WAL survey in Russian 1121-1122

Survey of the use of Web Audio Lab in first-year Russian language courses

Responses to this survey were collected twice: in 2004, from the 28 students in Russian 1121 who used the first disc-based version 1.1 of WAL; and in 2013, from the 13 students who used the first online version 3.0 in Russian 1121 and Russian 1122. In both cases, the 1121 students were assigned to complete two Lessons for every Monday and Thursday; the 1122 students were assigned one Lesson for every Monday and Tuesday. A typical Lesson involved listening to and recording 80 to 100 short statements in Russian; it took 25 to 35 minutes to complete. Slava reviewed all recordings on the server and for some of them (perhaps 20-25%) provided short corrective notes. All other recordings were marked with a one-word evaluative comment (Excellent. Very good. Good. OK.)

1) On the scale of 1 to 10, how helpful was the use of WAL when preparing for class?

WAL 3.0 (online): 8, 10, 10, 9, 8, 8, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10, 9, 8, 7
Average: 8.7
WAL 1.1 (disc-based): 7, 7, 8, 9, 8, 8, 8, 9, 8, 9, 8, 9, 8, 7, 7, 9, 10, 8, 7, 7, 10, 10, 9, 8, 8, 10
Average: 7.7

2) On the scale of 1% to 100%, how beneficial was using WAL to prepare for class compared to the other materials you used when doing your homework--the textbook, the dictionary, the COLLT Quiz program, and the online videos (the BRTF site)? In other words, what proportion of your success in preparation for class came from WAL, overall?

WAL 3.0 (online): 60, 80, 40, 40, 50, 40, 20, 80, 50, 70, 50, 70, 30, 30
Average: 51%
WAL 1.1 (disc-based): 40, 40, 65, 70, 40, 45, 60, 20, 40, 40, 70, 70, 60, 30, 30, 30, 50, 55, 35, 20, 90, 33, 50, 40, 70, 60
Average: 45%

3) If you studied other foreign languages and used traditional audio tapes or compact disks, how would you describe the difference in terms of your experience and benefits when using WAL?

WAL was more directed than audio tapes. It also made you more accountable as your responses were physically recorded.
It was greatly beneficial that I could record myself on WAL and play it back. Or compare my recordings with the model answer.
The interactive side was different from many traditional audio recordings as it allowed us to actively record and listen to our responses and then compare them with a model response. This is different from many recordings that just involve listening and would teach you less.
I have used tape recorders for german. I can do WAL anywhere, as opposed to a language lab, it's easy to edit individual entries and, I assume much easier for the teacher to organize than downloading a file from an electronic tape recorder.
I've studied English as a second language and have developed my way of learning it by utilizing audio tapes and sound files that are available on the internet. WAL is more efficient than my experience because it enables me to practice responding to a question within a time limit. Also, when using WAL, I don't have to click a stop button every single time to repeat or respond to what I've just heard. It automatically gives me time to respond--which makes everything convenient.
I have used tapes before in other language courses (though not at Cornell), and I think WAL is much more convenient. I can use it at home and submit my answers from home, which I really like. The only weakness of WAL in comparison to audio tapes is that sometimes I end up reading the answer more than listening to it and repeating what I hear.
it is a quicker program, and very modern.
other foreign language a/v material only involved listening. I thought that the opportunity to speak and have pronunciation commented on was useful.
I find WAL to be much more interactive than other types of tapes or audio programs that I have used in the past. Most other audio programs focus on just listening rather than speaking and listening.
WAL is much easier to use than audio tapes or compact discs because both the recording and listening are provided in a simple way with WAL; both aspects are part of one easy to use program that provides for convenient re recording in the event of a mistake. There is no rewinding necessary! It is very easy to recheck specific responses with the click of a button.
No difference, wal provided the same service for my studies as the other tapes i used for other languages. Same overall benefits. How and why would things be different? Audio tapes, disks, and wal all provide the same overall experience and benefits for learning.
I learn better if I hear it and I need to say it, so this definitely helped a lot.
WAL is much more personalized and one has the ability to test themselves much better that just tapes or compact discs.
I found it much more versatile than any other listening/recording medium I have used. I find the specific technique of making parallel recordings that I can go back and compare (and get comments on) extremely useful. Besides now using it with Russian I also used this technique with Kazakh and I found it indispensable in developing a near-native like accent.
Far easier to use than tapes (ESPECIALLY when I was expected to record) or online audio resources. Very nice to be able to work from home without having to go to a language lab. The ability to easily overwrite recordings made it much easier to recover when I inevitably made mistakes.
The benefits were being not only being able to hear spoken Russian, but also to repeat and compare the phrases with my own.
The recordable response definitely helped with pronunciation, more so than a group repeating what a tape says.
WAL is probably the best language-learning tool I've ever used. In addition to the pronunciation and vocabulary development with whicht raditional tape/cd sets have helped me, WAL also allowed me to hear my own pronunciation. Also, although they drove me crazy sometimes, the "fill-in-the-blank" sections of the later WAL exercises were great for forcing me to actually listen to and then use the language as opposed to simply repeating it.
The fact that I actually had to turn in recordings that tested my comprehension forced me to learn the language better. It also accelerated my pronunciation of the language.
The fill-in-the-blanks part of WAL requires much more thought and comprehension than other language tapes. Also, regular tapes don't give you feedback on your pronunciation.

