Group items tagged

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?

In short, while "kids" with brains that are hard-wired for written language may get a kick out of learning phonetic transcription tricks, I submit that synthetic phonetic devices such as Truespel, Shavian, etc., are devastatingly confusing and counter-productive for dyslexic or other language-disabled individuals or for second language learners.

This is a fantastic resource for any classroom learning Chinese or about China. The dictionary pinyin with tones as well as simplified and traditional writing, an animation of the order stroke for many words and audio of how the word should be spoken. There is also other resources such as practice sheets for writing, a translator, and other stuff for kids and the classroom.

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

Hi I'm Miriam Ramos Warth. I have taught Spanish for many years. In all this years I've heard parents asking: How can my child practice more Spanish at home? How can I help? Etc... The Internet has many free Spanish resources for parents and teachers but to find the right activity, game or song it's sometimes a bit of a challenge and time consuming. I want to share some websites that I think are age appropriate and with good content to help children to practice Spanish at home.

Página para estudiar chino

A simple comic strip builder with support for English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, or Latin. Finished strips can either be printed or sent via email to the teacher. Great for specific language or literacy activities.

Primary Spanish and French materials