Multi Pod a Multi Linguistic Word Learning System

Multi. Pod: a Multi Linguistic Word Learning System Based on i. Pods ~ , , ~ Hasegawa, Kazunori, Satoko Amemiya, Keiichi Kaneko Haruko Miyakoda, Wataru Tsukahara Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan s 020050@cs. tuat. ac. jp Learning material made by learner Introduction • 3 crucial conditions for effective and efficient language learning (Willis 1996) In this system, the learners can participate in making the learning material. 1. exposure to the target language 2. use of the language 3. motivation in learning the language The learner takes a short movie or the still picture. • Multimedia technology can effectively assist language learning (Pennington 1996) Multi. Pod is an educational foreign word learning system which is based on the i. Pods. The user can easily make learning materials of short movie by themselves. Also, they can download materials from web database that they want to learn. The learners can learn foreign words at any time and anyplace by transferring their materials to their i. Pods via i. Tunes. The movie/picture is fed to the system. Reference button 1. The user enters the spelling, the meaning of the word and the movie/still image file path. Then, the user can refer to a file from the reference button. Spelling Meaning button, the system begins to make learning materials. Movie/still image file Select words User 2. When the user clicks the conversion Conversion button Screen of generation material Make material User Download material User i. Tunes A learning material consists of a 5 second movie/still image, text data and sound data. During the five seconds, the pronunciation of the word is repeated twice, and the spelling and the meaning of the word are displayed as subtitles. Movie/still image User i. Pod Web database Pronunciation Spelling ＆ Meaning Learning Material Spelling Meaning Pronunciation Learning material 0 5 sec Example of learning materials Outline of Multi. Pod Why use i. Pods? Portability & Mobility The users can share their materials among the users by registering them to the Web database. The users also can evaluate the contents created by others. • easy to carry • learning materials may be replayed as many times as necessary • easier for learners to create own learning materials compared to other media • movies can be used as learning materials cf. experiment by Al-Seghayer 2001 video clips + text explanation vs. pictures + text explanation result: using video clips had better effect on learning Screen of web database Evaluation experiment and result Concluding remarks We conducted an evaluation experiment in order to evaluate the effectiveness of Multi. Pod. l 1. Exposure to L 2 made easier 2. Motivation in learning maintained 3. Extensive learner-centered task made possible • 10 subjects in our university • 10 words • Learning materials created by the subjects (2 words) • Learning materials created by others(8 words) • Translating the English words into Japanese. We developed the educational foreign word learning system, Multi. Pod l The test result proved that the self-produced learning materials are effective in retaining the meaning of the foreign words. Acknowledgement This study is partly supported by the Special Coordination Funds for Promoting Science and Technology, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) Japan. It is also partly supported by MEXT Fund for Promoting Research on Symbiotic Information Technology.