Examples At present, the program deals adequately with single correct answer
responses, with correct answers requiring more than one item (or character
string), with alternative possible correct answers, and with expected keywords
or phrases in open-ended answers. It also allows for changes of
answer types from one question to the next within exercises.
Since technicalities will not be considered in the present article, the
examples below have been chosen to illustrate how various sub-skills can be
effectively practised, using exercise formats possible with the software I
have developed. The first example is an exercise meant to demonstrate and
develop inferencing skills necessary for dealing with unknown lexical items.
The second concerns correct recognition of anaphoric reference. The last
encourages predictive reading.
Example 1 The following inference-training exercise sequence accepts only one correct
answer at first, but four alternative items later on. The text is displayed in
segments after an introduction explaining the pedagogical goal of the
exercise. The item which students are asked to infer is ‘squid’.
The Giant Squid
This deep-sea cephalopod is so seldom seen, dead or alive, that it
seems mythical. Numerous specimens have, however, been studied, and
they have begun to reveal the animal’s anatomy and its ecology. (limit
second display)
In Moby Dick Herman Melville describes a sea-creature of vast pulpy
mass, furlongs in length . . ., long arms radiating from its center and
curling and twisting like a nest of anacondas. He apparently had in mind
the giant squid; his description reflects the meager information that was
available in his time. (limit third display)
Even now the giant squid (weighing up to 1,000 pounds and having an
overall length of some 18 meters if the tentacles are extended) remains
largely mysterious.
The first display contains only the title of the article and the information
that it is an extract from Scientific American of April 1982. Asked the meaning
of ‘squid’, the student has little to go on at this stage, so that a correct
answer could only be the result of actually knowing the word and not of
inferring its meaning. Consequently, the exact French equivalent of ‘squid’
is expected as a correct answer. If it is given, the rest of the exercise is not
very useful to the student. In that case, the student is given the whole
extract to read and then he or she goes on to a new exercise.
Those students who do not answer correctly are shown the title and the
short summary of the article (down to ‘ecology’). At this stage, they might
make a correct inference, but not distinguish between squids and
octopuses. Since either is a correct inference (i.e. it makes perfect sense), I
see no reason to refuse the French equivalent for octopus (the students are
not Biology students). Thus, the matching procedure must allow for four
correct answers at this stage, whereas it did not for the previous question
since within that context only direct translation could provide the correct
answer.
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258
Students who make wrong guesses are first given