A Multimedia Tool To Develop Learner Autonomy

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A Multimedia Tool to Develop

Learner Autonomy
Annette Groß & Dieter Wolff
Published online: 09 Aug 2010.
To cite this article: Annette Groß & Dieter Wolff (2001) A Multimedia Tool to Develop
Learner Autonomy, Computer Assisted Language Learning, 14:3-4, 233-249
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2001, Vol. 14, No. 3-4, pp. 233±249 # Swets & Zeitlinger
A Multimedia Tool to Develop Learner Autonomy

Annette Groû and Dieter Wolff
Bergische UniversitaÈt-Gesamthochschule Wuppertal, Germany
ABSTRACT
Downloaded by [University of California Santa Cruz] at 11:19 20 November 2014
In our paper we present a multimedia tool which is based on our assumption that computers are
much better suited in language learning to act in an organising and structuring capacity rather
than to take up a role as a learning machine. READERS was developed jointly by a team of
researchers from the universities of Essen and Wuppertal headed by Bernd RuÈschoff (the editor
of the present volume) and Dieter Wolff. It is a multimedia programme designed to help
university studentsÐnot necessarily language studentsÐwith the dif®cult business of under-
standing texts in a foreign language. In the paper we will ®rst describe the project in more
general terms embedding it into the underlying learning psychological and pedagogic concepts.
We will then look at the software in more detail, starting out from its structure and then dealing
with the different modules which comprise the tool. The paper ends with a short technical
description; we also discuss the problems which we have encountered until now.
1. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
In a number of recent publications (cf. Wolff, 1997, 1999) we rather severely

criticised approaches to language teaching which do not make use of the
innovative potential of the computer for the learning process. We argued that
computers should not be used so much in their tutorial modeÐas they still are
in most educational software applicationsÐbut rather as tools like in real life
applications. In our opinion the computer is much better suited in language
learning to act in an organising and structuring capacity rather than to take up
a role as a learning machine. Computers, we maintained, have a very high
potential to assist human cognitive function. Central to our argument is the
Correspondence: Prof. Dr. Dieter Wolff/Annette Groû, Bergische UniversitaÈt-GH Wuppertal,

FB 4, Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft, Gauûstraûe 20, 42097 Wuppertal, Germany.
E-mail: wolff2@mail.urz.uni-wuppertal.de/ gross3@mail.urz.uni-wuppertal.de
234 A. GROû AND D. WOLFF
assumption that computers are better suited to promote the use of procedural
than of declarative knowledge.
In our paper we would like to underpin these fairly theoretical re¯ections by
presenting a practical example of a computer application which was designed
according to these principles. READERS was developed jointly by a team of
researchers from the universities of Essen and Wuppertal headed by Bernd
RuÈschoff (the editor of the present volume) and Dieter Wolff. It is a multi-
media program designed to help university studentsÐnot necessarily lan-
guage studentsÐwith the dif®cult business of understanding texts in a foreign

language. The software which we will present in more detail in our paper is an
L2 reading trainer. It consists of a set of tools which are related to a corpus of
texts. In the program students are made familiar with these tools: they learn
how to use them effectively in order to solve their reading problems.
Familiarisation with the tools takes place mainly through discovery learning:
students work through the texts incorporated in the software and are encour-
aged to use the different tools available whenever they encounter comprehen-
sion dif®culties. The software is not designed for beginners but for advanced
students who have to read and understand technical and scienti®c texts in a
foreign language which they need for their subject of study. Software
development has not yet been completed, but we have tested parts of the
program with informants already.
After a general description of the project, we will ®rst give a short account
of the underlying learning psychological and didactic concepts. We will then
look at the software in more detail, starting out from its general structure and
dealing with the different modules which comprise the tools. The paper ends
with a few technical remarks and a short discussion of the problems we have
encountered until now.
2. GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT
It is almost a truism to say that foreign languages play a constantly growing

role both in university programmes and in vocational training. All over the
world, languages have become a key quali®cation both in academic and in
professional life. And in the context of European uni®cation, the acquisition
of foreign languages is an educational necessity. A period of study at a
university in another European country has become an integral part of many
curricula; being able to read technical and scienti®c texts in a foreign
A MULTIMEDIA TOOL TO DEVELOP LEARNER AUTONOMY 235
languageÐespecially in EnglishÐhas become an imperative requirement in

