Language learning, politics and non-league football
The truth is, rare languages aren’t the easiest to learn. As soon as I started learning a rare language, Hiligaynon, I was confronted with questions I’d never even thought of before:
So many Englishes webinar: Q&Aby Web Editor on 1 October 2019 in ELT publishing, Materials writingSo many Englishes webinar: Q&AIn this blog post, Karen Spiller follows up on some of the questions that were left unanswered in the Q&A section at the end of the recent joint TESOL Association MWIS and MaWSIG webinar: So many Englishes! What does this mean for writers and publishers? The webinar was co-presented by Karen Spiller and Sherrise Roehr on 17 July 2019. You can find a recording of the webinar on
HOW NEW TECHNOLOGIES ARE CHANGING LANGUAGE LEARNINGApril 28, 2019 Ann S. Michaelsen Staff development, Using ICT in school but is changing how we work in high school?I recently had this conversation with a colleague from another school, about teaching foreign languages in school and the challenges we face in this changing world of technology. It is like this article in Forbes dated May 2018, questions, are these opportunities for better or worse?
Source: How New Technologies Are Changing Language Learning – Connected Teaching and Learning
The author outlines what you can and can’t learn from a language app. A good check on the power of Ed Tech. It’s not a magic pill or bullet.
Source: 500 Days of Duolingo: What You Can (and Can’t) Learn From a Language App – The New York Times
WEBINAR: THE VALUE OF GAMIFICATION FOR LANGUAGE LEARNINGI watched this short webinar today from Cambridge Assessment English on gamifying learning (Sarah Albrecht and Ollie Wood). It was a straightforward introduction to the topic of gamification, then a short Q+A between presenters and live listeners. Here is the recording, as shared by Ollie Wood on LinkedIn:
Source: Webinar: The Value of Gamification for Language Learning | ELT Planning
Britons aren’t xenophobic about language learning – and we should stop saying we are
What does Brexit have to do with language learning – if anything? Ursula Lanvers (University of York) analysed the claim that Britons’ reluctance to learn foreign languages is fundamentally xenophobic, and found no evidence for it. Rather, people thinking ‘English is enough’ is a more likely explanation for our poor language learning record. Journalism that talks down Britons’ capacity for language learning can be harmful, she argues.Like all linguists I know, my immediate reaction to the Brexit referendum was a mixture of outrage and despondency. Once semi-emerged (never fully) from this, I was struck by one observation in particular: newspapers and online media had started to speculate that language learning would further decline in a post-Brexit UK. Some argued that our unwillingness to learn languages, and Leave voting, all came from the same ideological corner – that of xenophobia. Others still claim that now we finally have a reason to learn languages: post-Brexit, we can’t rely on our trading partners being super-proficient in English, right?
Source: Britons aren’t xenophobic about language learning – and we should stop saying we are | LSE BREXIT
AI and language teachingPosted: August 13, 2018 in adaptive, analytics, ed tech, Online learning, Personalization, testing Tags: AI, Anthony Seldon, assessment, Babbel, Cambridge English Language Assessment, chatbots, Donald Clark, Duolingo, investment, knowledge graphs, learning oriented assessment, learning theory, Machine Learning, marketing, Pearson, Personalization, spaced repetition, teaching machines, testing, translation 2It’s hype time again. Spurred on, no doubt, by the current spate of books a
Source: Adaptive Learning in ELT | Thoughts about personalized and adaptive learning in ELT
Narrative Perspectives on Self-Directed Foreign Language Learning in a Computer- and Mobile-Assisted Language Learning ContextDaniel R. Isbell *, Hima Rawal, Rachelle Oh and Shawn LoewenSecond Language Studies, Michigan State University, 619 Red Cedar Road, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
If you go by the ads for some language learning apps, you can “have a conversation in a new language in three weeks”.
But the experience of most Australians when trying to learn a new language is more likely to resemble that of our prime minister who, a few years ago, wrote:
Learning any language at school is…difficult because there simply aren’t enough hours in the school calendar for most students to achieve any real facility – as many Australians have discovered when they tried out their schoolboy or schoolgirl French on their first visit to Paris!
The time it takes to learn a language depends on what you mean by “learning a language”. If your definition is being able to order a “café au lait” or ask for directions to “les toilettes, s’il vous plait” on your next trip to Paris, three weeks is perfectly realistic.
Source: The time it takes to learn a new language depends on what you want to do with it