Interactive Programs for a Multilingual Environment

Abstract

Teaching in an environment in which more than one language is spoken is becoming increasingly common. Instructional software must be prepared to meet the needs of teachers in bilingual and multi-lingual environments. Many software developers have taken the approach of preparing multiple versions of their materials. One version is completed for each spoken language in which the material is presented. Because instruction with computer technology can be interactive, creating a new version for each language is not necessary. Instead, one can create an instructional program which is able to change the language of the on-screen presentation with a simple keystroke. By structuring the computer program to allow for this type of multi-lingual interaction additional languages can be added easily. We have experimented with two approaches. Each has advantages and disadvantages, but both offer easy changing of the on-screen language of presentation by the user.