Categorization Tutoring Systems

Tutoring systems can be defined as programs which try to teach various issues about language. These could also be called "classic" language learning programs. Rüschoff, Bernd ; Wolff, Dieter, 1999 define this class of programs as having the main task to give the learner to opportunity to train lexemes and grammatical structures of a foreign language.

Some characteristics are mentioned in the following.

In traditional CALL-systems there is a certain range of possible exercises. Multiple choice, gap-filling or sorting tasks are used in a lot of variants. This is primarily done to learn vocabulary. In some programs these exercises are also associated with certain grammatical phenomena, which are especially trained. Examples are the use of articles in German or AcI-constructions in English. These exercises often include some help-system, in case the learner does not know what to do either using the program or working on the exercise. At the end of a unit or at the end of the program often a test can be done which is different from the exercises in that the system responds only after the completion of the test and does not provide any help in between. Since computers nowadays can also be used to record sound, a new type of exercise emerged. Some systems have a function build in, which allows a recording to be analysed, i.e. matched to stored patterns. The learner can record his voice and the system then can tell the learner in how much of a percentage his recording diverges from the stored "correct" pattern.

Usually tutoring systems first provide some information either as text or as a soundfile. This information should be understood or learned by the user. Some help-functions are usually also provided. After reading or hearing a text an exercise follows based on the text. A "text" in the sense here can mean anything from a dialog or poem to a scientific text or any other coherent piece of language. Newer programs also include videos, which should be understood by the learner in order to work on subsequent exercises.

Multiple-Choice- and Fill-In-exercises and variants thereof are still the most used type. Even though nowadays multimedia and mouse enhance the old text-keyboard-based exercises, the general structure has not changed much. E.g. fill-in-exercises can now be realised in a drag-and-drop-manner. The addition of multimedia in these programs has changed the structure of the exercises, which the learner has to do, only very little. Even though he might now hear a text, he still has to show his understanding by doing multiple-choice questions.

As mentioned at the beginning students can learn at their on pace, i.e. there isn't a teacher who puts pressure on them to finish on time. Also a program can present the exercises many times (tireless) if some of the tasks were not solved correctly. This means, that the learner can be sure, that no topic will be forgotten.

Students can get immediate feedback. With the above mentioned exercises it is simple to implement the code for answer checking and reacting to the learner's input. Some slightly more explorative exercises include text-reconstruction and sentence-switching. Nevertheless the programs usually provide some feedback for these exercises, too.

Another main characteristic feature of this type of program is that the learner is lead through the program by a tutor-like guidance-system. This guidance-system is usually based on a fixed path through the content, which might be altered be the completion or not-completion of previous exercises. However this does not mean, that the specific results from working on the exercises are used but rather that simply the learner is reminded of an earlier section if there are exercises not solved so far or answered wrongly.