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Cutting Edge Elementary will help you to learn English. It is for students with a little bit of English. It will help you with:\n\nGrammar\nVocabulary\nReading and Listening\nSpeaking\nWriting\nReal life situations

"ImTranslator offers a natural sounding text-to-speech system with translation capabilities that quickly translates text and reads it aloud at one click of a button." Thanks to Isabelle for pointing it out in a recent presentation that she has posted on her blog, Supporting EAL Learners in the MFL Classroom, Edge Hill University, Monday 21st October 2013.

"ImTranslator offers a natural sounding text-to-speech system with translation capabilities that quickly translates text and reads it aloud at one click of a button."

Edge Hill portal for Blackwells.

link to full Boroditsky essay mentioned in Newsweek article shared earlier by Isabelle

link to full Boroditsky essay

In fact, some of the greatest obstacles to world-language education are parents who recall their own miserable experiences. Many Americans were introduced to foreign languages in middle school or high school classes that emphasized conjugation of verbs and other dull grammatical tasks rather than relevant communication skills. "Language teaching in the U.S. has been ineffective," Stewart says. "We start it at the wrong age. Teacher skills are not great. There's a focus on grammar and translation." The result: "Adults who took three years of French don't speak a word," she states.\nBut the trend toward competency and away from conjugation is helping create a new generation of language learners, one that gains real-world skills with many practical applications.

the key here lies in the paragraph I clipped: the focus should be on competency rather than on conjugation.