4) If you never used tapes or CDs when studying a foreign language, how would you describe the benefits of using WAL this semester?

The main benefit for me was learning to recognize the words as they were spoken which is not always how they look when they are written. Listening to the accent of the words given in the prompt and answer allowed me correct my own pronunciation. When I was in Russia this winter, I was very surprised by the difference in my accenting of some words vs. the accent of the native speakers. The other thing that I learn is the flow and accents involved in the entire phrase that is being said. I think WAL is really the only place where we could learn this. In class we often speak in fragmented sentences, and when professors are speaking, we are usually more focused on the meaining than the nuance of the sentence. In WAL, because the exercises are repeated, because we interact with them to learn both as we hear and respond, and because I often have to re-listen to many of the prompts and answers, it reinforces my intuition of the nuance involved in speaking both individual words and complete sentences.
I really liked that it was online and that I could do it from home. I thought this was also helpful because we could get feedback on our recordings.
It gave me a chance to practice fluency and pronunciation outside of class.
Forced you to learn and understand the grammar -- also helped with pronunciation.
WAL is easier to use since I can use it anywhere (no other equipment needed) and it's probably faster.
I thought it primarily helped with pronunciation and tempo.
Great benefits!
Crucial pronunciation practice.
It's great that I can access WAL from home and from my personal computer. Highly convenient.
It helped a lot to hear the accent and pronunciation of words. It also makes the conversation in class a lot easier, as well as being one of the only sources of instant feedback in the course.
WAL helped me to try to understand Russian as I hear it and prepare an immediate response.
good to hear the correct way to say words and the speed tests allow you to figure out the proper endings based on the case we are learning.
pronounciation would be wrong.
it really helped in hearing and speaking the language in real time.
It's certainly beneficial as it allows for verbal practice and for an interactive supplement to the material covered in class. Among other aspects, I appreciate the opportunity to hear my own speech and to compare it to the correct way of speaking.
Much better than not using it. It allows me better understanding of the material by the time I get to class. WAL gives me a much better idea of how lessons, exercises, homework, dialogues, etc. are supposed to sound than I would have just from reading the book.
Very good, my experience in learning russian would not be complete without using wal everyday before class to prepare.
I probably wouldn't have learned as much as I have.
I liked being able to hear how to pronounce the words and also the ability to speed up my pronunciation with practice
I like using WAL because it gives me different native speaker to listen to and helps me hear how my Russian sounds. If I were to study abroad or something, i could go back over my recordings and see where I'm lacking in pronuncation or speed.
Plenty of practice, especially the difficult phrases I had to say over and over to get them right. Also, in conjunction with the quizes, these helped a lot with understanding grammatical rules - I learn better by example than by book definitions.
I think that I might have spent more time in the book, but would have less mastery of the conversational/spoken aspect.
It would mostly just hurt pronunciation - though some of the cases would suffer as well, especially the later ones.
It would have been disastrous. I mean, I would have still been able to learn the cases, conjugations, etc., but would not have had the chance to actually use them. Also, I feel as though my pronunciation, while still not very good, has improved immensely over the semester, and, as I mentioned above, I think that this improvement has resulted mostly from the WAL exercises.
The WAL software was a useful tool for going through and practicing the lessons from class, but I found it required much preparation through writing the lessons out before I felt I was understanding what I was doing in the WAL lessons.
The WAL program was much more useful, not only in quality so that it could be heard, but for the feedback it provided.
Listening to the tapes and trying to imitate how the speakers sounded was very helpful, especially with pronounciation
WAL helped me to fine-tune my pronunciation. I don't think I could learn Russian effectively without WAL.

