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Archive for the ‘second-language-acquisition’ Category

Bab.la.com: Arabic–English Online Dictionary

2013/02/27 Leave a comment

Bab.la features:  easy lookup (1,2,3), and for each lemma: grammar information (4), synonyms (5, with lookup (6)), usage samples (7), pronunciation help (8: audio, but not IPA), reverse lookup (9).

image

And an example for the reverse lookup: image.

In short, this is a real dictionary, unlike Google Translate, which is amazing in itself, but often misused  by language learners. Unlike Google Translate, Bab.la helps with lookup by Arabic letter, but does not come with a phonetic transliteration to make it usable with a Roman letters keyboard. Fortunately, the LRC features to phonetic transliterators integrated into Windows: MS-Maren and Google Arabic Input.

Categories: Arabic, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, Dictionaries, English, Speaking, websites, Writing Tags:

How a teacher can divide a class into groups, each sharing audio and one screen, in Sanako Study 1200–the ultimate training summary…

2013/02/18 Leave a comment
  1. … using animated GIFS
    1. make groups (=sessions) like shown here;
    2. share audio/screen within  each group so that (ideal for enforcing oral communication during a shared computer task)
      1. everybody can hear and speak, like shown here (but use option “All in group” instead of pairs in discussion);
      2. everybody can see screen of “model student”  (as shown here), but only screen owner can type/mouse (and draw, using start/Zoomit/CTRL+F1).
Categories: animated-GIFs, audience-is-teachers, digital-audio-lab, Speaking Tags: , , , ,

How to record your voice with Vocaroo.com

2013/02/07 Leave a comment
  1. Click the red record button:
  2. image
  3. IMPORTANT: You have to allow the web app access to your microphone (you would not want webpages  be able to record you without having been asked for permission, would you?): CAM01633
  4. And/or Click “allow” on this screen:
  5. image
  6. Speak, when done, click the square stop button:
  7. image
  8. Click the triangle to listen to your recording (if you do not see the triangle, but a warning at the bottom, have you clicked “allow ” in step 3 above? If you are not sure, press “F5” now to refresh the page, that will bring up the dialogue again for you press “allow ”):
  9. image
  10. Listen:image
  11. “Save”.
Categories: audience-is-students, multimedia-recording, Speaking, websites Tags: ,

Multilingual WordNet search interface

2013/02/01 Leave a comment

image

Covers a subset of the languages supported by the LRC. Based on Wordnet which is rather than a dictionary for human consumption, a machine-readable semantic network, but here is one of its machine-generated applications.

Categories: Arabic, audience-is-teachers, Dictionaries, e-languages, English, Farsi, French, Hebrew, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Vocabulary, websites Tags: , ,

How to set text-to-speech to a different language on LRC Windows XP computers

2013/01/29 Leave a comment

set-deskbot-text-to-speech-language-to-portuguese

Example for Portuguese – choose your own language instead.

Categories: audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, Screenshots, Speaking Tags: ,

New keyboard shortcuts for diacritics on LRC Teacher PC

2013/01/23 Leave a comment
  1. The US international keyboard layout that has come with MS-Windows for many years (though – except in the LRC – not set as default, you need to enable it in the control panel) greatly facilitates typing of characters for most languages that use Roman script with common diacritical marks, but does not cover Pinyin and similar diacritical marks.
  2. Carly from Carleton, as avid a language teacher as a technologist,  had the great idea to extend Microsoft’s US-international keyboard so as to include all the Pinyin tone marks (and other accents useful for linguists). Here is the upshot, extracted  from her  instructions, but excluding  what (either shortcut or (use of common accents within Pinyin is now covered also below) purpose) has not changed from the shortcuts of the non-extended US-international keyboard  that used to be the default in the LRC:
  3. What you want Which keys you press (before comma  is “dead” key = no result until after next key) Example

