technoLanguages

Many language students like to use electronic translators. I teach English and over the years I have watched them grow in popularity. Students love them, there is no doubt about that. Teachers are not so united. Some think they are great, and others hate them. For me, it has taken some time to befriend them, and work out how to take advantage of them in the classroom.

This blog from Edutopia highlights Kathy Shirley and her work with iPods in an ESL classroom. At a session I attended, she shared the amazing growth her students underwent when they could hear themselves and could redo their oral practice assignments over and over until they were satisfied with the results. Her teachers have since gone on to expand their use of iPods in the classroom. The iPods offers unlimited possibilities for all second language teachers. And one of the best parts, as Kathy said, is that minimal tech. expertise is required on the part of teachers.

European site has games to learn a number of languages including French, Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese, German and English. There are a few free Bingo games (health and home objects). There are sheets that provide expressions (at least for French) that you'll use when playing board games or card games. Those could come in handy for building cultural vocab. that we don't often encounter in our academic language classes.

This is an interesting project - using authentic materials for language classrooms in ways in which the materials were never intended (e.g. recipe cards, postcards, maps, train schedules) - essentially focusing langauge activities and grammar on the task of describing or using the authentic materials. Sample lesson ideas are provided for each of the authentic materials highlighted.

To understand and learn to read Chinese texts.

new eBook for iPad with audio and videos files, exercises to revise each lesson: http://frenchspanishonline.com/shop.html

Very simple, very effective. Available in Trial Version for Mac or PC.