Group items tagged

A great site for learning Mandarin with fun games. Some of the instructions are in Chinese. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Mandarin+%26+Chinese+culture

Differentiated Instruction in the Foreign language classroom

Teens write a lot, but they do not think of their emails, instant and text messages as writing. This disconnect matters because teens believe good writing is an essential skill for success and that more writing instruction at school would help them.

Morph your voice in Audacity Did you know that by applying certain effects to your voice in Audacity , you can sound dramatically different and take on a character of your own. To do this, first highlight your vocal track and then follow the instructions below to generate each effect: 1. If you'd like to sound like ... a robot Click on the Effect Menu and then Delay ... Change the Decay amount to 10 Change the Delay time to 0.009 Change the Number of echos to 30 Click OK Click on the Effect Menu again Click Repeat Delay Repeat this 5 times or more if necessary Listen to this example: Download Creating_a_robot_voice_in_Audacity.mp3 2. If you'd like to sound like ... a demonic spirit Click on the Edit Menu and then Duplicate Highlight the second track Click on the Effect Menu and then Change Pitch ... Change the Semitone (half-steps) to -1 Click OK Highlight the first track Click on the Edit Menu and then Duplicate Highlight the third track Click on the Effect Menu and then Change Pitch ... Change the Semitone (half-steps) to -5 Click OK Click on the Effect Menu and then Bass Boost ... Click OK Drag the Gain slide on the left of the third track to +3DB Highlight the second track Click on the Effect Menu and then Echo ... Change the Delay time (seconds) to 0.1 Change the Decay factor to 0.6 Click OK Listen to this example: Download Creating_a_demonic_voice_in_Audacity.mp3 3. If you'd like to sound like ... a chipmunk Click on the Effect Menu and then Change Pitch ... Change the Percent Change to 100 Click OK Listen to this example: Download Creating_a_chipmunk_voice_in_Audacity.mp3 4. If you'd like to sound like ... a telephone operator Click o

Novelinks is maintained by the Education section of the English Department at Brigham Young University. Our goal is to provide educators with quality teaching materials that will enhance classroom instruction for a wide variety of commonly taught novels in middle through secondary schools. Novelinks includes online as well as printed references to biographical, historical and critical insights on authors and their works. We also offer reading strategies and units for specific novels under the heading reading resources.

instructions and blackline masters for reading comprehension strategies. useful across disciplines

Aimed at younger students, it again lets you choose characters and scenes but will also update the text of the story depending on characters chosen and their actions. Be sure to play the instructions befor you begin

Here is a movie of a prototype that Mark McCahill's group made with along with some University of Minnesota folks interested in technology assisted language acquisition ... http://hedgehog.software.umn.edu/croquet/croquetMovies/betterLangDemo.mov

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