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Archive for the ‘German’ Category
Example 5: Watch how you can dictate to Windows speech-recognition (e.g. in English) and correct results in MS-Word
2014/03/07
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- Important: Listen carefully: I am not a native speaker, but have a reasonably low amount of errors, because it enunciate, speak clearly and slowly, and separate the words.
- Consider it part of the exercise that you will have to re-read and re-type some your output – use track changes in MS-Word:
- Make it a game: How good can you get?
- If you get really good at it, make a screencast like this one and include it in your Mahara ePortfolio as authentic evidence of your foreign language proficiency.
- Overall, it’s like how I refer to cycling: Beats walking. Anytime.
Categories: assignments, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, e-languages, English, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Mandarin, multimedia-recording, Operating-system, Reading, Screencasts, service-is-applying-learning-tools, Spanish, Speaking, Student-Computers, training, Writing
ePortfolio, MS-Word, speech-recognition, track-changes
A first look at the Google Dictionary extension for Chrome
2014/03/06
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- We
- have not pre-installed in the LRC (for that the extension would need to be more manageable by the teacher during face-to-face classes, which include exams),
- but can (with some reservations) recommend the Google Dictionary extension (even though it is only available for Chrome). Here is why:
- Google dictionary extension provides an interface to Google define and translate
- that is convenient (as quickly accessed like glosses) for reading activities in many languages (Q: is the privileged word sense displayed here intelligently chosen?)
- while (for some languages more than for others) providing access to additional word senses, usage examples and historical background information
- Interface 1: Tooltip,
- for English with audio
- for other languages without audio (even though audio pronunciation may be available in Google translate for that language):
- convenient access (I have been loving the tooltip interface since Google toolbar days)
- limited, but useful information,
- a word sense – not that this is still not contextually intelligent (Cannot blame them here!) and hence more than one word sense should be offered (here I must blame them: Boo!!): E.g. here “arch” should at show more than the most common word sense:
- including pronunciation (not IPA, but audio)
- a word sense – not that this is still not contextually intelligent (Cannot blame them here!) and hence more than one word sense should be offered (here I must blame them: Boo!!): E.g. here “arch” should at show more than the most common word sense:
- Interface 2 (“more”)
- For English, a click on “more” leads to the Google “define”search operator (the related etymology search operator has been reviewed here before):
- Interface 3: unfold the search results by clicking on the down arrow at the bottom to access additional information:
=
- additional word sense entries
- historical:
- etymology
- frequency data
- translation/dictionary entry:
- for our learners of languages other than English, the translation appears right in the tool tip, see above;
- for our ESL learners, this seems a few too many steps for accessing this information, although a monolingual dictionary is useful in many instances also.
- For English, a click on “more” leads to the Google “define”search operator (the related etymology search operator has been reviewed here before):
- For languages other than English, a click on more leads to Google translate, which (should get its own article, but for what it is worth) can be
- more limiting than “define”: While you are given multiple word senses for
- Spanish:
- and to a lesser extent, for
- Arabic:
- Hindi:
- Arabic:
- Spanish:
- for many languages the results are much more limiting:
- Even if you look up German or French, you revert back to the (pedagogically terrible) single word-sense original “translation” interface )
- For East Asian languages, you get Roman alphabet transcriptions
- e.g. Chinese with Pinyin:
- e.g. Japanese:
- e.g. Chinese with Pinyin:
- Even if you look up German or French, you revert back to the (pedagogically terrible) single word-sense original “translation” interface )
- more limiting than “define”: While you are given multiple word senses for
- for English with audio
- Still no per-user tracking? Here it would make sense for the user.