most programmes.
There can be no doubt that foreign language teaching in school has
deteriorated in recent years. As a result, university students' foreign language
pro®ciency has also decreased. At university level foreign language courses
have become less numerous, mainly due to ®nancial restrictions. Especially
the academic skills of reading and writing have been neglected both at school
and university level. It is absolutely necessary, therefore, to ®nd new ways of
improving university students' foreign language skills. We believe that this

is where the new technologies and the kind of software we have developed
come in.
Until now new technologies have often been used in institutionalised
language learning contexts only in very traditional ways, for example as
tutorial learning machines, as resources replacing conventional printed texts,
and as CD-ROM multimedia programs designed according to principles
already used in traditional book, cassette or video language courses.
The multimedia product we have developed is distinctly different from this
type of software. Relying on results of cognitive and constructivist learning
psychology we have designed a tool which makes it possible for learners to
increase and improve their foreign language pro®ciency autonomously and
responsibly. The program is not designed according to grammatical or
communicative grading principles which are normally related to batteries of
more or less formal exercises. It is an open package of strategies and other
tools which are meant to help learners with reading, and at a later stage also
with writing a foreign language text. The following features are characteristic
of this software:
Learners can extend and improve their foreign language pro®ciency

autonomously, according to their own needs and self-responsibly.
With respect to its structure the program does not proceed in any rigid
linguistic progression but makes available a collection of strategies and
tools which support the learner in the dif®cult task of learning and working
with a foreign language.
The program is designed as an open multimedia application which is based
on cognitive learning principles.
The program takes account of the holistic character of language and
language learning and createsÐby integrating several applicationsÐa rich
learning environment which is one of the central demands of constructivist

learning psychology.
Because of its multimedia potential the program is better suited than
traditional print media to present strategies and their functions and thus to
promote their acquisition.
It is easy to see that such a program which is strategy- and thus also skill-
oriented can be extended and made to focus on other foreign language skills.
In our present project we are mainly interested in promoting reading skills

because they seem to be a quali®cation absolutely necessary for university
students. However, the underlying principles can easily be transferred to the
promotion of listening comprehension. This will be the next step we intend to
take in our project, before focusing on academic writing.
3. UNDERLYING CONCEPTS
The approach on which the program's development is based has already been
described: the most important concepts are those of strategy and of autonomy.
They both relate to ideas developed in cognitive psychology and in con-
structivist learning theory. We will sketch out some of these ideas starting with
the basic question in the context of a program aiming to promote text
comprehension skills, namely the question what people do in order to
comprehend a text, irrespective of whether it is an L1 or an L2 text.
Psycholinguists assume that comprehension is a constructive operation
which humans perform independently on the basis of their speci®c world and
experiential knowledge. In their view, language processing is a complex
mental operation which is strategy-controlled. Humans are seen as infor-
mation processing systems which, comparable to a computer, process infor-
mation on the basis of knowledge previously acquired. Incoming stimuli
interact with the knowledge already acquired, and as a result of these
processes new knowledge is created. It is assumed that the knowledge
(linguistic and world knowledge) of the human information processor is
adequately stored and organised so that it can be called up quickly and
ef®ciently. It is highly probable that knowledge is stored in schematic
structures which represent it in different forms (networks, routines, scripts
etc.). While humans process information they employ mental operations and
strategies.
It is one of the most important assumptions in cognitive psychology that