5) If Russian 1121/1122 did not use any audio as part of the homework, how do you think that would affect your learning this semester?

My learning of grammar and vocabulary would not have suffered. Perhaps my formulation of sentence structure would have been slightly impaired. My ability to remember long words and properly conjugate some of the long verbs would have been reduced. I also would not have been able to recall words to converse in class as well. I think WAL probably had a positive effect on my overall pronunciation as well. I think the feedback we get in our WAL History is particularly helpful in allowing me to notice differences in my speech from Lyuba’s when we converse, as well as try to make particular corrections to my pronunciation.
I think my speaking would have been worse. It was nice to be able to hear how things were supposed to sound and to then listen to my recordings and compare it.
I would not have learned as much about pronunciation.
Would have been much worse, probably would speak more slowly.
It would have made class more difficult as more time would be needed to go over practicing pronunciation and grammar practice.
WAL was helpful since we don't have time in class to go over everything, and it's helpful to do the exercises on my own.
It would have to be augmented with a different addition.
It would affect the pronunciation a lot.
Yes, pronunciation and reading would suffer.
My pronunciation would be much worse.
I would have a lot more trouble conjugating verbs and hearing where the stress falls to know how to pronounce words. (I know it's marked in the book, but hearing brings it all together.)
I think WAL is very important for my pronunciation. Without WAL, my pronunciation would have been much worse.
I think my reading skills and pronunciation in particular would be less advanced.
It would have been much harder for us to become familiar with the sounds of Russian. I feel priviledged to utilize this great software. I really thought that these educators of Russian at Cornell actually KNOW how to study a foreign language.
I'm glad Russian 1121 uses audio homework, I think it's really important to have something to listen to in order to understand correct pronunciation, etc. It was especially helpful when we were learning how to pronounce palatalized consonants.
We would spend a lot more time in class discussing the endings of words and how to pronounce them.
I think the practice speaking, and listening to people clearly enunciate on the headphones, helped, especially as Russian pronunciation and sounds are more difficult than many other languages.
pronunciation, knowledge of the language, and quickness in responding in russian would all be less.
My pronunciation of words would be significantly worse. I think WAL also helps with learning to respond orally to oral material rather than just writing and reading.
It'd certainly have had a negative impact. Some of the likely results would be weaker verbal comprehension and expression, weaker command of the material and the language as a whole, lower level of understanding in class, and lower level of self-confidence when communicating in the language.
The class would be more difficult, harder to keep up with and harder to understand.
I would not have had as much oral practice, which is essential in order to train myself to recognize correct sounds and pronunciations.
Yes, of course.
I do not think I would be as proficient in speaking Russian without WAL
I'm not sure, I guess it would make my listening comprehension and spoken Russian weaker ,but it may give me much more time to focus on harder grammatical aspects of the language
Yes, significantly. It was a big time commitment, but I think one that pays off.
This would negatively affect my learning. I would have a greater difficulty learning pronunctiation and stress.
I don't think that there is enough class time for the instructors to give the needed individual attention to develop correct pronunciation, stress and intonation.
I would be a much slower speaker, less confident, easily tripped up by long words or unfamiliar sounds---and all with horrible intonation.
My learning would have been severely impeded without the use of audio.
I think I would have practiced out loud less often, and this would have hurt me. The WAL program forces you to actually speak the language outside of class as opposed to just reading it.
I don't think I would have learned the language as quickly without the WAL recordings. I think it was the most effective learning tool (excluding the textbook) of the class. I know that I would not have learned the new sounds, pronunciations, and alphabet as quickly without it.
I would spend more time studying the textbook some days, but to be honest, I probably wouldn't spend so much time on the lessons.
I might take twice or three times as long to reach the same level

6) What other teaching/learning methods could be used to replace the type of work you did with WAL? How would that be better or worse?

