Practice Chinese Stroke Order at varying speeds
Here we are providing over 80,000 animated GIF files for you to practice Chinese Stroke Order at varying (hopefully increasing) speeds of your choice (millisecs denotes the time you have for each stroke): strip, 1010millisecs, 1000millisecs, 990millisecs, 980millisecs, 970millisecs, 960millisecs, 950millisecs, 940millisecs, 930millisecs, 920millisecs, 910millisecs, 900millisecs, 890millisecs, 880millisecs, 870millisecs, 860millisecs, 850millisecs, 840millisecs, 830millisecs, 820millisecs, 810millisecs, 800millisecs, 790millisecs, 780millisecs, 770millisecs, 760millisecs, 750millisecs, 740millisecs, 730millisecs, 720millisecs, 710millisecs, 700millisecs, 690millisecs, 680millisecs, 670millisecs, 660millisecs, 650millisecs, 640millisecs, 630millisecs, 620millisecs, 610millisecs, 600millisecs, 590millisecs, 580millisecs, 570millisecs, 560millisecs, 550millisecs, 540millisecs, 530millisecs, 520millisecs, 510millisecs, 500millisecs, 490millisecs, 480millisecs, 470millisecs, 460millisecs, 450millisecs, 440millisecs, 430millisecs, 420millisecs, 410millisecs, 400millisecs, 390millisecs, 380millisecs, 370millisecs, 360millisecs, 350millisecs, 340millisecs, 330millisecs, 320millisecs, 310millisecs, 300millisecs, 290millisecs, 280millisecs, 270millisecs, 260millisecs, 250millisecs, 240millisecs, 230millisecs, 220millisecs, 210millisecs, 200millisecs, 190millisecs, 180millisecs, 170millisecs, 160millisecs, 150millisecs, 140millisecs, 130millisecs, 120millisecs, 110millisecs, 100millisecs, 090millisecs, 080millisecs, 070millisecs, 060millisecs, 050millisecs, 040millisecs, 030millisecs, 020millisecs, 010millisecs.
Downloading the originals from the most helpful site (also available by direct download) created by Tim Xie for the California State University, Long Beach, and applying my bash shell script from here, then generating your own speed-differentiated versions, seems to difficult for most users. Even better, instead of perusing the above links, you could just hit my server once and download the whole lot of post-processed animated Gif files with different speeds from here.
A first look at the Google Dictionary extension for Chrome
- 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,
- 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 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
- for many languages the results are much more limiting:
- Still no per-user tracking? Here it would make sense for the user.
Quizlet.com for Vocabulary learning practice
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:
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.
How to get started with the new text-to-speech support in Sanako 7
- With the new text-to-speech feature, students can generate their own pronunciation help:
- Using the button:Advanced settings, you can even
- vary the speed of,
- insert bookmarks to use with Sanako player
- or insert thinking pauses for the learner into the audio – excellent ideas, I find !
- Unfortunately, the LRC currently has voices only for English and Mandarin. Extra voices cost extra .
- Then there is Google translate text-to-speech, but that cannot be saved to file.