| Although there is still no 'royal road' to learning a foreign language, computers have made it possible to simulate many features of the environment in which languages are spoken, and to link the spoken reality of languages with their appearance when written down. They have made it easier to communicate directly with speakers of the language being learnt. They have also made it easier for teachers to construct exercises and tests for students, and to provide much quicker access to reference materials as and when they are needed.
It is possible, for example, to provide a single package that will:
- provide a video of a dialogue in a realistic context,
- synchronize the dialogue with display of the written version,
- allow interactive participation in the dialogue,
- show grammatical analysis, and translation of any part of the text,
- compare a spectrogram of the learner's pronunciation with that of the native speaker.
Furthermore, through e-mail, and selective visits to foreign language internet sites, students can now achieve rapid but still manageable access to real uses of the language being learnt.
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