humans not only process information in order to acquire knowledge and to
understand the world around them, but also make use of mental operations to
control the reorganisation and utilisation of this knowledge. Cognitive psychol-
ogists call these processes learning. Rumelhart and Norman (1978) have
developed a learning model in which three stages are distinguished: compre-
hension, retention and automatization. Three highly complex, strategy-con-
trolled processes make learning possible: accretion, (re)structuring, and
tuning.
In the context of this discussion it is interesting that learning as well as
information processing is understood as a cognitive activity, consisting of
mental operations controlled by strategies. Most of these can be subsumed
under the heading of hypothesis building and hypothesis testing. It is also
important to note that in this theory learning is regarded as active processes
which are carried out independently by the learner, and that learning cannot be
in¯uenced or controlled from outside. Learning, like information processing,
is of a constructive nature: the learner constructs new knowledge by making
use of knowledge previously acquired and then integrates this new knowledge
into his knowledge base. In a way, this model con®rms theories put forward in
SLA research in which language learning is seen as a `creative construction
process' and in which the teachability of language is more or less denied (cf.
Pienemann, 1985).
Constructivist ideas on learning, which we will look at now, have their
origins in psychology and philosophy. In radical constructivist theories
developed by philosophers like Maturana (1982), Von Glasersfeld (1989)
and Schmidt (1986) it is claimed that reality is dependent on the human being
who perceives it. Reality is always created or constructed by man and exists
only subjectively in his brain. This, of course, means taking the ideas of
cognitive psychology a step further.
Jean Piaget was the ®rst psychologist who expressed similar ideas. In a way,
he can be considered as the father of modern constructivist ideas on learning.
Learning is described by constructivist psychologists as a construction process
which is controlled by the learner on the basis of his/her individual knowl-
edge. Consequently, it leads to different learning results for each learner.
There are no learning processes apart from the subjective construction of
meaning and the integration of this meaning into the experience the learner
has already gained. Learners construct personal meanings based on their
individual knowledge and experience. Learning necessitates the use of
speci®c, experience-based strategies in order to control the knowledge

construction process. It implies restructuring of knowledge already acquired.
Learning is an autonomous process of self-organisation and will only take
place if the learner assumes responsibility for it. Learning can be in¯uenced
only marginally by others, for example by teachers.
For reasons of space it is not possible to go into more detail. We believe we
have shown, however, that the concepts of strategy and autonomy which are
the basic concepts in the design of our software are deeply rooted in modern
learning theories.
4. A DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE LEARNING TOOL
In the following, we will give a more detailed description of our learning tool.
We will ®rst discuss the overall structure of the program which is modular,
then we will give a closer description of the different modules and end with a
few technical remarks.
4.1. Overall Structure of the Program
The program consists of four modules listed below. They focus on different
aspects of foreign language processing and learning:
Module 1: Learning to learn languages;
Module 2: Learning to use reading strategies;
Module 3: Exercises of reading strategies;
Module 4: Learning to use learning tools.
We will describe the modules in more detail in a moment. To begin with,
attention will be directed, however, to three typical aspects of the program:
1. Each module has a procedural orientation, i.e., in dealing with the
module the learner can acquire speci®c skills facilitating his L2 reading
process.
2. Each module can be dealt with separately by the learner without him having
to take recourse to any other module, but the learner can also move from one
module to another in the program. This ¯exible and open-ended structure of
the program makes it possible for the learner to decide what he intends to
work on without forcing him to follow a pre-de®ned learning path.
3. A third feature of the program is that the learner has access to a bank of
L2 texts which are related to the modules. The current data bank consists
of English texts taken mainly from economics and banking. At present,
there are about 200 texts available. The texts serve as examples for the
learner when he is trying to make use of the procedural knowledge he has
acquired.
4.2. Description of the Modules
Module 1
`Learning to learn languages', which is under construction, is designed as an
introduction to learning and language learning. Most university students have

