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Graham Davies's
Favourite Websites
http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/websites.htm
This is a list of websites
that I have found useful for learning and teaching Foreign Languages,
plus a few other sites that I find interesting or amusing. I regularly
check this list, but if you find any mistakes please let me know. I
welcome recommendations for new links but it may take some time for
a new link to appear on this page as I currently have a huge backlog
of sites to review and I have other more important things on my mind.
I am currently battling with a recurrence of a very rare form of cancer,
Pseudomyxoma Peritonei, and I have spent
a lot of time on hospital visits in the 2-3 months.
See also the ICT
for Language Teachers (ICT4LT) website, a substantial set of ICT
training materials for language teachers and an associated blog that
I maintain as a labour of love.
If you are looking for my
personal email address, I am afraid you won't find it anywhere at this
site. I have had to remove it to prevent it being harvested by spammers.
Please use my Contact
Form.
Link
to my CV
Updated
22 May 2012
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I am a member of the EUROCALL/CALICO
Virtual
Worlds Ning
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Search this
site and also the ICT4LT site and blog: http://www.ict4lt.org
Type a single search
word or a phrase of two or more words in the search box below. If you wish
to find occurrences only of two or more words occuring side-by-side then encase
them in quotation marks, e.g. "round table" will seach for
occurrences only of that phrase whereas round table will find
occurrences of round table as a phrase and of round and table
as separate words. If your
search is successful you will be presented with a list of pages on which the
search term occurs. Click on the links to the pages that look most promising
and then use Edit/Find in your browser to locate the precise point
at which the search term occurs.
Loading
This list of websites
is known as a webliography or a portal, i.e. a gateway to lots
of other sites - rather like the bookmarks or favourite websites
that you can set up in your own browser, the important difference being is
that you and I can access this portal from anywhere in the world. Feel
free to use this page yourself and with your students, but please acknowledge
the source: see Copyright.
Maintaining a list like this is
time-consuming. Links need to be checked regularly, as they often move or disappear.
I make an effort to check all these links regularly, using Xenu
Link Sleuth - plus a bit of manual checking - but it's easy to miss something.
Another problem is that ownership of a domain name can suddenly change, with
the result that the URL remains the same but the content is not what you expect
to find. I have had two bad experiences, which I document here: Dodgy
links. If a site's content changes or if the link goes dead you may be able
to retrieve part or all of the site via the Wayback Machine,
where earlier versions of the site may be archived.
This set of resources is now arranged
under the following categories:
LANGUAGES
OTHER CATEGORIES
If you cannot find what you are
looking for under the above headings use Edit / Find in your browser
and search for a specific keyword or phrase.
CHINESE
LANGUAGE RESOURCES
See also the Multilingual
Resources section.
About Chinese Culture: http://chineseculture.about.com/
BBC Languages (Chinese):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/
Chinese:
100 Useful Tools to Teach Your Child Chinese: A useful review of
resources for learners of the Chinese language and culture.
ENGLISH
LANGUAGE RESOURCES
See also the Multilingual
Resources section.
Academic Word List (English):
This website contains lists of academic vocabulary in English, divided into
ten sublists in order of frequency, e.g. Sublist 1 has the most frequent academic
words. You can submit your own short text, and a program will identify core
academic vocabulary in your text, using the Academic Word List. The text will
be returned as a new Web page with words from the Academic Word List, at the
level selected, highlighted in bold:
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/%7Ealzsh3/acvocab/awlhighlighter.htm
BBC Languages (World Service
English): http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/
Cambridge English Online:
A variety of entertaining Web resources designed for students of English as
a Foreign Language. Includes a Cartoon Maker, a Flash Card Maker and activities
to help learners improve their pronunciation and knowledge of phonetics: http://www.cambridgeenglishonline.com/
Cliché Finder: Just the ticket
for people who like to incorporate hackneyed and/or boring phrases into their
essays. Search for a word and this search engine will return any clichés which
use that phrase, e.g. "in the pink", "kill the goose that lays
the golden eggs", "talk through your hat", "feather your
nest", "keep a stiff upper lip"... http://www.westegg.com/cliche/
english-4U: A website run
by ESL teachers for ESL teachers. The site offers free, ready-to-use lesson
plans in PDF format based on current news stories and lyrics of songs: http://www.english-4u.com/
English-to-Go: This site
produces a useful resource for English teachers, namely photocopiable lessons
based around Reuters news articles. There is either a free lesson each week
or you can subscribe to a library of lessons: http://www.english-to-go.com/
Flo-Joe: A resource for teachers
and students preparing for the Cambridge First Certificate in English (FCE)
and the Certificate in Advanced English (CAE). The site is maintained by a small
team of teachers and coursebook authors and includes interactive practice tests,
strategy training, a writing class and forums. The site is updated with new
vocabulary every day: http://www.flo-joe.co.uk/
Ghotit: A word-processor
for learners of English as a Second Language: http://www.ghotit.com/
GlobalEnglish: Online courses
for learners of EFL/ESL. Sample lessons and assignments are available free of
charge: http://www.globalenglish.com/
Grammar Checker: Free online
grammar checker for English: http://spellcheckplus.com/
The Guardian:
The online version of a popular English-language newspaper: http://www.guardian.co.uk
ICAL: An organisation that
offers online courses in TEFL / TESL: http://www.icalweb.com/
LearnEnglish:
The British Council's free site for learners of English.
Manic
Monkey: Materials for primary English language learners at school and at
home.
Memovoc:
Categorised vocabulary activities for French learners of English.
Oxford
English Dictionary: Say no more!
Pons
EU: Multilingual online dictionary.
Pumkin:
Activities in English for children.
Road
to Grammar: This site features a wide range and variety of self-access grammar
quizzes for learners of English.
RhymeZone:
Free online service for finding rhyming words. Also complete texts of Shakespeare's
works, quotations, full text of the Bible, famous documents, nursery rhymes,
dictionary, and a reverse dictionary.
Shahi:
A visual dictionary that combines Wiktionary content with Flickr images and
many more. Aimed at learners of English.
Synonyms,
antonyms and definitions:
A useful site for finding, synonyms, antonyms and definitions of words.
TV
Adverts and Funny Video Clips
Visual
Thesaurus: Creates word maps that blossom with meanings and branch to related
words.
Visuwords
(English): A visual dictionary: you enter a word and then the dictionary
shows you all sorts of connected words and their relationships. Nicely colour
coded. With mouseover translations. Probably a tool for the more advanced student,
but really well done: http://www.visuwords.com/
WebSwami:
An innovative online language
and communications training system, combining interactive activities, personalised
video feedback, course development tools, and a student tracking interface.
WordNet:
An online lexical reference system whose design is inspired by current psycholinguistic
theories of human lexical memory. English nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs
are organized into synonym sets, each representing one underlying lexical concept.
Different relations link the synonym sets. A useful look-up facility.
World
Wide Words: "Investigating international English from a British viewpoint"
- a useful and amusing site by Michael Quinion that takes an oblique
look at the English language: new words, weird words, fun words, slang, etc.
FRENCH
LANGUAGE RESOURCES
See also the Multilingual
Resources section.
French
websites: Lots of links to websites for learners of French, created
by Jim Becker, Webmaster / Professor Emeritus, University of Northern Iowa.
French
Learning Fun: A website created by The Park School of Baltimore USA. A comprehensive
range of interactive exercises.
Neel
Method French Vocabulary Revision:
A free website. The learner is requested to translate useful words and phrases
chosen at random, and the level of difficulty increases according to the learner's
progress.
French:
A comprehensive online French tutorial with free exercises.
3D Courseware: Canadian producer/publisher
of CALL software: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/dddware/.
Their products include the CLEF French Grammar Package and La Chaise
Berçante.
Adopt an Escargot: A zany
site for students of French and their teachers: http://www.adoptanescargot.com/
About
French: Free resources for students, teachers, and lovers of French: lessons,
quizzes, dictionaries, software, linguistics, chatroom, and much more. Edited
by Laura Lawless: http://french.about.com/
AudioFrench: French words,
grouped thematically, pronounced by a native speaker, with English equivalents:
http://www.audiofrench.com/
BBC Languages (French): http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french/
BBC Languages (Cool French):
Improve your street cred in French: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french/cool/
Bescherelle: Interactive
tests and dictations
for learners of French.
Best French websites: Lots
of links to websites for learners of French, created by Jim Becker, Webmaster
/ Professor Emeritus, University of Northern Iowa: http://www.uni.edu/becker/french31.html
Bof! By
Steve Glover: http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/haberg/index.htm
Bonjour de France: An interactive
magazine for learners of French. Lots of exercises - vocab, grammar, idiomatic
expressions and games: http://www.bonjourdefrance.com/
ClicNet: Un site culturel
et littéraire francophone. ClicNet édite et localise des ressources virtuelles
en français pour les étudiants, les enseignants de français langue étrangère
(FLE) ou langue seconde (FLS), et tous ceux qui s'intéressent aux cultures,
aux arts et aux littératures francophones. Situé à l'Université de Swarthmore
(Pennsylvanie, USA), ClicNet est réalisé par Carole Netter: http://clicnet.swarthmore.edu
Dordogne Hotels and Restaurants:
A useful site for teachers looking for authentic materials in French - to practise
online searching, seeking and understanding information, etc. Also handy if
you really do want to book a hotel or find a restaurant: http://www.hotels-restau-dordogne.org/choihot0.htm
Elementary French Exercises (ELFE):
Carleton College, USA: Software based on the Elementary French Exercises
(ELFE) originally written by Geoffrey R. Hope in the Dasher Authoring
System by Sue Otto and James P. Pusack and distributed through the PICS project
formerly housed at the University of Iowa. ELFE is delivered in two formats:
(i) Hot Potatoes, from which you can create SCORM or HTML
pages for use in a variety of environments, (ii) Moodle
(as Hot Potatoes activities) with reporting of results: http://apps.carleton.edu/its/flt/osmain/othersw/elfe3/
European Quiz: A nice little
quiz site (in French) with questions on a variety of topics: http://www.europe.learningtogether.net
France-Jeunes Net: An information
site and discussion forum for young people, covering topics such as: books,
cinema, humour, music, people, sport, television, etc. Aimed at native speakers
(and therefore authentic), but useful for teenage learners of French of any
nationality: http://www.france-jeunes.net
French Assistant: Free online
materials for learners of French: http://www.frenchassistant.com/
French
Audio Dictionary: Around 2500 words pronounced by a native speaker.
The French Corner: A good
collection of free links for learners of French, created by Samantha: http://www.thefrenchcorner.net/
French by Podcast: This site
is a good example of the direction in which we should be heading. The recordings
are of high quality, professionally produced and backed up by useful downloadable
printable materials: http://www.learnfrenchbypodcast.com/
French
for beginners online: Basic vocab and phrases for beginners in French,
with audio files and interactive exercises. Includes links to a Verb
Conjugator, the Babel Fish translator and to Text
To Speech software.
French Language Course: A
basic French course created by Jacques Léon: http://www.jump-gate.com/languages/french/
French - Learn French Online
Free: Activities and games for learners of French: hangman, crosswords,
matching, etc: http://www.lsfrench.com/beginners2.html
French
Digital Kitchen: A project managed by Newcastle University in collaboration
with Newcastle College and CILT. The project aims to develop the next generation
of technology applied to language teaching, namely the use of digital sensors
together with a Task-Based Learning (TBL) approach. The project will build digital
kitchens that speak to the users in French and give them step-by-step instructions
on how to prepare French cuisine. Sensors are attached to all equipment and
ingredients so that each time an item is correctly or incorrectly moved, participants
can be given appropriate verbal feedback. Users learn targeted grammar and vocabulary
items by doing the task and do a test on those items on a digital screen at
the end of cooking. Participants are equipped with a headset and microphone
and can request a repetition or a translation of what the kitchen is saying
to them. This project adapts the technology of Newcastle University’s existing
Ambient Kitchen to the field of language learning. See the ICT4LT
blog, October 2011.
FrenchTeacherNet: The site
is maintained by Steven Smith, Ripon Grammar School, and aimed at anglophone
French teachers looking for worksheets, links and interactive tasks: http://www.frenchteacher.net/
French Verb
Conjugations: Le Devoir conjugal is a package that conjugates
over 7000 French verbs, i.e. the totality of those found in Robert and Bescherelle:
http://www.pomme.ualberta.ca/devoir.
Includes a number of less-frequently used verbs and Canadian French verbs. Part
of the Pomme project, led by Martin Beaudoin at the University of Alberta.
See also Verbix.
French Audio Dictionary: Around
2500 words pronounced by a native speaker. From the About
French site: http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/a/audiodictionary.htm
French Learning Fun: A website
created by The Park School of Baltimore USA. A comprehensive range of interactive
exercises: http://www.frenchlearningfun.net
Fusée
en ligne: A useful site that ties in with the Hodder & Stoughton fusée
French course: http://www.fusee.co.uk
Grammar Checker: Free online
grammar checker for French: http://bonpatron.com/
Hugo's Podcasts: Podcasts
in French and Spanish by Hugo, a ventriloquist's dummy skilfully animated by
Stuart Gorse, The Royal Grammar School, Lancaster: http://hugowho.podomatic.com/
Le Jeu de l'Oie: Activities
for learners of French in a game format: http://jeudeloie.free.fr
La Jolie Ronde: French and
Spanish language learning materials for children aged 3-11 years. Lots of useful
stuff: reading and listening materials, recordings of songs, plastic euro coins
and copies of euro banknotes, puppets, games, etc: http://www.lajolieronde.co.uk/
MFL Games:
From the creators of LinguaCentral,
this site offers a range of games for learners of French and Spanish: http://www.mflgames.co.uk
Momes: Lots of activities
for learners of French. Designed for native speakers of French but useful for
young learners of any nationality wishing to learn French: http://www.momes.net/
Le Monde: The Web version
of the well-known French newspaper: http://www.lemonde.fr.