Shadowing (imitating sentences as a native speaker speaks in a media file): This helps us be able to read out Russian sentences with a normal speed, as read by native speakers. It doesn't give us an option of reading them in our pace while WAL allows to repeat sentences slower than normal. Role-play with classmates: It may replace the question-and-answer part of WAL. But WAL is preferred to this because students don't want to go through a hassle of meeting up at a certain time and a place to do this assignment. Dictation Practice: First, have students listen to an audio or a video clip and, as they listen, have them write out the Russian sentences in words. This may require listening to the clip countless times. Then, let them compare their work with the real texts used in the clip. It helps learners catch up the Russian sounds more carefully.
Audio tapes could replace the learning done through WAL, but as I said above, I think WAL is much more convenient and interactive. However, maybe it should be more difficult to READ the answers, because this is an easy shortcut to get around actually listening. Also, the exercises where we have to fill in the blanks in the sentence (with the correct case) are easy to take shortcuts on....for instance, you can skip ahead to read the answer, and then go back and just say it. The ease of doing this makes it undesirable to actually sit down and go through the book and make sure you understand the cases and know the answers before doing the WAL homework. Maybe a better solution would be to have the answers available only at the end of the exercise.
I don`t know what could replace it and have the same effects
i like WAL
more written work-we would lose all that i mentioned in 5.
Going through an oral exercise that is of a longer duration might be helpful, especially one that doesn't prompt an exact answer. For example, we could have to say several sentences (like a paragraph worth) about what we did the previous weekend, etc.
No suggestions
I feel that WAL is an effective teaching method, I cannot think of reasons why it would need to be replaced
There is no substitute for Wal. I, frankly, would not be able to imagine a more thorough form of pre-class preparation.
I can't think of anything at the moment. It was nice to be able to compare your recording with the pre-recorded recording to figure out how you were pronouncing words incorrectly. There are so many subtle changes in pronounciation, expecially in the beginning that the program really helped me with.
The only thing that I can think of to replace WAL would be more personal speaking time with the instructors one-on-one
We could use tapes, but that's clumsy, old fashioned and very very tim consuming. I guess we could send mp3 and stuff on the internet, but I like the way we can listen and record in the same program with WAL.
The use of tapes or CDs might replace it. However without the self and instructor evaluations the experience might be slightly worse.
If you could put WAL onto a portable device, that would definitely extend its usefulness. On the negative side I find some of the grammar substitution drills mind-numbing. I still need a lot of effort to produce some of the longer responses so if there is no immediate model, I make and perpetuate pronunciation errors when I am working on producing the correct grammatical response. From your comments in class today about how one certain word was mispronounced I wonder if that is a more common experience. With my present ability I might do better with the simpler, more traditional model-cue substitution drill.
Nothing that would be better: cassette tapes are annoying and require a tape deck; CDs or online resources don't support recording and are too easy to skip. (Being able to skip the homework will, by the end of the semester, guarantee that I don't do it.) I like this crazy WAL thing. I suppose an hour-long personal interview with the teacher would accomplish the same thing better, but that's not in any wise practical.
I honestly can't think of anything that would compare to it; the only suggestion I have would be to maybe have a few "basics" interspersed throughout the recordings-- it sometimes feels like I don't know exactly what I'm saying when I say it. If there were a little bit of grammer actually on the screen, with the lesson, that would be beneficial.
The only think I can think of here is one-on-one sessions with the instructors, as that would give better feedback and amore dynamic environment - as that's not entirely feasible, WAL is the next best thing.
I can't think of anything I would change. I've taken lots of languagecourses, and this is easily the most complete class I've been in.
I found the most important benefit of the WAL lessons was in pronunciation, and there may be another method to teach pronunciation without extensively speaking through the lessons.
I don't think that anything that could replace the program would have been more useful.
When the classes were very small, I found that to be much more helpful.
I don't see any practical alternatives to the WAL program that would teach the language as well.
We could do the textbook drills in class, but that would take time away from what we do right now (grammar questions, dialogs, etc.). We could also watch more films, but that doesn't require as much comprehension or allow for feedback.
I don't think "replace". How about supplement? More opportunity for simple self-expression would be nice.

7) Assuming that the use of technology always involves some hassle because of the glitches, user errors, and just having to go to the lab, how would you describe the trade-off of benefits vs. the hassle?

