Dear Colleagues, It's been a week since I sent my original message and I sense a hiatus in emails about foreign character entry, so I am now posting a summary of public and private correspondence about the topic. Excluding duplicated mailings, I sent or received a total of 9 public and 19 private messages about foreign character entry. I am delighted that my original enquiry generated so much interest and debate: I had not expected such a marvellous response from colleagues in schools, universities and national organisations. A. The Technology Modern operating systems and general-purpose word processors offer a veritable "embarras de choix" as far as foreign character entry is concerned. Here are some of the "workarounds" recommended and used by colleagues: 1. The "ALT Key" Method On all three UK platforms - PCs, Macs and Acorns - foreign characters can be generated in any application by combining the ALT key (on the left of the space bar) with single or multiple alphabetic or numeric keystrokes. For example, On the Mac, ALT + n generates "ñ". On the PC, ALT + 164 and ALT + 0241 generate "ñ". On the Acorn, ALT + 241 and ALT + 0241 generate "ñ". I am renewing my offer of target-language helpsheets with lists of PC ALT key codes for French and German characters. On the suggestion of one correspondent, a Spanish version is now in preparation. Please email me if you want them. I am particularly indebted to a correspondent who sent me a long list of 3-digit ALT codes for PC foreign character entry. I'll list the 3- and 4-digit PC codes at the end of this summary. 2. The "Toolbar" Method A toolbar sits on the screen displaying all the characters in a given set, including foreign, mathematical and other less commonly used symbols. Characters are entered at the cursor insertion point of any application by clicking the required character on the toolbar with the mouse. One such toolbar program is Patrick Smears' "FrKeys" for the PC (available from Camsoft, site licence £29.95). Acorns have an inbuilt application, "!Chars", which performs a similar function. For the PC there is or was a shareware "character insertion utility for Windows" called "Foreigner" by Gordon Goldsborough of Brandon University in Manitoba. 3. The "Keyboard Remapping" Method The French have "AZERTY" keyboards; the Germans use "QWERTZ" ones. If you have a computer wholly dedicated to another language, it is possible to "remap" a QWERTY keyboard to an AZERTY, QWERTZ or other keyboard layout by changing operating system settings. This works on both PCs and Acorns. Unless the user is a touch typist and never looks at the keys, a foreign keyboard or some kind of keyboard overlay is going to be required. 4. The "Shortcut Key" Method In this case, an attempt has been made to devise more logical and memorable key combinations to enter foreign characters. For example, in Word, pressing CTRL+' then e generates é. The first keystroke is a "dead key", nothing happens until the e key is pressed and then the accented vowel appears. 5. The "Insert Symbol" Method One of the menus in a word processing or other application offers access to a window displaying all the printable characters in a particular character set. Characters are inserted at the cursor by clicking on the character of choice in the "Insert Symbol" window. Under Windows 95, if "Multilanguage Support" has been set, East European, Cyrillic and Greek letters in Times New Roman, Arial and Courier can be selected. 6. Other Methods If a computer is dedicated to a single foreign language, say German, it might be equipped with a QWERTZ keyboard and German versions of the operating system and applications software. It is also possible nowadays to switch from one keyboard layout to another within multiple-language documents. There are also specialist linguist's word processors such as "Accent" and the American "Nisuswriter", which contain tools for handling languages using alphabets other than Roman if you want them. B. Human Factors 1. How we handle foreign character entry ourselves The correspondence has left me with the impression that colleagues prefer sticking to one method of character entry when they are using the computer for their personal work. Very often they use this method because it has served them well for years, even though it may not seem user-friendly to others. I, for example, graduated from BBCs to Windows PCs via Acorn Archimedes. The latter accesses "é" via ALT-233, not a million miles away from the PC's ALT-0233, which is why I use that method. I suspect that PC-using colleagues who use ATL-é may have worked with pre-Windows DOS machines, where the foreign characters jockeyed for position with graphics characters. The advantage of the toolbar approach is that the user can see the character (s)he wants on the screen. I would not personally use it for, say, typing German, because I have already memorised the ALT key codes and mouse clicks for character entry would disrupt my typing rhythm. However, a toolbar might be a very acceptable solution to, say, my typing of Russian, which I do very rarely and in tiny amounts, because I have never learnt by rote the ALT numbers of my Cyrillic font. 2. How we teach our pupils to handle foreign character entry I posed the original