See also Newstran and Kidon for
links to other newspapers.
Lexique FLE: Vocabulary activities
and exercises for learners of French. Clickable pictures, with sound files,
plus exercises. Contains downloadable versions of the activities as well as
online activities: http://lexiquefle.free.fr/
Neel Method French Vocabulary
Revision: The learner is requested to translate useful words and phrases
chosen at random, and the level of difficulty increases according to the learner's
progress: http://www.neelmethod.com/
Nicoland: Free interactive
multimedia activities for young learners of French and Dutch. Colourful clickable
pages introduce the topics. Covers topics such as animals, the human body, dinosaurs,
the Vikings, the Middle Ages, the Pharoahs, etc. Also spelling and conjugation
exercises: http://www.nicoland.com/
Nous les jeunes: An online
youth magazine for native French speakers - and very useful for teenage learners
of French too. Covers fashion, music and many other topics: http://www.nlj.free.fr
Paris: This site contains
over 40 interactive exercises relating to Paris, all created by Christophe Laroy
with Hot Potatoes. There are exercises for intermediate
to advanced level: http://users.skynet.be/christophelaroy/exercices.htm
Paris Balades: Take a walking
tour of Paris: http://www.parisbalades.com/
Phonétique(French): French
pronunciation - presentation and exercises. High-quality sound files: http://phonetique.free.fr/
Plus Belle la Vie: A website
associated with a French soap opera: http://plus-belle-la-vie.france3.fr/
Poésie française: French
poetry online. As the site says... "Bienvenue sur le site créé par Webnet,
société de conseil et d'ingénierie e-business. Vous aimez la poésie, nous aussi.
C'est pourquoi nous avons sélectionné plus de 5700 poèmes de langue française,
du Moyen Âge au début du XXème siècle": http://poesie.webnet.fr/
Polar FLE: A mystery game
in French. Learn French by assisting Inspector Roger Duflair to solve a crime.
The site also contains links to other games sites in French: http://www.polarfle.com/
Railway Timetables in French:
An interesting task for the language learner is to plan a journey by train,
making use of authentic railway timetables. You can find details of most train
numbers, connections and prices by consulting the websites of national railway
networks. See SNCF (France) at http://www.sncf.fr/
RealFrench: A useful site
for learners and teachers of French, maintained by Chris Dawson at Manchester
Metropolitan University. The site includes a large number of interactive vocabulary
games, grammar notes and interactive exercises, links, Internet worksheets and
message boards: http://www.realfrench.net/
Target Language: This site
is full of free resources to help students learn French up to GCSE or Common
Entrance level. Click on Level 1 in the grid on the homepage to get started
straight away or carry on from where you left off on your last visit. To study
a particular topic or area of grammar visit the contents section to find what
you need. The site also includes a dictionary: http://www.targetlanguage.co.uk/
Tex's French Grammar, University
of Texas Austin: A good collection of French materials for beginners: grammar,
exercises, Web links, audio and video files. Delightful cartoon characters make
this a very entertaining as well as informative site: http://www.laits.utexas.edu/tex/
Three Little Pigs / Les tros
petits cochons: Listening and grammar exercises for young learners of French,
wrapped up in a popular story: http://lexiquefle.free.fr/cochon.swf
TV5:
The site of the Francophone TV station. Details of programmes and clips of broadcasts,
etc. See the Langue
Française pages for quizzes, dictations, other activities.
Usina Quiz: A variety of
ready-made quizzes and games for learners of French, including quiz generators
for teachers who wish to create their own materials: http://usinaquiz.free.fr/indexjeu.htm
Wildfrench: A site for teachers
and learners of French, including many online resources that complement popular
published courses and GCSE examinations: http://wildfrench.co.uk
wordPROF:
A website that offers a series of vocab acquisition activities for learners
of French, using clickable images and sound files: http://www.wordprof.com/
GERMAN
LANGUAGE RESOURCES
See also the Multilingual
Resources section.
About German: Free resources
for students, teachers, and lovers of German: lessons, quizzes, dictionaries,
software, linguistics, chatroom, and much more. Edited by Hyde Flippo: http://german.about.com/
Austrian TV: The website
of ORF. Very handy for news reports in German - and especially for weather reports
whenever I am about to go skiing in Austria: http://www.orf.at
BBC Languages (German): http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/german/
BBC Languages (Cool German):
Improve your street cred in German: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/german/cool/
DeutschAkademie: An online
comprehensive German course. The grammar and vocabulary exercises are structured
according to selected textbooks and to the levels of the Common European Framework
of Reference for Languages. Requires registration: http://www.deutschakademie.de/online-deutschkurs/english/
Deutsche Welle: German news
service: http://www.dw-world.de/. News
in German and many other languages. Texts and streaming audio and video
Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst:
An organisation that provides information and assistance for students wishing
to study in Germany, and for German students wishing to study abroad: http://www.daad.de/
German
for Travellers: A site which started out as an online German for Beginners
course at the University of Victoria, Canada: http://www.germanfortravellers.com/
German Grammar Exercises:
Exercises based on the Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik by Jamie Rankin
and Larry D. Wells: http://college.cengage.com/languages/german/rankin/handbuch/4e/students/ace/index.html
German Practice Online: Interactive
grammar activities by Olaf Böhlke, Creighton University. The exercises
include useful feedback: http://www.olafbohlke.com/gpo/
German Teaching Resources for
KS3, GCSE, AS and A2 level: Over 500 free resources to download or use online.
Activities include: Hot Potatoes, Spellmaster,
PowerPoint, Word, Excel - many activities are whiteboard
friendly. Created by Yvonne Clerehugh, who is an advanced skills teacher for
MFL at Notre Dame High School in Norwich: http://www.yjc.org.uk/
German Spelling Reform: These
sites are useful for information on the German Spelling Reform (Die neue
Rechtschreibung), which came into effect on 1 August 1998:
German Studies Trails on the
Internet: A big collection of resources and links, compiled by Andreas
Lixl , University of North Carolina at Greenboro.When does this man sleep?
He must spend thousands of waking hours surfing the Web and hunting down resources
for teachers and students of German - and other languages: http://www.uncg.edu/~lixlpurc/german_WWW/index.html
Goethe-Institut:
The Goethe-Institut maintains and sponsors a number of websites. http://www.goethe.de/
- Jetzt, a site maintained by Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen. German
for advanced learners and tips for teachers: http://www.goethe.de/z/jetzt/
- Goethe-Institut London: Lots of useful links for teachers and learners
of German: http://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/lon/deindex.htm
German
Verb Conjugation Tables: A very useful look-up facility. Also available
for smartphones.
Horizonte
Language Institute, Regensburg, Language Corner: Useful materials and links
for learners and teachers of German, relating to German language, literature
and culture.
Institut für Interkulturelle
Kommunikation (IIK): http://www.iik.com/
InterDeutsch: Online materials
for learners of German - fee-paying: http://www.interdeutsch.de/
JUMA: A "Mode Blog"
(fashion blog) in German. Useful for learning vocabulary describing clothing:
http://www.juma.de/
KLAR (Keep Learning And Revising):
Heidi Behrens' collection of vocabulary and grammar exercises for learning
German in the classroom or for independent study at home. Includes PowerPoint
presentations (with sound), games and exercises to reinforce vocabulary or grammar
points. Also included are reading and listening tasks: http://www.klar.co.uk/
Klett: This
publishing company maintains a number of sites that offers tests, activities
and materials for learners and teachers of German: http://www.klett.de/
Lorenz
Derung's Arbeitsblätter Deutsch: A comprehensive set of 1000 worksheets
for native speakers of German, but very useful too for non-native speakers.
Includes worksheets on German literature.
Populearn: A free online German course. You type your responses
in real time: http://www.populearn.com/german/
University
of Portsmouth, Beginners Course in German: An online German course
for beginners, designed by Paul Joyce. It consists of a set of dialogues and
exercises which are designed to give the absolute beginner a grounding in the
rudiments of the German language, as well as providing background information
about life and culture in all the major German-speaking countries.
Railway Timetables in German:
An interesting task for the language learner is to plan a journey by train,
making use of authentic railway timetables. You can find details of most train
numbers, connections and prices by consulting the websites of national railway
networks. See Deutsche Bahn (Germany) and
ÖBB (Austria).
Really
Useful German Site by Steve Glover: http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/haberg/reallyusefulge/default.htm
RTL: The German TV station:
http://www.rtl.de/. Have fun playing these RTL
games in German: http://spiele.rtl.de/cms/index.html
Sowieso: An online newspaper
in German for young readers: http://www.sowieso.de/
Der Spiegel: The online version
of the well-known German news magazine: http://www.spiegel.de/.
See also Newstran and Kidon for
links to other newspapers.
Stille Nacht / Oberndorf:
Here's the website of the Austrian village, Oberndorf, where you can read story
of the creation of the Christmas carol "Stille Nacht": http://www.stillenacht.info/.
The Oberdorf main site is here: http://www.stillenacht-oberndorf.at/.
You'll find a link to a webcam, with streaming audio of the original version
of "Stille Nacht", as written for accompaniment by guitar: http://www.stillenacht.info/de/kapelle/d_webcam.asp
St Johann in Tirol: My favourite
ski resort: http://www.st.johann.tirol.at/.
Remarkable for its easy slopes (essential at my age) and the highest concentration
in the whole of the Alps of mountain restaurants and bars per kilometre of piste
(also essential at my age). Our favourite hotel is the Hotel Park, which
is run by the Grander family and where we have been guests every skiing season
since 1989: http://www.park.at/
Süddeutsche Zeitung:
The Web version of my favourite German newspaper: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/.
See also Newstran and Kidon for
links to other newspapers.
Sütterlin Script: The
old form of German handwriting, which you can learn at this website. You can
enter your name and see how it looks in Sütterlin: http://www.suetterlinschrift.de/Englisch/Sutterlin.htm
Tagesschau: Short news texts
in German, plus streaming sound and video clips. Ideal for keeping up with the
news: http://www.tagesschau.de/
Treffpunkt: Intensive German
Courses in Germany, plus lots of links to sites relating to the learning of
German and information on course materials for learners of German: books, audio-
and videocassettes, software, etc: http://www.learn-german.com/
Web German: A huge set of
resources for teachers and learners of German: http://www.webgerman.com/.
Includes some nice animated PowerPoint presentations on German grammar:
http://webgerman.com/Animated/
Die Welt: The Web version
of the popular German newspaper: http://www.welt.de/.
See also Newstran and Kidon for
links to other newspapers.
GREEK
LANGUAGE RESOURCES (MODERN)
See also the Multilingual
Resources section.
BBC Languages (Greek): http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/greek/
GREEK
LANGUAGE RESOURCES (CLASSICAL)
See also the Multilingual
Resources section.
Perseus Digital Library: A
gem of a site for Classicists. Everything you need to know about Ancient Greece
and Ancient Rome. Based at Tufts University, USA, this site contains masses
of texts, pictures, tips for learning Greek and Latin, dictionaries, help with
fonts and many other resources: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu
Textkit: Learn Classical
Greek and Latin: http://www.textkit.com/
Winged Sandals: A delightful
multimedia website on Greek Mythology created by the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation in association with The University of Melbourne's Centre for Classics
and Archaeology. The website is designed for children 6-12 but will certainly
have a much wider appeal: http://www.wingedsandals.com/
ITALIAN
LANGUAGE RESOURCES
See also the Multilingual
Resources section.
About Italian: Free resources
for students, teachers, and lovers of Italian: lessons, quizzes, dictionaries,
software, linguistics, chatroom, and much more. Edited by Michael San Filippo:
http://italian.about.com/
BBC Languages (Italian): http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/italian/
BBC Languages (Cool Italian):
Improve your street cred in Italian: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/italian/cool/
Italian:
Free basic grammar overview, useful phrases, vocabulary lists, and a verb guide.
La
Mappa Misteriosa: Learn Italian while following this mystery story, produced
by the BBC.
CyberItalian: Online materials
for learners of Italian. Log in as a visitor and try a lesson free of charge:
http://www.cyberitalian.com/
La Repubblica: The Web version
of the popular Italian newspaper: http://www.repubblica.it/.
See also Newstran and Kidon for
links to other newspapers.
JAPANESE
LANGUAGE RESOURCES
See also the Multilingual
Resources section.
Websaru:
Japanese dictionary, translator and quizzes.
NihongoUp:
An online textbook for learners of Japanese. Free
Japanese lessons.
About Japanese: Free resources
for students, teachers, and lovers of Japanese: lessons, quizzes, dictionaries,
software, linguistics, chatroom, and much more. Edited by Namiko Abe: http://japanese.about.com/
BBC Languages (Japanese):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/japanese/
Japanese, Monash University:
This site (Sakura) is designed for students of Japanese language of Monash University
in Australia, but it is also available for general use: http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/japanese/resources/sakura/
Japanese Online: A useful
site for learners of Japanese. Since 1996, Japanese Online has been providing
free learning services to people who wish to study the Japanese language. This
service was later expanded to include Japanese mathematics and a very popular
forum/bulletin board service:
http://www.japanese-online.com/
LATIN
LANGUAGE RESOURCES
See also the Multilingual
Resources section.
