myngle and similar online language learning/teaching venues
- From: sobriquet <dohduhdah@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 19:21:58 -0800 (PST)
Hi.
Recently I discovered myngle.com and I was wondering if anyone knows
any similar alternative venues for online language learning and
teaching.
Also, I posted a bit of random philosophizing on the myngle forum
about how to use computers optimally in language learning and I'd like
to repost it here to see if people here have any comments or
suggestions:
==============================================
My Name is Niek and I'm 32 and I'm very enthusiastic about languages
and computers. I've tried various courses like pimsleur and rosetta
stone and I'm fascinated with the question of how computers can be
optimally used in language learning.
I think basically it's a question of how the human mind works and how
we can exploit properties of human psychology and how our memory
works. Let me illustrate this with an example. Suppose you want to
learn 100 basic words in a foreign language. There are different
strategies of trying to memorize these words. You can put them all in
a list and go over this list over and over again until you have
memorized it. This would be a typical method if you're working with
pen and paper instead of a computer. You could also write the words on
cards (like different languages on both sides) so you can shuffle to
cards to randomize the order to enhance your ability to memorize
words. There are probably optimal increasing intervals which can be
used to expose yourself to a word to make memorization most easily.
Like consider the difference between repeating a word 20 times or
repeating a word only 5 times over increasing intervals (like with 1,
2, 4, 8, 16 , 32 minutes in between) so you trigger your memory just
as it starts to fade to reinforce the memorization process in a more
optimal fashion than mere repetition.
Computers add a whole new dimension to this process of presenting a
number of elements you seek to memorize, because they can employ
feedback and more advanced ways of shuffling the items. You could have
fragments of audio in your native language as well as the language you
want to learn and link it to pictures or text fragments. You can
shuffle this selection to expose yourself to the material in a random
fashion. But you will probably learn these items even faster if there
is a way to rate the material as it is being presented to you (from
easy to difficult) where the computer employs these ratings to shuffle
the items in a way where more difficult items are more likely to come
up in the mix, allowing you to focus your attention on the things you
find most difficult while preventing to waste time on things you
already know. This makes for a much more exciting and efficient way to
learn a language, as opposed to a fixed sequence of material in a
typical lesson as you find it on myngle or in a book. Apart from that,
computers are multimedia devices, so they can present the material in
various forms and combinations (sometimes showing a picture with
audio, sometimes showing text with audio, sometimes a picture with
text, etc..). Furthermore, computers can record your audio and play it
back and prompt you to select a matching picture given an audio or
text fragment or vice versa. At other times you might like to learn
passively by just shuffling pictures/audio/text combinations to just
absorb it while you're engaged in other activities. Just like people
have the tv on in the background often.
I think a really powerful online language learning site would allow
users to contribute and rate media (like audio, text, pictures) so
people can share collections of this material in the same way that
people share knowledge on a site like wikipedia.
So you can just go to the site, download a big load of material at a
suitable level (novice/intermediate/proficient) and use a powerful
language learning program with all the capabilities described above to
master the material.
This should allow people to achieve a good basic level where they can
improve upon by simply using skype to chat with people in a foreign
language based on shared interests. I think it works best in
combinations of students that each know a language the other student
seeks to learn while they share a common language.
So E.g. student X speaks languages A and B and wants to learn language
C and student Y speaks languages B and C and wants to learn language
A. Now all they need is common interests so they have interesting
subject matter to discuss and they can each help out the other so both
students are both learning and teaching at the same time. This can
also be extended to groups of students, although that would probably
be a bit more difficult to manage, though I think it's possible in a
group conversation.
Well ok.. that's about it for my philosophical ramblings about
exploiting the full potential of information communication technology
to learn languages.
Kind regards and I'd be interested in hearing any suggestions or
comments, Niek
.
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