learned a foreign language years ago in school. Normally their language
learning will have been very traditional, grammar-oriented and focused on
form. Often they are not aware of their learning processes and how to make
their own learning more ef®cient. As students, however, they are in a situation
in which they have to learn by themselves and where it is essential that they
know how to plan their learning processes, to organise their learning
environment and to recognise and analyse learning conditions. Most of
them are not able to do this and need help.
The module is designed to support students in their language learning
processes. It shows them how to analyse their own learning progress and gives
them examples on what actions to take in order to learn more ef®ciently.
Learners will be shown how to develop general strategic skills: setting up
learning aims, planning learning processes, choosing adequate learning
techniques, managing time constraints. Furthermore, skills necessary to
evaluate one's own learning processes and results are demonstrated. Module
1 aims at the development of independence, of learner autonomy as the
fundamental ability in all learning not only at university level. It is designed as
a kind of basic module, as a general introduction to learning.
Module 2
`Learning to use reading strategies' is the core module of the program and
therefore highly complex in its internal structure.
From L1 reading research we know that pro®cient L1 readers have a large
repertoire of miscellaneous reading strategies at their disposal which they use
in order to process texts. We also know that it seems to be dif®cult for them to
transfer these strategies into the L2 reading process. Reading strategies like all
skill-oriented strategies are in general highly automatised and therefore stored
at a fairly low level of consciousness (cf. Wolff, 1987). This lack of L1
strategy availability might have something to do as well with the problems
learners have with structural and lexical aspects of the foreign language. Some
researchers even assume that learners develop speci®c L2 reading strategies in
order to compensate for their lexical and structural de®cits. The rationale
behind module 2 is to help learners become more conscious of their reading
strategies: the most effective reading strategies which are geared to speci®c
levels of processing are presented in a comprehensible way. The strategies are
related to different texts from the data bank so that learners can try them out
while processing a speci®c text.
The module is divided into three types of strategies: strategies which refer
to word level, sentence level, and text level comprehension.
Word level strategies which, in general, are directed towards ®nding out the
meaning of unknown words, are differentiated according to a problem-solving
approach at the next level. The learner is expected to ask questions like:
(1) Is it really necessary to know the meaning of this speci®c word in order to
understand the text? (relevance)
(2) Is it possible to segment the word into different parts? (analysis)
(3) Is it possible to relate the word to the lexical knowledge of the learner's
®rst or another foreign language? (language knowledge)
(4) Is it possible to comprehend the meaning of the word through an analysis
of the context? (context)
Learners are provided either with speci®c strategies to solve a problem or with
data which are helpful in answering the questions asked. When the learner
decides, for example, that it is necessary to get to know the meaning of a
speci®c word he will be made familiar with the concept of inferencing
strategies through examples taken from different texts in the data base. If
the learner has dif®culties in segmenting an unknown word into different parts
he will be presented with a list of pre®xes and suf®xes which might give him
an indication of how to analyse the word. The pre®x/suf®x list contains, of
course, other examples but also the meanings of the different elements. In
order to detect the meaning of the unknown word the learner can also look at a
list of so-called `false friends' which contains examples of similar words in his
®rst language, German, and a list of so-called international words. Context
analysis is strategy-oriented; the learner is given examples of how to analyse
the context of a word and is thus encouraged to use this strategy.
Sentence level comprehension refers to three different clusters of strategies:
(1) judging the relevance of a sentence or part of a sentence with respect to the
whole text, (2) analysing a sentence grammatically (syntactic approach), and

(3) determining the sense of a sentence or part of a sentence (semantic
approach). This part of module 2 is not yet fully developed. We still have to
de®ne more clearly the strategies readers can use to perform these tasks.
Whereas in strategy cluster 1 students will have to use strategies which will
allow them to make common sense judgements, cluster 2 strategies will help
them to analyse the grammatical structure of sentences (analysis of function
words as parts of a sentence, analysis of clauses, building underlying
propositions). The strategies in the third cluster should help learners under-
stand a sentence from the meaning perspective: cause±effect, example,
comparison, de®nition, are among the categories learners are provided with
in order to better understand a sentence.
We know from comprehension research that pro®cient L1 readers usually
make use of these three strategy clusters as well. Generally they will ®rst
decide on the relevance of a sentence or part of a sentence for their
comprehension process. If they think that the sentence is relevant, they will
make use of their semantic strategies, and if they can't make sense of the
sentence they will analyse it grammatically.
Text level comprehension strategies are grouped under two headings: (1)
strategies which refer to the aim of the reading process, and (2) strategies
which help learners to activate their previous knowledge about the text.
University students, whatever their subject of study, will often want to vary
their reading strategies with respect to time constraints or to their speci®c
needs and goals. Sometimes they will read a text very carefully making use of
all the information it contains (reading for gist), sometimes they will just skim
a text in order to ®nd a speci®c piece of information, sometimes they will
super®cially go through a text in order to decide whether this text is interesting
to them. These different ways of reading demand different skills and
strategies: in super®cial reading the student needs to scan a text very quickly
for key words which might interest him; in the skimming process the
procedure is similar, the student has to recogniseÐoften from speci®c
graphical markers (words written in italics, in bold letters etc.)Ðwhether
the text contains the information he is looking for. Reading for gist as a
reading skill contains strategies which will help students recognise the overall
structure of the text and focus on the different meaning components.
Knowledge activating strategies comprise the following groups: (1) Stra-
tegies which trigger off already existing knowledge while the reader pays
attention to the title of the text or its overall topic. (2) Strategies which help the
student activate knowledge while he looks at a picture, a graph, an illustration,