Latin:
Keep up your Latin by listening to and reading the news. This is the website
of the Finnish radio station that broadcasts in Latin and maintains a Latin
language website with news reports: http://yle.fi/radio1/tiede/nuntii_latini/
Perseus Digital Library: A
gem of a site for Classicists. Everything you need to know about Ancient Greece
and Ancient Rome. Based at Tufts University, USA, this site contains masses
of texts, pictures, tips for learning Greek and Latin, dictionaries, help with
fonts and many other resources: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu
Textkit: Learn Latin and
Classical Greek: http://www.textkit.com/
PORTUGUESE
LANGUAGE RESOURCES
See also the Multilingual
Resources section.
BBC Languages (Portuguese):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/portuguese/
RUSSIAN
LANGUAGE RESOURCES
See also the Multilingual
Resources section.
Russian
Plus: Learn Russian Online.
BBC Languages (Russian): http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/russian/
Daffni's Russian Literature and
Learning Stuff: http://www.meirionnydd.force9.co.uk
Russian: http://www.russlandjournal.de/en/russian/.
This site provides a lot of materials for learners of Russian: Russian language
exercises with audio samples, Russian alphabet, information about grammar and
pronunciation.
Russian: A variety of learning
games and learning materials, including Russian songs, an English-Russian dictionary,
and a transliteration tool, phrasebook: http://www.practiceRussian.com/
Ruslan: John Langran’s
business - specialists in the development of materials for learners and teachers
of Russian. Some good stuff here: http://www.ruslan.co.uk
SPANISH
LANGUAGE RESOURCES
See also the Multilingual
Resources section.
Verbguru:
A verb conjugation tool for English and Spanish verbs. It includes a tester
which allows users to practise verb conjugations.
Askpaco:
A Spanish-English dictionary with a vocabulary learning tool and crossword puzzles.
Bablingua:
A website which offers commercial and free audiovisual materials for Spanish
language teachers.
Spanish:
Online Spanish lessons covering basic grammar structures as well as word lists,
verb guides, and a blog.
Spanish
Sofa: Website for learners of Spanish.
Babylon:
Online Spanish dictionary and translator. Translates from Spanish into English,
French, German, Italian and several other languages.
Verbs
in Spanish: A blog that focuses on using and conjugating Spanish verbs.
Complete
Spanish Guide: Free online vocabulary lists, grammar lessons and a blog.
Linguagame:
Linguagame offers fun games and puzzles for learning conversational Spanish.
The vocabulary is aimed at travellers looking to learn useful Spanish words
and phrases and to practise their Spanish pronunciation. Games include flash
cards, crosswords, word scramble and phrase builders - all with full audio.
Games and content are suitable for all ages.
About Spanish: Free resources
for students, teachers, and lovers of Spanish: lessons, quizzes, dictionaries,
software, linguistics, chatroom, and much more. Edited by Gerald Erichsen: http://spanish.about.com/
AsíSeHace:
A website created and maintained by José Picardo, containing Spanish interactive
exercises specifically designed to help GCSE and A-Level students and generally
useful for anyone learning Spanish: http://www.asisehace.net.
See also José Picardo's Box of Tricks blog.
BBC Languages (Spanish):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/
BBC Languages (Cool Spanish):
Improve your street cred in Spanish: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/cool/
Cervantes Institute: Central
Virtual Cervantes. A very comprehensive website, containing lots of useful links
for teachers and learners of Spanish: http://cvc.cervantes.es
Español
Extra: Online interactive exercises for learners of Spanish. Suitable for
whole-class activities or individual use at home: http://www.espanol-extra.co.uk
El Pais: The Web version
of the popular Spanish newspaper: http://www.elpais.com/global/.
See also Newstran and Kidon for
links to other newspapers.
Hugo's Podcasts: Podcasts
in French and Spanish by Hugo, a ventriloquist's dummy skilfully animated by
Stuart Gorse, The Royal Grammar School, Lancaster: http://hugowho.podomatic.com/
ISLA Spanish school in Salamanca: Materials for
learners of Spanish: http://www.learningspanish-spain.com/spanish-study-material.html
La Jolie Ronde: French and
Spanish language learning materials for children aged 3-11 years. Lots of useful
stuff: reading and listening materials, recordings of songs, plastic euro coins
and copies of euro banknotes, puppets, games, etc: http://www.lajolieronde.co.uk
MFL Games:
From the creators of LinguaCentral,
this site offers a range of games for learners of French and Spanish: http://www.mflgames.co.uk
No Comprendo: A free online
Spanish course available in English, German, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian and Spanish.
Spanish teaching resources can also be downloaded free of charge. The free online
Spanish course at No Comprendo.es is visual and interactive, and you can choose
between several subject areas: http://www.nocomprendo.es/learn_spanish_online/eng
Spanish
for beginners online: Basic vocab and phrases for beginners in Spanish,
with audio files and interactive exercises. Includes links to the Babel
Fish translator and to Text To Speech software.
Spanish: Spanish Learning
Services, Anchorage, USA: Online materials for learners of Spanish - both free
and fee-paying: http://www.studyspanish.com/
Spanish: A comprehensive
site for learners and teachers of Spanish, created by Fernando Pérez Cos: http://www.spanishlanguage.co.uk/
Spanish: http://www.onlinespanish.org/-
teaching delivered by native teachers via Skype.
Spanish: Free online lessons
in Spanish (Latin American variety): http://www.spanishprograms.com/.
See also this useful Spanish language learning resource guide here: http://www.spanishprograms.com/learning_module/tutorial_index.htm
Spanish Cooking: The "A
Cocinar" site - for gourmets. Some good recipes in Spanish, recommended
cookery books and links to restaurants in Spain: http://www.acocinar.com/
Spanish Courses: A guide
to finding language courses in Spain: http://www.spanishinspain.org/
Spanish Guide: Guide to learning
Spanish in Spain or in Latin America: http://www.learnspanishguide.com/
Tesoros: A multimedia DVD
course for learners of Spanish, based on a short detective story in which the
students play a key role in the solution of the mystery. A virtual tour around
the Hispanic world is carried out as the story unfolds. The course also includes
vocabulary, grammar and other learning materials based on the dialogues in the
story: http://www.tesoros.es
Visual Link Spanish: Spanish
lessons online, produced by the US Institute of Languages. CD-ROMs and some
free online tutorial materials: http://www.learnspanishtoday.com/
OTHER
LANGUAGES
See also the Multilingual
Resources section.
Arabic: A great
collection of Arabic Websites: http://www.uni.edu/becker/arabic.html
Arabic: - BBC Languages:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/arabic/guide/
Dutch - Nicoland:
Free interactive multimedia activities for young learners of French and
Dutch. Colourful clickable pages introduce the topics. Covers topics
such as animals, the human body, dinosaurs, the Vikings, the Middle Ages, the
Pharoahs, etc. Also spelling and conjugation exercises: http://www.nicoland.com/
Gaelic - BBC Languages:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/alba/foghlam/learngaelic/
Irish - BBC Languages:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/irish/blas/learners/
Korean, Monash University:
A learning and teaching environment for learners and teachers of the Korean
language, encouraging independent learning, collaboration, cooperation and networking
between learners and teachers, between learners and other learners, and between
learners and native Korean speakers: http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/korean/
Learn Latvian Online:
This site offers an online
Latvian language course for adults and aspecial program for children. The Latvian course consists
of 56 weeks of study. Learning Latvian is possible not only from English, but
also from 30 other languages, including Mandarin, Japanese, Spanish, Russian
and many more. The site has also a blog about Latvian culture and traditions:
http://www.learnlatvianonline.com/
Polish - BBC Languages:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/polish/soap/
Slovenian: Slovenian
language and cultural resources, based at the Institute for Slovenian Studies,
Victoria, Australia: http://www.thezaurus.com/
Urdu - BBC Languages:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/guide/urdu/
Welsh - BBC Languages:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/learnwelsh/
BBC Languages, Quick
Fix: Essential phrases in lots of languages at http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/quickfix/
Albanian, Basque, Belarusian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian,
Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, Flemish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian,
Icelandic, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Macedonian, Maltese,
Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene,
Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian.
See also MINORITY
LANGUAGES
MULTILINGUAL
RESOURCES
100+
Places to Learn a Language Online: Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies.
Learn
a Language: French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese:
Interactive audio/visual flash cards and the Lingo Dingo game. Greetings, survival
expressions and slang words in the language of your choice. Over 1400 vocab
items and 350 verbs.
Clip2Go:
For learners of German, Spanish or English. Users create and share multimedia
word lists that they can browse or search for in the online dictionaries.
Digital
Dialects: The Digital Dialects website features free online games for learning
languages. Language resources include games for learning phrases, numbers, useful
words, spelling, verb conjugation and alphabets in a wide range of languages.
French,
Spanish, Portuguese Online: Lessons for beginners in French, Spanish and
Portuguese, organised by topics - includes audio.
Hello-World:
English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese and Indonesian for
young learners. Games, activities and songs with native speaker recordings.
Learn
Anytime: A catalogue of thousands of free educational website links. Includes
links to site for learning French and Spanish.
LexioPhiles:
Love Your Words. A multilingual blog, with texts in different languages, links
to other language-related blogs, and tips on travelling and studying abroad.
GrowStoryGrow:
A story-telling resource for language-learning.
Spellchecker
in 25 languages.
200 Words a Day: Introduces
vocabulary, based on an accelerated learning technique whereby you imagine a
crazy scene - associated with cartoons - which helps you remember the vocab.
In French, German, Spanish, Welsh: http://www.200words-a-day.com/
About:
The About sites have lots of language-related information and links.
These are a very useful set of resources. See the entries under individual language
headings.
Aiglon College: The website
of Aiglon College, Switzerland. Useful exercises and links for learners of French,
German and Spanish: http://www.aiglon.ch/langlink
University
of Arizona, Critical Languages Series: This site contains information
on CD-ROMs and Web-based instructional materials for "critical languages",
namely Brazilian Portuguese, Turkish, Kazakh, Kurdish, Ukrainian and Korean.
See also Minority Languages.
The Ashcombe School's Modern
Foreign Languages pages: Lots of materials, advice, software evaluations,
worksheets, exercises for different languages, etc. A comprehensive and well
maintained site: http://www.ashcombe.surrey.sch.uk/Curriculum/modlang/
À Tantôt: A website that
provides online resources for learners of French, German, Italian and Spanish,
which are designed to be used in class on an interactive whiteboard. Resources
include videos, starter and plenary activities, games, useful links and much
more: http://www.atantot.co.uk
BBC
Bitesize: A collection of revision materials, including modern foreign languages,
for schoolchildren at the BBC site.
BBC Languages: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/.
Lots of online language learning materials at various levels from the BBC covering
French, German, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, Greek - and
many more! I worked as a consultant on German Steps, an introductory
course in German: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/german/lj/
BBC Learning Zone: Useful
video clips for teaching and learning foreign languages are available at the
BBC Learning Zone: http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/
Declan Software: A range
of flashcard activities, including audio, and tools for learning to read and
write a wide range of languages: http://www.declan-software.com/
Devon Languages: Lots of
links to language teaching and learning resources: http://www.delicious.com/devonlanguages
Digital Dialects: This site
contains interactive activities for a wide range of languages: http://www.digitaldialects.com/
Firefly Learning: A suite
of commercial and freely downloadable resources for teachers and learners of
Modern Foreign Languages: http://www.fireflylearning.com/welcome
Foreign Characters: There
are many ways of typing foreign characters that are not usually found on
an English-language keyboard. See
Section 5 of Module
1.3 at the ICT4LT website. See also FrKeys and Lexibar.
Foreign Language and Culture:
Lots of links to language and culture all around the world: http://www.speakeasy.org/~dbrick/Hot/foreign.html
FrKeys:
A toolbar that enables easy access to typing foreign characters in a wide
range of languages without having to use the number pad or complex keystrokes.
Ideal for laptops. Can be customised to include any language that uses Unicode:
http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/frkeys.htm
Gutenberg:
The Project Gutenberg is a huge archive of free books (in many different
languages) which are in the public domain: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page.
Many of the audio texts stored at the LibriVox website
are based on the versions stored in electronic format by the Project Gutenberg.
