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Independent study with free language learning materials from the FSI?
The Foreign Service Institute language learning materials – consisting of scanned documents and digitized audio of multiple courses per language – were still a heavily-advertised resource when I visited the Defense Language Institute in Monterey in 2006.
It is nice to see these resources be made available for free. It is also nice to see the progress that has been made not only in technological adaptation of textbook learning materials since these materials were made available (post WW II?).
This, however, comes at a cost. If you shun it, and do not take a course that works which requires (and entitles you to the use of) a textbook, here are easily accessibleviewable learning materials for a large set of languages, including many LCTL: Amharic, Arabic, Bulgarian, Cambodian, Cantonese, Chinese, Chinyanja, Czech, Finnish, French, Fula, German, Greek, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Igbo, Italian, Japanese, Kirundi, Kituba, Korean, Lao, Lingala, Luganda, Moré, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Shona, Sinhala, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Twi, Vietnamese, Yoruba.
The Forums , however seem to indicate that not too many still use these options. The transformation into a (technologically superficially) more modern format here is limited to very few languages and courses (and crashed my web browser).
I2speak.com: Web-based IPA Keyboard
The Sciweavers Team announces http://www.i2speak.com: “an online Smart IPA Keyboard that lets you quickly type IPA phonetics without the need to memorize any symbol code. For every Roman character you type, a popup menu displays a group of phonetic symbols that share the same sound or shape beneath typed character. Use arrow keys to select the proper symbol then hit the Enter button. I2Speak also supports the following features:
1. The Sampa English Keyboard lets you type English phonetics using Roman characters according to SAMPA (Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet) rules.
2. The IPA English Keyboard provides you with a full English phonetics keyboard. Press the symbol of interest using a suitable input device.
3. You can type directly on your physical keyboard or on the virtual on-screen keyboard using a suitable input device such as mouse or touch screen device.
4. You can change the keyboard symbols by selecting another layout from the list box located above the virtual keyboard.
5. For every keyboard layout, more symbols can be displayed by pressing the CAPS Lock.
6. When you hover the mouse over an English phonetic button, a slick tooltip will show some example English words.
7. You can save typed phonetics as an MS-Word file by clicking the Save button, copy them to clipboard using the Copy button, or post them to Twitter, Facebook, etc. by clicking the desired button.”
Collections of online dictionaries
- 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.
- http://linguistlist.org/sp/GetWRListings.cfm?WRAbbrev=Dict
- http://lexicall.widged.com/repository/listing.php?category=words
How a teacher creates audio recordings for use with Sanako Student Voice Insert mode
- 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.
- Meaning the teacher can just press the red speak button
and record through the entire file in one sitting. - 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.
- This can be done in minimal time: I once saw a teacher use a bicycle bell – and why not, if it saves time.
- 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.
- If you have spare time:
- You can post-edit the file with audacity, generating and inserting sinus tones.
- You can use the Sanako player to insert bookmarks instead of cues.
- Meaning the teacher can just press the red speak button
- As long as students have been instructed to how to use voice insert recording mode with the Sanako student recorder.
- This is for self access of students to teacher recorded files – be it during class or homework.
- 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.
Supporting Swahili – A running log
- Learned today that we will begin offering Swahili in the Fall. Here is the place to plan how the LRC can better support it.
- For starters, I am thinking of adding to the list of our custom configured languages for
- Windows 7
- Office 2010
- Learning materials?
- Existing?
- FSI, naturally.
- There should be more need for producing learning materials in this LCTL.
- automated?
- Note that the Stuttgart TreeTagger has a Swahili parameter file (gzip compressed, Latin1). The Swahili parameter file was trained on the Helsinki Corpus of Swahili (HCS) and uses a simplified version of the HCS tagset. The HCS was created by Prof. Arvi Hurskainen by means of his Swahili Language Manager (SALAMA) which uses Lingsoft’s TWOL compiler for constructing morphological analysers and Connexor’s CG2 parser for syntactic disambiguation.
- automated?
- Existing?
- Keep an eye on the Swahili Category.
Protected: How to conduct an easy oral exam with Sanako1200 (Model imitation/Question Response) – Part II: Implementation/instruction of examined students
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Other ways to find help
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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