WAL 3.0 (online)

Since this can be done on a home computer, having to go to the lab was not a problem. However, user errors and glitches added a significant portion of time to the recordings.
I haven't experienced many glitches. Sometimes WAL won't record, but then I just refresh the page. It's not a serious problem.
The hassle of WAL is relatively minor, definitely worth it.
I didn't experience much hassle at all throughout my usage of WAL this whole year. I am very pleased with it.
Generally, no trouble, sometimes WAL wouldn't save the recordings and I have to repeat the exercise.
Almost no hassle and very significant benefits.
Any extra resource is useful.
I didn't have any hassles. Everything in WAL worked really well. And it's handy to be able to record one at a time.
I did not experience any significant errors that made my experience difficult.
Not nearly enough glitches to make the program not worth it.
There were times I couldn't finish my WAL work because of glitches, but it was useful overall.
SInce I did not go to the lab, I thought it was great. And Slava was very patient when it came to dealing with glitches.
The benefits include simulating real conversation, at least some freedom of when to do speaking assignments, and the ability to work at your own pace. Some of the hassles are various browsers having issues, failure to record entries, sometimes slow connection, and the machine cannot react and interpret the human.
WAL used to freeze up a lot when navigating forward and backward to listen to the answers and questions repeatedly, but this has been fixed by use of the “go back1” and “go back 2” buttons. The most difficult or largest headache I have using WAL now is finding a quiet space. I spend a lot of time each day on campus in classes, libraries, or labs. None of these spaces is suitable for me to do the recording, and I feel it is also too far for me to travel to the Language Lab to do it since that is not near where I am on campus or where I live. I usually try to do it before I leave my house in the morning or after I return in the evening, but sometimes, that is not possible. On campus, I often find empty classrooms, but that is unreliable, and I recently tried Sage Chapel which was ok, but sometimes people play the organ and even that is too loud. I suggested earlier, that I think WAL for the iphone would be a popular idea among students and this would I think mitigate this problem for me. The iphone has the internet connectivity for me to do WAl outside, or in a halway or other places, and the microphone/ear buds record only close range sound for a telephone conversation, only picking up I think a moderate amount of background noise. There would perhaps be some navigation issues and the screen size of the iphone may be a problem for WAL in its current form, but if there was a dedicated app with different sections for history and feedback, the assignment, and the actual recording, it could be a version of WAL offering a lot of utility for students. If the language lab was more centralized on campus, perhaps that would be a good solution as well.

WAL 1.1 (disc-based)

WAL has a lot more benefits than hassles. It's worth it.
I don't think there's too much hassle with WAL, thus I would say the benefits greatly outweigh the hassle.
better to have it without a doubt
not a lot of hassle.
WAL was very easy to use. Going to the lab was not too much hassle for me, as I usually had time during the day.
i really didn't run into very much trouble, and i have a copy on my own computer, so there wasnt much hassle. so the benefits definitely win
I think WAL directs the amount of time spent going over the lesson by walking me through each one rather than having to learn it all on my own.
I believe that the benefits should outweigh the costs in this case.
It's not too much of a hassle and the benefits are important. I can't get to the lab on certain days but the WAL work is spaced out enough that on less busy days I can stay for a couple of hours and get two or three classes' work done. Any hassles are worth enduring to be prepared for class.
There are certainly less hassles than tape recording. The convenience of the program outweighs the rare and minor glitches.
I had experienced no technical glitches. And buying the CD from the lab and being able to use it at home for the who year was defintely a great idea. In other words, i experienced no hassles.
well, once I got a copy for home, the only problem I had with it is that I needed to set aside a lot of time and concentration to do it, but it was definately worth it. I never really encountered any problems with the program itself.
There were only rare problems, which I feel can be forgiven
The trade off is generally worth it, although if you were to ask me when I just closed WAL after not fully submitting all my work, I"d answer differentely.
I didn't have many technical troubles. There was the hassle of going to the lab, because I live off campus - in the future I will make sure to get the program on my computer.
The benefits of having one's speaking ability evaluated at a personal level outweigh the hassle of having to go to the lab.
Negligible hassles, great benefits.
I encountered no glitches, and WAL recovered remarkably well from user errors. If I had been forced to go to the lab, though, all ease-of-use ratings would be lower. As mentioned about, that can be a real hardship for some people.
The hassle was very minimal.
I would have to say it is worth the hassle, though some parts of the listening are difficult to understand.
I had a few problems during the first few weeks with my submissions, butafter that everything was fine. The benefits of the program definitelyoutweighed what little hassle there was.
The benefits dominate.
I only had one issue with the WAL program, and it was a problem with my computer, not the program itself. I thought the program was very easy to use, and the ability to use the program at home was a big benefit.
The biggest hassle was probably the language lab itself. The hours they were open were so limited.
The benefits far outweighed the hassles, which were minimal. I did not find the system difficult to use as well. And the server had few problems or glitches
It;s good to have a predetermined block of time that _must_ be spent on Russian. The only problem I've had consistently is headsets not working, but overall it's worthwhile.
Any hassle is worth it.

