Citizenship Software - Road to Citizenship

Road to Citizenship
Road to Citizenship was designed to help qualified people become U.S. citizens. It provides useful information and a variety of different exercises including extensive practice speaking English clearly using the proven listen-imitate-compare method. And, all the text is spoken so you can hear as well as read it.

About Road to Citizenship | Overview of Contents | System Requirements | Network Option | Pricing

About Road to Citizenship

Road to Citizenship is divided into nine major Parts. Part 4 consists of ten lessons specifically covering the information you need to know to successfully complete the history and government test.

Road to Citizenship contains both written and spoken English so you can study by both reading and listening. You can also keep a record of the work you have done in each section of the program.

The current version of Road to Citizenship (Version 3.0) was released in February 2003. This was a major revision and contains accurate information including the results from the Fall 2002 elections.

Table of Contents

Section 1: Am I Qualified
Find Out If You Are Qualified For Citizenship

Section 2: Planning Ahead
Make a Plan to Become a Citizen

Section 3: Applying for Citizenship
Fill Out Your Application Form

Section 4: Citizenship Lessons
Study U.S. History and Government for the Citizenship Test

Section 5: Practicing English
Practice Your English (if needed)

Section 6: Taking the Test
Take a Sample Citizenship Test

Section 7: The Interview
Get Ready For Your Citizenship Interview

Section 8: The Naturalization Ceremony
Get Ready for the Naturalization Ceremony

Section 9: Congratulations
Learn What You Can Do After You Become a Citizen

Overview of Contents

Part 1: Am I qualified?

There are eight requirements for naturalization (age, lawful admission to the United States, time living in the United States, good moral character, loyalty, English Language, knowledge of United States history and government, and the oath of allegiance).

You can read about each requirement or listen and get explanations of the words used. For each requirement you answer questions by clicking on Yes or No buttons to find out if you are qualified. You can also answer the questions to find out if your child or someone else you know is qualified.

Some people have a background that is very complicated. If your background is too complicated for the program to give an answer, the program tells you that it cannot provide a good answer.

Road to Citizenship screen shot; Part 2: Planning Ahead. Click to view larger image.

Part 2: Planning Ahead

In this Part you can make a plan to become a United States citizen. You can find out what will happen during the citizenship process and what you will need to do. And, you can read about how to use local and Internet resources to prepare for citizenship.

Here you can find telephone numbers and addresses for I.N.S. offices. This is easy to do by clicking on your state on a map or by choosing your state from a list. You can also get the World Wide Web addresses that will help you. If you are connected to the Internet, you can click on the web addresses in Road to Citizenship to see the web sites.

Part 3: Applying for Citizenship

In this Part, you can learn about how to apply for citizenship. You can fill out an application form (Form N-4You can erase with the click of a mouse. You can also get definitions of the words and explanations for the questions on the form.

You to enter the required information at your own pace, save it and come back to review or edit it. When your application form is complete, you can preview it and check it, and then print it. Or you can print out blank forms. If you need to include extra information, for example, explanations, there is a way to do that, too.

Road to Citizenship; Part 4: Citizenship Lessons. Click to view larger image.

Part 4: Citizenship Lessons

In this part you study the U.S. history and government information you need to know for the citizenship test. There are 10 lessons. Each lesson is a good length for busy people. You can learn vocabulary (key words and concepts discussed in the lesson) and practice recording yourself saying the words or definitions. The proven listen-speak-compare process helps you improve if you need help with English pronunciation. If you’d rather listen than read, you can listen to all the lesson material.

