Boris And MENTOR

The Application Of CAI

Abstract

This article gives a description of two different programs: (1) The Russian Language Tutor Program (RLTP - affectionately know as Boris) developed at Dartmouth College and used at Hollins College' (2) and MENTOR which is an authoring program that enables foreign language teachers with no previous computing experience to create their own lessons. RLTP was originally written in SBASIC for a Honeywell computer and now runs on a VAX 11/780. It is an interactive, bilingual program designed to teach general vocabulary and Russian inflection to college students in beginning and intermediate Russian classes. It is tied to a specific book, Russian for Everybody by V. G. Kostomarov. The FLTP output on the monitor is in transcription form. However, they have equipped one printer (a Decwriter II) with a SD 120 terminal controller card to permit it to output hardcopy in the Cyrillic alphabet. MENTOR was developed by Roland Sussex and his colleagues at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and is being tested at some selected colleges and universities in the U.S.