Review of The Hockey Sweater CD-ROM.(Product/service evaluation)

The Hockey Sweater CD-ROM is intended for young English language learners ages 11 and up and adult literacy learners whose English proficiency ranges from high beginning to advanced. The CD is meant to be used in an English language classroom or for self-study. A 172-page teacher's guide provides a transcript of the video on the CD, notes and information about each of the activities, and teaching ideas. The activities on the CD-ROM focus on the theme of hockey and the classic Canadian story The Hockey Sweater: A Childhood Recollection by Roch Carrier. This story, set in the winter of 1946 in a small city in Quebec, Canada, is about a young boy whose life centers around hockey. The boy and his friends idolize the Montreal Canadiens star player Maurice Richard and wear sweaters like his. One day, the young boy receives a new sweater in the mail, but it is from the Toronto Maple Leafs instead of the one he was hoping for, namely that of Maurice Richard. His mother forces him to wear the new sweater. He feels deeply embarrassed wearing the sweater when he plays hockey with his friends. He loses his temper and is sent to church to pray for forgiveness; instead, he prays for moths to eat up his new sweater. A review of Le Chandail de Hockey CD-ROM, the French version of The Hockey Sweater, was published recently (Caws, 2007) in Language Learning & Technology. Here, the English version of The Hockey Sweater is reviewed to evaluate the relevance this CD might have for teaching and learning English as a second language.

The English version of the CD-ROM, like its French counterpart, is divided into three "periods" to represent the divisions of a hockey game. There are two other sections, "Zone" and "Encounters", both of which provide expanded writing activities and opportunities to learn about the creators of the the CDROM and the writer of the original story, Roch Carrier. The interactive activities on the CD-ROM are geared toward three specific proficiency levels: advanced beginner, called "Peewee"; intermediate, called "Junior"; and advanced, called "Pro" (for professional), reminiscent of levels in hockey. The levels of the interactive activities are indicated with hockey sticks; one hockey stick is used for Peewee, two for Junior, and three for the Pro level. The addition of the hockey sticks makes the CD-ROM appealing to young English language learners and also provides a quick way to identify the level for which an activity is intended.

Overall, The Hockey Sweater provides good interactive listening, reading, vocabulary, and culture activities. Caws states that "[a]t first glance, Le chandail de hockey CD-ROM seems to require a fairly good understanding of the [target] language." At the same time, she also suggests that "because all the functions can be repeated more than once (including the exercises), and because the help functions offer both French and English explanations, Le chandail de hockey offers a good balance of autonomy and guided activity" (Caws, 2007, p. 36). The Hockey Sweater similarly fosters autonomy by allowing students to repeat activities; however, it falls a bit short in offering a good balance of guided practice. There is a lack of adequate progression and scaffolding from level to level for all activities, as described in more detail below. Xu (2004) states that an important criterion to consider when choosing ESL materials is to make sure that the materials show "evidence of a developmental progression of content" (p. 3).

The Hockey Sweater is set up in the same manner as described by Caws (2007) for the French version. Both include the same animated film The Sweater as well as similar activities. One difference between the English and the French versions can be found in the 2nd Period Peewee listening/reading comprehension activity: the English version contains 12 questions about the story content whereas the French version contains almost twice as many, 22 questions. Another difference surfaces in the Help Menu; Caws (2007) states that in Le Chandail de Hockey the Help Menu is available in both English and French. In The Hockey Sweater, it is available only in English.

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First Period

The 1st Period in both The Hockey Sweater and Le Chandail de Hockey focuses on listening activities. In The Hockey Sweater, this section consists of segments labeled "The Sweater", "Video Clips", "Hockey", "Oral Questions", and "Highlights". "The Sweater" is an animated, 10-minute video of Roch Carrier's classic story. It is the main feature of the entire CD-ROM in that all of the activities either use parts of the story or focus on Canadian culture or hockey with the story used as a basis for developing listening comprehension. The story on the video is narrated by Roch Carrier, who has a fairly strong French accent. A benefit of having Roch Carrier tell the story is that it makes the material on the CD quite authentic as Carrier is also the author of the story. It may be difficult for some students to understand some words due to Carrier's French accent; however, the authors of the CD-ROM have partially solved this problem in the 2nd Period in the activity "Exploring the Story," where a button labeled "Coach" allows learners to replay the video while listening to a male native speaker narrating the story. In several of the lower level listening activities, parts of the recording are Carrier telling the story; however, no "Coach" is provided. As a result, these activities may be somewhat difficult for lower level students.

