Instructor: Lenore Grenoble, Russian Department

Overview: The goal of the project is to create a set of programs that will be distributed to every Russian language student at Dartmouth. Essentially, the project over the next year would consist of three distinct portions: (1) to create a database, which would contain complete translation, lexical, and morphological information for a basic word list of several thousand Russian words, (2) to create a package of reference software to manipulate the above-mentioned database, including such items as a dictionary, verb-conjugator, and grammar tables; and (3) to create a basic set of exercises, building (as will be described below) on some of the previous experience at Dartmouth. Beyond the obvious English-Russian vocabulary drills, students will be able to obtain their own tables showing all the forms of any word with which they are having difficulties. On a more advanced level, it will be possible for students to work on drills that test specific forms they are studying (or to review forms that they have studied earlier).

Instructor: Lynn Higgins, French & Italian Department

Overview: The program Philippe, developed at MIT and published by Yale University Press, is an interactive, multimedia environment intended for second year French curriculum. The French & Italian Department, with support from Computing Services and the Language Resource Center (LRC), will modify Philippe in order to make it part of the Department’s curriculum. This will entail digitizing the 30 minutes of video and placing it on CD-ROM. The SuperCard stack that controls the video will be modified to use the digital video resources. Stations equipped with CD-ROM players will be set up in the Kiewit Instructional Center and the Language Resource Center. Initially, Philippe will be used in French 8, a course that combines practice in the active use of the language with an introduction to major aspects of French society. This project is being done in collaboration with MIT and Yale University Press.