Rosetta Stone language training software: Spanish

Citation

(2009), "Rosetta Stone language training software: Spanish", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 26 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/jcm.2009.07726eab.001

Rosetta Stone language training software: Spanish

Article Type: Computer currency From: Journal of Consumer Marketing, Volume 26, Issue 5

Edited by Dennis A. PittaUniversity of Baltimore

Current readers of this feature, with the exception of Generation X’ers, should know the origin and importance of the Rosetta Stone. The Rosetta Stone is noted as the key to deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. It contains the text of a decree in three languages: in hieroglyphic (suitable for a priestly decree), demotic (the native script used for daily purposes), and Greek (the language of the administration). Its importance to Egyptology and the world is immense. When it was discovered in 1799, hieroglyphs had not been used for 1,400 years. The knowledge of how to read and write hieroglyphs disappeared. However, the Rosetta Stone was the key to decipher them. It was a natural name to choose for a language related program.

Rosetta Stone software is one of a host of language training programs available for those who have to learn another language. Recently, our university reaffirmed its commitment to global education and created several partnerships with universities around the world. Those arrangements call for student exchange and when students do travel to a partner campus, the need to speak another language is vital. In addition, faculty have to visit partners and need at least conversational language facility. How does a professional business school handle language training – especially when faculty are involved? The best way might seem to offer language classes. However, having both faculty and students as students in a class is problematic. For faculty training or for languages not offered, one has to find another way. So for an accelerated experience in Spanish, we send students to a university in Mexico for four weeks. For French, we partner with a Belgian school. Students live with local families and experience intense classroom instruction coupled with equally intense experience in the community. Not every student can afford to spend a month in another country so for them one needs another solution.

One answer is to use a program like Rosetta Stone. It is definitely not a magic pill which when taken conveys instant language fluency. However, it is an effective and efficient way to gain fluency in another language. It comes in several flavors including French, Spanish, and German, but also, as recent television commercials note, in Chinese. Michael Phelps the five Gold medal Olympian chose the Mandarin version of the program to be able to navigate Beijing outside of Olympic village. As the company develops products it adds levels of difficulty. We chose to investigate the Rosetta Stone Spanish version because it has three levels of difficulty, which when mastered yields a higher degree of fluency than would a version with only one or two levels.

Rosetta Stone avoids the classroom experience of grammar and vocabulary in combination with speaking. For those of us who learned a second language in high school (or a third), our teachers were not usually native speakers. They learned as we did, but went further. Some of them may have learned the language well, but having a “native” ear was prized. Moreover, we sat in class during third period three times a week. For us, graduates with jobs, sitting in class is not really an option. Lastly, many of us older students resent the drills that I remember. They were reminiscent of Mr Miagi in The Karate Kid, wax on, wax off, endlessly until it became part of us. The millennials should have even more problem with the pedagogy.

How the program works

It is, after all a program, which can include elements that aid the learning process. It can integrate audio, images, and text to keep a learner’s attention. The program presents those images, sounds and text to aid a learner in associating the sound and look of the written language in a natural way. That is exactly the way that humans learn language in the first place, we hear words, see actions and learn that the word “dance” is linked with moving one’s body in a particular way to a particular rhythm.

Dynamic immersion method

The dynamic immersion method avoids rote memorization and translation. Instead it mimics the way we learned language as children. The program teaches listening, reading, writing and speaking skills by following that early childhood model. We as children saw objects, people, activities, and events. We heard voices and words in speech in connection with those visual stimuli and made our own links to them. When we saw or touched the family dog, then heard him bark we formed some impressions of the object. When a parent petted the dog and said, “nice dog,” we learned that the living ball of fur which licked our nose was a … “dog.” The process took some repetition but over time we as children learned to associate words with objects. Moreover, we learned how to string words together to convey more complex meaning. Thus the dynamic immersion method employs pictures of objects, activities, and events to teach users the intricacies of a language.

In fact, Rosetta Stone, defines the dynamic immersion as a method in which “… language meaning is derived by connecting words and grammar – intuitively – with images.” It is so much more natural than declining verbs and learning tense that came for most of us, well after we grasped the language to begin with.

Rosetta Stone has striven to make the software part of learning easy to use. So, it employs an easy to use interface. To keep it simple it uses English lesson titles and instructions. However, when a user starts a new lesson, he or she experiences immediate and complete immersion in the new language. The process of understanding the new language begins with exposure to native speakers speaking in context. It is up to the learner to associate spoken words, with the content and make those bridges to learning. The program uses solid learning theoretical principles to foster the process. For example, feedback is instant which allows learners to monitor their own progress and make immediate adjustments before they develop any bad habits. In addition, the program is flexible and allows users to repeat lessons anytime they feel the need to do so.

If a learner is successful, he or she will be able to understand spoken and written language. That is technically called receptive speech, being able to receive language and understand it. Just as important, it has speech recognition functionality built in it. Speech recognition aids in developing the second and more important language capability, expressive speech.

Listening, reading, speaking and writing skills

Operationally, the program presents a series of pictures and a word is spoken with the accompanying text on screen. Learners must then select which picture goes with the word. Like children learning their first language, one might have an idea as to which word goes with which image. It is the same trial and error process that first time learners and those trying to learn a second language use. Notably, one can learn from both successes and mistakes.

