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Stéphane Métral

What are your favourite tools to teach or learn languages ? - 289 views

Bonjour, I teach French to foreigners recently arrived in Geneva. We have 2 Mac in class in a computer room with a PC for each student I use a blog to make my students write and t...

languages teaching tools

Heide DeMorris

Free Technology for Teachers - 10 views

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    This is one of my favorite sites to find out what's new in tech for our use.  The April 11th blog post discusses typing accents in other languages.  It also presents 2 virtual keyboards for WL students. Also presented are links to learning languages, activities, and image-based language lessons.  The Pictolang games could help students study languages on their own. The CAPL galleries could be helpful in locating images to use in developing your own language learning activities. You could also have students use CAPL to create language learning games to use to study
Claude Almansi

"Inspiring+ People - Chloe Cohen" | Universal Subtitles - 4 views

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    "Each week, we will be interviewing people who are truly inspiring. They come from all over the world, and have overcome obstacles that make life that much harder. Their stories are inspirational, and allow us to be grateful for what we have in life. "Many people have come to see disease as a gift in their lives. Often, they learn that they are more than their disease, and once freed by that certainty they go on to live the rest of the story." This week, we interviewed Chloe Cohen. A truly inspiring woman who has been dealing with Multiple Sclerosis for many years. Chloe's inner strength and determination to help her deal with MS allows us to realize that their is hope for everyone. I feel honored to be able to share Chloe's story with everyone, and I hope it gives you as much enjoyment as it has given to me. Women like Chloe are hard to come by. Too many of us give up before we even try, especially, when suffering from a disease such as MS. Chloe's openness and willingness to share her story with all of us is amazing."
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    English captioning in progress - - anyone wishing to join?
Patrick Higgins

New Jersey Department of Education - 0 views

  • In Preschool, children are just beginning to learn about language and how it works. Exposure to multiple languages is advantageous for all children and can be supported by developmentally appropriate teaching practices that make use of songs, rhymes, and stories. In programs for beginning learners that offer appropriate time and frequency of instruction, students communicate at the Novice-Mid level using memorized language to talk about familiar topics related to school, home, and the community. After three-six years of study in programs offering the appropriate time and frequency of standards-based instruction, Novice-High through Intermediate-Mid level students communicate at the sentence level creating with language to ask and answer questions and to handle simple transactions related to everyday life and subject matter studied in other classes. After nine-twelve years of well articulated standards-based instruction, Intermediate-High through Advanced-Low level students communicate at the paragraph level and are able to handle complicated situations on a wide-range of topics.
  • Integration of technology within the CPIs necessitates its use as a tool in instruction and assessment.
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    # In Preschool, children are just beginning to learn about language and how it works. Exposure to multiple languages is advantageous for all children and can be supported by developmentally appropriate teaching practices that make use of songs, rhymes, and stories. # In programs for beginning learners that offer appropriate time and frequency of instruction, students communicate at the Novice-Mid level using memorized language to talk about familiar topics related to school, home, and the community. # After three-six years of study in programs offering the appropriate time and frequency of standards-based instruction, Novice-High through Intermediate-Mid level students communicate at the sentence level creating with language to ask and answer questions and to handle simple transactions related to everyday life and subject matter studied in other classes. # After nine-twelve years of well articulated standards-based instruction, Intermediate-High through Advanced-Low level students communicate at the paragraph level and are able to handle complicated situations on a wide-range of topics.
Isabelle Jones

When do people learn languages? - 0 views

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    Advice for language learners General warning: what follows may or may not apply to you. It's based on what linguistics knows about people in general (but any general advice will be ludicrously inappropriate for some people) and on my own experience (but you're not the same as me). If you have another way of learning that works, more power to you. Given the discussion so far, the prospects for language learning may seem pretty bleak. It seems that you'll only learn a language if you really need to; but the fact that you haven't done so already is a pretty good indication that you don't really need to. How to break out of this paradox? At the least, try to make the facts of language learning work for you, not against you. Exposure to the language, for instance, works in your favor. So create exposure. * Read books in the target language. * Better yet, read comics and magazines. (They're easier, more colloquial, and easier to incorporate into your weekly routine.) * Buy music that's sung in it; play it while you're doing other things. * Read websites and participate in newsgroups that use it. * Play language tapes in your car. If you have none, make some for yourself. * Hang out in the neighborhood where they speak it. * Try it out with anyone you know who speaks it. If necessary, go make new friends. * Seek out opportunities to work using the language. * Babysit a child, or hire a sitter, who speaks the language. * Take notes in your classes or at meetings in the language. * Marry a speaker of the language. (Warning: marry someone patient: some people want you to know their language-- they don't want to teach it. Also, this strategy is tricky for multiple languages.) Taking a class can be effective, partly for the instruction, but also because you can meet others who are learning the language, and because, psychologically, classes may be needed to make us give the subject matter time and attention. Self-study is too eas
Isabelle Jones