Hello-World: Games, activities
and songs for young learners, with native speaker recordings in many languages,
including English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese and Indonesian:
http://www.hello-world.com/
i-c@fé: A fresh and
innovative website for students and teachers of French, German and Spanish,
maintained by Oxford University Press. It includes regular online magazines
for 11-16 year olds, i-c@fé français, Deutsch and español,
packed full of interesting articles and interactive activities, and a separate
area for teachers: http://www.oup.com/uk/i-cafe/
Jennifer's Language Page:
Jennifer seems to spend all her time collecting words and phrases in different
languages. She lists languages that I had never heard about before. I found
a link to over 300 different ways of saying "Merry Christmas" here:
http://users.elite.net/runner/jennifers/
Kindersite: The Kindersite
has 1000s of links to games, songs and stories for young children in a variety
of languages. It includes a Multilingual Video Project, in which children
all over the world participate in a project to make videos in multiple languages
http://www.kindersite.org
Language Café: An
EU-funded project, coordinated by the Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics
and Area Studies (LLAS) University of Southampton: http://www.languagecafe.eu/
Language Guide: A wealth
of free resources for language learners and teachers, including vocab guides
(words, picture and audio), grammar guides (text, audio and quizzes) and readings
(written texts and audio): http://www.languageguide.org/
Language Helpers: Help for
learners of Chinese, Czech, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian and
Latvian: http://www.languagehelpers.com/
Languages on the Web: A large
number of links to sites in many different languages, including Minority
Languages. The site includes numerous links to translations of short stories
presented in parallel with the original texts: http://www.lonweb.org/
Languageplus: Online learning
activities in French, German, Spanish and Japanese: http://www.languageplus.com.au/
Language
Skills: Interactive activities for teachers and learners of French, German,
Spanish and Welsh, each of which has its own section of the site: French
(Zut!), German (Gut!), Spanish (¡Oye!) and Welsh
(Sut!) - plus a Junior Zut! section. The site includes exercises
for the interactive whiteboard, PowerPoint presentations and pronunciation
sections. Between the hours of 9.00am and 4.00pm (your time), there is a 12-month
registration fee for each site. For the rest of the time, the sites are free.
You will need a separate subscription per site: http://www.languageskills.co.uk/
Languages
Online: Covers a wide range of languages. Free basic grammar overview, vocabulary
lists, dictionaries.
Languages
Online: Useful resources maintained by the Royal Grammar School,
High Wycombe, including lots of Hot Potatoes exercises.
Languages
Online: A large collection of resources for language teachers and students
of Chinese, French, German, Indonesian, Italian and ESL, managed by the Victoria
State Government, Australia. The website contains a large number of interactive
tasks and games that introduce, reinforce and recycle vocabulary. They are self-paced
and self-correcting and can be repeated as desired. Activities are presented
in topic-based sections and include recordings by native speakers. Downloadable
templates enable teachers and students to build their own multimedia language
games and activities. Games can be made using any language installed on your
computer. Languages Online also includes printable worksheets with a variety
of guided speaking, reading, writing and research tasks to complement the online
activities.
Learning
Chocolate: Free vocabulary games (pictures, texts, audio) for students
of English, Japanese and Chinese.
LibriVox
provides free audio books and files of literary classics (in many different
languages) which are in the public domain. Many of the texts are based on those
stored at the Gutenberg website: http://librivox.org/
Learn a Language: A comprehensive
selection of free language learning materials for a range of languages. Includes
information on grammar, vocab and links to dictionaries and cultural resources:
http://www.learnalanguage.com/
Lexibar:
A small toolbar which gives rapid access to special characters not always available
on your keyboard. To use, simply drag and drop the special characters into your
word processor: http://www.lexicool.com/lexibar_special_keyboard_characters.asp
LinguaCentral:
A useful collection of language resources and links covering a wide range aspects of language learning
for GCSE and A-Level language students: http://www.linguacentral.co.uk/
Linguafun: A flexible, fully
interactive whole-class teaching resource, developed by practising KS2 MFL teachers.
It looks good, but the annual subscription might stretch some departmental budgets:
http://www.linguafun.eu/
LinQ: A website that links
the language learner to a variety resources and language learning tools, as
well as an online community of learners and native speaker tutors: http://www.lingq.com/
Linguascope:
Stephane Derône's website for learners of English, French, German, Italian and
Spanish. An impressive set of materials - some previews (free) and many other
materials available by subscription: http://www.linguascope.com/
Lyrics
Playground: International Lyrics Playground - song lyrics in many different
languages from all around the world.
Lyrics
Training: An easy and fun method to learn and improve your foreign languages
skills through the music videos and lyrics of your favorite songs.
Manic Monkey: Primary MFL
resources in French, German and English for classroom and home use: http://www.manic-monkey.com/
Martindale's
Language Center: A
wealth of information on languages all over the world, compiled by Jim Martindale.
Fascinating stuff including dictionaries, translation services and information
on American Indian and Australian indigenous languages:
http://www.martindalecenter.com/Language.html
MFL Teaching Resources: Links
to free resources for teaching Modern Foreign Languages: http://www.free-teaching-resources.co.uk/mfl.shtml
Modlangs.co.uk: An online
subscription service for language teachers and students of French, German and
Spanish. Feline and Felinx are the main resources, with the new
Purrfect collections designed specifically to support new demands at
post-GCSE / Standard grade levels: http://www.modlangs.co.uk/
MFL Resources: A large set
of free downloadable resources for teachers of Modern Foreign Languages. Mainly
geared to secondary education: http://www.mflresources.org.uk/.
The corresponding forum for MFL Resources can be found at Yahoo Groups:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mflresources/
MFL Sunderland: Lots of downloadable
resources and information here and links to other useful sites. Created and
maintained by Clare Seccombe: http://www.sunderlandschools.org/mfl-sunderland/index.htm
MyLingo:
Thousands of music videos with translated subtitles.
NetLearn Languages: Study
English, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, German, Russian, Croatian and other
languages live via the Internet with qualified and experienced native-speaker
teachers: http://www.nll.co.uk/
Omniglot: A guide to writing
systems and languages of the world: http://www.omniglot.com/.
This website contains a wealth of information. The site include lists of common
words and phrases in many different languages, many of them with sound files,
e.g. "Good morning": http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/goodmorning.htm
The
Open University, LORO (Languages Open Resources Online): Free downloadable
resources for language teaching and learning at The Open University. Includes
the OU's own resources as well as materials submitted and shared by other language
teachers.
PubsTV: This website contains
links to video clips of advertisements in a wide range of languages - click
on Pubs par Pays. Requires registration: http://www.pubstv.com/
Radio Lingua Schools: Radio
Lingua Schools provides language materials for primary, secondary and staff
development, and pupil workshops combining language learning with creative digital
technologies: http://www.radiolinguaschools.com/
Reall Languages: A range
of learning resources for learners of French, German, Spanish, Italian, Swedish
and Latin. Covers basic words and phrases, wrapped up in a set of games and
fun activities: http://www.reall-languages.com/
SACODEYL: European Youth
Language. Structured video interviews in seven different European languages
with pupils between 13 and 18 years of age - the outcome of an EU-funded project.
The site includes a search tool that generates a concordance of different words
and phrases. Try searching for a common word like toll in German and
the search tool will generate a list of examples showing how the word in used
in authentic contexts. The interviews have been annotated and enriched for language
learning purposes: http://www.um.es/sacodeyl/
Samantha Lunn's Language
Resources: French, German and Spanish: http://www.languagesresources.co.uk/
St Peter’s School, York:
An extensive site for Modern Foreign Languages. Numerous resources and links
to all things language-related, including interactive exercises, topic-organised
links to sites useful for AS French research, links to French media sites and
to other language practice sites: http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/stpmlang/index.html
The Sutton Academy: Free
resources for learners of French, German, Spanish and Russian: http://www.suttonhighmfl.110mb.com/
Times Educational Supplement
(TES): The TES manages a large collection of downloadable resources for
teachers. Click on the Resources tab at the top of the homepage: http://www.tes.co.uk.
There is also a Modern Foreign Languages Forum.
University
of Venice "Il Ponte" Project: Useful self-assessment tests for
learners of English, French, German, Spanish and Italian: http://venus.unive.it/cli/test_online/ilponte/index.html
Verbix:
A verb conjugator, covering a wide range of languages - plus other interesting
activities: http://www.verbix.com/. See also
Le Devoir conjugal for French verb conjugations.
World Language: A huge catalogue
of software for learning a wide range of languages: http://www.worldlanguage.com/
Zut! See Language
Skills.
MINORITY
LANGUAGES
European
Minority Languages: http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/saoghal/mion-chanain/en/.
Some of the languages listed here were completely new to me, e.g. Casubian
and Nenets. Scots (Lallands/Lallans) and Ulster Scots (Ullans)
have been recognised as languages under the European Charter for Regional or
Minority Languages: http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/Treaties/Html/148.htm.
My wife Sally is from Belfast. I had a few problems understanding my mother-in-law
when we first met. I was fooled by the following expression that she used in
a early conversation that we had: "Thon wee fellow fernenst me" = "The
chap who lives opposite me". I love Ulster expressions such as "He got
a quare gunk" and "Give my head peace", the latter being the title of a BBC
Ulster sitcom: http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/gmhp/.
Another example: "Laird Laird, Heich Executive o tha Ulster-Scotch Agencie,
said Juin at he trows tha role o tha Agencie is uphauldan Ulster-Scotch feks,
an no takan thaim owre. He eikit 'Ulster-Scotch maun be an inclusiv cultur,
no an exclusiv. Bein inclusiv is whit bein Scotch-Airis bes'" - see http://www.ullans.com/.
See Accent, Dialect, Language.
Languages on the Web: A large
number of links to sites in many different languages, including Minority Languages.
The site includes numerous links to translations of short stories presented
in parallel with the original texts: http://www.lonweb.org
LCTL: An abbreviation for
Less Commonly Taught Languages, another way of referring to Minority Languages.
Languages
of the Wider World: A
project managed by the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and University
College London (UCL). There are some useful resources at the website, and the
project has a base on EduNation III Island in Second Life.
Linguanet
Worldwide: This project was initiated in 2001 as Linguanet Europa
and has recently undergone expansion to incorporate an interface in a number
of new languages. It addresses in particular the needs of adult learners and
independent learners. The site includes advice on ways of assessing and improving
one's current ability in different languages (including links to websites that
offer diagnostic and placement tests), communicating electronically with other
language learners and finding appropriate resources. A substantial online catalogue
of language learning resources is being built up at this website.
LWULT:
The European Union's official term for what most people call Minority Languages.
It stands for Least Widely Used and Least Taught languages. I prefer
the French acronym Langues Modimes (Languages moins diffusées et moins
enseignées).
DICTIONARIES
AND ENCYCLOPAEDIAS
AllWords:
A useful multilingual online dictionary: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian,
Dutch. Also lots of useful links for word lovers: crossword puzzles, word games,
glossaries, song lyrics, translation programs, etc.
bab.la:
The bab.la language portal offers 20 bilingual dictionaries, together with
language quizzes and games, vocabulary lessons for learning and much more. You
can enter your own translation, create your own language test or your own vocabulary
flashcards.
Dictionarist:
Online Talking Dictionary. Look-up
facility, with audio, in English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Italian,
Russian, Turkish, Dutch, Greek, Albanian, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
EUdict
is a collection of online dictionaries for the languages spoken mostly in the
European Community. These dictionaries are the result of the work of many authors
who worked very hard and finally offered their product freely on the Web. Some
of the dictionaries have only a few thousand words, others have more than 250,000.
Some of the words may be incorrectly translated or mistyped.
FreeDict:
Lists of online multilingual dictionaries in a variety of languages: http://www.freedict.com/
TheFreeDictionary:
English, Medical, Legal, and Computer Dictionaries, Thesaurus, Encyclopedia,
a Literature Reference Library, and a Search Engine all in one.
French
Audio Dictionary: Around 2500 words pronounced by a native speaker.
Glossary
of ICT Terminology: A comprehensive glossary of ICT terminology at the ICT4LT
website, containing both ICT and CALL terms.
LEO
- Link Everything Online: An online service provided by Informatik der Technischen
Universität München. A very useful lookup facility that operates in English
and German. I use it mainly as a English-German/German-English dictionary.
LexiCool:
A directory of bilingual and multilingual dictionaries, with links to over
2000 online dictionaries.
Linguee:
A dictionary and translation search engine.
Logos:
A huge multilingual reference facility containing dictionaries, verb conjugators,
resources for children, and a cheat facility for crossword addicts - which finds
anagrams and matches patterns.
LookWAYup:
LookWAYup combines a multilingual dictionary, thesaurus, translation, and
other handy tools. With a double-click you can look up the meaning of a word,
search it on the same site or the whole Web using your favourite search engine,
and more! All that without leaving the Web page: http://lookwayup.com/
NetLingo:
An online dictionary about the Internet. It contains thousands of words
and definitions that describe the technology and community of the World Wide
Web: http://www.netlingo.com/
Picture
Dictionary: A picture dictionary in English, French, German, Spanish and
Italian. Also contains activities such as flashcards, fill-in-the-blank, etc:
http://www.pdictionary.com/
Shahi: A visual dictionary
that combines Wiktionary content with Flickr images and many more. Aimed at
learners of English: http://blachan.com/shahi/
Visuwords (English): A visual
dictionary: you enter a word and then the dictionary shows you all sorts of
connected words and their relationships. Nicely colour coded. With mouseover
translations. Probably a tool for the more advanced student, but really well
done: http://www.visuwords.com/
Wikipedia is a multilingual
encyclopedia on the Web that anyone can edit - yes, anyone, which is
both its strength and its weakness: http://www.wikipedia.org.
While Wikipedia covers an enormous range of subjects in different languages
there is no guarantee that what you read is accurate, as the content can be
added to or amended by any member of the public, and there is no indication
of the authorship or the authors' credentials. On the one hand this can be perceived
as a wonderful example of collaborative writing, but on the other hand it can
be perceived as a golden opportunity for the propagation of oddball ideas and
self-promotion. Wikipedia is a very useful tool for language teachers - see
Section 4.2 of Module
1.5 at the ICT4LT website for examples of ways in which Wikipedia can be used
to track down neologisms and their usage in different languages.
