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Using Microsoft Word as a tool.
.... As a
senior in my fourth year of studying
Japanese at the University
of Montana, I have to
do a lot of translations from Japanese to English. If the material I
need
to translate is not too long, I often type it first in MS Word before I
begin working on the translation. MS Word 97-2000© has a
comment (annotation)
feature that is very beneficial during my translations. Using this
comment
feature, I can insert comments such as definitions or partial
translations
of words and sentences within the Japanese document. For this
dictionary
software is very useful, allowing one to copy and paste definitions
complete
with example sentences right out of the dictionary. There are a number
of online dictionaries that can be very useful for this purpose, but by
far the most useful is Jim
Breen's
WWWJdic
project. Opening both the Japanese document
and the English document within Word, one can look at both documents at
the same time and work on the translation. With Word 97/98
you can open
the documents within one instance of Word and then have them line up
horizontally so that you can easily work on one document while
referring to
the other. [fig 1] However,
for some reason, Microsoft
removed this wonderful feature from Word 2000. With Word 2000
then,
perhaps the best method is to have your translation and the original
text in
the same document. Then you can SPLIT the window and work on
it in the
same way as you would with two documents in Word 97/98. 
.....To
understand the benefits of this
see figure 1 below. The
yellow highlighted sections are where comments
have been inserted. The yellow box, which looks very much like a sticky
note, is one of the comments. Comments appear automatically upon mouse
rollover. In this way a teacher can prepare material for students to
use
in a computer lab or language lab. Figure 1 shows the Japanese version
of Microsoft Word 97 running on the Japanese version of Windows 98. One
can accomplish the same with Japanese support installed for the English
version of Word 97/98 for reading the file and NJStar
Communicator ©, or some other Japanese language enabler, to go
along
with the English version of Word 97 to view the Japanese within the
comments.
The Japanese support software for Microsoft Office 97 can be found in
the
Valupak folder on MS Word 97/98 or Office 97 CDs and enables Word to
read
documents with Japanese text. The Japanese file
bellow was originally
made on a Japanese Windows 98 machine with Japanese MS Word 97. MS
Word 2000 and Windows 2000 and later now
has more complete Japanese support and extra software like
NJStar is no longer needed. Word 2000, and all MS Office 2000
applications and MS Internet Explorer and Outlook Express support the
Global
IME and support multi-lingual document editing. Therefore I
recommend
you use Word 2000 or later if you do not have a Japanese OS. Once you
have Word 2000
installed you'll need to enable Japanese support. From the
start menu go
to Microsoft Office Tools and select Microsoft Office Language Settings
and
make sure Japanese shows up in the Enabled Languages pane.
Don't worry
about the "Installed Version of Microsoft Office" drop-down
list. After installing the MS
Global IME for Japanese, you will be able to type in
Japanese and insert
and view comments in Japanese.
(Figure 1)
What's So Great About This?
If a teacher
were to use digital materials like this, students could progress
through the
material at a greatly
accelerated pace.
For the students and the class as a whole, using this method would cut
down on the amount of time usually spent on looking up unknown words in
one or more conventional paper dictionaries. The initial preparation
time for
the teacher may increase if the material needs to be typed but those
materials
could be saved and used again for future classes. And since no two
people
will translate an article or literary piece exactly the same, there is
little chance for students to copy one another's work. The work to be
studied
or translated could be made read-only so that the students could view
it
but could not alter the contents. I have also found that it is easy to
make a numbered list of all of the inserted comments from a document to
use as a vocabulary list. This list would be organized based on the
order
in which the comments were inserted into the document. [example1]
With the ease that this can be done, a teacher can prepare vocabulary
lists
to go along with an article or piece to be translated as hard-copy
handouts.
A Faster Way
Typing all of the
text into Word first and then adding
definitions is a time consuming process and not so practical.
Have no
fear, there are faster ways to create your digital materials.
One is by
finding the materials that you want on the web and then pasting that
text into
Word. Now you have the text, how do you quickly get the
definitions into
the text? Use Jim Breen's online
dictionary!! You can paste an entire article, story, or URL
into this
wonderful dictionary and it will look up all of the Kanji in it and
give you a
page with most of the words translated for you. You can then
copy this
text and add it to the end of your document. You can also use
Japanese OCR software to quickly transform hard copies into digital
copies and then use the obove methods to make study materials.
Using the Internet
.....The
Internet is a great resource
for researching any topic one could think off. It is particularly
useful
for education. There are myriad different sites
dedicated to education and language acquisition. The majority of these
are very simple sites that only cover a basic introduction to Japanese.
Some use video and sound to teach the stroke order and pronunciation of
the kana and kanji scripts.
Some even offer quizzes and feedback
via e-mail. These are all good examples of how people are trying to use
this new technology for education. However, these are all directed
towards
the individual who is interested in studying the language.
How can educators use the Internet or HTML (1)
for education?