8) Compared to your general experience with computers, please rate the effort that was required to learn using WAL on the scale of 1 (very easy to learn) to 10 (very hard to learn).

WAL 3.0 (online): 2, 5, 1, 1, 1, 4, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2
Average: 1.76
WAL 1.1 (disc-based): 1, 1, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 4, 2, 1, 4, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 1, 2, 2, 1
Average: 1.6

9) If you were to advise a teacher who is setting up a beginning course in some foreign language at Cornell, would you recommend that WAL be used in that language? Use the scale of 1 (not recommended) to 10 (highly recommended).

WAL 3.0 (online): 9, 10, 10, 10, 10, 9, 9, 10, 8, 10, 8, 9, 8, 8
Average: 9.1
WAL 1.1 (disc-based): 10, 10, 8, 10, 10, 9, 9, 9, 8, 10, 10, 9, 9, 7, 8, 10, 10, 9, 9, 10, 10, 5, 10, 8, 9, 10, 9
Average: 8.8

10) Please explain your rating in question 9, above. What considerations influenced your response?

I hope the value of WAL to my learning experience has been made evident in some of he above responses. I think that a very valuabe part of WAL is the feedback, if not instructively critical, it at least confirms that the professor values your work, has listened to it, and is satisfied with your progress. I feel if this element was compromised by the teacher setting up a beginning course because the feedback was shoddy or lagged several weeks in an untimely manner, then that would cause my reccomendation to be less strong. As far as the benefit to the students is concerned, I think if a student takes the task seriously and puts forth the effort to do a good job of the recordings, he will be rewarded by seeing a gain in his ability to pronounce and recall sentences for participation in class and other conversations.
I think it was helpful.
Connection issues, sometimes it refuses to load a sound it has recorded.
It helps with speed, structure, and forces students to spend time with the language.
It was great practice, and it's always good to just keep hearing the target language.
Especially at the beginning stages of learning, drills are handy for copying foreign sounds.
It adds a positive dimension to learning.
Easy to use, and makes you practice reading and pronunciation.
Students can access the internet WAL from home--convenience. It helps pronunciation greatly. It allows me to learn things at my speed.
Language courses need more speaking components, so talking becomes more natural.
WAL aids in so many respects of language learning. (You must read, listen, speak, and understand.)
It is very helpful in both improving speaking and listening skills, and grammar.
I have found it very helpful to be able to practice speaking at home. The only reasons I don't give it a higher rating are that WAL can be glitchy sometimes, and it may be inconvenient for students without computers with built in microphones.
To be able to listen and speak in a foreign language, it is crucial to listen to the sounds of the language A LOT and to practice speaking out loud in the language A LOT. It's an axiom in language learning. This WAL program efficiently provides students with an opportunity to do these activities!!!
Again, it's really convenient to use, it aids in learning pronunciation, and I think it's better than audio tapes. However, the ease of reading the answers instead of really having to listen to them should be addressed.
The biggest problem for me is the length of some of the programs. It is sometimes hard to find an hour or two to sit down and do the WALs for that day. Even if they were split up for everyday that might make the especially long ones easier.
I like the program, it keeps my mind in the language every day but only for an hour or so, so it's not annoying.
Since students usually have no one-on-one interaction with the teacher, I think WAL is the only chance people get to have specific problems with accents or pronunciation corrected
I think hearing and responding helps more than most anything else in learning a new language.
WAL is very helpful for pronunciation, spelling, reading, listening, etc. I think that the sections with question-response are very helpful and the mimicking sections particularly facillitate good pronunciation.
It translates the text in the book into the audio format necessary for learning words and grammar points in the speaking/conversational context. Class time is more productive if I have already had some practice speaking and have an idea of how words and phrases should sound. Most importantly, WAL offers feedback with the correct pronunciation sounded out right before or after my attempts, so there is the chance for repetition and correction of mistakes that's often impossible in the class setting (for instance, there are certain words I know I'd never be able to pronounce if I hadn't had to say them about 100 times apiece before getting them right in WAL).
WAL has been an excellent tool in learning how to pronounce words and phrases, especially stresses and the "raise-drop" that varies according to intended tones or messages. Simply reading a phrase in a book does not fully show me how to pronounce it.
Russian vocabulary is hard to pronounce. Wal helped me on that. No forign language learning is sufficient without it.
The program was definately a big help with learning russian and would probably be a good tool for learning many other languages.
It is the closest thing to personal instruction without an actual teacher, so it saves time
I really like WAL and what it provides us, but wish it was for mac users!! It could also be a little updated, I see so much of the program it makes me feel like i'm working on my apple iie sometimes.... there are some hidden aspects that take a while to find and figure out, but generally very easy.
It allowed a mastery of pronunctiations and stress that just doing homework or other written work did not allow. There is also a more personalized evaluation with WAL than with classroom participation.
(I would hope that you can see if there is any difference in the students' performance. I would be interested in your evaluation!) My subjective reasons are given in point 3.
Unless the teacher feels the entire out-of-class listen-and-record concept is unnecessary, WAL is the best way I've seen of doing it. And if they do feel it's unnecessary, they're wrong. I spent a little over half the out-of-class time on WAL, and it was more helpful than most things other than reading the new information (grammar, etc.) in the book.
It's a great idea, well-implemented, and with perhaps a few touch ups, it'd provide a perfect supplemental tool to language learning.
WAL is useful enough to merit using for any language, so suggesting it would only help the students.
As I mentioned above, WAL has been invaluable. The program is easy tolearn, easy to use and helps with all facets of language learning, bothtechnical and conversational. I wish there was a WAL program for Arabic.
My rating of five reflects my appreciation for the material and potential and thoroughness of the WAL assignments, but I do not know if I would recommend the extensive use of WAL, dissecting each and every dialog and substitution, to all foreign language courses.
Any size class will have some people talking more than others, and the program allows everyone ample time. The largest consideration was the fact that it was a beginner class, and so many new things are going into it. Basic pronunciation can be a challenge initially, and the program is able to pick up on these things before they become habits.
It is very helpful, but the small glitches in the program could cause trouble for people unfamiliar with computers.
I have used tools in other foreign language classes that just required listening, but not speaking. They did not force the students to learn, understand, and speak the language. WAL makes sure that students really comprehend the material.
It's been extremely easy and helpful.
WAL might be more useful for languages which are less phonetic or have phonemes simlar to English. (I don't know what I'm saying here) Certainly it can also be used for phonetic languages but maybe in that case we might want to focus more on expression or listening to native speakers talk than correct pronunciation.