WordReference:
A range of online bilingual dictionaries and, in addition, verb conjugators
for French, Spanish and Italian. Also links to language forums. A miniature
version of WordReference can be embedded into other language learning sites:
http://www.wordreference.com/
VOCABULARY
LEARNING RESOURCES
Academic
Word List (English): This website contains lists of academic vocabulary
in English, divided into ten sublists in order of frequency, e.g. Sublist 1
has the most frequent academic words. You can submit your own short text, and
a program will identify core academic vocabulary in your text, using the Academic
Word List. The text will be returned as a new Web page with words from the Academic
Word List, at the level selected, highlighted in bold:
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/%7Ealzsh3/acvocab/awlhighlighter.htm
Before
You Know It (BYKI): An interactive flashcard program by Transparent Language,
covering 64 different languages, for learning basic words and phrases. A free
trial version is available for download. Ready-made flashcard activities are
included, e.g. multiple-choice matching, pronunciation and dictation, and you
can create your own additional lists of words and phrases. You can also record
your own voice and compare it to native speakers. Also available in a version
for smartphones: BYKI Mobile.
Clip2Go: For learners of
German, Spanish or English. Users create and share multimedia word lists that
they can browse or search for in the site's online dictionaries: http://www.clip2go.com/
Illustrated Vocabulary: Around
500 basic words of vocab in English, French, Dutch and Danish. Simple multiple-choice
exercises with pictures. Institut de la Providence, Belgium: http://www.illustratedvocabulary.ip-providence.net/
Interlex:
A free vocab acquisition package by Andrew Quilley. It supports several different
languages, is easy to use, comes with lots of ready-made vocab files, and students
can write their own files to test the words they want to learn. The website
also lists lots of useful links and has a file swap area where users can post
the files they have created and share resources with other learners: http://www.vocab.co.uk/
Language
Guide: A wealth of free resources for language learners and teachers, including
vocab guides (words, picture and audio), grammar guides (text, audio and quizzes)
and readings (written texts and audio): http://www.languageguide.org/
Lingro:
A tool which allows you to read a Web page in its original language and
then click on individual words you don't know to both see and hear the word
in a variety of other languages. It even remembers which words you've looked
at to give you a words list to learn from. Available for English, Spanish, French,
German, Italian and Polish: http://lingro.com/.
See also Ultralingua and VoyCabulary
Neel Method French Vocabulary
Revision: The learner is requested to translate useful words and phrases
chosen at random, and the level of difficulty increases according to the learner's
progress: http://www.neelmethod.com/
phase-6:
A virtual flashcard presentation package that assists students in locking vocabulary
into long-term memory. Originally developed by a student and based on brain-research
and the “Ebbinghaus Forgetting-Curve", phase-6 uses a spaced repetition approach
to ensure that vocabulary is retained long-term rather than for short periods
of just a few days.
Ultralingua:
As well as offering online and offline dictionaries, Ultralingua offers
a useful facility that can convert a Web page into a "dictionary-enabled" page,
so that the words on the page are clickable and can be looked up in a defining
dictionary (English) or a bilingual dictionary. You type or paste the URL of
the Web page into the address box and choose the source and target language.
The original Web page is then made available as a dictionary-enabled, clickable
page. Some Web pages can't be dictionary-enabled, but it works most of the time.
Includes verb conjugation tables too: http://www.ultralingua.com/onlinedictionary/.
See also Lingro and VoyCabulary.
Vocab
Express: Vocab Express has been designed with the assistance of a number
of leading Modern Foreign Language departments which has shaped it into a unique
and intuitive vocab learning platform. By integrating text, images and audio,
Vocab Express provides an engaging environment in which students can build their
vocabulary whilst their progress is being monitored and tracked by their teachers.
Vocabulary Acquisition Research
Group Archive (VARGA): University of Wales Swansea: http://www.lognostics.co.uk/varga/
Vocabulix:
Vocabulary Trainer and Conjugation Trainer. A free website that helps you
improve your vocabulary in various foreign languages. Vocabulix is divided
into several lessons. You simply choose a lesson in a foreign language and the
system will help you to memorize the words of that lesson. http://www.vocabulix.com/
Vokabel:
Lots of vocab quizzes on different topics in English, French, German and Spanish:
http://www.vokabel.com/. Choose an existing
quiz or create your own.
VoyCabulary:
This site makes the words
on any webpage into links so you can look them up in a dictionary or other word-reference-site
of your choice, by simply clicking on the words. Anytime you find yourself reading
a Web page with words you wish to look-up, try running the page through VoyCabulary
and just click on the words: http://www.voycabulary.com/.
Site down on 9 March 2012 - check. See also Lingro
and Ultralingua
AUDIO
CLIPS
Most of these contain sound effects,
etc, but they may be worth exploring:
CLIPART
AND IMAGE LIBRARIES
Animated GIFs, catalogued
in French: http://users.skynet.be/bd/images/frameset2.html
Animation Factory: Animated
GIFs, PowerPoint templates, audio and video overlays (by subscription):
http://www.animationfactory.com/
Behold:
Useful tool for finding images on the Web that are free to use and modify.
Can Stock Photo: http://www.canstockphoto.com/
CAPL (Culturally
Authentic Pictorial Lexicon): An image bank set up and maintained by Michael
Shaughnessy & Jason Parkhillis, Washington and Jefferson College, Pennsylvania.
It consists of a searchable and categorised bank of 2000 or so images. You are
free to use the images for non-commercial educational purposes as specified
in the terms of a Creative Commons Licence: http://capl.washjeff.edu/
Clipart Connection: http://www.clipartconnection.com/
Compfight:
An image search engine tailored to efficiently locate images for blogs, comps,
inspiration, and research. on the Web
Fotosearch Stock Fotos:
http://www.fotosearch.co.uk/
Image repositories for e-learning,
a set of links maintained by Fred Riley, University of Nottingham: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/nursing/sonet/resources/image_repositories.html
Language Teaching Clipart Library,
University of Victoria, Canada: http://hcmc.uvic.ca/clipart/
Maps: Try
these websites if you need a map to incorporate into a word-processed document,
PowerPoint presentation or Web page:
MorgueFile:
A site which offers "Free images for your inspiration, reference and use
in your creative work, be it commercial or not!"
REALIA (Rich Electronic Archive
for Language Instruction Anywhere): A useful site, maintained by Oberlin
College, for finding images that convey the everyday life of different countries.
Search for a key word or phrase, e.g. a city name such as "Berlin"or
the name of a food dish such as "paella". Many interesing images,
including typical or amusing signs and symbols in different languages: http://www.realiaproject.org
Thinkstock: Royalty-free
images available by subscription: http://www.thinkstockphotos.co.uk/
World Atlas, for maps and
flags: http://www.worldatlas.com/clipart.htm
ANIMATION
TOOLS, COMIC STRIPS, ETC
Acapela
TV: A Text To Movie (TTM) application. Create your own talking cards for
all kinds of special occasions - or just for fun!
Comic
Creator: Create your own comic strips.
ComicLab:
A multilingual authoring tool for interactive comic books. http://webcomicbookcreator.com/
Comic
Life: A utility that enables you to create comics, picture albums, how-to
guides - and much more! Just drag in your pictures, captions, lettering text
and speech balloons: http://plasq.com/comiclife-win
Crazy Talk: A website that
offers facilities for creating face puppets, i.e animated 3D talking characters
from photos, images or illustrations: http://www.reallusion.com/crazytalk/
GoAnimate: Make your own
animations: http://goanimate.com/. See the
Perfect Tense (French) animation, Le
weekend dernier.
MakeBeliefsComix:
Make your own comic strips. This free site has potential for learners of foreign
languages: http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/
ReadTheWords: A tool that
works in much the same way as Voki, but without the option
of recording one's own voice: http://www.readthewords.com/
ToonDoo:
Create your own comic strips. Publish, share & discuss: http://www.toondoo.com/
| Voki:
A website that enables you to create and customise your own speaking cartoon
character that can be embedded in your favourite social networks, blogs
and websites. You can choose the Text To Speech option,
as in my example on the right, to give the character a voice, or you can
record your own voice.
|
|
Xtranormal:
A Text To Movie (TTM) application.
See also Section
2.1.3 (viii) of Module 1.5 at the ICT4LT site.
JOURNALS
AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS ON CALL
ALSIC: Francophone Electronic
Journal for CALL: Apprentissage des Langues et Systèmes d’Information
et de Communication: http://alsic.revues.org
CALL-EJ
Online: A refereed professional journal on Computer Assisted Language
Learning and related fields, published bi-annually. It began publication in
1999 after CALL-EJ in Japan and ON-CALL in Australia
merged. CALL-EJ Online is now an international journal that welcomes
contributions from around the world: http://callej.org
Computer
Assisted Language Learning Journal: Also known as the CALL
journal, formerly published by Swets & Zeitlinger and now taken over
by Taylor & Francis. The current editor is Jozef Colpaert,
University of Antwerp.
Language Learning
and Language Technology (LLLT): A book series, originally published by Swets
& Zeitlinger (now part of the Taylor & Francis
group) and edited by Graham Davies and Carol Chapelle.
Language Learning
and Technology: A refereed Web journal. A goldmine of information. I used
to be on the Editorial Board of this journal: http://llt.msu.edu
ON-CALL:
Australian Journal of Computers and Language Education, published by the University
of Queensland, Australia. In January 1999 the ON-CALL journal became
available only online and in May 1999 merged with CALL-EJ
in Japan.
ReCALL: The Journal of EUROCALL,
now published by Cambridge University Press. Back numbers are available
at: http://www.eurocall-languages.org/recall/index.html
Taylor &
Francis: The current publishers of the Computer
Assisted Language Learning (CALL) Journal and of the book series Language
Learning and Language Technology: http://www.taylorandfrancisgroup.com/
See the ICT4LT
Resource Centre for a Bibliography of CALL and links to other comprehensive
bibliographies.
PROFESSIONAL
ASSOCIATIONS
ALL: The
Association for Language Learning's website: http://www.all-languages.org.uk.
Lots of information and useful links.You can browse the ALLNET discussion list
at: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/allnet.html.
See the homepage of ALL's German National Committee at http://www.dastor.org.uk/GNC/
- some useful resources and links for teachers of German. ALL has many regional
branches. The London branch is particularly active and has its own website at:
http://www.all-london.org.uk/
APACALL: The Asia-Pacific
Association for CALL, University of Southern Queensland, Australia: http://www.apacall.org
CALICO:
Acronym for Computer Assisteed Language Instruction Consortium, a professional
association founded in the USA in 1982 and devoted to promoting the use of technology
enhanced language learning. CALICO is affiliated with EUROCALL.
CALICO and EUROCALL have set up a joint EUROCALL/CALICO
Virtual Worlds Special Interest Group that aims to explore the possibilities
of language learning and teaching in virtual worlds such as Second
Life. CALICO and EUROCALL have a joint headquarters in Second Life, which
is maintained by Graham Davies (Groovy Winkler in SL) and Randall Sadler (Randall
Renoir in SL). This is the SLURL of the HQ on EduNation III Island: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/EduNation%20III/74/199/31
CERCLES:
Confédération Européenne des Centres de Langues dans l’Enseignement
Supérieur / European Confederation of Language Centres in Higher Education
/ Europäische Konföderation der Hochschulsprachenzentren: http://www.cercles.org.
Founded in Strasbourg in 1991, CERCLES is a confederation of independent associations
from 10 countries of the European Union. It brings together some 200 Language
Centres, Departments, Institutes, Faculties or Schools in higher education whose
main responsibility is the teaching of languages. Its members have several thousand
academic, administrative and technical staff and some 250,000 students who learn
all of the world’s main languages. The equivalent US-based association
is IALLT.
| EUROCALL:
A professional association devoted to promoting the use of technology enhanced
language learning. EUROCALL was founded in 1986 and set up as a recognised
professional association with the aid of EU funding in 1993. The current
President of EUROCALL is Françoise Blin, Dublin City University.
There is a wealth of information at EUROCALL's
website, with numerous links to publications and other sources of information.
You can also join the EUROCALL
discussion list. EUROCALL organises an annual international conference
that attracts participants from all over the world. EUROCALL's affiliated
association in the USA is CALICO. EUROCALL and
CALICO have set up a joint EUROCALL/CALICO
Virtual Worlds Special Interest Group that aims to explore the possibilities
of language learning and teaching in virtual worlds such as Second
Life. EUROCALL and
CALICO have a joint headquarters in Second Life, which is maintained by
Graham Davies (Groovy Winkler in SL) and Randall Sadler (Randall Renoir
in SL). This is the SLURL of the HQ on EduNation III Island: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/EduNation%20III/74/199/31
|
|
European
Language Council: A professional association, set up with the aid of European
Union funding, which aims to act as a forum and a lobby group: http://www.celelc.org
IALLT:
The US-based International Association for Language Learning Technology. Established
in 1965, this professional association changed its official name from IALL to
IALLT in May 2001: http://www.iallt.org.
IALLT is dedicated to promoting effective uses of media centres for language
teaching, learning, and research. The equivalent European association is CERCLES.
IATEFL:
The UK-based International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign
Language. IATEFL embraces a Learning Technologies
Special Interest Group (LT SIG) and publishes the CALL Review newsletter.
See also TESOL,
the US-based association.
The Institute of Linguists:
The UK-based association for the languages profession: http://www.iol.org.uk
LET: Language Education and
Technology (LET) assocation of Japan, formerly known as the Language Laboratory
Association (LLA), which now embraces a wider range of language learning technologies:
http://www.j-let.org
TESOL:
Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages, based in the USA: http://www.tesol.org.
