COWPAT REVIEWS

Real English Interactive Level 1 - Two CD-ROMs The Marzio School and Ipse Communication 1999 ***COMPETITION*** WIN 5 SETS OF REAL ENGLISH CD-ROMS!!!   Michael Marzio Biography and Interview   The Cowpat Comeback - (The author replies)

GOLDEN COWPAT AWARD

"Real English is based on a large number of high quality video clips of street interviews - people being themselves and speaking naturally in many English-speaking countries. At the same time, it is strictly organized grammatically, making the fun and spontaneity accessible to beginners. The interactive version on CD-ROM includes 8 different types of exercises, some based on voice recognition, which put all four skills to work: listening, speaking, reading and keyboarding." (from the blurb)

REAL ENGLISH

You might say 'Oh, it's going to be so realistic that our student's aren't going to understand a word'. Not so. Quite apart from the fact that the copious exercises make sure the students really get familiar and comfortable with each dialogue, the Realism is what counts here. I haven't seen such warmth and naturalness on any other language learning CD, and I've seen a lot. Here's how it works:

[Important note: Don't be suspicious about the gushing tone. When a product wins the prestigious Golden Cowpat Award, it's because we LOVE it! And because it meets our exacting criteria: original, pedagogically flawless (well, almost), obviously a personal work by someone who is passionate about what he or she is doing and, above all, fun to use.]

There are two CDs in the package and the level is beginner and false beginner. Levels 2, 3 and 4 are planned for later in '99 and 2000. The creator, Michael Marzio, has his own language school in the south of France and has been in the business for quite a while.

The CDs are easy to set up, and my version used a typical Windows install program, including adding the shortcut to the main programs menu. Real English prefers a screen resolution of 640 x 480, although it worked fine when I set my screen to 800 x 600. So although younger users will have to reset their screens to the lower resolution, (haha, only kidding, all you grannies and granddaddies out there, most educational establishments still seem to be stuck in 14 inch hell...!) this at least means that everyone will be able to use the software.

Boring techy stuff over with, the program is child's play to use. There is a comprehensive presentation of the package and a very good help index, telling you everything you need to know. But hey, who needs it?! Just go to the main menu, click on one of the lessons, and off you go! One user-friendly feature is that when recording your voice you press the mouse button down, speak, and then release when you've finished. Better than some CD-ROMs where you only have a certain time to speak and if you miss the bus, you gotta queue up all over again. Easy, easy, easy.

The program is so simple to use you almost forget (from a teacher's point of view) how much depth and variety there is here.

There are twelve lessons (six per CD) as follows:

Forget the tenses! Here we're talkin' about talkin' - the first things you say when you meet people!

Leave the present simple and continuous to those with nothing better to do with their time, although Michael will probably kill and roast me if I omit to mention the exceptionally clear and comprehensive grammar notes included with every lesson. I said it was (almost) pedagogically perfect, didn't I?

Oh, stop press. Just talked to Mr Real English himself and he says that in fact there are several lessons on the present simple and continuous in 'set 2', due out before the end of the year. So there!

A typical lesson includes the following elements:

• A presentation of all the videos
• The videos individually
• New vocabulary
• Grammar notes
• Exercises
• More presentations, additional videos, exercises, etc.

Almost every time you can play a video you can also listen to it bit by bit and record your own voice. Then you compare your version to the original, and in Real Englishland, that means natural spontaneous speech, rather than some ultra-clear, over-articulating plummy actor. I'm being a bit harsh on other CD-ROMs. Sorry!

It's nice that you can see all the videos from one unit in one go, before deciding which one to work on. Each video clip is short and snappy, and often surprisingly funny. The personalities of the interviewees really come across, and the people are completely... Real. And the humour is everywhere...

Reminds me of the old joke: "That's no lady. That's my wife!" But anyway.

There's plenty of variety in the exercises, including everything you'd expect from a modern CD-ROM. Pick and choose from gap-fills, drag and drop and multiple choice, and work on things like word order, opposites, synonyms and written and oral comprehension.

Voice recognition is an integral part of the Real English package. Typically the user is given a choice of expressions and has to choose the correct one after watching one of the videos. They can then either choose their answer by clicking or by speaking. The latter lets them work on their pronunciation, and each attempt is greeted with some chirpy little comment from the computer. Get it right, and you hear something like "Now you get it!" but a mistake is worth anything from "Give it another shot", "Try again" and "You can do better than that" to "Oh well. Nobody's perfect" and even "Whaddya say? Maybe it's time for a break" accompanied by a heavy sigh. More of that humour! Luckily there's a button which lets you set the pronunciation acceptability threshold to suit the awfulness level of the learner's accent.

Not all is roses, however, and you notice the odd hint of discord, or slight exasperation, mainly, unfortunately, when talking to my fellow countrymen and women, the Scots. There's the trim little Scots lady, called Irene, who gets noticeably, erm, patient, as she spells her name for the second time. And then there's dour old Ken, who manages to say 'I'm in charge of security at the castle here' without so much as moving his lips or changing his facial expression.

One of Real English's strong points, and perhaps one of its only restricting features, globally speaking, is that there is no English-only version at present. An integral characteristic of the CDs is that the glossary and help files are in the native language of the learner, and the languages currently supported are French, German and Spanish.

