ABSTRACT

The Army Research Institute (ARI) is developing an adaptive language tutor that gives job-relevant communicative practice, known as the Military Language Tutor (MILT). The ARI program that engendered MILT is overviewed in this volume by Sams. Our chapter describes the instructional features of MILT and explains how certain of these features are shaped by principles of learning and memory drawn from work in experimental psychology. Some of these principles are presented in MacWhinney's chapter in this volume, as part of the tenets of learning theory and other branches of experimental psychology that have potential relevance to language tutoring systems. Although we agree with MacWhinney's conclusion that these tenets are too vague to connect precisely to features of system design, we have found them useful in guiding our thinking about aspects of the tutor. As psychologists in human factors and instruction, we come at the problem of designing a language tutor from a somewhat different angle than do others in this volume. We and our colleagues have had considerable experience developing training systems in areas other than foreign language, and we have applied general principles from research on motivation, cognition, skills acquisition and retention, and human factors. The application of these principles has resulted in demonstrably effective programs, models, and devices now used in the military as well as, in various transformations, in industry and schools (Berkowitz & Simutis, 1983~ Farr & Ward, 1988~ Hagman, Hayes, & Bierwirth, 1986; Hagman & Rose, 1983; Kaplan, 1989; Laughery, Dahl, Kaplan, Archer, & Fontenelle, 1988; Oxford, Harman, & Holland, 1987~ Psotka, Massey, & Mutter, 1988~ Wisher, Holland, & Chatelier, 1987; Wisher, Sabol, & Kern, forthcoming; Yates & Macpherson, 1985).