Gillian Lord, chair of the Spanish and Portuguese Studies department, told Rosetta Stone she was trained to hate the company because it was trying to put her out of a job. Her newest study is about to put that idea to the test.
This semester, 21 students taking Beginning Spanish 1 at UF are voluntarily taking the course using Rosetta Stone, the language learning computer software, instead of going to class.
“Anybody who finds out that I teach Spanish — one of the first things people say after asking me to say something in Spanish is, ‘Does Rosetta Stone really work?’“ Lord said.
Lord received a $12,000 grant from UF’s Humanities Scholarship Enhancement Fund to compare the proficiency of three test groups. The test groups include students using only the software, students going to class using Rosetta Stone as a textbook supplement and students in a traditional class using the assigned textbook.
“We’re not trying to eliminate beginning Spanish,” Lord said. “It’s not going anywhere. We’re just looking at what works and what doesn’t.”
Students in the class-exempt section will be required to attend four meetings to assess their progress. Students in all sections will take a proficiency test at the end of the semester, she said.
“My hunch is that there are things that [the Rosetta Stone students] will be able to accomplish very well, but when it comes to interpersonal interaction, they might not advance as well as the others,” she said.
Carlos Enrique Ibarra is the teaching assistant assigned to teach both the hybrid class using Rosetta Stone as the textbook supplement and the traditional class.
“Technology can be used in very effective ways,” he said. “If you compare how much both groups have learned so far, even though the [Rosetta Stone textbook class] seem to be at more ease speaking, they have learned much less. [The regular textbook students] are a little more scared. They feel a little more pressure, but they have learned a lot more.”
John Robinson, a second-year law student who is in the class-exempt section, said he feels accountable when sitting in class with a teacher and peers.
“Rosetta Stone is just a computer, so you don’t feel that bad if you get it wrong,” he said.