bubbl.us - free web application for brainstorming online - 0 views

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    What is it? Bubbl.us is a simple and free web application that lets you brainstorm online. Why use bubbl.us? Because you can: Create colorful mind maps online Share and work with friends Embed your mind map in your blog or website Email and prin
Pamela Arraras

Foreign Language Teaching Wiki - Culture - 1 views

  • The main exposure students had to the culture of the target language was through controlled interaction with native speakers in the classroom.
  • Language & culture are more naturally integrated in this approach. Culture instruction is connected to grammar instruction. Its main goal is to teach students how to use the target language when communicating in a cultural context
  • the following are other common approaches to teaching culture: (from Omaggio) The Frankenstein Approach: A taco from here, a flamenco dancer from there, a gaucho from here, a bullfight from there. The 4-F Approach: Folk dances, festivals, fairs and food. The Tour Guide Approach: The identification of monuments, rivers and cities. The "By-the-Way" Approach: Sporadic lectures or bits of behavior selected indiscriminately to emphasize sharp differences.
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  • focusing a little more on similarities, instead of the differences, between cultures
  • Latorre believes that focusing on differences instead of on the similarities contributes to people misunderstanding other cultures, often thinking that the foreign cultures are "exotic," perhaps more exotic than they actually are. What Latorre suggests that any teacher of any foreign language should do is focus on the “true differential, the language [itself], rather than enlarging beyond proportion attitudes and activities which are either regional, outdated, or downright non-existent” (672).
  • one of the most important factors for success in learning a foreign language is the need for students to get involved in the learning process. The use of materials based on internet technologies offers many innovative ways of getting students involved in the process of learning a language. Students can get to know the target culture by means of interacting directly with native speakers via on-line communication, with mail exchanges or chatrooms.
  • From her point of view, it is crucial that the students can learn not only the language but also the diversity of the target culture. That is why, according to her, internet resources, such as newspapers and magazines, have a great importance, since they provide students with authentic and current information that can help them understand the target culture. Reading on-line newspapers makes students aware of current social phenomena.
  • According to Lee, recent studies have proved that internet resources can help students improve their language skills in a similar way to full immersion or study abroad, although are based basically on written communication. Besides, this use of on-line resources are more beneficial to students at the advanced level because they require a high level of language proficiency to read, comprehend, and respond to cultural readings, for example, newspapers.
  • The most important part of Stern's research involves his 3-level framework of foreign culture pedagogy: teaching social sciences, applying theory/research, and their practical applications in the classroom. In the 1990s, Stern's cultural/communication mix evolved from describing sociocultural contexts of second language/foreign language to contexts of competence in second culture acquisition (not just language acquisition). This is the first time that cultural pedagogy and social sciences had been paired.
  • In H.H. Stern's breakthrough 1983 study "Fundamental concepts of language Teaching," there are concepts of day-to-day culture and customs that should be used in the classroom. Stern uses a four component model including a 'cultural syllabus' for culture teaching.
  • Foreign language (FL) teachers should make culture more of a central role in the class FL teachers should throw out teaching culture in terms of isolated facts FL teachers should have an awareness of the past on the present within any culture without focusing too much on the past FL teachers should be aware of cognitive and affective influences on the students FL teachers should engage students as active participants FL teachers should teach culture in such a way that students can be cross-cultural here and abroad Given that the teacher’s assumptions about how language and lang learning affect how he or she teaches lang and culture, the approach should aim for communicative competence (that is, real communication)
  • Tang discussed the use of performance-based theory developed by Walker (2000) who suggests that culture could be better taught if done through simulated social interactions in the classroom, for example hosting a guest or accepting a gift. This serves to create a “default memory” within the student's mind that will help him perform in the target culture without drawing conclusions or using as a reference his own base culture which could lead to misunderstandings.
  • Tang also discourages the pure instruction of behavioral culture in the classroom and says that to perform effectively in a target culture one must not only be able to master it linguistically, be familiar with its artifacts, norms and rituals but also with the meaning system, or the hidden significance underlying these. This is why she believes that Walker's performance-based theory can only work properly if the true meaning system underlying the simulated situations and interations created in the classroom are internalized by the students.
  • the Three P's, into three separate categories: cultural perspectives, cultural products, and cultural practices. Cultural perspectives are the values, beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions shared within a culture. Cultural products are things such as literature, music, art, or even utensils such as chopsticks; tangible items that are linked to a certain culture. Cultural practices are the acceptable behavioral patterns, forms of discourse, and rites of passage within a specific culture.
  • the goals are that students "demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between the practices and perspectives of the culture studied," which means that we should encourage the students to understand why other cultures do what they do and what the members of that culture think about the reasons behind what they do. In addition, the students should come to an understanding of "the relationship between the products and perspectives of the culture studied." This means that we should enlighten the students on what members of other cultures do and what these peoples' own opinions are about what they do. Moreover, culture should be starting point for all classroom education. In keeping with the 5 C's, culture is used to make comparisons and connections about communities and in doing so students can have meaningful communication within those communties.
  • According to Omaggio: Culture is complex and elusive and is difficult to include in linear instructional formats. Culture requires time that many teachers feel that do not have. Teachers avoid culture because of their own perceived lack of knowledge. Culture often requires both teacher and learner to move beyond their level of comfort when confronted with deeper, sometimes controversial issues. When teaching languages that are spoken in many different countries, e.g., Spanish, where are the cultural boundaries? Balancing Big C with Little C.
  • Strategies, techniques, and tools for teaching culture in the classroom
Andrew Graff