The system allows one to develop reading and writing skills by associating letters and words with their sounds and pictures illustrating their meanings. One must concentrate on the words of native speakers and then select the best response from a group of several pictures.

Speaking the language requires a different set of skills. Users learn to speak a language through the program’s guided pronunciation exercises. We were impressed with the built-in speech recognition technology. It is not absolutely accurate but is very good. Users hear a spoken statement or question and are asked to speak the answer. The program comes with a USB connected headset consisting of a good quality microphone and earphones. By speaking normally, the microphone picks up the learner’s pronunciation and the software rates its accuracy. Essentially, the program is a language laboratory in a box. Our users remarked that the program rewarded accurate pronunciation and did not accept obvious mistakes. Rosetta Stone uses a 75-80 percent threshold to determine correct from incorrect. The instant feedback users get when they mispronounce aids learning and reduces the bad habits that students can develop. Some of us remember our classmates in high school who refused to accommodate the different pronunciation of foreign words. They might have sufficient written vocabulary but their English accented speech would not be easily understood by native speakers.

As a motivational tool, Rosetta Stone scores all lessons so that learners can monitor their progress. Motivated learners will repeat the lessons with lower scores and they can at any time. If they complete a lesson successfully, the program schedules “Adaptive Recall” review. These are quizzes scheduled strategically to allow for the review and utilization of previously learned material. That repetition aids in retention.

The quizzes aid in solidifying knowledge. There are further tests called “Milestone activities.” They involve an extended series of images depicting real-world situations. They force users to apply language concepts in a conversation.

The overall learning process

Over time, users learn words. For languages with cases and tenses and persons, the program presents one form, like third person singular or present tense. Once users learn those words, the program offers examples of different cases, persons, and tenses. Thus one learns the nuances of a language. It is important to note that users learn a little at a time. As they progress, they learn to combine words into phrases and full sentences. Ideation increases and learners grasp concepts instead of just simple words.

Ideas and concepts begin to replace simple objects and actions. Users begin to recognize language patterns and grasp more of the language. Steadily one starts to think in the language and avoids the intermediate process of thinking in English and translating into the foreign language. For those learning a language like Spanish, all is done in Spanish, hearing the language like Spanish speakers hear. Coupling hearing with pronouncing mimics the immersion some students enjoy during their junior year abroad. This is Rosetta Stone’s strongest advantage.

Help and support

The program comes with a basic printed manual but the software contains a valuable help section. The help is screen sensitive and every screen seems to have a help button that covers relevant issues: help is content-sensitive.

Rosetta Stone offers a tutorial that is rather complete. The company offers a technical support telephone number: 1-800-788-0822. Tech Support is available during business hours, Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. EST.

Program set up

With a program of this quality set up seems trivial to discuss. Set up of Rosetta Stone is extremely easy. Families can set up several different students on the same program and they can each progress at different rates. In our testing we experienced few glitches. The program is easy and fun to use. We noted that our trusty laboratory headsets with microphones did not work with Rosetta Stone. We were forced to use the supplied USB headset. Notably, one of the testers tripped over the headset cord when getting up from the PC. The result was the wires pulled out of the USB connector. We learned that replacement headsets carried a hefty retail price.

Rosetta Stone, like other software, automatically searches online for any updates.

Conclusions

The program makes it relatively easy to master a language but to get the most out of Rosetta Stone, users must commit to investing time. The software enables users to be able to understand basic written text and conversations. Of course, native speakers may be speak imprecisely and that problem cannot really be addressed in a generalized program. Specifically, we used the Latin American version of their Spanish program. It differs from the Spanish program customized for Spain. We learned that the English word you, is translated as ustedes in Latin America and vosotros in Spain. Still, in Latin America pronunciations differ. The Columbians and Peruvians are reputed to speak the most easily understood Spanish. In other areas, speech is more difficult to grasp.

This product is not appropriate for travelers who only want to learn how to ask to be driven to a hotel. Rosetta Stone offers more. It prepares people to participate in basic to intermediate-level conversations and in many cases that is more than adequate preparation. That preparation should serve to make signs, menus, magazines and newspapers understandable.

For those needing to gain true proficiency in a language, Rosetta Stone provides a good foundation. One would need to use other resources to boost understanding. Still, it is a remarkably useful program.

Rosetta Stone is supplied in the following 31 languages: Arabic, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English (British and American), French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Pashto, Persian (Farsi), Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish (Latin America), Spanish (Spain), Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog (Filipino), Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese and Welsh.

Available from: Rosetta Stone [www.rosettastone.com/].

The Spanish program comes in three levels with the Audio Companion option consisting of portable CDs. The company states that “Audio Companion supports everything you’ve learned with Rosetta Stone CD-ROM software, enhancing the experience anywhere you take your CD or MP3 player!”

All the packages come with Audio Companion. Prices range from $259 for level 1, to $419 for levels 1 and 2, to $549 for levels 1, 2, and 3. Overall, if you need to use the language for business or travel, the price is worth it.

Many thanks to Carlos Fernandez Malaspina, Jesus Ibanez, and Ursula Blaumeuller for their invaluable help in testing the program.