.....Educators
are already using the Internet
and HTML for education in many ways, like having students do research
or
conduct treasure hunts. These types of activities are good in that the
use of computers and the Internet 1) help to build essential skills
that
may be needed for the future and 2) help to maintain student interest.
As a teaching tool, the content that is available online can help
students
learn a topic deeply and three dimensionally through the use of text,
graphics,
video, sound and conversing with other teachers and students from
around
the world.
Teachers can also build their own web pages specifically
designed to
teach a specific topic. Kenji
Otsuka at Date
Middle School uses HTML in a Language Lab where the students
can see
the web pages on TV screens as an aid in teaching English grammar
points.
(To Otsuka's
site.) While his work is still quite simple, it shows how web
pages
can be set up in a way that can utilize question and answer type
teaching
along with a visually stimulating environment. More ambitious teachers
can include sound, video and pictures to enhance the effectiveness of
their
material.
Virtual
Classrooms? MOO.
.....A
virtual text based world where
people could come together from anywhere in the world and interact with
one another was originally developed as a Multi-User Dungeons and
Dragons
role-playing game (MUD). It was not that difficult for educators to see
the possibilities of the MUD and to transform the dungeons and caves
into
seminar rooms using what is now called a MOO
(Multi-User
Domain, Object-Oriented). "The conferencing features are powerful in
bringing
together people from over a distance; they are no substitute for the
real
classroom -- or are they? Suppose you wanted to experiment with a class
discussion that didn't have a visible authority figure in it? You could
set up a MOO so that you logged in yourself invisibly, or under a
studently
pseudonym. Suppose you wanted to have a place where language students
could
go and "converse" in the target language, but by typing rather than
speaking,
and do so at all hours of the day or night? Suppose you wanted on-line
"office hours" for you or a TA from ten to midnight the night before a
big exam? The possibilities are endless."(2)
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Virtual Environments
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NTT's Virtual Edo
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| These
virtual environments originally existed
only in a text based format. However, now there are several visual
virtual
environments on the web were individuals can go and interact with
others
through text, graphical characters on screen and even through voice and
video. |
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**Update**
NTT has discontinued its Exploring Edo site. **
With NTT's Exploring Edo, along with the Interspace
(c) browser, a teacher could hold a class session within the virtual
Edo.
Each student, including the teacher, would have a headset with a
microphone
and could even optionally have a digital video camera so that students
and teacher could communicate in the target language, here Japanese, in
a graphical virtual environment. With virtual Edo, being placed in a
Japanese
setting, students of Japanese could not only study the language but
could
learn about Japanese culture as well. This could be done in a language
lab with high speed access to the Internet with a class and anyone else
who wanted to participate could login from anywhere in the world.
Students
could interact with native speakers as well as other students and
teachers
of Japanese from around the world.
.....One
advantage of a virtual space like
this, especially if it is a text based environment, is that students
who
would normally be too shy to speak up may, when the fear of performing
in front of a group is gone, speak out more than usual. A teacher could
login to the world without notifying the students that he/she was
indeed
the teacher, and help to foster conversation at the same time as the
student's
progress is monitored.
Electronic Mail
Many teachers, particularly at colleges and
universities, are taking
advantage of e-mail to keep in touch with friends, family, colleagues
and
students. Teachers shouldn't overlook the benefits of using e-mail to
keep
an open dialog with their students. E-mail lists can be setup to serve
as a forum for discussion of particular projects or topics.
Technological Barriers
Currently there is not a large variety of software
readily available
to people outside of Japan that can reliably handle Japanese. Microsoft
has been the best at breaking down these language barriers that have
prevented
the active use of computers and the Internet for the serious study of
Japanese.
Now, computers bought in America do not come with support for any Asian
language. However, software to enable web browsers and Microsoft
Ourlook
to view and even type Japanese is free for download from Microsoft.
Microsoft
also includes support for Microsoft Office 97 but this only enables the
English version of Office 97 to read files produced by Japanese
versions
of Office 97 components with only limited functionality. However, all
this
is changing. Microsoft will soon release its newest version of
Microsoft
Office. With the new version, Office applications will be able to read,
edit and create documents in every language that Microsoft has versions
for, including Japanese. There will no longer be separate versions of
Microsoft
Office for specific languages because the one version will not only be
able to work with each language, but will also be able to display menus
and help in every language as well. This sounds like a lot for one
software
package to try and accomplish, however even if the first version of
this
newest version is a failure, the bugs will eventually be worked out,
effectively
removing any language barriers were software is concerned and opening
up
new possibilities for using computers for language education and
international
dialog.
Conclusion
When educators get together and talk about using technology
in the
classroom they are usually referring to computers and the Internet.
However
technology can be more than just what we consider high technology such
as computers. In the not too distant past, high technology was
typewriters,
overhead projectors, slide projectors and the amazing electronic
calculators.
Before that it was television, reel to reel projectors, chalkboards and
the abacus. |