TPR Foreign Language Instruction and Dyslexia - 2 views

  • For language teachers, this accepted presumption of incapacity is a huge hurdle, because it keeps many children and adults from even dipping a toe into the language pool!
  • TPR was and is a wonderful way to turn that presumption on its head and show the learner that, not only can we learn, but under the right circumstances, it's fun!
  • When we are infants our exposure to language is virtually inseparable from physical activities. People talk to us while tickling us, feeding us, changing our diapers... We are immersed in a language we don't speak, in an environment that we explore with every part of our body. Our parents and caregivers literally walk and talk us through activities - for example, we learn lots of vocabulary while someone stands behind us at the bathroom sink, soaping our hands until they're slippery, holding them under warm water, rubbing or scrubbing, all the while talking about what we're doing and what it feels like. In this way, movement and feeling are intimately tied to the process of internalizing the language.
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  • Classes are active - you are not in your seat all period. The focus for the first weeks is on listening and moving in response to what the teacher says.
  • There is heavy emphasis on listening comprehension, because the larger your listening comprehension vocabulary is, the larger your speaking vocabulary will become.
  • Lots of language is learned in happy circumstances, especially while you're having fun.
  • In a TPR class, grammar and syntax are not taught directly. Rather, the teacher designs activities that expose the student to language in context, especially in the context of some kind of movement.
  • I'm asked with some regularity about appropriate foreign language instruction for students with a dyslexic learning or thinking style. I'm quick to recommend finding a school or program that includes - or even better - relies on TPR as its principal instructional strategy.
  • Typically, the initial TPR lessons are commands involving the whole body - stand up, sit down, turn around, walk, stop.
  • Fairly soon, the teacher quietly stops demonstrating, and the students realize that they somehow just know what to do in response to the words.
  • You're also encouraged to trust your body, because sometimes it knows what to do before your brain does!
  • As class proceeds, nouns, adverbs, prepositions are added until before you know it, students are performing commands like, 'Stand up, walk to the door, open it, stick your tongue out, close the door, turn around, hop to Jessica's desk, kiss your right knee four times, and lie down on Jessica's desk."
  • It's just that the instruction is designed to facilitate language acquisition, not learning a language through analysis, memorization and application of rules.
  • But consider your native language: you did not need to learn the grammar and syntax of your native language in order to learn to speak it. You learned those structures, unconsciously as you learned to speak.
  • The first is that in a TPR classroom, the focus is not on analysis of linguistic structures, but on internalizing those structures for unconscious use.
  • When we use TPR strategies to teach, our goal is truly to be able to understand, speak, read and write the language, not "about" the language.
  • I think this creativity, the synthetic rather than analytic experience, the low stress, and generally accepting environment engineered by the teacher, are a large part of the reason so many students, including students with learning challenges, find TPR classes so effective and enjoyable.
  • Within these real experiences, students are free to generate all kinds of expressions using the language they're studying, and to lead instruction in unique directions.
Heide DeMorris