Categories: Arabic, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, Dictionaries, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek (modern), Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Reading, Russian, service-is-evaluating-learning-tools, Spanish, Swahili, websites, Yoruba
glossing, google, google-dictionary, google-translate
Quizlet.com for Vocabulary learning practice
2014/02/25
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Neallt 2014 is featuring a presentation on “Using Quizlet.com to generate and share vocabulary activities” (William Price, University of Pittsburgh). I cannot attend, but the program inspired me to hold my own sneak preview:
Quizlet.com is yet another site that provides a variety of flashcard and quiz activities for a given wordlist. A nice example is the “Speller”activity – which proves a text-to-speech generated aural cue for dictation (not included in this video):
Or step-by-step:
Unfortunately, the AI seems limited to only 1-1 L1-L2 relationships (which precludes how vocabulary seems to be learnt best: in phrasal contexts):
Feedback on “wrong” user input is color red, aural and visual presentation of the correct form: 
Then the application re-prompts for user input and allows user correction:
This is a “Test activity. Foreign language character input seems easy (but does beg the question since the inputs appear only when they are needed…)
Mix-and-match is called Scatter:
Here is the activity overview: 
Wait, there is more: 
Quizlet supports many dozen languages, including non-western, including ancient, not differentiating between modern and ancient Greek, but the browsing capabilities – admittedly a hard task – are somewhat flat (search and language)):
And boasts 20 million sets (as of today – many consisting of 2 terms or few more). As so often, usefulness for class instruction hinges on the availability of textbook-aligned vocabulary lists. However, if you have them with your textbooks, Quizlet makes it automatic to generate uploaded materials into exercises.
However, as said, you may not like how much you have to dumb it down.
Categories: Arabic, audience-is-teachers, e-languages, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek (ancient), Greek (modern), Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Listening, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Vocabulary
2014, flashcards, neallt, quizlet.com, text-to-speech
German Frame Semantic Online Lexicon
2014/02/21
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“The German Frame-based Dictionary is an attempt to apply the linguistic theory of Frame Semantics to the language classroom”, and is “based on the German FrameNet at the University of Texas at Austin, a digital archive of how German words are used in real life contexts”. How to Use the German Frame-based Dictionary.
Example Frame pagE:
The Frames available are limited, but instructive samples which can help the naïve user with dictionary use: 
There are also some Arbeitsblätter, but only a few: 
(On the occasion of Charles Fillmore’s death).
Categories: Dictionaries, e-languages, English, German, websites
framenet, linguistics, semantics
Overview over speech recognition assignment possibilities in the LRC–from beginning to end
2014/01/21
1 comment
- UPDATE: now with more videos to watch.
- First switch languages, once you are in the right language:
- The speech recognition loads at startup with this window:
- or can be started from the desktop shortcut:
- To activate = make it start/stop listening, click on the microphone
- create and save individualized voice training data (only the first time you use speech recognition in the LRC),
- Watch how to train (for English, short 5 minutes);
- Watch how to back up/restore;
- beginner voice training example (long, before/after effect in speech recognition),
- homework assignment exercise design,
- Watch how (for English, with correction in MS-Word)
- dictation example.
Categories: assignments, e-languages, English, French, German, Japanese, Mandarin, os, Spanish, Speaking
7, ms-windows, speech-recognition
Free German online proofing tool by Duden
2013/12/09
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- Don’t have MS-Word Proofing Tools, and can’t come to the LRC which has proofing tools for German and many other languages installed?
- Try Duden’s (= authoritative German dictionary publisher, and nowadays much more) free (up to 800 characters at a time; a time-limited (=30 days add-in for MS-Word is also available) Online version:
- Use it wisely: Learning is not cheating. But please consult your teacher whether this is legitimate help.
- Now how’s the quality? Drop us a comment below.
Categories: audience-is-students, German, websites, Writing
proofing-tools
How to type phonetic symbols on a computer
2013/11/16
2 comments
- Web-based On-screen-keyboards (point-and-click; low learning curve, but no fast typing speed; typing into a textbox from where you can copy/paste the result into other programs):
- http://westonruter.github.com/ipa-chart/keyboard/: Sounds are systematically organized. Suitable for learners, but also good for teacher demonstrations.
- Partially based on keyboard shortcuts: http://www.ipatrainer.com/user/site/index.php?pageID=ipawriter:
- http://ipa.typeit.org/full/: Other than the English version, the full version includes non-English sounds. The interface is optimized for fast typing (sorted by keyboard key). Presumably better for teachers using a screen projector as a whiteboard.
