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Collections of online dictionaries

2012/01/30 Leave a comment
  1. Here you can haz dictionaries. And if you use them in the Language Resource Center, you even have the chance to  run into someone who can show you how to use them well.
  2. http://linguistlist.org/sp/GetWRListings.cfm?WRAbbrev=Dict
  3. http://lexicall.widged.com/repository/listing.php?category=words
Categories: all-languages, Arabic, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek (ancient), Greek (modern), Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Vocabulary, websites, Yoruba Tags: ,

How a teacher creates audio recordings for use with Sanako Student Voice Insert mode

2012/01/24 Leave a comment
    1. One of the Sanako Student player’s useful features  geared toward language learning activities, is that it can save the teacher the time and effort for inserting pauses into their audio recordings,  so that students can record responses into them.
      1. Meaning the teacher can just press the red speak button sanako-student-player-speakand record through the entire file in one sitting.
      2. The teacher can still help students finding their way around the file, especially where to insert their own audio recording responses, by adding aural cues.
        1. This can be done in minimal time: I once saw a teacher use a bicycle bell – and why not, if it saves time.
        2. A spoken instruction “Respond”/”Answer in 10 seconds” is not more difficult to spot (unless only the voice graph is being browsed) and might be even better.
        3. If you have spare time: 
          1. You can post-edit the file with audacity, generating and inserting sinus tones.
          2. You can use the Sanako player to insert bookmarks instead of cues.
    2. As long as students have been instructed to how to use voice insert recording mode with the Sanako student recorder.
      1. This is for self access of students to teacher recorded files – be it during class or homework.
      2. If you want to record students under exam conditions, a similar insert recording feature is available within the activity: Model imitation, but not with a pre-recorded file, only when the live teacher is the program source students listen to for cues.
Categories: Arabic, audience-is-teachers, documentation, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek (modern), Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Listening, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, presenter-computer, Russian, service-is-learning-materials-creation, software, Spanish, Speaking, Student-Computers, Swahili, Yoruba Tags: , , , ,

How a student reviews a Moodle MS-Word file upload assignment for writing

2012/01/18 1 comment
  1. The student can see the submitted grade in her user report:qw6-view-grading-as-permitted-student
  2. She can view the assignment: corrected-assignment-with-response-file-as-permitted-student
  3. from where she can open the corrected MS-word file w7-open-file-as-permitted-student
  4. for more detailed corrective feedback: w2
  5.  
Categories: Arabic, audience-is-students, documentation, e-languages, English, Farsi, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Writing, Yoruba Tags: , ,

Sanako comparative recording exercises using Moodle

2012/01/13 Leave a comment
  1. Comparative recordings are one of the best-established practices in SLA with technology. We can implement them here using:
    1. The Sanako Study 1200 language lab software installed in LRCRoomCoed434 facilitates comparative recordings by students, based on a teacher-provided model audio, with its student dual track recorder software.
    2. Moodle’s Simple file upload assignment aids in managing the workflow,
      1. from delivering the audio file with the model recording to the student
      2. to  organizing, assessing and grading the student input.
  2. For the teacher
    1. to create such an exercise, she
      1. creates an audio recording that serves as a model for the student pronunciation – a special application of our Audacity recording introduction. It is advised, however, to insert clear cues for the student to start his repetition.
      2. creates a Moodle’s Simple file upload assignment to which she attaches the audio recording
    2. continue with How a teacher grades a Moodle simple file upload assignment

  3. For the students to take such an exercise:

      1. How a student takes a Moodle Simple file upload assignment
      2. TBA: Sanako Student Recorder
Categories: Absolute-Beginner, Arabic, audience-is-teachers, Beginner, documentation, e-languages, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek (modern), Intermediate, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, software, Spanish, Speaking, Student-Computers, Yoruba Tags: , ,

How to do model imitation recording exercises to improve language learner pronunciation in the LRC and beyond

