as a robot questioner when a learner does the self-learning of English. In the following an account is given of how to use ReadPlease as a robot reader & questioner in Terada Method.
A statement, two questions, and two answers are given below for example which are a part of Step 4 AT THE STATION in my guide as per Terada Method to The Basic Teacher by L.W. Lockhart.
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I go to my office in a train.
Where do I go ?
You go to your office.
How do I go ?
You go in a train.
In his self-learning a learner wants to hide "You go to your office." and then see if he is able to say "You go to your office." in answer to "Where do I go ?" But if he finds it hard to say "You go to your office." he wants to look at "You go to your office", which has been hided till then. Thus if he is able to let "You go to your office." appear and disappear as he likes and "I go to my office in a train. Where do I go ?" are American voiced, it will be a great help to him. The same thing is able to be said when "You go in a train." is given in reply to " How do I go ?
The operation of ReadPlease is simple as mentioned below.
The above statement, questions, and answers are selected. You put cursor at the head end of "I go to my office in a train." and click the cursor and move it a little to the right as it is till "I go" or a little more or less is masked as shown in below.
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I go to my office in a train.
Where do I go ?
You go to your office.
How do I go ?
You go in a train.
Then you put the cursor at the back end of "You go in a train." and click the cursor with your PC shift key being pushed. Then all the letters are masked as shown below. This is selection. If you want to select a certain group of letters, all you will have to do is to put your cursor at the head end of the group and click the cursor and move the clicked cursor a little to the right as it is. Then you give the head of the group of letters a little mask. After this, you put your cursor at the back end of the group of letters and click the cursor with your PC shift key being pushed. Then you mask, namely, select the whole part of the group of letters.
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I go to my office in a train.
Where do I go ?
You go to your office.
How do I go ?
You go in a train.
In the top tool bar of the window opened in your computer, in which the above statement, questions and answers are put, you see the word, Edit. You click Edit and then you get a pull down menu and see the word, Copy in the menu. Now you click Copy. Then all those letters in the window are copied.
Now you look at the window of ReadPlease, which is formed of Clipboard, Top Tool Bar, and Left and Right Side Tool Bars. In Top Tool Bar you see Edit. You click Edit. Then you open a pull down menu, where you see the word "Paste". You click Paste. Then all the above copied letters are pasted to Clipboard as shown below.
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I go to my office in a train.
Where do I go ?
You go to your office.
How do I go ?
You go in a train.
Then in the way above mentioned you select "I go to my office in a train. Where do I go ? You go to your office." This is as shown in below.
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I go to my office in a train.
Where do I go ?
You go to your office.
How do I go ?
You go in a train.
You click Selection button on Left Side Tool Bar. Then the speaker's voice talks "I go to my office in a train. Where do I go ? You go to your office." When the talk voice comes to the end of the mask, the voice and mask disappears.
Next you select "I go to my office in a train. Where do I go ?" And you clear "You go to your office." as shown below by clicking Clear in the pull down menu after you get the menu with your click of Edit in Top Tool Bar.
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I go to my office in a train.
Where do I go ?
How do I go ?
You go in a train.
You click Selection button on Left Side Tool Bar. Then the speaker's voice talks "I go to my office in a train. Where do I go ? The mask is cleared in the same way as above mentioned.
Then you try to answer "You go to your office." in your voice. In order to see if your answer is correct, you click "Undo" in the pull down menu which you get by clicking "Edit" in Top Tool Bar. Then "You go to your office." appears as shown below.
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I go to my office in a train.
Where do I go ?
You go to your office.
How do I go ?
You go in a train.
If you want to clear "You go to your office." you click "Redo" in the Edit pull down menu and then "You go to your office." disappears as shown below.
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I go to my office in a train.
Where do I go ?
How do I go ?
You go in a train.
In order to repeat the practice, it is done over again to make the selection of "I go to my office in a train Where do I go ?"and the talk of it with your click of Selection button on Left Tool Bar. Every time you click "Undo" and "Redo", Undo lets words appear and Redo lets them disappear though the words have to be cleared at first by clicking "Clear" in the Edit pull down menu.
The operation is the same as above mentioned when you do the practice to answer "You go in a train." in reply to "How do I go ?" But the selection has to be made until "How do I go ?" is masked as shown below because selection is unable to jump. When the speaker's voice comes to the end of "How do I go ?" you try to answer, "You go in a train.", which was hid but now you let out as shown below to see if your answer is correct.
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I go to my office in a train.
Where do I go ?
You go to your office.
How do I go ?
You go in a train.
The self-learning is better when it is done with a look at letters except the letters of each present answer in Clipboard and your hearing of the voice to come from ReadPlease than the self-learning which you do by hiding each answer under a bit of card on a page where the conversation is printed. It is because you naturally give more attention to the sound of voice than to letters on Clipboard and so you feel as if you were self-learning without looking at letters.
All the letters pasted to Clipboard are able to be saved in My Readings. For this you click "Save As" in File pull down menu which you get click "File" on Top Tool Bar. Then you will see a window to save files in My Readings. In the window you put a file name in the file name box and then you click "Save" button which you see next to the file name box. Then the so named file is saved in My Readings. If you click "Open" in the File pull down menu, you see a window to open any one of files in My Readings. Then you see the file name, which you saved, in the window. You click the file name there and click "Open" button down there. Then the saved file is opened in Clipboard.
The above mentioned way of copying data and pasting them is commonly done from one window off line to another window off line or from one window on line to another window off line. A window off line is in a condition in which the window is not connected to internet. A window on line is that the window is connected to internet.
Font and the speaker's talk speed are able to be adjusted by clicking Buttons on Right Side Tool Bar and sliding the clicked buttons by an amount, which you want, within a fixed range.
Stop and Pause buttons are on Left Side Tool Bar. The click of Stop button puts a stop to the speaker's voice. The click of Pause button stops the speaker's voice and the reclick of Pause button gets the voice started from where the voice came to a stop.
A change is made in speakers by choosing either right or left directed Sign and clicking the chosen Sign in either the right or left direction on Right Side Tool Bar.
Free ReadPlease is able to be used as a robot reader & questioner for the above mentioned self-learning though it gives less natural voice than charged Read Please Natural Voice.
It is certain that any better use of ReadPlease is totally dependent on what data we are able to put in ReadPlease. The data as per Terada Method makes ReadPlease work as an interesting conversation robot controlled by a learner for his self-learning.
End
Saburo Terada
Saitama Prefecture
Dec. 6, 2004
Back to: Basic Teacher Guide
Last updated August 11, 2005