TESOL embraces a Computer Assisted Language Learning Interest Section (CALL-IS):
http://www.call-is.org. See also IATEFL,
the UK-based association.
Webheads
in Action: An online community of practice of ESOL teachers and educators
practising peace and professional development through Web 2.0 and computer mediated
communication.
WorldCALL:
A worldwide umbrella association of CALL associations. The first WorldCALL conference
was held at the University of Melbourne in 1998. The second WorldCALL conference
took place in Banff, Canada, 2003. The third WorldCALL conference took place
in Japan in 2008. The fourth WorldCALL conference will take place in Glasgow,
Scotland, 2013: http://www.worldcall.org
SEARCH
ENGINES
Alta Vista: http://www.altavista.com/.
Alta Vista includes a translation function, based on the original Systran
translation package, one of the oldest and most reliable MT packages - now known
as Babel Fish.
Ask Jeeves:
Ask a question in normal English. This search engine will parse your input and
then search the Web, trying to find the answer: http://uk.ask.com/
Google:
An efficient search engine, and currently the most popular on the Web. It's
my personal favourite. Simple to use and very fast. Try the "I'm feeling
lucky" button, which homes in on the site that is most likely to fulfil
your needs. You can also search for images, maps and news items in the world's
press. Two other useful features of Google: (i) type "define:" immediately
in front of a word and Google will search for definitions of that word; (ii)
type "link:" immediately in front of a URL and Google will find Web
pages that link to that URL. Google's UK homepage is at http://www.google.co.uk.
Try Google's Language Tools at http://www.google.co.uk/language_tools
and search the Web in a variety of different languages. Google also offers a
basic automatic translation service - not 100% accurate but it will give you
an idea of what the text or website is all about.
Yahoo: This is the UK/Ireland
version of the Yahoo search engine: http://uk.yahoo.com/.
Foreign-language versions are also available.
See also Section
4 of Module 1.5 at the ICT4LT website for information on search engines in
different languages and how to use them.
MISCELLANEOUS
RESOURCES
Accent,
Dialect, Language: The distinction between these three categories often
provokes fierce debate. Broadly speaking, an accent is distinguished
by features of pronunciation that signal a person's regional or social identity,
whereas a dialect is distinguished by features of grammar and/or vocabulary.
The point at which a dialect becomes a separate language is debatable.
I speak fluent German but I can only understand around one word in ten when
listening to Swiss German, which is regarded by some people as a dialect of
German but by others (and rightly so) as a separate language known as Schwyzerdütsch.
Similarly, Scots (Lallands/Lallans) and Ulster Scots (Ullans) can be regarded
as distinct languages from English. Max Weinreich described a language thus:
"A language is a dialect with an army and a navy" - or "A shprakh iz a diyalekt
mit an armey un a flot" in the original Yiddish ("Yivo and the problems of our
time", Yivo-Bleter, 1945, Vol. 25, No. 1, p. 13.). See Minority
Languages, Speech Accent Archive and - just for
fun - Ali G Translator, Dialectizer.
The BBC has some excellent information, including sound recordings, on regional
accents and dialects of the UK: http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/
The Adam
Smith Institute: This site has some interesting downloadable publications
on educational issues. My attention was drawn in particular to Wired
to learn (2002) by Tom McMullan, which is described as follows: "The government
wants to create the 'school of the future' with ICT-based learning in new-look
buildings and at home. But existing government policy stands in the way of this
vision. Teacher and ICT expert Tom McMullan identifies the blockages: too much
focus on numbers rather than sustainability, low teacher confidence, dismal
connectivity, and the lack of realisation that content, and not hardware, is
what it's all about."
ALLE - Alberta Language Learning
Environment: A project based at the University of Calgary, Canada: http://fis.ucalgary.ca/alle/.
The project has the following aims: (i) raising consciousness among teachers
as to the opportunities and benefits of current technology, especially the Web;
(ii) equipping teachers with the skills necessary to integrate technology effectively
into their classroom practice; (iii) developing and supporting authoring tools;
(iv) doing ongoing research in the area of technology assisted language learning
and publishing findings; (v) evaluating the results of teacher involvement in
TELL (Technology Enhanced Language Learning). Useful site, with lots of links,
especially to French resources.
Amazon Bookshop: The UK branch
of the famous online bookshop. Some bargains to be found here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/.
Did you know that Amazon's customer services department moved from Slough, UK,
to Cork, Ireland, because it could not recruit staff in the Slough area that
were able to handle European languages? In a 2005 European Commission poll conducted
by Eurobarometer, 30% of UK inhabitants surveyed said they could speak a second
language at conversational level. In Ireland, this figure was about a third
higher at 41%. So much for the UK government's policy on language teaching in
schools!
Asset Languages:
Asset Languages is a new way of recognising achievement in foreign languages
learning: http://www.assetlanguages.org.uk.
The Asset Languages assessment scheme supports the National
Languages Strategy and is designed to provide voluntary accreditation options
for learners of all ages and abilities from primary to further, higher and adult
education. It has a lot in common with the Common European Framework
(e.g. "can do" statements relating to the four language skills) and is tied
in with the Languages Ladder.
CALL4All:
A large categorised collection of links to websites relating to language
learning and teaching, compiled by John Paul Loucky.
CALL@Hull:
Fred Riley's website of Internet Resources for Language Teachers and Learners,
which contains some of the resources formerly located at the CTICML and C&IT
websites: http://www.fredriley.org.uk/call/langsite/
The Consultants-E: The Consultants-E
is a leader in online and distance education and is an innovative company of
consultants specialising in online learning and teaching in higher and adult
education: http://www.theconsultants-e.com/
Courses in CALL: Want to
take CALL seriously? The ICT for Language Teachers (ICT4LT)
website covers a wide range of topics for beginners, intermediate and advanced
students and is probably the most comprehensive set of free training materials
of this type on the Web. See Courses.
Creative Technology: This
is the website of a business that specialises in computer-based packages for
learning and education: http://www.cict.co.uk/.
One of the shareware packages that can be found at this site is Martin Holme’s
Markin, a program for marking work submitted by students
as text data, for example via email or as a word-processed document. Markin
was developed as a marking system for courses delivered via the Internet, and
can produce marked work in the form of HTML files that can be viewed using a
Web browser, or as RTF files that can be viewed in a word-processor.
CSLU Speech
Toolkit: An excellent tool that helps people with hearing impairments to
learn how to articulate. The CSLU Speech Toolkit can be downloaded from here:
http://www.cslu.ogi.edu/toolkit/.
See Speech Technologies.
ePals: A community of ePals
in educational institutions all over the world. Useful for finding partners
with whom to exchange emails: http://www.epals.com/
European Computer
Driving Licence (ECDL): An internationally recognised qualification in ICT:
http://www.bcs.org/category/14424.
See also the ECDL for Schools, which is designed specifically to help
teachers, support staff and ICT coordinators develop practical computing skills
for teaching and learning in the classroom and leads to an internationally recognised
level of certification: http://www.educatorsecdl.com/
Eurovolt: European Vocational
Online Language Teaching and Vocational Online Language Learning via a Virtual
Learning Environment: http://www.eurovolt.net
iBrowse: An interactive PowerPoint
Web browser that allows you to easily add live Web content such as HTML, PDF
and Flash to your PowerPoint presentations. Simply insert the PowerPoint
Web browser control into your slide and specify a starting URL to add live Internet
Web pages linked with your presentation contents: http://www.tdogsoftware.com/powerpoint-web-browser/index.html
Futurelab:
NESTA Futurelab simplified its name to Futurelab in April 2006. A
high-tech educational initiative, working in partnership with industry policy
and practice. Futurelab has engaged in some activities in the area of ICT in
Modern Foreign Languages: http://www.futurelab.org.uk
The Good
Practice Guide: A guide to good practice for learning and teaching in Languages,
Linguistics and Area Studies. Located at the website of the Subject
Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies (LLAS), University of
Southampton. Contains a collection of commissioned articles written by recognised
authorities in their field and reviewed by an editorial board. Browse the guide
by author name or subject: http://www.llas.ac.uk/resources/guidecontents.html
History of CALL: Philippe
Delcloque's History of CALL began as a poster exhibition that was produced
to mark the beginning of the new millennium. It was then set up as a website
(now closed) and is now available in PDF format: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/History_of_CALL.pdf
ICT
for Language Teachers (ICT4LT): http://www.ict4lt.org.
This is the website of the ICT for Language Teachers project, which was
initiated with funding under the Socrates programme of the European
Union. The ICT4LT website consists of 15 modules at three different levels,
plus an additional module on Computer Aided Assessment (CAA) and other downloadable
articles and resources. The site also contains a comprehensive Glossary of Terminology,
a Resources Centre and over 1000 links to other sites. The site is linked with
the ICT4LT Blog. Access to the ICT4LT website and
blog is free of charge. The website is updated every week by Graham
Davies.
iLoveLanguages: Formerly
known as the Human Languages Page, a comprehensive guide to language-related
websites, created by Tyler Chambers (né Jones), who is is a great gatherer
of information about foreign languages: http://www.ilovelanguages.com/
Interactive Whiteboards:
Ideas and materials for using interactive whiteboards in the Modern Foreign
Languages Classroom, created by Wendy Adenji: http://www.trainingforlearning.co.uk/links/modern_languages.htm.
See also Section
4 of Module 1.4 at the ICT4LT website.
John Higgins:
One of the veterans of CALL and co-author of the first two CILT publications
on CALL: Davies G. & Higgins J. (1982) Computers, language and language learning,
London: CILT and Davies G. & Higgins J. (1985), Using computers in language
learning: a teacher's guide, London: CILT. Also co-author of the seminal
work by Higgins J. & Johns T. (1984) Computers in language learning,
London: Collins. See the website of John and Muriel Higgins at: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/wordscape/
Language Advantage: A guide
to language courses throughout the world: online materials, CD-ROMs, books,
jobs, events, news, features, advice on where to go to learn a language for
business and private users, cultural awareness, etc: http://languageadvantage.com/
The
Language Investigator: This site, subtitled Investigating language across
the curriculum, is aimed mainly at primary school teachers who are interested
introducing a multilingual dimension into their lessons, but the materials are
relevant to teachers and pupils in secondary education too. The work is a result
of a one-year project called Thinking through Languages which was developed
within a group of Coventry primary schools. The project was funded by the Nuffield
Foundation. An excellent site for raising awareness about languages, with
lots of useful links: http://www.language-investigator.co.uk/
Living
Language: A commercial site offering courses, game and quizzes, blogs and
resources in 28 different languages.
Logos Library: A massive
database of searchable texts in a wide range of languages, containing multilingual
novels, technical literature and translated texts: http://www.logoslibrary.eu/
MERLOT (Multimedia Education
Resource for Learning and Online Teaching): A free and open resource designed
primarily for teacher and students in higher education. Numerous links to online
learning materials can be found here, along with annotations such as peer reviews
and assignments. Materials for Modern Foreign Languages can be found under Humanities
/ World Languages and Humanities / Languages and Literature: http://www.merlot.org/
Moodle:
A software package designed to help educators create online courses. Moodle
is descibed as a Course Management System (CMS) or a Virtual Learning
Environment (VLE). Moodle is open source and can be downloaded free of charge,
which means you are free to download it, use it, modify it and even distribute
it: http://moodle.org. Moodle has its own language
teaching community: http://moodle.org/course/view.php?id=31
- log in as a guest. See Section
8 of Module 1.5 at the ICT4LT site,
which will tell you more about distance learning and VLEs.
Parsers: An online parser
can be found at the Visual Interactive Syntax Learning (VISL) website: http://visl.sdu.dk.
See also Section
5 of Module 3.5 at the ICT4LT website
Railway Timetables: See Deutsche
Bahn (Germany) at http://www.bahn.de/,
ÖBB (Austria) at http://www.oebb.at/,
and SNCF (France) at http://www.sncf.fr/.
The Dutch Railways site at http://www.ns.nl/
is also very good for national and international connections. For the UK I tend
to use the National Rail site, which - significantly - is available only
in English: http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/.
Try planning a rail journey from Oxford to Munich or from Manchester to Brussels.
The Deutsche Bahn website allows you to do this, detailing all connections and
the time that should be allowed for using the London Underground between stations.
The SNCF site is much more temperamental, offering less detail and falling over
if there are too many connections or if you choose an unacceptable preferred
departure time or date. According to National Rail, however, UK trains only
connect with Eurostar trains departing from Waterloo: end of the line. I guess
this is what happens when you set up a privatised railway network, which is
barely capable of handling connections between the different private train services
in the UK, let alone international connections.
Russell
Stannard: An excellent set of online Teacher Training Videos, created by
Russell Stannard: http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/.
The videos are captured, walk-through screen videos with voiceovers, made with
Camtasia Studio, and show you step-by-step how to use a range of new technologies,
including blogs, wikis, Audacity, podcasts, iTunes, downloading from YouTube,
Photoshop, Second Life and many other applications.
His site also contains videos relating to applications for English Language
Teaching. In 2008 Russell won the Times Higher award for Outstanding Initiative
in ICT.