2011/11/22 Leave a comment
  1. Sometimes teachers ask about support for voice recognition in the LRC. The term voice recognition or speech recognition (the former appears to be analogous to face recognition in authentication and other security contexts?) is usually reserved for software that can transcribe your voice into text – still no free option for this, AFAIK. Dragon naturally speaking is the oft recommended market leader outside of education (and within, Auralog Tell me more, see below). Update summer 2012: We are working on enabling the Speech recognition built into Windows 7 Enterprise for English, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), French, Spanish, German, and Japanese.
  2. Often times, what is actually desired is a digital audio recorder with voice graph, ideally a dual track recorder.
    1. In the LRC student computers, we have for exactly this purpose a digital audio recorder as part of the SANAKO Study 1200language learning system
      1. It features a dual track recorder (allows to listen to teacher track which can be a prerecorded model to imitate on the left channel while recording the student track on the right channel of a stereo track) with a voice graph: sanako_student_exe_pane_player_audio_voicegraph_highlighted. See this dual-track-voice-graph screencast demo from the vendor and also our student cheat sheet from the vendor documentation.
      2. The Sanako is available in the LRC, as well as in many other educational institutions around the world, but neither free nor web-based (although a web-based version seems to be in the works). It currently requires MS-Windows to run.
    2. A popular and free audio editor (but not an SLA – specific application, let alone geared towards model imitation; also, for all practical ends and purposes,  requires an extra download and installations of an MP3 encoder to be able to save recordings as compressed MP3) is Audacity. To use for model imitation exercises,
      1. the student can open a model track (mp3 recommended)
      2. and manage within the program the imitation portion, using the voice graph: elti-lynn-question-response-result-audacity-names1
      3. then export  back out as mp3,
        1. either her responses individually (see my demo screencast, requires Windows Media Player on Windows, which actually shows a question/response rather than a model imitation, but same principle),
        2. or, by deleting the model track, the response parts mixed down to one track,
        3. or also, if, like in my demo screencast, the timeline sequence of model (with pauses) and responses is carefully managed (so that model and imitation do not overlap), mixed down to one track.
    3. In one language program, I have worked extensively with Auralog Tell me more
      1. which was (not exclusively, but arguably too much) based on this pedagogic concept of having students compare the voice graph of their imitation with the model voice graph (while it do did not allow for teachers to upload their own content, and was certainly not free). auralog-tellmemore-voicegraph
      2. To my knowledge, Auralog Tell me more does not allow for adding teacher-produced content as models.
      3. I did like the self-reflective and repetitive practice element. However, I found  that students – apart from intonation and (not useful for not pitch based languages) pitch -, did not benefit as much as one might have expected from viewing the voice graph, indeed tended to get overwhelmed, even confused by the raw voice information in  such a voice graph.
      4. And automated scoring of pronunciation (or speech recognition” – not free form, but on a level that has been commoditized in operating systems like Windows 7, the level of voice-directed selection between a limited set of different options, like menu options, and in the case of Auralog, choosing between different response options) seemed iffy and less than transparent in Auralog Tell me more, even though this is  their primary selling point. E.g. when I made deliberate gross mistakes, the program seemed to change its standards and wave me through ( English pronunciation example; also observed by me when testing Auralog with East Asian speakers of English).
  3. A voice graph  is not the same as a more abstract phonetic transcription (although I do not know whether language learners can be trained in phonetic symbol sets like the IPA).  There are now experimental  programs that can automate the transcription of text into phonetic symbol sets for e.g. Portuguese or Spanish. Maybe you will find that practice with recording and a phonetic transcription of the recorded text is more useful for your students’ pronunciation practice than a fancy voice graph.
Categories: Arabic, documentation, e-languages, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek (modern), Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Screencasts, software, Spanish, Speaking, Yoruba Tags: , , ,

Sample of how students use the foreign language TTS (text-to-speech) in the LRC

2011/10/21 Leave a comment

Last week, I noticed this student in the LRC working on a speaking assignment in her SLA class. First, she wrote a draft of her presentation. She then had the Deskbot TTS wizard (in the lower right of her screen) read out the draft to her. She recorded her version, modeling after the Deskbot’s pronunciation. Then she had the Deskbot read out the draft again, to compare with her own recording.

Look for the little guy in the lower right corner of the screen with the cartoon bubble over his head.

I favor the use of the Deskbot TTS (a Windows XP technology) as an easily accessible speaking dictionary, including during face-to-face teaching, when students may otherwise be too shy to make an utterance because they are not sure about the pronunciation of a single word, or even ask the teacher to pronounce it for them. Prosodically, the deskbot TTS leaves many things to be desired. Let’s hope that Windows 7 will enable us to set up more advanced TTS support in the LRC.

Categories: Absolute-Beginner, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, Beginner, English, French, German, Intermediate, Italian, Japanese, Korean, learning-usage-samples, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, software, Spanish, Speaking, Videos Tags: ,

Learn Chinese character stroke-order with slowed-down animated GIFs

2011/10/10 Leave a comment

Further to our prior tips on learning Chinese stroke order, now you can take your time, in the LRC: To facilitate your practicing of Chinese character stroke-order, we have used the most helpful site (also available by direct download) created by Tim Xie for the California State University, Long Beach, to create 100 different speed versions, and one comic strip like static image, for each of the several hundred of animated GIFs demonstrating Chinese character writing, and made them available on the LRC computers under Internet Explorer Favorites – Example:

a1f5_strip

You can access the files with the stroke order speed of your preference from the LRCCOED434 student computers, like so:

chinese-stroke-order-animated-html

(Many thanks also to the authors of programmable ImageMagick image editor and corresponding Unix shell scripts that we could use in the production of the slowed down animated GIFs. To create your own version of these slowed down animated GIFs, or others similar websites, feel free to pick up and/or adapt our shell script here).

