Method of teaching a subject including use of a dictionary and translator

• US 4,579,533 A
• Filed: 08/31/1984
• Issued: 04/01/1986
• Est. Priority Date: 04/26/1982
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Anderson, Weston A., Gerald M. Fisher
• Original Assignee: Anderson, Weston A., Gerald M. Fisher
• Inventors: Anderson, Weston A., Fisher, Gerald M.
• Primary Examiner(s): NOT, DEFINED
• Assistant Examiner(s): Lastova, MaryAnn Stoll
• Application Number:
  US06/614,997
• Time in Patent Office: 578 Days
• Field of Search: 434/156, 434/157, 434/307-321, 434/323, 434/335, 434/169, 434/167, 434/339, 434/338, 364/419, 381/52
• US Class Current: 434/157
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/16 Sound input; Sound output speech processing G10L
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 19/06 Foreign languages with audible presentation of material to be studied G09B5/04
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 5/065 Combinations of audio and video presentations, e.g. videotapes, videodiscs, television systems

Abstract

A microprocessor based electronic teaching aid which enables a student viewing a display containing text material being studied to designate any word or portion of text for definition or for vocalization by synthesized speech techniques wherein the reading material being studied is supplied in the form of a programmed Source ROM which contains pointers to the start addresses for the words of the reading material with reference to an internally provided dictionary. A program causes the creation of the text display responsive to the Source ROM data, and includes techniques for being able to define and vocalize any selected word. This combination of hardware and software permits a significant reduction in the cost of this teaching aid by elimination of disk drives or tape drives.

Claims

1. A new method of using digital electronic apparatus to aid students in learning comprising:

storing in a concatenated string in a first memory first binary data pointers representative of a contiguous passage of text, said first binary data pointers including indication of the start addresses for the text words stored in a second memory;

storing in said second memory second binary data being representative of a preselected listing of human language words, said second binary data including data representative of at least two different forms of said human language words;

in operation, displaying a selected portion of said contiguous passage of text responsive to a student operator'"'"'s portion selection commands, said display being a graphic human language representation of said selected portion;

responsive to student operator instructions, designating one word of said contiguous portion of text being graphically displayed; and

selectively providing responsive to student operator commands either a synthesized audible output of said designated word or an explanatory graphic representation of said designated word substantially immediately responsive to said student command, said audible output being representative of the spoken form of said designated word and said explanatory graphic representation being textual commentary about said designated one word.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the synthesized audible output representative of the spoken form of said designated word is in a human language different from the language of said text.

3. The new method of claim 1 wherein said explanatory graphic representation of said one word comprises displaying in legible form the definition of said designated one word.

4. A new method of using digital electronic apparatus to aid students in learning comprising:

storing in a first memory first binary data pointers representative of a list of human language words, said first binary data pointers indicating the start addresses for each word stored in a second memory;

storing in a second memory second binary data representative of at least two different forms of representation relating to said human language words;

in operation, selecting and graphically displaying a portion of words from said list of words responsive to a student operator'"'"'s instructions;

in operation, enabling designation of a word from said portion of selected and displayed words in response to commands from a student operator;

in operation, further enabling selection of one of said different forms of output display of a designated word by the operator; and

substantially immediately after selection of the form of said output display, providing said output display of said designated word in said selected one form.

5. In a new method of using a microprocessor system as a teaching aid for learning course material wherein the system contains a microprocessor controlled by an executory program, a speech synthesizer, internal memory, external memory, external memory having a portion coded to represent a text to be displayed, means to access said external memory and means to output data to an electronic graphic display, the improvement comprising

coding a portion of said internal memory to represent a standard dictionary, said standard dictionary being a preselected list of words including code indicative of the visual form of said words and code for controlling the creation of the spoken form of said words, said code further providing means to indicate the presence or absence of coding representative of explanatory comments relating to said words;

said coding of said portion of external memory representative of said test to be displayed comprising concatenating a code, said concatenated code including pointers indicative of the starting address in memory for text words in said course material;

coding a further portion of said external memory to represent words in said course material which are not represented in said standard dictionary but which appear in said course material, said further portion of said external memory being a non-standard dictionary which includes code indicative of the visual form of said words, code for controlling the audible form of said words and code to indicate the presence or absence of explanatory material relating to each said word in said non-standard dictionary;

controlling said system by said executory program to be responsive to operator commands to decode said text coding and to output data to said display for operator selected page of text whereby said executory program causes the fetching of concatenated coded course material from said external memory, interpreting said coded course material, fetching words from the appropriate dictionary according to said concatenated coded course material and sending character codes to said display to create the selected page of text responsive to the said text coding; and

further controlling said system by said executory program to be responsive to the designation and selection by the operator of any one word appearing on the display to selectively provide one of two outputs corresponding to said designated word substantially immediately following designation and selection, the first of said outputs being audible synthesized speech corresponding to said designated word and the second of said outputs being a visual display of the explanatory comments corresponding to said designated word.