a diagram. (3) Strategies which help the student focus on the overall structure
of the text and thus make him activate knowledge which will help him
understand the text. It should be clear that the knowledge activated through
these strategies is not only world knowledge, but also grammatical and textual
knowledge. It is important for a reader to activate all types of knowledge to
help him afterwards to go through the dif®cult processes of inferring and
constructing new knowledge which are the main activities during the com-
prehension process.
At this point we would like to underline that although the module seems to
look like a traditional strategy trainer it is, of course, different. We are trying to
make strategy acquisition multimedial, i.e., to make use of the other media
while explaining a speci®c strategy, showing the inherent processes of a
strategy in graphs, pictures, or even video clips (Fig. 1). Moreover, while
working with this module it will also be possible to liaise directly with all the
other modules in the program, for example, with the tool module (dictionaries
and other reference tools or a concordancer).
Module 3
`Exercises of reading strategies' is closely related to the module `Learning to
use reading strategies'. For each strategy presented in the second module there
are at least two activities in the third module which support the acquisition of
the speci®c strategies. They range from simple gap-®lling exercises to very
complex activities which the learner has to carry out. Some tasks require the
use of the reference tools or the concordancer. The solution of the exercises is
usually not simply available by a klick on a speci®c button but, as we really
want the learner to gain experience in the application of strategies, the
program often asks the user to give it a second try when the task has not
been solved correctly before the right answer is ®nally presented (Fig. 2).
Module 4
`Learning to use learning tools' includes two reference tools, a dictionary and
a basic grammar of the English language which is constructed according to a
simple signal grammar principle. The dictionary part of this module includes
the pre®x/suf®x component, a list of coherence markers, and the list of false
friends and international words which we mentioned already. In this module
also a concordancer is integrated which can be used for the analysis of English
words and sentences.
Figure 1. Using pre®xes to analyse the meaning of a word.
243 A MULTIMEDIA TOOL TO DEVELOP LEARNER AUTONOMY

244
A. GROû AND D. WOLFF

Figure 2. Activity for learning to use pre®xes for the analysis of the meaning of words.
The dictionary is based on a data bank consisting of almost 200 texts. The
texts contain about 6,000 different words. Not all of these words will be part of
the ®nal dictionary. Our intention is to reduce the dictionary to the most
common English words. We will, however, include all words of this list which
are used in a technical sense in one of the texts chosen. All words included in
the ®nal version of the dictionary will be represented as templates containing
the following features:
Word form: The word will be represented only in its lexematic form.
Dictionary search can take place in this ®eld or via an alphabetic list. The
use of wildcards is possible in search.
German translation of the lexeme.
Synonyms.
Paraphrase.
Example sentence.
Examples from the text corpus in a `concordanced'(KWIC) form.
Visualised or contextualised form of lexeme (picture, mind map,
associogram, diagram).
Possibility of modifying the dictionary. Users will be able to add entries to
the dictionary.
The pre®x/suf®x component is similarly structured. It contains two separate
alphabetical lists, one pre®x and one suf®x list. Each entry contains the
following information:
One or several examples, i.e., complex words which contain the suf®x or
pre®x.
One example sentence.
Explanation of the meaning of the pre®x or suf®x.
The user can look up pre®xes and suf®xes either by using the alphabetical list
or by typing in a form which he believes to be a pre®x or suf®x (Fig. 3).
The list of coherence markers and false friends is similarly structured.
Users can look at these words in an alphabetical list and will ®nd the
meaning(s) of each word, at least one context sentence and indications on
how to process this speci®c word.
The second part of module 4 contains a simple reference grammar. The
principles underlying this grammar, which has not yet been developed, are
derived from the so-called signal grammar which was developed in the 80s by
Figure 3. List of pre®xes.
A. GROû AND D. WOLFF 246