sylvia duckworth - YouTube - 3 views

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    This is an awesome YouTube channel by Sylvia Duckworth. I would use her Chansons au Powerpoint to pre-teach vocabulary and then reinforce the learning with the music/PowerPoint combination.  Other videos offer a plethora of topics that can be used in your classroom.  Her use of GoAnimate inspires me to have my students create similar projects to tell stories.   
Joel Bennett

Social Media is Here to Stay... Now What? - 0 views

  • Social media is driven by another buzzword: "user-generated content" or content that is contributed by participants rather than editors.
  • I'm going to share my research in three acts: 1) How did social media - and social network sites in particular - gain traction in the US? And how should we think about network effects? 2) What are some core differences between how teens leverage social media and how adults engage with these same tools? 3) How is social media reconfiguring social infrastructure and where is all of this going?
  • Facebook was narrated as the "safe" alternative and, in the 2006-2007 school year, a split amongst American teens occurred. Those college-bound kids from wealthier or upwardly mobile backgrounds flocked to Facebook while teens from urban or less economically privileged backgrounds rejected the transition and opted to stay with MySpace while simultaneously rejecting the fears brought on by American media. Many kids were caught in the middle and opted to use both, but the division that occurred resembles the same "jocks and burnouts" narrative that shaped American schools in the 1980s.
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  • over 35% of American adults have a profile on a social network site
  • many adults have jumped in, but what they are doing there is often very different than what young people are doing.
  • Teens are much more motivated to talk only with their friends and they learned a harsh lesson with social network sites. Even if they are just trying to talk to their friends, those who hold power over them are going to access everything they wrote if it's in public
  • while you can replicate a conversation, it's much easier to alter what's been said than to confirm that it's an accurate portrayal of the original conversation.
  • 1. Invisible Audiences. We are used to being able to assess the people around us when we're speaking. We adjust what we're saying to account for the audience. Social media introduces all sorts of invisible audiences.
  • Social media brings all of these contexts crashing into one another and it's often difficult to figure out what's appropriate
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    1) How did social media - and social network sites in particular - gain traction in the US? And how should we think about network effects? 2) What are some core differences between how teens leverage social media and how adults engage with these same tools? 3) How is social media reconfiguring social infrastructure and where is all of this going?
Claude Almansi

Learning technology teacher development blog: Using Word Clouds in EFL ESL (Nik Peachey) - 1 views

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    I've just discovered Wordle, which is a really useful site for creating word clouds. The word clouds are created by entering either a text, URL or del.icio.us username into a field. The site then generates a word cloud based on the frequency of key words in the text or webpage.
Tami Brass

Language Studies - 0 views

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    The Authoring Software that made these exercises is now available for purchase, contact us for further details We are also running a one-day seminar on use of the software This course material is freely available for use by teachers in any educational institution, although the copyright remains with the Department of Language Studies at London Guildhall University.
Maggie Verster

Using English Effectively (A free english course) - 6 views

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    "The free online course will help you learn how to use English more effectively. It covers different types of writing including imaginative writing, English in the media, journalism, and textual analysis. It goes on to offer a comprehensive guide to using language effectively. This course is ideal for those who want to improve their written English for work or pleasure. It is also suitable for students of English. "
Isabelle Jones

Getting started with Second Life : JISC - 0 views

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    This guide is aimed at those who are wanting to use Second Life for teaching in further and higher education. It provides in-depth descriptions of all aspects of the immersive world for both direct use and facilitating others' use." />www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/documents/gettingstartedsecondlife.aspx
Lauren Rosen

How tablets accelerate the ease of learning a foreign language | TabTimes - 9 views