Spartacus Educational: The
Spartacus Educational site includes lots of useful educational links, including
Modern Foreign Languages: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REVlanguages.htm
Special Educational Needs and
Language Learning: A very comprehensive and useful site, maintained by David
Wilson: http://www.specialeducationalneeds.com/
Speech
Accent Archive: The site is maintained by Steven Weinberger, George Mason
University: http://accent.gmu.edu. It examines
the accented speech of speakers from many different language backgrounds reading
the same sample paragraph. There are over 300 speech samples. If you click on
"English" you will find samples of native speakers of English from the UK and
around the world. There are many other useful linguistic resources on Steven's
Web pages: http://mason.gmu.edu/~weinberg/.
See Accent, Dialect Language.
Speech Technologies:
A growing area of research, with many practical applications: for example the
CSLU Speech Toolkit, which helps deaf people to articulate,
and Text To Speech (TTS) software, which enables blind or partically sighted
people to "read" from the screen. For other ground-breaking applications see
Section 4 of Module
3.5 at the ICT4LT website. Language teachers have also found that TTS software,
which is used in applications such as Voki, can add a fun
element to learning a new language.
Sprachcaffe: An organisation
of language schools that helps students locate courses or language schools in
different countries where they can study English, French, German, Spanish, Italian,
Chinese and Arabic: http://www.sprachcaffe.com/
Staffordshire Modern Foreign
Languages: A useful site for modern language teachers. Contains links, contacts,
resources, lists of publishers, and suggested tasks and activities for students:
http://education.staffordshire.gov.uk/Curriculum/Subjectareas/ModernForeignLanguages/
Super Language Sites: An
extensive list of useful links to site in many different languages, compiled
by Jim Becker, University of Northern Iowa: http://www.uni.edu/becker/
Teachers
TV: A website for teachers that offers lots of useful video materials for
teachers. Regrettably, the website closed down on 29 April 2011 when the govermment
funding period came to a close, but the videos are now archived at the teachersmedia
website and at the TES website.
TeacherTube: A sort of YouTube
for teachers. An online community for sharing instructional videos, targeting
teachers, schools and home learners: http://www.teachertube.com/
Tim Berners-Lee: My hero,
the inventor of the World Wide Web - and he's British! This is his personal
site: http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/
Wayback
Machine: Dead links on the Web are a growing problem. You find a nice site,
bookmark it, or add it to a list of links like this one, and the next time that
you try to access it, it's gone - or, worse still, it's been transmogrified
into an offensive site: see my Dodgy
links article. However, salvation has arrived: the Wayback Machine (also
known as the Internet Archive) at http://www.archive.org/.
Using the Wayback Machine to surf the Web as it was, you just type a URL (a
website address) in the dialogue box, click the Take Me Back button,
and start exploring the past, choosing a date from the calendar that goes back
to the time when the website address was still active.
FUN
STUFF
Ali G Translator:
Machine translation programs such as Babel Fish often
make mistakes, but this one is pretty good at translating your texts into Ali
G street slang - not very politically correct, of course: http://mackers.com/alig/.
The opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice reads: "It is a truth universally
acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want
of a wife." which translates into Ali G slang as "It is a truf universally acknowledged,
dat a single geeza in possession of a wicked fortune must be in dig of a bitch."
Alphabet: See how fast you
can type the alphabet: http://playfreeonlinegames.eu/playonline/typethealphabet.html
BULL:
If you have trouble writing critical essays then this is the place for you:
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/nholland/critic.htm.
BULL stands for Basic Unitary Literary Language. It’s a computer program
by John Holland that generates impressive-sounding sentences such as "In
a situated discourse, the metonymy of inclusion devolves into the hegemony of
pre-existing structure". I love this kind of stuff . I wrote a poetry generator
along these lines (in collaboration with my old friend David Steel) back in
the 1970s, but it’s a long time since I saw anything as good as this. If
you think the above sample is BULL then the real thing is even better: e.g.
"If such a sublime cyborg would insinuate the future as post-Fordist subject,
his palpably masochistic locations as ecstatic agent of the sublime superstate
need to be decoded as the ‘now-all-but-unreadable DNA’ of a fast deindustrializing
Detroit, just as his Robocop-like strategy of carceral negotiation and street
control remains the tirelessly American one of inflicting regeneration through
violence upon the racially heteroglossic wilds and others of the inner city".
This text is authentic and written by one of the winners of the Annual Bad Writing
Contest, Volume 11, 82 of the Humanist Discussion Group.
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The
Crown Bar, Belfast: This magnificent ornate bar, complete with real
gas lights, is in my personal World Top 10 of Favourite Bars. There used
to be a live camera situated at one end of the bar, so you could make
an arrangement with your friends and relatives anywhere in the world to
see you enjoying a pint of Guinness or a glass of Bushmills. This is a
picture of Sally and me on 2 October 1998. We were not aware at the time
that we were being watched by David Herren in the USA. David sent us this
picture that he downloaded at Middlebury College. It looks like I am just
about to order a second pint. See:
http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/images/photos/belfast/crown.htm
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|
Dialectizer:
See: http://www.rinkworks.com/dialect/.
Some years ago I recall being given a copy of a DOS program that converted any
text into Jive slang. I suppose it had to come... here's a website that converts
websites into Cockney, Jive, Redneck, Elmer Fudd, etc. Alternatively, just feed
in a text of your choice. Here's my original text, followed by Cockney: (i)
"I was walking down the road the other day when I felt thirsty, so I went
into a pub and ordered a pint of beer." (ii) "I were walkin' dahn
the road the bloody uvver day wen I felt firsty, so I went into a rub-a-dub
and ordered a pint of beer." Hmm, a couple of rhyming slang opportunities
missed, I think: (i) "road" = "frog" ("frog and toad"),
(ii) "beer" = "pig's" ("pig's ear"). The Jive
version is better: "Ah wuz walkin' waaay down d' road t'oda' day when ah
felt dusty, so's ah went into some pub an' o'dered some pint uh beer. Ah be
baaad..."
Educational
Jargon Generator: Stuck for a fine-sounding phrase for your thesis or report?
Look no further: http://www.sciencegeek.net/lingo.html.
Some examples: "to facilitate holistic curriculum integration", "to harness
research-based differentiated lessons", "to expedite top-down staff development",
"to synergize problem-based differentiated lessons".
Essentialist Explanations: A
collection of amusing definitions of different languages in the form "Language
X is essentially language Y under conditions Z". English is described thus:
"English is essentially bad Dutch with outrageously pronounced French and
Latin vocabulary." French is described thus: "French is essentially the
first syllables of Latin words spoken with a headcold." See http://mercury.ccil.org/~cowan/essential.html
Europanto: The emerging new
lingua franca of the European Union, an amusing mixture of several different
European languages, the brainchild of of Diego Marani: http://www.europanto.be
The
Postmodernism Generator: http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/.
Written by Andrew C. Bulhak, the program generates completely meaningless but
impressive-sounding essays, e.g. Baudrillardist hyperreality and subpatriarchialist
theory, by V. Andreas Buxton, Department of Gender Politics, University
of California, which begins as follows: "Sexual identity is part of the paradigm
of narrativity," says Foucault; however, according to Finnis [1] , it is not
so much sexual identity that is part of the paradigm of narrativity, but rather
the fatal flaw, and subsequent futility, of sexual identity. It could be said
that Sartre suggests the use of presemiotic textual theory to attack sexism.
Foucault uses the term 'Baudrillardist hyperreality' to denote the difference
between art and class." Great stuff!
Shakespearean
Insult Generator: See http://www.pangloss.com/seidel/Shaker/,
which generates (fake) insults such as "Thou churlish flap-mouthed harpy!"
It also finds real ones such as "In civility thou seem'st so empty" (from As
you like it).
AUTHORING
PROGRAMS
Authoring
Tools: An impressive list of links to authoring tools for creating interactive
language learning materials. This page is maintained by Christine Bauer-Ramazani,
St Michael's College, Vermont, USA: http://academics.smcvt.edu/cbauer-ramazani/Links/authoring_tools.htm
Clicker: A powerful and incredibly
easy-to-use writing support and multimedia tool by Crick Software, which enables
you to write with whole words, phrases or pictures. It has won five BETT Awards,
the "Oscars" of British Educational Software, as voted for by teachers.
It can be used to support any area of the curriculum: http://www.cricksoft.com/uk/ideas/languages.htm
ContentGenerator: This website
offers a range of Flash-based tools for the generation of quizzes, games and
other applications: http://www.contentgenerator.net
Crosswords:
Chris Lacey's Teacher's Pet website provides a macro
for Microsoft Word that creates crossword puzzles automatically from
a vertical list of words. Try the Instant
Online Crossword Puzzle Maker. See also EclipseCrossword.
Ready-made crosswords in French and German are provided free of charge for non-profit
educational institutions at Alcester
Grammar School's website.
Fun
with Texts: An authoring package for the automatic generation of text manipulation
exercises. Lots of ready-made materials are already available.
GapKit:
An authoring package for the generation of gap-filling and multiple-choice
exercises linked with pictures and audio files. Lots of ready-made materials
are already available for GCSE examinations.
Hot
Potatoes: A suite of five Web authoring tools for language teachers, written
by Martin Holmes and Stewart Arneil at the University of Victoria, Canada. Create
your own Web exercises in Windows or Mac format: i. Multiple-choice quizzes,
ii. Jumbled sentences, iii. Short-answer questions, iv. Gap-fill exercises,
v. Crosswords. A library of Clipart
for use with Hot Potatoes and other authoring tools is available at the University
of Victoria site. See also Quandary, another product
from the Holmes/Arneil team.
JClic:
JClic is a freeware application, developed by Francesc Busquets, for the development
of multimedia activities for language learners. With JClic you can create different
types of activities: puzzles, associations, crosswords, identification activities,
exploration actitivities, open-ended answers, multiple choice, etc.
MALTED:
A project funded under the Educational Multimedia Taskforce initiative of
the European Commission. MALTED stands for Multimedia Authoring for Language
Tutors and Educational Development and consists of a set of authoring tools
for developing multimedia courseware for language learners. It was initiated
by the Language Centre, University College London. The package has widely trialled
in Spanish schools and is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education, but
it has not been widely used in the UK.
Quandary:
A package from the
Hot Potatoes
team. Quandary is used
for designing Action Mazes aka Text Mazes.
Mazes have been used by
language teachers for many years for reading and comprehension activities and
to stimulate conversation in the classroom. See, for example, Berer M. & Rinvolucri
M., Mazes: a problem-solving reader, published by Heinemann in1981 and
subsequently converted (with Heinemann's permission) into a BBC microcomputer
program. An action maze is a collection of short pieces of text, each of which
poses a problem and a set of alternative solutions. The learner can follow different
paths through the maze but may end up in loops and blind alleys. The onus is
therefore on the learner to read the texts carefully and to assess the situation
accurately. Mazes are ideal for group work.
Question
Writer: A tool for creating flash quizzes using 20 different templates.
You can put your quiz on a CD or on the Web. Look at your results online or
download to Excel.
Quia:
Create your own learning activities. Includes lots of ready-made examples in
foreign languages and a variety of other subjects - all submitted by keen registered
users.
Quiz
Boxes: An authoring tool that presents quizzes in the form of the
Jeopardy game. Create your own materials or download some of the smaple materials.
Ideal for use on Interactive Whiteboards.
Tandem
Learning: Useful and comprehensive information on Tandem Learning, University
of Bochum. Tandem Learning involves electronic communication between two language
learners, each of whom wishes to learn the other’s language. See also Section
14.9 of Module 1.5 at the ICT4LT website.
Teach the Children Well: An
American site containing fun learning activities for young children. Links to
sites for young learners of languages can be found at: http://www.teachthechildrenwell.com/language.html
Teacher Training Videos for ICT
and English Language Teaching: See Russell Stannard
Text To Speech
(TTS) software: TTS software is invaluable for blind computer users as it
enables them to "read" from the screen, and it can also introduce a fun element
into language learning and teaching: see, for example, the entries under Acapela
and Voki. See
Section 4 of Module
3.5 at the ICT4LT website, where you can read more about TTS and find links
to TTS websites. See also Speech Technologies.
TaskMagic: An easy-to-use
authoring tool, produced by Martin Lapworth at MDLSoft,
for creating non-Web-based interactive exercises for use in schools. Includes:
Picture Match, Sound Match, Multi-Choice, Mix & Gap, Dialogues, etc.
Teacher's
Pet: A free set of utilities (macros) for Microsoft Word,
developed by Chris Lacey. The macros make the job of creating exercises with
Microsoft Word fast and fun: gap-fill exercises, multiple-choice exercises,
word jumbling, sentence jumbling, pronunciation exercises, punctuation exercises,
dictionary searches, thesaurus searches, crosswords, storing word lists.
Vokabel:
Choose an existing quiz or create your own.
See also Module
2.5, Introduction to CALL authoring programs, at the ICT4LT website.
MACHINE
TRANSLATION
Babel
Fish: Babel Fish is an automatic translator that derives from one
of the oldest and most reliable Machine Translation packages, originally known
as Systran: http://babelfish.yahoo.com/.
Babel Fish has limitations, however. Don't expect a polished translation,
and watch out some really bad errors. Most automatic translators can only convey
the gist of a document and indicate if it’s worth having it translated
properly.
FreeTranslation: Type a text and get it translated. Covers most European
languages: http://www.freetranslation.com/.
It works - more or less!