- i2speak.com (reviewed here earlier):
- Update: Richard Ishida’s seems also impressive,
- and you can use phonetics terminology to get characters selected, like so:
- http://ipa.typeit.org/full/: Other than the English version, the full version includes non-English sounds. The interface is optimized for fast typing (sorted by keyboard key). Presumably better for teachers using a screen projector as a whiteboard.
- http://westonruter.github.com/ipa-chart/keyboard/: Sounds are systematically organized. Suitable for learners, but also good for teacher demonstrations.
- Windows-based:
- http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/resource/phonetics/: MS-Windows keyboard layout. May be good for even faster typing, if you can memorize the keyboard layout or add keyboard stickers (we unfortunately have too many languages vying for our hardware keyboard space already). Requires download & installation (may be added to the LRC keyboards during next imaging if we receive enough requests).
- http://staff.washington.edu/dmontero/IPACharmap/.
- http://sourceforge.net/projects/allchars/: If you are use to the ALT+### method of entering characters and are still on XP, this may be for you: You can generate your own keyboard shortcuts for phonetic characters.
- MS-Word:
- http://email.eva.mpg.de/~bibiko/downloads/uniqoder/uniqoder.html: Allows to select IPA-Symbols from a toolbar. Untested.
- http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/resource/phonetics/: MS-Windows keyboard layout. May be good for even faster typing, if you can memorize the keyboard layout or add keyboard stickers (we unfortunately have too many languages vying for our hardware keyboard space already). Requires download & installation (may be added to the LRC keyboards during next imaging if we receive enough requests).
- There are also always X-Sampa and CXS and ASCII-IPA: ways of writing IPA in plain ASCII messages – but yet another thing to teach novices in phonetics may be a bridge too far.
Categories: Arabic, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek (modern), Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, learning-materials, Mandarin, Operating-system, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, service-is-evaluating-learning-tools, Spanish, Speaking, Swahili, websites, Yoruba
keyboard, phonetics
How to create screencasts of student presentations for the language learner ePortfolio in the digital audio lab
2013/11/08
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- Students can now easily video-record their own screens during class presentations – not only when using PowerPoint; instead students could demo a website, like their Facebook page.
- Last year, we were limited to PowerPoint’s record slideshow with timing and narration feature, and either send the PPSX (small, but requires the PowerPoint viewer) or the “Save as” video (new in PowerPoint 2010; computing intensive and large file size).
- Now with MS-Community Clips, screencasts are
- minimal effort to create (keyboard shortcut WIN+ALT+R or T; save on desktop; drag/drop into Sanako homework folder)
- and little effort to distribute:
- Students could have uploaded to a Moodle’ file upload assignment (default file size limit: 64MB) or Kaltura file upload assignment (not sure whether there is a size limit). This seems more suitable for assignments with screencasts recordings.
- In this instance
- Sanako collected the Homework files to the Sanako share,
- my langlabemailer emailed them as attachment (so far tested to allow for 25MB attachment size, the equivalent of 7-8 minute screencast, a hefty space to fill in L2! We also established: 45MB is too much…
) to the originating student and teacher, for review, grading –
- and – provided it passes muster as an attractive and significant piece – possibly for re-use in the student’s language learner ePortfolio.
- In addition,
- Before the presentations, the teacher easily collaborated on proof-reading the slide decks of individual students, by using the Sanako Remote control screen sharing feature.
- During the presentation, students followed more closely – which seemed to increase their attention and comprehension -, thanks to audio and screen being shared to them from the presenter, using the Sanako’s “Model student” feature.
Categories: Arabic, audience-is-teachers, digital-audio-lab, e-languages, English, eportfolio, Farsi, French, German, Greek (modern), Hindi, Italian, Japanese, learning-usage-samples, Mandarin, multimedia-recording, office-software, Portuguese, presentations, Presenter-Computer, Russian, Spanish, Speaking, Student-Computers
file-upload, homework-activity, kaltura, langlabemailer, model-student, moodle, ms-community-clips, ms-powerpoint, sanako-study-1200, screensharing, videos
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