11) Additional comments

I liked WAL!
WAL is difficult and time-consuming, but it's worth it!
It sometimes crashes still.
Fix problems mentioned in #7 (sometimes wouldn't save).
More exercises, fewer long words like "unsatisfactory."
It was great! Very easy to use.
Overall great system.
One glitch I keep experiencing is that I have to click every black dot for WAL to allow me to record my response. This is on Safari on a Macbook Air. [This has now been fixed.]
I personally think more listening and repeating (plus memorizing) of Russian sentences is necessary for us to achieve the satisfactory level of second language acquisition. But, as everybody realizes, Cornell students cannot devote themselves only to learning a foreign language. I think it's already taking up a large portion of their studying time. So we can only do the best we can do. But for those of us that are eager to master Russian, it might be a good idea to distribute a cassette tape or a CD version of WAL so that students can play it as they walk around the campus or in their spare time. Thank YOU for developing this great software for us!!! I'm really proud of Conell's Russian language program.
Not really a comment, but there's a bug with uploading in the mac version that will sometimes cause the program to crash or freeze during an upload. Don't know exactly what it is.
Overall, I think that the WAL program is very beneficial. However, a few small modifications may make it even better; it may also be supported by a speech recognition capability, allowing us to see how understandable our speech is before submitting the file.
EVERYTIME we are asked to repeat something, we should be able to see the definition of what the heck we are saying right on the screen. I dont want to have to keep switching between reading my Beginning russian book and the computer screen to find out what im saying into the microphone.
The earlier I did the WAL for the lessons we were doing, the more I understood and got out of class.
The enter key on the numeric part of the keyboard doesn't function the same as the enter key on the qwerty side. It would be nice if the uploading connection didn't delay moving on to the next exercise. It would be nice if there was a pane that would more or less instantly show us the status of the uploaded exercises (what is now done by the web page and the "updating" feature). My personal preference is to do some audio work before learning grammar, but just keeping up with the homework, I missed the earlier audio input. I don't know how I would restructure the homework to make it come out right for me, though. (I think I personally just need to be a day ahead on the homework!)
Unless the teacher feels the entire out-of-class listen-and-record concept is unnecessary, WAL is the best way I've seen of doing it. And if they do feel it's unnecessary, they're wrong. I spent a little over half the out-of-class time on WAL, and it was more helpful than most things other than reading the new information (grammar, etc.) in the book. It is very important that students be able to use WAL from home. For upperclassmen, it can take +30 minutes to get to the language lab, which means at least 2 hours must be budgeted to do the homework on campus. This is a significant investment of time, and no student should be forced to modify her class or work schedule just to find time to get to Noyes. Since it is very difficult (and probably not a good idea) to work ahead of the syllabus, it's very helpful to have the added flexibility in working from home. The only complaint I had with the original version of WAL (that sometimes submission took too long, and could be interrupted too easily by network traffic) was resolved with the beta version (11.03.04) Slava gave me. (All ratings are based on this more recent version.) Running from CD is difficult (or rather annoying), as the CD spins down too quickly/often. Everything still works, but there is intermittent lag when loading the next sound file. (Nothing unexpected here, just how CD drives work.) Fortunately, moving the files from CD onto disk resolves this problem and makes everything fast. A very basic installer (just copy files and create a shortcut) might help students who would not be able to move the files manually, but could still benefit from running WAL from disk. It might be nice (depending on how concerned you are with security) to allow saving of passwords between sessions. Perhaps this could be permanently allowed/disallowed at install time, letting home users enable the option, while still letting it be disabled on the lab computers. Sometimes in the call-and-response sections, when the template for the response was long and unfamiliar, I would find myself forced to open the book and read along just so that I could get through the sentence. Just showing the template on screen would be helpful. Sometimes the responses given seemed a bit arbitrary (that is, I felt my "incorrect" response was equally valid), and this was---irrationally, I admit---sort of annoying.
