Choose a category and
then select a unit. Start by studying the dialogue - first
listen, then click to see the script. Manipulate the script
by clicking to have the speakers repeat their turns. A
group of not-too-hard yes-no statements are provided
as a comprehension check. Work through those or
move on with a click of the bright pinwheel to display
the activity menu. As with any menu, learners can
make their own choices, but starting from the top is
probably the default.
Word skills presents two, sometimes three activities
involving drag-and-drop matching of vocabulary items
onto coloured graphics and typically there’s a spelling
bee type task where the learner must use the keyboard
to respond to flash cards. These are genuine extension
activities in that each word list is a mini picture
dictionary that builds out from the theme presented in
the dialogue for that unit. Pronunciation modeling is
provided as a reward for correct answers.
The Grammar tasks are commonly fill-the-gap,
multiple choice and word ordering. These are sensibly
constructed to suit a range of grammar items and are a
mix of contextualised and drill-based activities. The
approach is an inductive one: no attempt is made to
present rules. Rather the learner can choose to make
use of the instant feedback received at each attempt,
observe any patterns that appear on the page as the
activity proceeds and use their own reasoning or sense
of familiarity to provide ever more educated guesses.
There's nothing to stop the learner from blazing away
with the mouse, but I found that the layout of most of
these tasks, generally setting out several items to a
page, puts up a strong challenge to stop, think and get it
right. And there's not a score in sight!
The Listening exercises involve discriminating
between words with minimal differences, listening for
meaning and gist, picking the right context and
choosing an appropriate response to a question or
similar conversational prompt.
Speaking provides the opportunity for the learner to
‘have a go’ and work on pronunciation. The model is
based on that unit’s dialogue, either the whole dialogue
or selected materials that incorporate similar thematic
and structural features. The learner can listen and
repeat each turn. There is a simple record facility that
allows for comparison of utterances: learner with
model. This activity does not provide explicit feedback.
Rather the learner must use their own skills of
discrimination to make judgments about the
appropriateness of their responses. The opportunity is
there to try, try and try again. Individual learners will
differ in their attention to detail here but I can see value
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REVIEWS
in teachers encouraging their students to work on these
activities as part of pre-teaching or follow-up activities.
The CD work can provide the rehearsal space whilst
the classroom could provide the performance focus in
the form of pair work or group activities.
GRAPHICS AND LAYOUT
The more I worked through this CD-ROM, the more I
appreciated the colour schemes and general design. The
colours are soft contrasts and the choice of blue shades
on a white background is soothing and readable. The
1000 or so graphics are attractive, clipart style
drawings. Text is clear and uncluttered: lots of white
space between stimulus materials. Each page is gently
framed to direct the eye to the action of the task and
there are no distracting instructions to get in the way.
Help, in the form of plain English instructions is there
on each screen if you need it, but it is restricted to the
periphery and blends in with the colours of the
framing. (More detailed help is available via a button
on the title screen – in 12 languages). The navigation is
large, consistent and intuitive. The only things that
annoyed me slightly were the occasional uncertainty
experienced when calling up new activities from the
menu (there's no indication that a click has hit the
mark) and the fact that once I had started an activity, its
one-way traffic.
listening activities to be not much more than easy
guessing games based on stressed words that matched
up with the visual clues. The opportunity is there to
build in a slightly bigger challenge and draw attention
to unstressed words or comprehension of grouped
items, but then this might have compromised the
product's simplicity and ease of use, and I have
welcomed that whole heartedly.
There is no print capability. This CD-ROM would be a
wonderful source of worksheets and these are then a
way of bridging the self study nature of the resource
with group interaction. There is, however, already a lot
of this type of material available in print.
WHO CAN USE IT?
Being on a CD-ROM, these activities are available at
the click of a mouse, there to do again and again and
again. That's Life! is a very suitable self-study resource.
It is a rich source of support materials for a classroom
program, providing excellent pre-teaching and follow
up materials and it will be very satisfying for those
learners looking for structured "homework" as
reinforcement or extension tasks. It is equally suited to
adults and school age learners. The considerable
amount of text available means That;'s Life! will also
be useful to lower level literacy students.
SHORTFALLS
COST
This has to be seen as unjustified nit picking: I really
liked this product. I often take issue with true-false
items as potentially confusing. Large green ticks next
to 'No' answers are often ambiguous. If the flat cost
$300 per week, why is there a tick next to the statement
"The flat costs $50 dollars per week"? Oops, that tick is
in the 'No' column! Surely a less ambiguous reward is
to rectify what was wrong and change that statement to
read "The flat cost $300 per week".
That’s Life! should find its way into all good CALL
labs, libraries and self-access centers which cater for
lower level students. The single user price ($85) is a
significant investment for study-at-home students, but
not unreasonable given the materials provided and the
high price of print-based materials. A range of multiuser licenses are available depending on the number of
users required. At about $30 per workstation for a 20
user lab, That’s Life! is excellent value.
With so many sound files packed onto this CD-ROM,
it was frustrating to be denied sound in many instances:
Only the correct answers yielded pronunciation models
in the vocabulary matching exercises. I wanted to know
how that funny looking word "kidney" is pronounced,
but "steak" was the correct answer. I think I heard
'kidney' on the previous page, but there's no going
backwards. Whilst spelling from flash cards is a visual
activity and look-then-type is a valid methodology, a
listen, visualize, then type, a simple variation, could
reinforce the aural focus of the product and provide an
extra challenge.
TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS:
Nothing unexpected here: the product is designed to
run with Windows™ operating systems from 95 to
2000. Most modern systems (pentium processor, the
more RAM the better) will accommodate the CD. A
sound card set up with a microphone is required to
activate the voice-recording feature.
Listening activities were often very one-dimensional.
Whilst its true that catching the gist of a phrase or turn
in a conversation by latching onto one or more key
words is a survival skill for elementary learners it is
also a common cause of misunderstanding and
conversational breakdown. I did find much of the
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