  • French Yelp, the Spanish-version of Craigslist, or the Japanese-language weather app.
  • best route from Le Louvre to Notre Dame in Paris. Students can use the same technology that a native speaker would use to accomplish any given task
  • mobile devices connect users with foreign language newspapers, videos, podcasts, and streaming online radio. This level of remote accessibility into other cultures and languages is completely unprecedented.
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  • how you might use the technology if your first language wasn’t English
  • electing applications that align with personal or professional interests
  • recipes in French
  • chord charts, and share recordings
  • Musicians
  • Cooking
  • majority of tablet applications are designed for just one task
  • ask-based approach to language learning relies on authentic language used in authentic ways. Tablets are now proving to serve this purpose
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    Using real apps for real language learning through taks based activities and practice in the ways that native speakers function daily. Authenticity at its best. . 
Barbara Lindsey

NEA: World Languages - 0 views

  • "The fact that our students study a language from grade one not only teaches them how to learn languages, it gives them the mindset that languages are just as important as any other subject," says Janet Eklund, now in her 20th year at Glastonbury, where she's one of two Russian teachers.
  • "All along, we're working to make them not just language proficient, but culturally aware," says Oleksak. "We always remind them that they have to learn more than just the words to relate to people from other cultures."
  • "There's a Chinese saying, that if three people pass by, one of them is your teacher. We learn from just about every experience we have," says Wang. "Then we make sense of it through our language."   
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  • Asia Society's Shuhan Wang cautions against a "language of the month" approach for districts working to build their language programs. It's more important, she says, to build on community resources and to do what you can to make language learning real-world and relevant to them.
  • Presidential candidate Barack Obama hit on some deep-seated anxiety when he remarked in July that we should emphasize foreign language learning from an early age.
  • "The U.S. will become less competitive in the global economy because of a shortage of strong foreign language and international studies programs at the elementary, high school, and college levels," the Committee for Economic Development stated plainly in a 2006 report. "Our diplomatic efforts often have been hampered by a lack of cultural awareness," the report went on to say. The world is becoming so interrelated, if we don't teach our young other languages and cultural values, says Wang, "We are denying them access to the new world. It is just plain and simple. If we continue to view language learning as for the elite, for the "smart ones," or for the family who can afford to pay for it, we are really widening the gap."
  • What does it say about America that we are the only industrialized nation that routinely graduates high school students who speak only one language? Frankly, it says that if you want to talk to us—to do business with us, negotiate peace with us, learn from or teach us, or even just pal around with us—you'd better speak English.
  • "The norm is still either no foreign language or two years in high school," says Marty Abbott, director of Education at the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.
  • Foreign language programs are often among the first things cut by urban school administrators desperately adding math and reading classes to raise test scores.
  • "It's time to reassess what 'basic skills' really means for the 21st century," says Asia Society's Wang.
  • Not only will students learn new vocabulary in the target language, but they get to work on the concepts they need to master for other classes, and yes, for high-stakes tests. That's how they do it in Glastonbury, says Oleksak: "We pre-teach, co-teach, and post-teach what's going on in the elementary classroom."
  • The kids reason out what you get when you add three butterflies plus four butterflies: Seven, yes, but really it's practice in Chinese and math, as well as a reminder that caterpillars turn into butterflies.
  • Right now, districts like Glastonbury—with an articulated, sequential program spanning grades 1–12, state-of-the-art language labs, and all the support an administration could give—are the exception.
Claude Almansi

Official Google Blog: "In their own words": political videos meet Google speech-to-text... - 0 views

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    With the help of our speech recognition technologies, videos from YouTube's Politicians channels are automatically transcribed from speech to text and indexed. Using the gadget you can search not only the titles and descriptions of the videos, but also their spoken content. Additionally, since speech recognition tells us exactly when words are spoken in the video, you can jump right to the most relevant parts of the videos you find.
shaik pasha

Home made energy: Renewable energy for the rest of us - 0 views

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    52-Year old man from California finally reveals methods he uses to make the electric company pay... His step-by-step methods can be used by anyone who wants to generate his own electricity..."
Beth O'Connor

AAPPL - 10 views

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    "The ACTFL Assessment of Performance toward Proficiency in Languages (AAPPL) is unlike any other assessment. AAPPL Measure addresses the National Standards for Foreign Language Learning and uses today's communication media in which test takers perform tasks such as participating in a virtual video chat, creating wikis, e-mailing, and using apps to demonstrate language ability."
LUCIAN DUMA

#MOOC next Big Thing in XXI Century Education . Top 12 free tools you can use now to jo... - 5 views

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    Just posted:Top 12 free tools you can use now to join/organize a #mooc  http://dumacornellucian.edu.glogster.com/moocbylucianecurator .Add your feed-back if you like my post .
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