The lessons include:

Lesson 1: Freedom and Responsibility
(about the rights and responsibilities of citizens)

Lesson 2: The Flag and the National Anthem
(including also the Pledge of Allegiance)

Lesson 3: Becoming a Country
(about the early history of the United States)

Lesson 4: The Constitution and the Bill of Rights
(with details you need to know for the test)

Lesson 5: Federal, State and Local Government
(government structure in the United States)

Lesson 6: The Executive Branch
(about part of the federal government)

Lesson 7: The Legislative Branch
(about Congress)

Lesson 8: The Judicial Branch
(about the Supreme Court)

Lesson 9: The U.S. Grows to 50 States
(about the later history of the United States)

Lesson 10: The United States Today
(about who holds important offices today)

After you’ve studied each lesson, you can take a quiz. The quizzes are multiple choice format and you can hear any question and any answer as many times as you like. You have two tries to get the right answer and the program keeps score for you. If you take the quiz again, the questions and answers are given in a different order.

If you’d like to study this material away from the computer, you can print a lesson or a quiz and read it anywhere.

Part of what you need to know is the name of your state governor, state capital, and your two U.S. senators. In Lesson 10, you can click on your state on a map and find out this information. You can click on the names of the senators, the governor, or the state capital to hear them pronounced. And you can record yourself saying their names.

Road to Citizenship; Part 4: Sample lesson text. Click to view larger image.

Sample Text Screen

This is a sample screen from one of the ten history and government lessons (Lesson 3, Becoming a Country) of Part 4 of Road to Citizenship showing page one of the lesson text.

In the real program (since this is only a screen shot it will not work here), you can click on the icon of the "little guy", and the text on the page is spoken.

At the top right of the screen is a navigation palette. In the program, clicking on these buttons takes you to various parts of the lesson.

The lesson text contains the facts you need to know to take the citizenship exam. Some of the key words (or phrases) are highlighted. If you click on one of these highlighted words or phrases, a dialog box opens showing the word and its definition. You can hear both of these spoken.

Road to Citizenship; Part 4: Sample word list. Click to view larger image.

Sample Word List

This sample screen from Lesson 3 (Becoming a Country), Section 4, shows the Word List exercise.

On the left of the screen is a scrollable field containing the word list for this lesson. In the real program, clicking on one of the items in this list displays the word and its definition on the right . Click on the "little guy" preceding the word or definition to hear it spoken (since this is only a screen shot it will not work here).

At the bottom right of the screen is the recording palette. The program allows you to record yourself saying the word or definition and then play it back to hear yourself or to hear the model recording immediately followed by your recording. This proven listen-imitate-compare method gives you practice speaking English clearly.

The instructions are always clear and easy to understand, making it easy for you to know what you can do on each screen. You don't need a lot of computer experience to be able to use the program!

Road to Citizenship; Part 4: Sample screen of a quiz. Click to view larger image.

Sample Quiz Screen

This sample screen shows the Self-Quiz Exercise for Lesson 3 of Section 4.

At the top left of the screen is the question. Under this are the five possible answers. In the real program (since this is only a screen shot it will not work here), you can click on the "little guy" at the top left to hear the question spoken or click on the "little guy" preceding an answer to hear that answer spoken.

You click on the answer you think is correct and the program tells you whether you were right or not. You have two attempts at each question. As you go through the quiz, your results are displayed on the score board on the right.

You can take the quizzes as many times as you wish. The questions are randomly chosen and the answers are always scrambled. This exercise helps you determine how well you understand the material presented in the lesson.

Part 5: Practicing English

If you would like help with English for citizenship, this Part is made for you!

Here you practice listening, speaking, reading, and writing English for citizenship. You can practice with words, numbers and dates, questions and answers, and the sample sentences for testing by the I.N.S. There is plenty of material, so you can come back to this Part again and again if you want. You can make each activity easier or harder. For example, when you practice reading, you can set the length of time that you have to read the material. In some activities, you match what you hear with what you see, and in others it is harder — for example, you read a question and choose an answer that goes with the question.

This Part provides variety and can be used in different ways depending on the kind of practice you need. The goal is to help you become more familiar and comfortable with the English needed for citizenship. If dates make you hesitate while you translate from your native language, practice the dates. If you can read well but need help understanding spoken American English, practice the listening exercises. If you can understand spoken English but need help with writing and reading, practice matching the written words with what you understand from listening.

