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I teach ESL classes to young adults, who speak many different languages. We have the Rosetta Stone program at our school, the newest version,  3, which is voice interactive. It is a good program, and I encourage my students to use it But I've never seen a student learn become proficient in English by completing the Rosetta Stone program, only. It needs to be used in conjunction with a program. I have had students  omplete all three levesl of the program, and ask me to put them back in at the beginning so they can do it again. One good feature is that it allows you to individualize curriculum  such as the amount of practice allowed, or the standards for passing scords. 

 The Rosetta Stone  uses a 'whole language' approach to teach a language. That is, they do not explicitly teach the principles and rules: they give you examples of them, and you  have to infer the rules, yourself. For this reason, I believe strongly that while the program is helpful, it will not teach you English , or any language,  all by itself. They seem to imply that it will do this in their ads.  Used in conjunction with a program that teaches language according to the newest research based methods, the SIOP method and the GLAD, it can be very helpful. I just completed  the coursework for my ESL endorsement, and I see great results when I use these methods with my students.

posted 3 years, 4 months ago
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