Rosetta Stone is an online language learning program that is
offered free of charge at the Green Cove Springs Public Library. English learners learn at their own pace in
the language learning lab in private.
Participants have opportunities to explore literacy, career/job skills, American
culture and language, and pathways to citizenship. Patti Robbins is the ESOL Administrative
Support Assistant for the School District of Clay County. She helps community members register for a
free Rosetta Stone account.
Though nobody was working on the program during my visit, I learned what learners do while there. Learners log in to the program on the library computers and
can focus on reading, writing, or listening and speaking, depending on their
personal goals. The programs keeps track
of the progress the learners make. The Rosetta Stone software uses a combination
of images, text, and sound, with difficulty levels increasing as the student
progresses, in order to teach various vocabulary terms and grammatical
functions intuitively, without drills or translation. They call this the
"Dynamic Immersion method." According to the company, the software is
designed to teach languages the way first languages are learned (Wikipedia).
Works Cited
1992., & CD-ROM. (n.d.). Rosetta Stone
(software) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved March 20, 2012, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_St