Clicker®

A Personal View

John Bald is an independent language and literacy consultant who has been researching the use of computers in modern foreign language teaching since the 1980s. He has presented the work at Association for Language Learning Conferences in 1993 and 2002, at Strasbourg University, and in a conference he organised for the French Embassy in 1990. The research was published by Strasbourg University Press (Réflexion Faite, in L'Écrit en Français Langue Étrangère, ISBN2-86820-341-8). John has also written about computers in modern foreign languages for The Times Educational Supplement and Guardian Education. A donation has been made to The Prostate Cancer Charity in lieu of a fee for this article:

Writing in a foreign language is difficult. Even professional translators work almost exclusively towards their first language, and for children whose literacy skills are below average it seems an impossible challenge. At worst, these children have no real idea of what they are trying to do, and their attempts to represent what they hear in letters result in failure and frustration. Over the years, attempts have been made to get round the problem by concentrating on speaking, but the time-scale of secondary education has made this difficult, and one result has been to cut lower-attaining children off from using writing to consolidate their knowledge and understanding. There is real hope on the speaking and listening front in the work of Glynis Rumley from Kent Education Department, which in my view should be the basis of the initiative in primary schools. But computers also bring us new opportunities to tackle the writing issue, and Clicker should be the spearhead.

What's wrong now:

• Most children start writing by copying words and phrases. This sets up a back-and-forward set of thought processes and eye movements that hinders them from seeing and understanding the structures of the language.
• Many lower-attaining children do not copy accurately, and never recover from this bad start.
• Too much time is wasted before children learn to compose sentences for themselves.

Clicker:

• Enables pupils to compose accurate sentences, right from the start;
• Cuts out jerky eye movements and promotes clear thinking;
• Makes it easy to present more advanced grammatical features clearly;
• Builds confidence;
• Is very easy to use - you can be up and running in ten minutes.

How?
Clicker starts with a blank grid on the bottom half of a computer screen, with a new word processor page at the top. The teacher prepares the grid by entering words, word endings and punctuation into the squares. (This is very easy - just click on a grid while holding down the shift key. You can insert accents using the number key pad.) Clicking on a square inserts its contents into the word processor. You build sentences by clicking on words and other items. Because you don't have to write the sentence physically, you can focus all of your attention on picking the right words or grammatical features. However, the computer keyboard is still active, so you can insert any words you need that you didn't include in the grid (e.g. children's names), or tidy up spaces. Once your text is complete, you can save or print it. Add a speech engine, and you can hear it - Clicker uses speech engines. Teachers at the 2002 ALL conference thought these sounded less artificial than most English speech engines.

The benefits - lower-attaining pupils, including those with special educational needs.
When our research started in Colchester comprehensive schools in 1989, some pupils' writing in French was so weak that you could not tell whether they were trying to write in French or English. These pupils needed a lot of personal support at the beginning, but enjoyed using the computer - very primitive by modern standards - and having the satisfaction of seeing their work in print. They soon wanted to insert words and phrases of their own (a National Curriculum requirement for Level 4). Most importantly, they were prepared to use the print out to practise writing their sentences independently, turning the page over and trying to write the whole sentence - not individual words - from memory. After three or four individual sessions on the computer, even the weakest pupils' writing was recognisably French, and had individual touches such "J'ai un petit oiseau jaune qui s'appelle Coper".

The benefits - higher-attaining pupils.
Clicker puts you in control. Grids can have as few as 15 squares, but can easily also be extended to 60+. If you want to encourage children to use more adventurous vocabulary, you can insert a link with a completely new grid, without losing any text (right-click on the cell you want to link, and follow the simple instructions on the screen). There is plenty of room to insert word endings and verb forms - once again, children can focus all of their attention on selecting what they need. The context is also clear from the screen, a key factor in learning to use the inflections in foreign languages. In our original research, a higher-attaining girl in Year 7 quickly learned to use grave and acute accents in the right place, and wrote the sentence "Ma meilleure amie s'appelle Kelly". The potential for developing grids to introduce advanced grammatical features is unlimited.

What do you need?
You can load Clicker onto any modern computer, PC or MAC. You can link the computer to a television with a connector - on our early sessions, we had to cover up the top and bottom of the screen to avoid interference, but modern adapters are much more effective! You still have your own monitor, while the class can see the text on the larger screen. You can model and explain sentence construction, then delete your own sentences while pupils compose their own. An interactive whiteboard lets them move words about on the screen, but a mouse will do this just as well, and at much less cost.

Once you have modelled writing the sentences on the screen, the class may be able to try to write them - just switch off the screen, then switch it back on again for them to check. Your pupils can then call up the grids you have made and use them for practice - a teaching assistant may be able to help them, and you can check for accuracy. Wherever possible, though, children should be encouraged to write their sentences independently, and rewarded when they achieve this.

Once you've got started, you will find you can link pictures and video clips to cells in Clicker grids. Finally, Clicker Animations has a series of everyday stories to which you can add texts in any European language, reading them back using the speech engine. These animations reinforce the main point with movement, and can be adapted for a broad range of other purposes, including English as an additional language.

John Bald

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