question about foreign character entry because I wanted to find out whether we teach our pupils the same method of character entry as we ourselves use. The replies largely showed that colleagues teach their pupils the same character entry method which they themselves use. The problems arise when a class passes from one teacher to another. If there isn't a departmental policy, and every teacher uses (and insists on!) a different method, some pupils are going to get confused. On the other hand, it's probably not a bad thing that pupils should know that there's more than one way of tackling the problem. For a number of years I have taught my pupils to use the ALT key method. True, the codes aren't exactly user-friendly, but after all, unlike ourselves, school pupils also attend a lot of Maths lessons and are used to handling numbers; as a SEN teacher, I've noticed that poor numeracy is a lot rarer than poor literacy! Some colleagues use the ALT key method too. The advantage is that pupils don't need special software when they word process at home. Colleagues also mention the disadvantages. Pupils forget the number codes (not surprising in French, where there are at least 26, if we use accented capitals). Number codes have to be glued to keyboards or sellotaped into exercise books, and actually used! The toolbar/character window also has its supporters, who argue that actually seeing the desired character displayed on the toolbar/window, ready to be clicked, has a big advantage over the ALT key method, where the character only appears after a sequence of keystrokes. The downside is that the hands have to come off the keyboard in mid-word to use the mouse; typing rhythm is broken. The shortcut method of ctrl-' (deadkey) + e for é had one supporter (besides my brother!), but taught in combination with other methods. It is an application-specific method, i.e. it only works in Word. The other methods, dedicating a computer to one foreign language, using keyboard overlays, specialist linguist's word processors etc., didn't have any fervent supporters. I surmised, I think correctly, that such solutions were expensive or troublesome. I was interested that nobody mentioned specialist linguist's word processors such as "Accent" or "Nisuswriter". I'm not a fan of these, as I'm convinced that using more than one word processor drives you crazy - not my sentence, it's a quote from a help sheet I found in Newcastle University Library. However, when I broached the subject of foreign language word processing on CALICO-L, an American forum for computer-using language teachers, I almost had my head bitten off by one respondent for mentioning Word for Windows when I ought to have been using "Nisuswriter"! C. Conclusion As all researchers say, further research is necessary. It would be interesting, for instance, to find out whether teaching more than one method of foreign character entry illuminates or confuses the issue as far as our pupils are concerned. As I mentioned in a recent email, I did teach a class two methods and there were "takers" for both methods. The volume of private and public email indicates that there is a lot of interest in such "basics" of CALL, particularly at school level. It may not be glamorous research in the way that (very necessary) investigations into the effectiveness of videoconferencing, multimedia and online courses can be, but it doesn't deserve to be a neglected issue. I hope I have covered other people's submissions comprehensively and accurately. I apologise in advance if this is not so. My only excuse is the volume of email which the topic generated! Thanks to all who contributed, and to those who made positive comments about my foreign character entry help sheets. Teachers, and not just pupils, work best when they are praised! David Wilson Equal Opportunities Department, Harton School, Lisle Road, South Shields NE34 6DL Email: DavidRitchieWilson@compuserve.com Website: http://www.tomwilson.com/david Appendix Here, as promised, are the ALT key codes. Again, I wish to express my gratitude to the correspondent who wrote privately with the three-digit key combinations. The 4-digit codes are in brackets. FRENCH 133 à (0224) 131 â (0226) 135 ç (0231) 130 é (0233) 138 è (0232) 136 ê (0234) 137 ë (0235) 140 î (0238) 139 ï (0239) oe ligature (0156) 147 ô (0244) 151 ù (0249) 150 û (0251) 183 À (0192) 182 Â (0194) 128 Ç (0199) 212 È (0200) 144 É (0201) 210 Ê (0202) 211 Ë (0203) 215 Î (0206) 216 Ï (0207) OE ligature (0140) 226 Ô (0212) 235 Ù (0217) 234 Û (0219) 174 « (0171) 175 » (0187) SPANISH 160 á (0224) 130 é (0233) 161 í (0237) 164 ñ (0241) 162 ó (0243) 163 ú (0250) 129 ü (0252) 181 Á (0193) 144 É (0201) 214 Í (0205) 165 Ñ (0209) 224 Ó (0211) 233 Ú (0218) 154 Ü (0220) 168 ¿ (0191) 173 ¡ (0161) PORTUGUESE 198 ã (0227) 199 Ã (0195) 135 ç (0231) 128 Ç (0199) ITALIAN 133 à (0224) 130 é (0233) 138 è (0232) 141 ì (0236) 149 ò (0242) 151 ù (0249) 183 À (0192) 212 È (0200) 222 Ì (0204) 227 Ò (0210) 235 Ù (0217) GERMAN/SCANDINAVIAN 132 ä (0228) 134 å (0229) 145 æ (0230) 208 ð (0240) 137 ë (0235) 148 ö (0246) 155 ø (0248) 225 ß (0223) 231 þ (0254) 129 ü (0252) 152 ÿ (0255) 142 Ä (0196) 143 Å (0197) 146 Æ (0198) 209 Ð (0208) 211 Ë (0203) 153 Ö (0214) 157 Ø (0216) 232 Þ (0222) 154 Ü (0220)