The most important activities in this part are the 4 activities with sentences, because the sentences used are the ones provided by the I.N.S. as examples for the test of written English. The sentences are divided into easy and hard categories. The easy sentences are about everyday activities and the hard sentences are about U.S. history and government.

Road to Citizenship screen shot; Part 6: Taking the test. Click to view larger image.

Part 6: Taking the Test

This Part offers four activities:

a sample history and government test
a sample test of written English
a test of harder questions, and
a sample test for the elderly
If you want to take the tests away from the computer, you can print copies of all the tests, except for the test of written English (because you need to listen in this test). Answer keys are provided in the printed tests.

The sample history and government test puts together the material in all the different lessons from Part 4. The 20 questions test is different each time you take it. You can listen to the questions and answers. The program calculates and saves a score for you. Here you have one try to get the right answer because at the actual test you will need to know the right answer.

The test for elderly people is for people who qualify for an easier test. This test has 20 questions like the sample history and government test, but there are only 25
questions that may appear in this test. So if you take the test a second time, you will see many of the same questions, but in a different order.

In the sample English writing test, you listen to 2 sentences and write or type them, then check your answers. One sentence is an easy sentence about everyday life and one is a harder question about U.S. history or government. In Part 5, when you practice English, you can listen as many times as you like, but here you can only listen three times. Each time you take the test you get different sentences. There are about 100 sentences that may appear in the test. If you get the question wrong, you can see the right answer. If you typed the right number of words but spelled one of them wrong, the program underlines the word you had wrong.

In the Harder Questions activity, you can practice answering the 6 questions provided by the I.N.S. that require long answers. You will get the same 6 questions each time. The longest answer is naming the 13 original colonies that became the first states in the United States. This is truly hard, but it gives you a chance to practice - don’t worry if you make small mistakes in spelling or choosing words.

7: The Interview

Here you can practice listening to 10 sample interview questions and answering them. You can record your answers and listen to how they sound. Each time you practice, you will hear different questions. This is good practice, because you cannot know ahead of time what questions the interviewer might ask. The questions are presented in random order. Some questions may not apply to you, for example, there may be a question about your children even if you do not have children.

It is important to know that you can ask the interviewer to repeat a question or to ask it in a different way. This Part includes examples you can practice to politely ask the interviewer to repeat a question.

Since the interview is based partly on your application form, you can also study vocabulary that comes from the application form in this Part.

Road to Citizenship screen shot; Part 8: The Ceremony Click to view larger image.

Part 8: The Ceremony

In the naturalization ceremony you can relax and enjoy the last step in becoming a citizen. The important part of the ceremony is taking the Oath of Allegiance.

In this Part you learn about the naturalization ceremony by reading or listening. And you learn the meaning of the Oath of Allegiance. Each part of the oath and all the words in the oath are explained in plain English so you can understand the promise you make when taking the oath. You can practice saying the oath, so you will feel comfortable at the ceremony. You can also practice pronouncing the vocabulary used in the oath.

Part 9: A New Citizen

In this Part, we congratulate you on becoming a U.S. citizen and remind you about some of your new rights that you studied in Part 4. You can find out how to use some of your new rights, such as how to get a U.S. passport, how to register to vote, how to bring family members to the United States, and how to get a Certificate of Citizenship for your children, if they are eligible.

The addresses of helpful web sites are listed. If you are connected to the Internet, you can click on the web addresses to see the web sites.

System Requirements

PC (only)

• IBM 386 or compatible PC
• Windows 3.1/95/98/ME/2000,/NT/XP
• 32+ MB RAM
• 10 MB hard disk space
• CD-ROM drive
• Sound card and microphone

Network Option

There is also a classroom version, networked option for Road to Citizenship. It is designed for adult education centers, libraries, schools and colleges, and contains a student management system, network installation and five (5) CDs for student use.

Pricing & Network Option