MHC Languages

A book with a difference, #movemeon is a collection of 140-character pearls of wisdom from educators using the social networking service, Twitter. From behaviour management to interaction with colleagues, you will find practical advice and ideas contributed by classroom practitioners!

"La Grammaire interactive : la réponse à toutes vos questions sur l'orthographe, la syntaxe, les accords, la ponctuation, la conjugaison..."

A library of video clips from real language classes, in a range of languages and at a range of levels, which demonstrates effective applications of various teaching strategies.

Annual conference of the Spanish Linguistics Society. 2010 conference focused on corpus linguistics.

"The Llama tests are an ongoing demonstrator project that we use to teach research skills to undergraduates. The result is a set of innovative, and slightly-off-the-wall tests which we think might be used to assess language aptitude. In terms of theory, the current suite is largely based on the MLAT tests, but the formats have been radically adapted to a more snazzy presentation style. The Llama tests are very experimental, and should be handled with extreme caution. Although they are user-friendly, and quick to use, they have not been extensively standardised, and should NOT be considered a replacement for MLAT in high-stakes situations."

"BrowseAloud reads web pages aloud for people who find it difficult to read online. Reading large amounts of text on screen can be difficult for those with literacy and visual impairments."

"This customizable easy to use toolbar (See the toolbar in action in its video tour) seamlessly integrates with familiar applications including Microsoft Word, Internet Explorer, and Adobe Reader, allowing students to access the support tools they need from within mainstream software programs. It highlights and reads text aloud using natural sounding voices and also includes a comprehensive set of support tools for reading, writing, studying, research, and test taking. Read&Write GOLD allows teachers to provide the differentiated instruction that is necessary to meet the needs of diverse student populations and ensure that all students reach their potential and achieve success. "

"The Reading Classroom Explorer (RCE) is a hypermedia environment which contains video clips of reading classrooms, transcripts, questions to ponder, further reading resources, and an interactive notebook. The video footage of exemplary teachers teaching reading drives users' inquiries. We hope that RCE broadens teachers' opportunities to observe children and teachers from different cultural backgrounds, environments, and theoretical perspectives. "

"A program of United States Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program will offer intensive summer language institutes overseas in thirteen critical need foreign languages for summer 2010. The on-line application for CLS Program awards is now available, and the deadline to apply will be December 18, 2009. "

Top 100 technology tools for learning, 2009.

Site of bilingual, animated folktales in a wide range of languages, with audio. From Defense Language Institute.

"GLOSS online language lessons are developed for independent learners to provide them with the learning/teaching tools for improving their foreign language skills. Reading and listening lessons are based on authentic materials (articles, TV reports, radio broadcasts, etc.) and consist of 4 to 6 activities. The motivating tasks are accompanied with in-depth feedback that provide learners with thorough explanations and tutoring just like an attentive and experienced teacher would do. With more than 5,600 instructional hours of materials, GLOSS is a valuable resource in maintaining and improving language ability of the learners."

Searchable database of lessons to review Arabic grammar. From Defense Language Institute. Some include audio/video.

Links to online resources from DLI.

"Do you want to join our design phase and make some games with us? Point your internets to http://arisgames.org/editor and set up an account. All the editing is done on-line and there is nothing to install on your computer. You can also set up your own server by downloading the ARIS server package from the developer page."

Free online survey of learning styles

"Foreign or second language (L2) learning strategies are specific actions, behaviors, steps, or techniques students use -- often consciously -- to improve their progress in apprehending, internalizing, and using the L2 (Oxford, 1990b). Strategies are the tools for active, self-directed involvement needed for developing L2 communicative ability (O'Malley & Chamot, 1990). Research has repeatedly shown that the conscious, tailored use of such strategies is related to language achievement and proficiency."

"It is designed to give you (and us) information about the way you tackle the tasks of learning a foreign language. This questionnaire is used all over the world. Unlike our other questionnaire, this one can give you information about your own learning techniques, once you have filled in all the questions and evaluate your answers."

Abstract Course management systems, like any other technology, have an inherent purpose implied in their design, and therefore a built-in pedagogy. Although these pedagogies are based on instructivist principles, today's large CMSs have many features suitable for applying more constructivist pedagogies. Yet few faculty use these features, or even adapt their CMS very much, despite the several customization options. This is because most college instructors do not work or play much on the Web, and thus utilize Web-based systems primarily at their basic level. The defaults of the CMS therefore tend to determine the way Web-novice faculty teach online, encouraging methods based on posting of material and engendering usage that focuses on administrative tasks. A solution to this underutilization of the CMS is to focus on pedagogy for Web-novice faculty and allow a choice of CMS.