    acute accent, pinyin 2nd tone

    ‘(=apostrophe), vowel

    á é í ó ú

    grave accent, pinyin 4th tone

    `(=grave), vowel

    à è ì ò ù

    macron accent, pinyin 1st tone

    hyphen, vowel

    ā ē ī ō ū

    pinyin 3rd tone

    %(=shift+5), vowel

    e.g. ǎ ě ǐ ǒ ǔ

    ü with pinyin tones

    Accent, double-quote

    e.g. ǖ ǘ ǚ ǜ

    letter with dot below

    ; (=shift+period), letter

    e.g.clip_image001

    letter with double acute

    : (=shift+;) , o or u

    ő, ű, Ő, Ű
  4. We are offering the extended US-international keyboard this as an optional keyboard on the teacher and student PCs with Windows 7.
    1. To select the new keyboard layout, use the language toolbar, click on 2nd option:
    2. image
    3. To explore the new keyboard layout use the Windows On-screen keyboard which will let you peek ahead after your pressed a dead key.
    4. To bypass a special dead key (= get the normal behavior of the key), press SPACE after it.
Categories: audience-is-teachers, e-languages, English, French, German, Institution-is-University-of-North-Carolina-Charlotte, Italian, Operating-system, Polish, Portuguese, Presenter-Computer, Russian, service-is-applying-learning-tools, service-is-configuring-learning-tools, Spanish, Student-Computers, Swahili, Writing, Yoruba Tags: , , , ,

How teachers can conduct a 1-on-1 student oral assessment in their office using Sanako Lite Recorder

2013/01/22 Leave a comment
  1. If you need to conduct an OPI or other one-on-one oral exam instead of class-size oral exams we offer in the LRC,
    1. we have conducted 1-on-1 speaking assessments using the Sanako headsets and Student Recorder in the LRC.
    2. However, since this setting does not offer much privacy (and also because it blocks  the LRC classroom ), we would recommend conducting such exams in faculty offices. For this scenario, teachers can use:
      1. one of the headsets that can now be checked out by faculty, and in working condition,
      2. the Sanako LITE or standalone recorder – which could not be rolled out by IT on all teacher computers, but I programmed a workaround installer – and is friendlier (for recording and listening/grading) than Audacity. Sanako recently provided a useful guide for one-on-one examinations with the Study Lite recorder here (you do not need a desktop microphone like shown here, it is sufficient to position the headphone appropriately on the desk instead).
Categories: announcements, Arabic, assessments, audience-is-teachers, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek (modern), Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Listening, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, service-is-applying-learning-tools, Spanish, Speaking Tags: ,

How to record and submit a photo presentation assignment

2013/01/22 Leave a comment

A step-by-step explanation how Moodle/PowerPoint allow

  1. a student
    1. to create a photo album from their photos (remind them that they need to be able to download their photos onto the LRC computers), we will load this from their computers analogous to this: How to create a visual cue exam file using Insert Photo album in PowerPoint
    2. to narrate the photoalbum
      1. In the LRC with 2007: https://thomasplagwitz.com/2013/01/22/how-students-can-record-their-picture-or-photo-presentations-with-powerpoint-2007/
      2. or if they use 2010 outside of the LRC, https://thomasplagwitz.com/2013/01/17/recording-student-picture-presentations-with-powerpoint/
    3. To refine their presentation:
      1. Do not edit your audio – not  good language learning  pedagogy.
      2. Rather redo your entire presentation, paying extra attention to the weaknesses you observed when reflecting on your last recorded attempt . You will learn more foreign language this way than if you learn how to edit digital audio. Before you re-record your narration, clear the existing narration from PowerPoint, or save into a new file to be able to compare the Before/After.
    4. to submit: How a student takes a Moodle Single file upload assignment.
  2. a teacher
    1. to prepare:How a teacher creates a Moodle Single file upload assignment, with optional attached file
    2. to grade (reviewHow a teacher grades a Moodle Single file upload assignment):
      1. Save the Moodle file submission assignment
      2. Double-click the PPSX  file to play the file in PowerPoint.
      3. Use the Moodle grade book to grade and provide other feedback.
Categories: Arabic, assignments, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, documentation, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek (modern), Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, office-software, Polish, Portuguese, recording-software, Russian, service-is-applying-learning-tools, Spanish, Speaking, step-by-step-guides, Swahili, Yoruba Tags: , , , , ,