by John Higgins
CELT, University of Stirling
January 1999
DROPIN is a computer-generated version of a form of word-puzzle sometimes seen in puzzle books under the name QUOTEFALL. We have been experimenting with it as a group self-access activity for learners of both first and second languages.
DROPIN takes a short text, between 25 and 220 characters (i.e. roughly between 5 and 40 words) and arranges the characters in a grid like a crossword grid. If the text is
Roses are red, violets are blue,
Sugar is sweet, and so are you.
DROPIN puts it into a grid like this one:
| R | O | S | E | S | A | R | E | R | E | D | , | V | I | O | L | E | T | S | |||
| A | R | E | B | L | U | E | , | S | U | G | A | R | I | S | S | W | |||||
| E | E | T | , | A | N | D | S | O | A | R | E | Y | O | U | . |
Notice that the blank squares show the ends of words, and although you read from left to right as on a book page, the words can be split across the end of one line and the beginning of the next.
Now DROPIN takes the letters (i.e. not spaces or punctuation) in each vertical column and jumbles them. What the user sees is the original grid stripped of the letters and the letters from the grid arranged above it. Each letter has to be dropped down to the right line so that the text makes sense.
| R | A | S | E | S | A | L | R | E | S | O | S | A | R | E | R | Y | O | S | E | S | W |
| E | E | R | E | B | A | U | E | R | E | U | G | A | V | I | O | L | T | S | |||
| O | T | N | D | D | I | U |
| , | |||||||||||||||||||||
| , | |||||||||||||||||||||
| , | . |
Jumbled letters sit above the grid; dark squares are spaces at the ends of words and sentences; punctuation is filled in already.
The dark squares show spaces at the ends of words and sentences. What the user has to do is to drop the letters in each vertical column down to an empty square in the correct row so that the text makes sense. In some cases this may be very easy: there may be only one letter in a column and only one empty square underneath it. Those letters can be filled in straight away. (See, for instance, columns 4, 5, 10, and 20 in the sample above.) In other cases the user will have to think harder and perhaps experiment.
In 1990 a small experiment was conducted in Bristol by John Higgins and Anne Howell. Four different groups were brought to the computer lab and were recorded for the whole of their time. They were:
Each group had three members, apart from (d) which had only two. The two younger groups came from an SPA (social priority area) school in one of the city’s poorer housing estates, but were rated as above average intelligence by their teachers.
The sessions were meant to last only half an hour, but the groups were working with such concentration and enjoyment that they were allowed to continue as long as they wanted, which in every case was one-and-a-half to two hours.
Another group of overseas graduates were observed informally but not recorded while working on a dedicated group of texts designed to practise one area of grammar (phrasal verbs).
With the groups of three, the child occupying the middle seat invariably became the leader, though usually ready to relinquish both the seat and the role after a period at the supervisor’s suggestion.
Each of the groups was talked through the ‘Valentine’ example text by way of instructions (which turned out to be familiar even to the African students). In addition, we gave them an oral paraphrase of the advice given in the program documentation:
It is usually best to start with the short words. Any one-letter words are almost certainly A or I. Look at the three-letter words and see if any of them are likely to be THE; see if you can find a T in the column of the first letter, an H in the second column, and an E in the third. AND is another very common three-letter word.
Think about the title and see if any of the long words in the diagram are the same length as words in the title. If so, can they be made up from letters in the columns?
Very few difficulties with understanding the keyboard or instructions emerged during the trials, though the older participants did need constant reassurance that nothing they could do was wrong. When one student from group D typed in an obviously ‘wrong’ letter, he turned round and asked “How do I say sorry to the computer?”.
The youngest children had the least difficulty with the physical manipulation of the keyboard and seemed least overawed by the equipment. The 8- and 11-year-olds had the most carefree and risk-taking attitude to the program. The 11-year-olds tended to be overawed to begin with at the university setting, and were impressed with the type of computer used (Opus III PC) and wanted to examine it carefully, comparing it with the machines they were familiar with at school. At the beginning they were aware of the tape-recorder and giggled self-consciously, but soon forgot it in the excitement of play. The adults, in contrast, were not at all impressed at the setting, but were extremely tentative about using the machine, and took a long time to gain any confidence in using the cursor keys, for instance. Interestingly, though, this group became one of the most excitable and experimental of all, bombarding the machine with input.
When a text has been chosen, the computer may offer a choice of levels, EASIER, NORMAL or HARDER. EASIER makes the grid as flat as possible, and HARDER makes the grid as tall as possible. The actual size depends on the length of the text; short texts will always be put into two or three lines, while long texts must be five or six lines deep. In these cases the program will only offer a choice of two levels of play or, if the texts are very long or very short, will offer no choice at all since it cannot change the shape of the grid.