EFL practitioners in Germany. Advocates of this grammar believe that

grammatical structures can be recognised and analysed with recourse to
speci®c function words which learners have to keep in mind instead of the
complex grammatical rules of traditional grammar. We believe that this type
of grammar is suf®cient as a reference tool in order to help students with their
L2 reading process. From comprehension research we know that native
speakers often rely on signal words when they process a text.
The use of concordances in language learning is rather innovative when
looking at language learning from a traditional perspective. In `data-driven

learning'Ðan approach to language learning developed in Britain and mainly
practised at university levelÐconcordancers have been used for several years
as learning tools, however, and are becoming more and more popular.
The rationale behind the use of concordancing programs in language
processing and learning is to provide learners with additional data in order
for them to make better use of their processing strategies at word, sentence and
text level. By analysing a word in several contexts students will gain
experience in the use of their inferencing strategies in order to ®nd the
meaning of the word. By analysing the use of function words in larger contexts
they will learn to better understand the basic grammatical functions of these
words. And by looking at frequent content words in their contexts they will be
able to activate knowledge in order to better understand the contents of a text.
The third part of module 4 consists of such a concordancing program which
is connected to the text corpus underlying the software. Students can type
words or combinations of words into the program and will get all the contexts
of the word in the text corpus. The context (which normally comprises seven
words left and right of the key word) can be modi®ed in such a way that the
word is shown in a whole sentence. The concordancing program in this
module also serves to enrich the examples in the dictionary (Fig. 4).
4.3. Some Technical Remarks and Problems

One of the most interesting but also most problematic aspects of program
development was the choice of the programming tool. It took us several
months to come to a decision. In an earlier project we had been using
TOOLBOOK. Specialists told us, however, that in a multimedia environment
MACROMEDIA DIRECTOR would be a more suitable tool. We also consid-
ered AUTHORWARE into the selection process, but ®nally chose MACRO-
MEDIA although it becomes more and more obvious that this programming
language is highly complicated especially when it comes to embedding
Figure 4. Concordancer.
A. GROû AND D. WOLFF 248

special applications in the program (for example concordancers). MACRO-

MEDIA is also very dif®cult to handle with respect to the activities we want
students to do in order to come to grips with strategy use. Each type of activity
will have to be handled individually, which means a lot of programming effort.
Despite the fact that the developers working on this project are highly
experienced we have decided, in the course of the project, to ask programming
specialists to take over most of the software development work. Although this
is more expensive, on the whole it takes less time than to familiarise language
teaching specialists with the intricacies of a complicated programming

language. N.b., the research group involved in the project does know how
to handle these programming languagesÐthis is necessary in order to assess
the full potential of the tool. They do not, however, do the actual programming
but rather focus on the paper work: collecting materials, describing of
strategies, visualising of strategies, lexicographic work etc.
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A Multimedia Tool To Develop Learner Autonomy

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This article was downloaded by: [University of California Santa Cruz]

On: 20 November 2014, At: 11:19

Computer Assisted Language

A Multimedia Tool to Develop

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1076/call.14.3.233.5794

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A Multimedia Tool to Develop Learner Autonomy

In a number of recent publications (cf. Wolff, 1997, 1999) we rather severely

Correspondence: Prof. Dr. Dieter Wolff/Annette Groû, Bergische UniversitaÈt-GH Wuppertal,

guage studentsÐwith the dif®cult business of understanding texts in a foreign

2. GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT

It is almost a truism to say that foreign languages play a constantly growing

languageÐespecially in EnglishÐhas become an imperative requirement in

improving university students' foreign language skills. We believe that this

 Learners can extend and improve their foreign language pro®ciency

learning environment which is one of the central demands of constructivist

In our present project we are mainly interested in promoting reading skills

It is one of the most important assumptions in cognitive psychology that

speci®c, experience-based strategies in order to control the knowledge

4. A DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE LEARNING TOOL

4.2. Description of the Modules

introduction to learning and language learning. Most university students have

whole text, (2) analysing a sentence grammatically (syntactic approach), and

student activate knowledge while he looks at a picture, a graph, an illustration,

Figure 1. Using pre®xes to analyse the meaning of a word.

243 A MULTIMEDIA TOOL TO DEVELOP LEARNER AUTONOMY

A. GROû AND D. WOLFF

Figure 3. List of pre®xes.

A. GROû AND D. WOLFF 246

EFL practitioners in Germany. Advocates of this grammar believe that

looking at language learning from a traditional perspective. In `data-driven

4.3. Some Technical Remarks and Problems

A. GROû AND D. WOLFF 248

special applications in the program (for example concordancers). MACRO-

teaching specialists with the intricacies of a complicated programming

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Learners can extend and improve their foreign language pro®ciency