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Archive for the ‘Proficiency-Levels’ Category
Advanced language learners can test their English, German or Spanish proficiency in 3.5 minutes here using Exhale
2014/05/23
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Update: A new version of the Spanish vocabulary test is here, and the English vocabulary test has been updated here.
Go here and click English or German, or (also requiring only 3.5 minutes to take, but more for manually grading your test with this answer key) go here for Spanish, if you want to to take a simple quick vocabulary test that has been shown to correlate well with general proficiency. You can find more info here on English and German, and here on Spanish.
Pictolang, another flashcard site for vocabulary learning
2012/12/05
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- Distinguishing mark: Pictolang is based on the Culturally authentic Picture Lexicon. Here is an overview of the currently available languages and imagery:
-
Language Region # Images German 2631 Mandarin China 2336 ESL North America 2074 Russian 1420 French France 1231 Spanish Southern Cone 1022 Spanish Mexico 1000 Spanish Central America & Caribbean 872 Spanish Peninsular 579 Arabic 287 Special Collections 151 Ukrainian 139 Japanese 106 French Canada 47 Arabic Oman 11 - You can focus vocabulary your study on specific topics, which will likely integrate it better with your core textbook material (often divided into topical chapters).
- Suitable for self-study, the use of CAPL makes this an especially interesting tool for preparing work/study/travel abroad. It also allows for playing a classroom flashcard game in language culture and area studies, where the teacher can provide context and background information in the images from the target culture.
- Example o the Word Match Game right answer feedback:
- Wrong answer feedback:
Categories: Absolute-Beginner, Advanced, Arabic, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, Beginner, English, French, German, Intermediate, Japanese, Mandarin, Photos, Russian, Spanish, Vocabulary, websites
flashcards, pictolang
Meta-search many historical German dictionaries and encyclopedias using Woerterbuchnetz.de
2012/09/11
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A meta-search by the University of Trier Center for Digital Humanities may not teach you much German – you need to know it already –, but help prevent you remaining a “one-dimensional man”.
I came to know a lot of those during my own German and history studies a long time ago – – when they still only existed on paper, if not parchment 
. Gotta love Digital Humanities, and find other activities for physical exercise. Her is an example search result:
Categories: Advanced, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, Dictionaries, digital-humanities, e-languages, German, Reading, websites
Phonetic Russian character input on US-keyboards with Google IME in the LRC
2012/09/05
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- To write Russian phonetically in Cyrillic:
- Since “input methods”are specific to each window (and automatically switch to that of the window you make active), first open the application you want to write in, preferably MS-Word (has proofing tools for Russian).
- In the language bar on the lower right, click on “EN”, select “Russian” instead
- Click on the keyboard symbol and select “Google”:
- You first may have to right-click on the language bar on the lower right of your desktop and select “Adjust” to show the keyboard symbol:
- You first may have to right-click on the language bar on the lower right of your desktop and select “Adjust” to show the keyboard symbol:
- If you now type in MS-Word Russian (your selection did not “stick” in MS-Word? do the above steps again, eventually it will…) phonetically on a US-keyboard, you will be able to select from suggestions in Cyrillic:
- Click the desired suggestion to have it entered into MS-Word:
- To go back to writing temporarily in English (without changing the entire input method back to English), click the (Cyrillic/Latin) letter symbol on the Google Russian IME menu:
and you can enter English (Latin alphabet) without the popup suggesting you Russian equivalents: 
- To switch from the phonetic input to a floating Cyrillic keyboard,
- click on the keyboard symbol in the Google Russian IME.
- Or from the Language bar, switch to the other (Microsoft) keyboard layout for "Russian" (see #4 above), and go to "Start" / "Run" / type OSK, click "OK".
- click on the keyboard symbol in the Google Russian IME.
UIowa.edu phonetics website for learners of English, German and Spanish
2012/07/10
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Hone your foreign language pronunciation skills by learning about phonetics: This oft-recommended University of Iowa phonetics website “contains animated libraries of the phonetic sounds (….) for each consonant and vowel”, including “an animated articulatory diagram, a step-by-step description, and video-audio of the sound spoken in context”.
Spring 2012 Faculty Workshop II: Oral Proficiency testing with Audacity/Sanako
2012/04/30
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- View screens (best viewed side by side, but note that left and right screen are not synchronized):
- for full slide show (note the included short links for convenient further reading), left screen
- for Sanako interface and full audio track, right screen
.
- for full slide show (note the included short links for convenient further reading), left screen
- Table of contents:
- Overview of a Sanako Oral Exam
- Examples of Exam teachers’ exam question recordings
- Example of a Sanako Exam
- Loop induction
- creating an exam question recording
- by taking a Sanako exam as a student
- Step-by-Step of administering a Sanako oral exam
- Grading Sanako oral exam student files
- Sanako voice insert for
- facilitating recording oral assignments for student without hard-coded pauses
- commenting on student responses during grading
- Sanako voice insert for
- Sanako authoring tool for providing visual on top of aural cues to students
Categories: Absolute-Beginner, Advanced, Arabic, audience-is-teachers, Beginner, digital-audio-lab, e-languages, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek (modern), Hindi, Intermediate, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Listening, Mandarin, multimedia-recording, Polish, Portuguese, Presenter-Computer, Russian, Screencasts, service-is-assessing, service-is-learning-materials-creation, Slideshows, Spanish, Speaking, step-by-step-guides, Student-Computers, Swahili, workshops, Yoruba
audacity, authoring-tool, sanako-study-1200, student.exe
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If you cannot find it here, look there: 5,500 Language-Learning Links and Programs for learning or teaching 150 languages
Shortcuts:Our Lists, Our Maps, LRC Staff Moodle Site,LRC Project Moodle Site, 49erexpress, UNCC Moodle, Student Recordings: s:claslcslrcsanakostudent
Learning usage samples: Sanako oral exam, Kaltura webcam presentation, Dictation with speech recognition, Sanako written exam, Chinese and Japanese interactive stroke-order practice
Test the Sanako Installer, Webbrowser Popup Konfigurator for XP, or Windows7, faster LRC TeacherPC Log-in Let MS facilitate diacritics writing by installing for you US-International keyboard layout
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