This means that the learner doesn't feel completely lost if he or she doesn't know a word or can't understand something. They just access the help files or read the instructions which are in their own mother tongue. Michael Marzio is aiming to produce versions in more of the major languages (Portugese and Mandarin versions are currently in the works), and it is quite feasible to use the CDs as they are, whatever the student's original language. Most of the features, like the listening, comprehension exercises and speaking are completely mother-tongue independent.

As well as the many video clips, the range of accents covered is impressive. Both the interviewer and the interviewee's origins are shown on the screen and there are people from all over the world, including England, Scotland, Ireland, the States, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand as well as non-native speakers from places like Italy and Iran.

This diversity has been put to good use to illustrate the various accents that learners may encounter. In the unit on numbers, Edwina's New Zealand 'six' sounds to my ears like a curious cross between 'sex' and 'sucks', but the learner isn't left to go around uttering obscenities every time he wants to buy a few eggs. On the same screen we find Mary saying the numbers in a more, err, less New Zealand accent, and 'sucks' has become 'six' once again. Forgive me, Kiwis, you know I mean no harm!

He's also got quite an eye for the girls too, has our Mr Marzio. Let's say that the video sequences are, on the whole, 'aesthetically pleasing', from a shamelessly masculine point of view, I'm afraid. But hey, I'm a man, right! Hang on... Yep. I'm a man! I've even fallen in love with 'Dawn', one of the girls from lesson 1, and all she does is say 'Hello' and give the cutest little giggle!

You can restart the lessons from where you left off automatically, and there's a cheery little 'Goodbye' every time you quit the program. It all helps. The  bilingual glossary gives translations, definitions and examples in the learner's mother tongue and they are often illustrated by the videos in which they appear. You can record and compare here too. There are also complementary alphabet and number practice screens.

The video clips themselves encapsulate the feeling of this package. They're charming, funny and - I have to say it again - so Real. You never feel as though you're doing an English course with the Real English CDs; it's more like you've just met a lot of friendly people, all ready to help you practise and improve.

Although for beginners, this CD could be used enjoyably and usefully by more advanced learners, especially the voice recording and the fact that this is English as it is spoken by the natives, and as such is a few light years away from the typical beginner's book dialogues. I can't resist mentioning the busy businessman from unit 12, rushing along stuffing a sandwich into his mouth and answering the interviewer's question as he flashes by, oblivious to the fact that she is sticking a huge microphone into his face at the same time.

And then there's the typical English gent who answers, quite naturally, I'm sure, "I'm afraid I don't know the way to Southgate Street. I'm a comparative stranger here myself. Thank you very much." before raising his hat to the interviewer and going on his way.

It restores your faith in teaching.

But why all this pervasive good will and bonhomie? Why's everyone so blooming cheerful? After some thought I've got a possible answer. How would you feel if one day, just out doing your shopping and walking along, someone with a pair of headphones suddenly jumps on you from out of the blue, sticks a big woolly microphone under your nose and asks you to say the alphabet? Or spell your name? Or describe the person you're with using three adjectives? Bemused? No... Amused? Yes! So they all smile. And laugh. And give cute little giggles <sigh>. There's an incredible warmth coming out of these brief encounters that made me smile almost continuously and often laugh out loud. Maybe it's the unexpectedness of the situation the people find themselves in. Maybe the student will be able to imagine himself in that position too and get just as much pleasure.

Oh. Michael's just shattered my great theory, unfortunately, by informing me that he neither jumped on, nor stuck his microphone under the noses of anyone. He acted at all times with propriety and decorum, he assures me, and the reason everyone is so happy, apparently, is that about 5 million miserable mumblers ended up on the cutting room floor. A Real English CD-ROM producer's lot is not an easy one!

Well done for an excellent product, an obvious labour of love (we appreciate that here at The Farm), and one that has really paid off. Thank you Real English.

***COMPETITION***
WIN 5 SETS OF REAL ENGLISH CD-ROMS!!!

Visit the Real English Web site

The Cowpat Comeback - (Michael Marzio replies)

Wow. What a review! I almost wish Sab could have found lots of stuff he DIDN'T like so as to   appear more "objective". One thing is for sure, Real English is not as real as it seems. The world is not this cheery unfortunately. We had to interview hundreds and hundreds of people in fact, and then choose those who answered with a smile. Which leads me to my most important acknowledgement: thanks again to all of you who appear in our videos. It was only because you were natural, and took the time to speak to us, that Real English has become a reality.

I worked with a lot of different people to produce the videos and CD-ROMs, and the "About" clip on the CD-ROM covers all the bases for that part of the project, but I especially want to mention my programmer partner Richard Rivot, who pulled off the nearly impossible: making a bug-free program in a world created by Microsoft, and Roger Godfrey, for creating original bits of music that seem to fit in perfectly, and Charlie McBride, man of many talents, for participating in the early phases of preliminary editing and logging (thankless tasks). The list goes on and on. Interviewers like Paul Hower and Helen King really warmed up to people and brought out the best in them, and a dozen teachers here at the Marzio School whose voices are constantly heard in Real English just add to the fun.

Thanks for the review, Mr. Will. Now that the rush of your review is beginning to clear from my head, I can continue working on CD-ROMs 3 and 4.

Michael Marzio

Visit the Real English Web site