Categories: animated-GIFs, audience-is-students, Beginner, e-languages, Intermediate, Japanese, Korean, learning-materials, Mandarin, Media, Reading, Student-Computers, Vocabulary, websites, Writing Tags: , ,

Speaking/Listening Assessments and Oral Exams: A comparison what the LRC has to offer

2011/09/22 Leave a comment
  1. Moodle:
    1. I proposed for installing one of the free audio recorder plug-ins into our Moodle, but we are not there yet.
    2. However, we do have a new video recording assignment (which is based on Kaltura).
      1. Format: free form, according to your written instructions in the assignment. Students can review and repeat the recording as often as they wish.
      2. The video overhead is minimal since it is streamed, and video is better for authentic language assessments – unless you specifically prepare your students for phone interviews: then just have students step out of the viewing angle of the webcam).
      3. thanks to Moodle, the familiar interface and the underlying LMS support infrastructure, it is easy
        1. for the teacher
          1. to create and assign a video-assignment
          2. to grade it from the gradebook
        2. for the students to take it and submit it.
      4. LRC Support:
      1. Since our PCs have no built-in or added webcam (proposed), we can currently only use our 5 iMacs for Moodle video assignments. Since the MACs do not have headsets (but built-in microphones), the audio quality is not as good as on the PCs. Since 5 seats are not sufficient for class-size activities/exams, it is best to use this as a homework assignment  
      2. I list all necessary steps for a video assignment
        1. here for teachers
        2. here for students.
        3. all my Kaltura posts
      3. Additional support is available through the campus Moodle support team.
  2. Sanako
    1. Sources

      1. Dual-track comparative recorder:

        1. the teacher can prepare an input track (or provide one live. Preparing is easy, and worth your while, since easily reusable. I can help you)).
        2. the students records on her own track

      2. Pair  and group recording:

        1. Sanako makes it easy to pair or form groups of students and to record free-form conversations.
        2. These recordings can be either controlled remotely by the teacher or locally by the user
    2. Control
      1. Remote-controlled recording under exam conditions,
        1. responding to a listening cue within a preset (or live) pause in the teacher track
          1. model&imitation:  for phonetics and pronunciation exercises,
          2. question&response for a wide variety of activities as commonly used in SLA textbooks and classroom, including practicing grammar structures or vocabulary recently
          3. question&response&model response: the teacher can also include after the pause in the teacher track a model answer for the students to compare their own output to.
        2. automatically saved with student names to be accessed from the teacher office desktop
        3. easy comparative grading using Audacity (see below)
    3. User-controlled recording is also possible, using the student recorder in manual operation mode
      1. which has more language learner features (bookmarks, voice graph, dual band recording), and  a simpler  interface than a full blown audio editor like Audacity (see below).
      2. The task how to save and sent the assignment to the teacher is here left to the user.
    4. LRC support:
    1. I can help you
      1. creating an audio recording with your content and speaking cues and pauses – using Audacity (see below)
      2. conducting the remote-controlled exam
    2. Up to 20 seats can take an oral exam simultaneously, until we get more Sanako licenses. However, we  found a way to split classes into 2 halves and have consecutive exams (we can play audio on the other students’ headsets to provide for exam conditions). The LRC main classroom is equipped with 30 seats for 2 consecutive exams with Sanako headsets.
  3. Voicethread is a popular online recorder, especially  for educational institutions that have no onsite support.
    1. Visual and audio cues can be provided by the teacher.
    2. Pairing of students has been attempted via sharing and responding/commenting to the partner’s submission. This is not a realistic conversation.
    3. Recordings are stored in the cloud.
    4. There is no integration with the SIS (accounts – getting students set up with accounts that can communicate back with the teacher is a challenge) and LMS (the Moodle integration is superficial). 
    5. Voicethread is not free. The ELTI, however, has a subscription. LCS does not.
    6. LRC Support:
      1. We support Voicethread exercises with new and improved headsets.
      2. Help is available through the vendor.
  4. Audacity:
    1. for teachers and LRC staff and other language professionals:
      1. best free audio editor, also good for comparative grading. I routinely make my audio exam recordings with Audacity.
      2. LRC support: I have tips and tricks how you can use it in your teaching preparation and grading.
    2. for language learners: not the recommended option, since Audacity has not a feature set geared towards language learning nor support for language assessment workflows:  
      1. Language learners do no need an audio editor for speaking exercises, they need a recorder. If you are a language learner, it is not pedagogical to be able to technically edit and refine your audio recording. Rather rehearse, reflect on and repeat your audio recording, until you are happy with your language output.
      2. Audacity is too technical: It involves too many steps, options and settings for the students to record, save, export and name the audio and to get it to the teacher, and (if it is not uploaded into a Moodle assignment, which could then be a Kaltura  assignment anyway, see above), too tedious for the teacher to manage and grade files.

      3. LRC Support:

        1. If your students are technically inclined, we do have Audacity installed in the LRC.
        2. Your students should not find it difficult to read the documentation. Here are my posts on Audacity.
Categories: Arabic, assessments, audience-is-teachers, e-languages, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek (modern), Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Listening, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Speaking Tags: , , , ,