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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

Great resource for "something more like an actual conversation - speech taking place in real time that is continually new, that conveys information that we are interested in...a listing of online news radio, talk, information programs, and music programs featuring music in the native language to practice your understanding of foreign languages. "

Conversation avec transcription, fichier sonore et exercices en ligne

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?

Social Networking to Improve Conversation in Secondary Modern Foreign Languages

i Spanish Lessons podcasts are a great way to learn Spanish at your own pace in your free time. Choose from Spanish grammar, vocabulary, culture, travel. or conversational lessons. You can download the lessons to your computer or to your hand-held devise

This is a wonderful article about the consumption of chocolate in Europe. It is a great resource to use with your students when discussing nutrition, holidays, or conversions.

Visuals for Foreign Language Instruction is a free gallery of images hosted by the University of Pittsburgh's Digital Research Library. The gallery contains nearly 500 drawings of people conversing, scenes in houses and buildings, and objects commonly found in houses. You'll also find drawings scenes in cities, in stores, and in nature. The visuals are all drawn cartoon style without any text or speech bubbles. Applications for Education If you're looking for some visual prompts to use in your language lessons, take a look at the gallery at Visuals for Foreign Language Instruction. You can search the gallery by keyword or simple browse through the collection. 

Middlebury's program is mostly interpretive with some presentational aspects so best used in a blended environment where learners have the opportunity to practice spontaneous speaking in live situations. That said, if this is the only option it seems much better than the majority of what's out there for independent language study, in my opinion.