As one would expect, nearly all the groups opted for EASIER when they began. The majority went into NORMAL as they became familiar with the activity, though some stayed with EASIER for the whole of a session, as they have every right to do. The foreign learners who worked with the dedicated grammatical texts sometimes chose to repeat a text at one of the higher levels after having solved it at the EASIER level, though this understandably did not happen with the native speakers. The 8-year-olds, when becoming bored or frustrated at a text which was at the wrong level, would not ask for the level or the text to be changed but would just start talking about something else. However, when offered the choice of finishing the session or changing to a new text or easier level, they opted to continue until far later than expected.
These varied a good deal, with the 8-year-olds always trying to guess whole words and being very ready to call up free letters with the F1 key when they were unsure of a spelling, something which the sixth-formers were very reluctant to do. The younger children seemed to be congratulating themselves on using all the help the computer made available, while the older ones had a more rigid ‘we must do it ourselves’ ethic, attached to a sense of failure if the text proved too difficult.
All groups followed the advice to guess short words first, and then tried to make sense of the sentence by reading and re-reading aloud the fragments that were visible. There was some casting around for collocations: golf – irons – putted. The older children were aware of repeating patterns, which helped in several cases, especially the Golf text.
The overseas group made much more explicit use of grammar, punctuation and morphology than the other groups. There was a lot of discussion of verb usage. The phrase “I know of …” gave them a good deal of trouble, since it sounded wrong to them. They wanted to put in “I know so …” but this spoiled later parts of the text.
The program incorporates a very simple text editor which makes it easy for users to enter texts and try them out on their friends immediately. This has turned out to be one of the most rewarding aspects of the program, especially with the younger children.
With all groups, the Editor mode was used for challenges within the groups, one member entering a text for the others to solve. This immediately released an interestingly competitive, almost aggressive element with the children. Comments were far more personal: “Oh Stephen would say that sort of thing”, and there was almost a delving into the writer’s personality in order to solve the puzzle. The 11-year-olds especially showed some personal hostility in the competitive mode which did not occur in the collaborative mode: “Shut up, Matthew”, “Oh, he copied that from Sir.”, etc. One boy who wrote a sentence with a punctuation error:
The goldfinch is a very interesting bird for it
likes to feed on thistles it is often seen in flocks.
was ticked off by his team-mates for carelessness, a criticism he will probably remember for a long time. However there seemed to be a danger that a group interacting like this without supervision could turn into a slanging match.
Here are some examples of what was typed in by the children:
There are holes in the sky where the rain gets in,
But they are ever so small, that is why the rain is thin.
(The scansion of the verse was slightly spoiled since the children replaced They’re and That’s in order to avoid using the shift key for the apostrophe.)
The sun in the day, the moon in the night, Each gives us in turn the gift of its light.
Monkeys are really mischievous. Lions like to roar.
Elephants are very big and won’t fit in the door.
The Printer option allows puzzles to be produced on any Epson-compatible printer and taken away to be solved at leisure with pencil and eraser. We have not investigated this aspect of the program, though any future project would have to look at the follow-up opportunities which the printer makes available.
The program was manifestly ‘fun’. There was much laughter both at each other’s mistakes and at funny sentences they made up when stuck for clues and at the sentences themselves when they decoded them. There was also concentration and a great deal of talk.
All participants were asked to fill in a questionnaire one week after the session. One remarkable point was how much they remembered of the sentences they had worked through, in spite of the interval. Apart from the evidence of this memorisation (which had not been demanded or expected) there is no direct evidence of specific learning. That, we hope, will emerge from a future study using the phrasal verb material. All the questionnaire responses were very positive, with everybody saying they wanted to spend more time on the program. That itself is quite remarkable, given the wide range of ages and the two distinct types of learner. The full analysis will be incorporated in a dissertation to be presented later this year.
We see DROPIN mainly as a self-access resource, certainly not as a regular whole-class activity. Exploratory activities of this kind need to be carried out either solo or in small groups, and are probably vitiated by continuous teacher supervision. Intermittent supervision, of course, is desirable; the children need an occasional expert opinion and a court of appeal. With the appropriate briefing, we believe the program can serve to render sentences memorable, to make learners excited by words and meanings, and to make them relish their own cleverness in decoding the puzzle. It is, of course, only one small resource out of many that should be available. We hope that, along with other self-access activities, it can play its part in breaking down the barrier that often divides learning from fun.