Language Crafter: A Foreign Language Word Processor and Word Game Package

Abstract

One of my biggest challenges as a high school Spanish teacher is getting students to absorb great quantities of vocabulary. Because our text is mainly grammar-based, I enhance each unit with a group of vocabulary words relating to a particular topic. For example, with the first textbook unit I add the words for classroom objects, with unit two we also learn the words for the parts of the human body, then the words for clothing, furniture, food, animals, etc. For each different topic I usually give the students about thirty vocabulary words. After initially introducing the words using the TPR (Total Physical Response) method, we then practice the words daily in class in a variety of ways and continue to review frequently throughout the year. This is where LANGUAGE CRAFTER really proves to be a fine teaching aid. LANGUAGE CRAFTER is a word processor and word game generator all in one convenient package that makes it easy to compose work sheets and make up word games in four different languages: English, Spanish, French and German. After trying several other word processors and word game software, I am convinced that this program is by far the easiest, fastest, and the most flexible. I know of no other that combines so many features on one disk. In addition to its word processor, which is extremely user-friendly, the program will generate the following games: crossword puzzles, wordsearch puzzles, Bingo cards and scrambled words. LANGUAGE CRAFTER was developed by Dr. Steven Schonefeld, a mathematics and computer science professor at Tri-State University, in response to my complaints about not being able to find a word processor that incorporates the special Spanish characters such as fi, -i or ii. His solution was MATH TEXT (Huff Software). How can a word processing program originally designed for mathematicians and scientists be adapted for foreign language? Actually, it was created to make it easy to type special characters such as the Greek letters ot, 3, y, etc., so it was a simple step to modify the font set of MATH TEXT to include the characters needed for Spanish. Thus LANGUAGE CRAFTER uses the powerful MATH TEXT editor to view, edit, and print the word puzzles. My Spanish students are always eager to play word games, especially when the reward is extra credit. Thanks to its editing feature, I can make these simple and familiar games into a highly motivating teaching tool. The four games, along with some interesting variations to make them more challenging, are detailed below.