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..."
This is a temporary webpage for gathering information on strategies and methods for supporting the International Year of Languages (IYL). It is intended as a location to collect and display information relating to discussions leading up to, among other things, a more permanent web presence.
Project "Developing Digital Skills @ School" focuses on ICT. Teachers & students learn how to deal with the computer. DigiSkills teachers design, share, compare and enhance teaching methods and materials.
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
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"Introduction
In recent years, the world has witnessed a growing wave of local initiatives in support of public schools.
Teachers, cultural associations and civil society have been playing an active part in grassroots experiments aimed at helping schools in the creative elaboration of new educational methods, also exploiting information technologies.
Here answers are coming from those directly faced with educational issues, in contrast with the more common top-down reforms, where experts' committees draw up didactic experimentation plans to be put forward to willing teachers.
Experiments like that are often very effective but, unfortunately, they rarely get known beyond the immediate sphere of their promoters. Moreover, they tend to be short-lived because promoters don't have the strength to sustain them and a suitable supporting network is lacking. They are like drops in the ocean: they apparently cannot change the entire educational system. But the ocean of whole human community could be flooded by many such contained experiments that would transform it, if the most meaningful of them could be fostered, spread and developed. ..."
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
In this blog post, Conti reiterated inadequacies in methods from previous posts about teaching listening to secondary-level additional (modern) language learners in the UK. He then outlined skills and conditions necessary for successful listening comprehension. As he enumerated practical implications of those skills for learning and teaching activities, he provided illustrative sequences of tasks that teachers could set for learners to help them develop their listening comprehension.