Shifting Paradigms,Shifting Sands: Interactive Multimedia for Language Learning

The advent of multimedia, which permits the integration of motion video in the computer environment, offers an opportunity to transform profoundly language-learning software. Interactive learning programs can now be truly communicative-based, because powerful computational tools allow learners to work with authentic materials that otherwise would be overwhelming. Video materials created from the outset with interactive objectives most fully exploit the potential of this emerging medium. DIRECTIONPARIS and NO RECUERDO, both components of the Athena Language Learning Project at MIT, embody this design philosophy.