The "Video Clips" section is helpful in that it provides a place where students can replay eight different segments of the video to gain a deeper understanding of the story's content. These segments summarize the main points of the story and allow students to focus on capturing parts of the story they may not have understood before going on to comprehension activities. If students forget a part of the story, they can come back to this section and repeat it.

The section entitled "Hockey" is a listening and vocabulary activity geared towards Peewee-level students. In this activity, students click on the listening icon and listen to a spoken word. All of the vocabulary is related to hockey and in fact comes from the video. Students match what they hear to the appropriate picture (Figure 1). This activity can help students learn the vocabulary items and improve their listening skills.

In the "Oral Questions" activity, students listen to twelve different questions. With each question, they also listen to and choose the correct answer about the story, spoken in standard English by a native English-speaking female voice. The activity is geared toward the Peewee level; however, the questions become progressively more difficult. Questions 1-7 are easier, and often the answer can be found in the picture on the screen, but the answers may not necessarily be related to hockey or to the story. For example, Question 7 asks, "What is that blue figure on the table?" The answer is "a cookie jar," which is not mentioned at all in the story. The Teacher's Guide suggests that Questions 8-12 may be too challenging for the Peewee level but could be more appropriate for the Junior level (The National Film Board of Canada, 2007). Indeed, questions 8-12 are more difficult, but the answers can be found in the story. For example, Question 11 asks, "Why does Roch get a penalty?" The answer, "There are too many players on the ice," is provided in the story as "He gave me a penalty because there were already five players on the ice." For this reason, question 11 may in fact be easier for students to answer than question 7.

The "Highlights" section is geared toward the Junior level. In this activity, students listen to short parts of the video and match these to appropriate pictures. For example, in one listening segment, students hear, "That was too much! It was too unfair! 'This is persecution! It's just because of my blue sweater!'" The student has to match these words to the picture of a yelling boy (Figure 2). Some of these sentences have more to do with remembering the order of events in the story than creating a match between what students hear and what they see. These short listening segments are parts of the video narrated by Roch Carrier, so, due to his French accent, they may be a little difficult for some students to understand as no "Coach" is provided.

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Second Period

The 2nd Period of The Hockey Sweater consists of reading and listening activities for each of the different levels. The first activity, entitled "Exploring the Story", is not marked for any level. As Roch Carrier tells the story The Hockey Sweater: A Childhood Recollection, a video labeled The Hockey Sweater is shown on the screen. The video contains pictures that correspond with the story. While listening to the story the text can be followed along on the left side of the screen. This allows students to build sound-word relationships and provides input in English, both visually and auditorily. In addition, short paragraphs about 18 different Canadian culture topics related to the story can be accessed on the right. Some of the cultural topics include the Montreal Canadiens, Hockey Night in Canada, the Ancient Craft of Recycling, the Skating Rink, Anatomy of a Wood Stove, and the Rocking Chair. Students can choose to make this information visible or hide it if it is distracting. In this activity, students can also fast forward or rewind the video. If they want to focus on reading the short cultural paragraphs on the right, it is necessary to pause the video, read the paragraph, and then fast-forward the video to the next cultural topic. It is helpful for students to see how these cultural topics relate to and provide background to the story, but it would also have been helpful for students and teachers if these cultural paragraphs could have been viewed separately. This would have allowed them to read and discuss these cultural topics in more depth and in any order. More information about many of these topics is located in the "Heritage" and "Hockey" sections in the 3rd Period; however, the information in the 3rd Period is much longer and would be harder for a lower level student to understand.