University of Texas Austin - Cactus Yearbook (Austin, TX)

EDUCATION Computers Speak in Foreign Language Waneen Spirduso Physical and Health Education Dr. Waneen Spirduso ' s commitment to the field of physical education could be trac- ed back to her junior high school years when she became increasingly involved in various athletic activities. Spirduso ' s interest in sports carried over into college; she received her bachelor ' s and master ' s degrees in physical education. Spirduso ' s single overriding philosophy in teaching all aspects of physical education was that programs should be based on scien- tific information. She said the most in- telligent way to teach P.E. involved understan ding how the human body operates and moves. Only then, claimed Spirduso, could P.E. specialists effectively teach people to make modifications in their physical performance. Spirduso spent a great deal of time researching and writing about these scientific principles. After receiving her college degrees, Spir- duso taught for four years at Boston Univer- sity ' s Sergeant College for Physical Educa- tion and Therapy. She then returned to Texas and worked at Bellaire High School in Houston as a P.E. instructor. The following year, Spirduso enrolled in the Unitersity of Texas once again and in 1966 receiver her doctorate in P.E. After teaching for two years at North Texas State University, Spir- duso accepted a teaching position at UT. Besides breaking technological barriers, computers helped break the language bar- rier. A computer-assisted course in Arabic enabled students to learn and master the writing and sound system of modern Arabic in one -third of the time it took students in a conventional classroom. Dr. Victorine C. Abboud, assistant professor of education and director of the computer-assisted in- struction laboratory (CAI) of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, also claimed that the CAI-students scored higher on exams than those from the classroom. Abboud offered the first computer- assisted course in Arabic in 1971. Eight years later she developed a CAI program for elementary Arabic vocabulary and com- prehension. In 1981-82, she originated a pro- gram for intermediate Arabic. Whereas the elementary program taught approximately 1,200 vocabulary words, the intermediate level expanded that to 2,500 words. This ad- ded vocabulary enabled greater student- computer interaction, thus giving the stu- dent improved language skills. Abboud had to create a computer pro- gram with correct proportions and careful curves that could be related to the 28-letter Arabic alphabet. She had to consider that Arabic reads right to left, that many letters had numerous forms depending on place- ment in the word and that there were diacritical points and slashes in the writing. Abboud ' s project was supported by a three-year, $228,957 grant from the division of educational programs of the National En- dowment for the Humanities. One purpose of the grant Abboud considered to be to ad- vance the " state of the art " in the use of computers for education, especially in teaching languages with non-Latin script. Abboud saw one of the benefits of the program as more interaction between stu- dent and teacher (computer). " This interac- tion is proving to be a valuable tool in in- struction. Foreign language learning involves the establishment of a set of habits that must be so well learned they function automatically, " she said. Abboud believed that the computer- assisted approach was applicable to languages other than Arabic. She said that foreign language study would be more at- tractive to students if the instruction were more personalized and the learning time reduced. In addition to uses in colleges, Ab- boud mentioned other adaptations for computer method: " for Peace Corps person- nel, business people, diplomats, engineers and other professionals working in the Mid- dle East, " she said. / I I 9 .?.. f:f-.*,l.f This keyboard with symbols for both Latin and Arabic writing systems is used in the CAI lab at Wooldridge. radtan -. - V . > .- r; rv . v *p*** Abboud answers question in the CAI lab. 106 Education