There's not much more to say. Without sounding too corny, it actually makes learning a language decently fun; listening to recordings and repeating them (as opposed to recording them) doesn't have the same sort of... motivation behind it. All in all, I'm glad it's part of the class.
The server is a bit inconsistent, and sometimes the submission ofresponses freezes up or aborts fro no particular reason. Other than that,maybe slow down some of the listening sections, when a word blurs into anearly incomprehenisble flurry of sound, it's hard to get itspronunciation correct.
The WAL assignments were easily the most important elements in my class preparation.
I have been impressed all semester with the cohesiveness of all the teaching materials in the course and WAL is an excellent supplement to the text, dictionary, writing assignments, and classroom dialog.
On very few of the spoken parts, the reader is a little difficult to hear or understand. The only helpful thing about the program might be to re-record a few of these parts. I think the individualized feedback was essential for the class, and I don't know how that could have been done on such a scale without submitted recordings. I thought the program was helpful, but I also thought the comments left were even more helpful than the preparation it provided. The WAL program was very helpful, especially since it followed the text. (While some of the quizzes didn't seem to correlate as closely.)
It is very helpful, but the small glitches in the program could cause trouble for people unfamiliar with computers. I liked the WAL program. I learned the lessons much better once I used the program. It was very helpful in learning how to pronounce the new words. It was easier to remember the new material once I had used the WAL program, then it was to just read the beginning russian book.
I have used tools in other foreign language classes that just required listening, but not speaking. They did not force the students to learn, understand, and speak the language. WAL makes sure that students really comprehend the material. The only issue I had was hooking up the headset to my own PC.
It's been extremely easy and helpful.
I think that WAL has been a crucial part of Russian 1121 this semester. As a student living off campus, having to go the the lab twice a week did present some hassle, however, the benefits received from the program far outweighed the inconvenience. (Also, I would like to note that part of this hassle was due more to the hours that Noyes Lab is open, rather than simply having to go there.) I think that WAL was especially helpful in preparation for class, although it was also somewhat helpful when preparing for written work. Overall, I do not think that I would have gotten half as much out of this course if it did not include WAL. Personally, I found it very easy to learn and navigate and with only a few exceptions, the program ran very smoothly for me. I appreciate that the program provides options such as "easy mode" and the length allowed to record. Some of the assignments were very lengthy, but I think that most were very reasonable. This is my first experience using media in language learning, however, I would definitely recommend this program to professors in other languages or to other students. I hope that this information is helpful. Thank you to those who were involved in making the WAL program available to us.
WAL might be more useful for languages which are less phonetic or have phonemes simlar to English. (I don't know what I'm saying here) Certainly it can also be used for phonetic languages but maybe in that case we might want to focus more on expression or listening to native speakers talk than correct pronunciation. Personally, I did not use WAL to prepare for class, but to reinforce what I had learnt during class.