Google includes a translation
tool. Click on Language Tools to the right of the text entry box on the
Google opening page: http://www.google.co.uk/
Lingi: A free multilingual
online dictionary which translates words from English into six other languages
(Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese and Swedish): http://lingi.com/
Pons EU: A multilingual online
dictionary and translation tool: http://www.pons.eu/
WinDi Translation Software: A
useful aid for translators and for training translators. Available in seven
different languages. For each language, the software includes a bilingual dictionary,
verb conjugation tables, a reference grammar, and an interactive sentence translator.
A speech synthesiser is included in the package, and the software can also be
used to assist the understanding of websites in foreign languages: http://www.windi7.com/
See also Newstran.
For fun stuff see the Ali G Translator and Dialectizer.
See also Section
3 (Machine Translation) of Module 3.5 at the ICT4LT website.
NATIONAL
AND INTERNATIONAL AGENCIES, MINISTRIES, PROJECTS, ETC
BECTA:
The Council for Educational Technology (CET), a forerunner of the British Educational
and Communications Technology Agency (BECTA), began to be active in the area
of Modern Foreign Languages/ICT in the late 1970s. In 1981 the CET joined forces
with CILT in the organisation of the first major conference
focusing on Modern Foreign Languages/ICT. In the same year the Microelectronics
Education Programme (MEP) was launched under the auspices of the CET, leading
to the establishment of a network of support centres and teams of advisory teachers
responsible for offering advice and training in a range of different subject
areas, including Modern Foreign Languages, for primary and secondary education
teachers. A number of Modern Foreign Languages software packages and Modern
Foreign Languages/ICT printed publications were produced under the MEP initiative.
A national centre, the Microelectronics Education Support Unit (MESU), was then
set up as a successor to the CET. The MESU was renamed the National Council
for Educational Technology (NCET), to be renamed yet again (in 2000) as BECTA.
BECTA was finally closed down in January 2011.
The
British Council: The British Council is the UK's international organisation
for educational and cultural relations: http://www.britishcouncil.org.
Its purpose is to enhance the UK's reputation in the world as a valued partner.
It does this by creating opportunities for people worldwide with programmes
in education, English language teaching, the arts, science, governance and information
through a network of offices and teaching centres all over the world. The British
Council receives a grant-in-aid from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)
and earns income from teaching English, conducting British examinations and
managing development and training contracts. See also The British Council's
LearnEnglish website.
Careers
Europe: Careers Europe is a division of Aspire-i, which has a hard-won reputation
as an international centre of excellence that helps information, guidance and
learning providers to develop their understanding and expertise in learning
and employment opportunities across Europe and beyond. Careers Europe is a partner
in the Love Language project.
CILT:
The Centre for Information on Language Teaching, England - now known as The
National Centre for Languages: http://www.cilt.org.uk/.
See also Primary Languages.
Common European
Framework of Reference (CEFR) for Languages: Also known simply as the Common
European Framework (CEF), a product of the Council of Europe.
The main aim of the CEFR is described thus: "[...] the Council of Europe should
develop a comprehensive, transparent and coherent framework of reference for
the description of language learning and teaching at all levels. This instrument
will provide a basis for the international comparison of objectives and qualifications,
thus facilitating personal and vocational mobility in Europe, and will provide
a valuable tool for policy making in member States." See: http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/.
The six levels of language
proficiency that are described in the CEFR are used as yardstick in most EFL/ESOL
examinations and national examinations in Europe. See also the entry under Languages
Ladder.
Council of
Europe (CoE): The Council of Europe (CoE) website is at http://www.coe.int.
The CoE is not to be confused with the European Union.
See the CoE Language Policy Web page: http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/
which describes the Common European Framework for Languages
and the European Portfolio. See also the site of the Council of Europe's
European Centre for Modern Languages.
Curriculum
Online: A UK government initiative that ran from 2003 to 2008 and which
had the noble aim of providing ring-fenced funding, known as e-Learning Credits
(eLCs), to schools to enable them to buy software and online services to support
their teaching. Unfortunately, the initiative was surrounded with an atmosphere
of controversy from the outset, resulting in court action against the BBC, accusations
of high-level bungling and a very expensive and complex website. My personal
perception of Curriculum Online is that it was a technological and bureaucratic
sledgehammer that wasted far too much money on the technical infrastructure
and created cosy clique of suppliers who dominated the market place and forced
many smaller specialist suppliers into liquidation. The whole initiative had
a pre-1989 East European flavour. Having gained control over teachers with the
introduction of the National Curriculum, the government
tried to gain control of educational suppliers. Tom McMullan described the Curriculum
Online initiative as being a government plan for "backdoor nationalisation
of the UK educational content marketplace" (Wired to Learn, Adam
Smith Institute). The Curriculum Online website was radically revamped several
times in response to feedback from teachers, but it still had a labyrinthine
look and feel. Moreover, the listing of a product at the Curriculum Online site
was not a guarantee of quality as only random checks were carried out. There
was an evaluation process operated by independent agencies, but for an exorbitant
fee that small businesses could not afford.
Department
for Education (DfE): http://www.education.gov.uk.
Formerly known as the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF)
- or the Department for Curtains and Soft Furnishings according to some
teachers' interpretation of the abbreviation. Before that it was known as the
Department for Education and Skills (DfES). It would be helpful if governments
would stop changing the names of their ministries as it creates confusion and
a major heachache for website managers.
elearningeuropa: An initiative
of the European Commission. A comprehensive portal on e-learning: articles,
EC-funded programmes, tools and resources, etc: http://elearningeuropa.info
European Centre
for Modern Languages (ECML): The Council of Europe's
centre in Graz, Austria. The ECML runs regular workshops for teachers of Modern
Foreign Languages, including workshops on ICT. The website includes reports
on past workshops, useful resources, and announcements of forthcoming activities:
http://www.ecml.at
European
Union: This is the European Union's homepage, with lots of multilingual
links: http://europa.eu. The following pages
will link you to some of the EU's key programmes and activities:
European Schoolnet:
The European Schoolnet is an international partnership of Ministries of Education
developing learning for schools, teachers and pupils across Europe and beyond.
It provides insight into the use of ICT in Europe for policy-makers and education
professionals. This goal is achieved through communication and information exchange
at all levels of school education using innovative technologies, and by acting
as a gateway to national and regional school networks: http://www.eun.org
Eurovolt: European Vocational
Online Language Teaching and Vocational Online Language Learning via a Virtual
Learning Environment: http://www.eurovolt.net
ITT MFL (Initial Teacher Training
and Modern Foreign Languages): http://www.ittmfl.org.uk/.
The ITT MFL project aims to provide Web-based subject support through introducing
trainers to current thinking, research and professional networks. The site is
owned and maintained by CILT, the National Centre for Languages,
collaborating with the Training and Development Agency for Schools
(TDA) and the Association for Language Learning (ALL).
Languages
ICT: A website for people interested in ICT and languages, maintained by
CILT and the Association for Language Learning.
Sadly, the Languages ICT site is due to close on 25 July 2011.
Languages
Ladder: An outcome of the UK government's National Languages Strategy.
The Languages Ladder aims to introduce a voluntary recognition scheme to complement
existing national qualification frameworks and relate them to the Common
European Framework. See also Asset
Languages.
Learning
and Teaching Scotland (LTS), Modern Languages: Ideas, resources and
information.
Learning Resource Exchange (LRE):
A portal for schools where you can find educational resources and assets
from many different countries and providers. LRE content covers virtually all
curriculum subjects and can be freely used by anyone. Some resources can also
be adapted and redistributed. Each item contains licensing information that
tells you what you can do with it: http://lreforschools.eun.org/
Linguanet
Worldwide: This project has undergone expansion to incorporate an interface
in a number of new languages and addresses in particular the needs of adult
learners and independent learners. The site includes advice on ways of assessing
and improving one's current ability in different languages (including links
to websites that offer diagnostic and placement tests), communicating electronically
with other language learners and finding appropriate resources. A substantial
online catalogue of language learning resources is being built up at this website.
Love
Language: An EU-funded Grundtvig project, focusing on retaining the interest
of young males in continuing to study languages and to learn new languages.
Careers Europe (UK) is one of the project partners.
MYLO
(My Languages Online): The official name of the Open School
for Languages. There is also a MYLO
blog. MYLO describes itself as a "new way to learn languages",
but just how new is it? See the ICT4LT
blog, 11 November 2010. I wonder if MYLO is an appropriate name, as it could
be confused with Mylo, the stage name of a Scottish
musician (Myles MacInnes), and the My
Language Online website.
National
Curriculum: These Web pages bring together the complete National
Curriculum for 5 to 16 year olds for all the required subjects in England. See
my article on ICT and
Modern Foreign Languages in the National Curriculum.
National
Grid for Learning (NGfL): The UK's National Grid for Learning was set up
as the result of a government consultation process in 1997. However, the NGfL
turned out to be rather different from what people imagined it would be and
it was not really a "grid" - more a collection of resources and links. The central
website closed in April 2006, but some local NGfLs are still in existence.
New Opportunities
Fund (NOF): An ICT training initiative at national level in the UK was undertaken
with the aid of National Lottery money, beginning in April 1999 and ending in
December 2003: http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/.
The NOF initiative was one of the most extensive ever undertaken in in-service
training (INSET). Funded with £230 million worth of National Lottery money,
the initiative aimed to enable thousands of teachers in all subject areas, as
well as school librarians, to make effective use of ICT. A nominal sum of £450
was allocated to each full-time teacher in the maintained sector. NOF was not
a roaring success, however, and was heavily criticised: see Section 2 of my
article, ICT and Modern
Languages in the National Curriculum.
The Nuffield
Foundation: An independent charity that supports self-contained projects
which advance education or social welfare, often by means of research or practical
innovation. Check out the final report of The
Nuffield Languages Inquiry (1998- 2000). The Nuffield Languages Inquiry
was established to assess the language needs of the UK in the 21st century.
The final report is a dense document, indentifying the UK's problems and making
recommendations. I have fond memories of Nuffield. Nuffield supported the development
of the famous Ealing courses in the late 1960s, which I used in my first HE
post at Ealing Technical College in the early 1970s.
OFSTED:
The Office for Standards in Education (UK): http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/
Open School
for Languages (OSfL): Just under £6 million worth of funding for setting
up the OSfL, as recommended in the Dearing
Languages Review (2007), was awarded to Lightbox Education, a subsidiary
of RM, Oxfordshire. The OSfL is now known as MYLO (My Languages
Online).
Primary
Languages: CILT's national gateway to advice, information and support for
everyone interested in primary languages: http://www.primarylanguages.org.uk.
See CILT.
SOLVIT (Solving the Challenges
of International Communications): This is a useful site maintained by CILT,
BLIS and RLN. It covers all the important aspects of communicating and doing
business overseas under the headings Spoken Communication, Written
and Visual Communication and Cultural Communication: http://www.solvit.org.uk
Training and
Development Agency for Schools (TDA): A useful source of information for
teachers and teacher trainers: http://www.tda.gov.uk.
Unfortunately, the TDA has a history of regularly restructuring its website
- as well as changing its name from the Teacher Training Agency (TTA) - without
leaving redirection information. More changes are likely now that a new government
has come into power in the UK, May 2010. Watch this space!
UNIVERSITY
WEBSITES
University
of Cambridge: CALL Facility in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages.
Lots of useful information and links: http://www.mml.cam.ac.uk/call/
CEMLL (Centre
for Excellence in Multimedia Language Learning): Based in the School of
Languages and Literature at the University of Ulster, the focus of CEMLL is
to research the use of computer-based multimedia teaching facilities and develop
appropriate teaching methods. CEMLL's approach to multimedia language learning
is to integrate use of digital technology in class to promote active engagement
and to support dynamic intervention. The primary aims of CEMLL are to: -(i)
develop teaching excellence and encourage innovation in the use of multimedia
resources, (ii) integrate the use of multimedia resources with face-to-face
teaching, (iii) research and evaluate the effectiveness of teaching in a multimedia
environment, (iv) collaborate with colleagues within the University of Ulster
and other HE Institutions and share good practice: http://cemll.ulster.ac.uk/
FLTeach: Foreign Language
Teaching Forum, an extensive set of resources for language teachers and students,
maintained by the State University of New York College at Cortland: http://www.cortland.edu/flteach/
University of Leeds Language
Centre: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/arts/info/20056/language_centre
LLAS:
The Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies at the University
of Southampton: http://www.llas.ac.uk/.
Extensive electronic resources can be found here: see, for example, The
Good Practice Guide.
University of Manchester: This
is the homepage of the Language Centre, which contains lists of available language
learning resources and many links to language sites and to software suppliers.
The Language Centre offers a wide range of courses for the public: http://www.langcent.manchester.ac.uk/
Rich Internet Applications for
Language Learning, Michigan State University:
Free online programs for recording, uploading, mixing, and interacting: http://clear.msu.edu/teaching/online/ria/index.php
The
Open University Faculty of Education and Language Studies: The Open
University offers distance learning courses in Modern Languages. Study materials
include printed course books and audio materials that cover survival language
for the traveller as well as the communication skills needed in a range of settings,
at home, work or leisure.The Open University makes use of both face-to-face
tuition and online tuition using a voice and visual conferencing system. See
the LearningSpace
page for sample materials in French, German and Spanish.
Oxford University Language Centre:
A set of useful links to resources, websites and publications: http://www.lang.ox.ac.uk
University of Pittsburgh:
See the website of the Robert Henderson Language Media Center at http://www.polyglot.pitt.edu/index.html
Routes into Languages: The
Routes into Languages programme is funded by the Higher Education Funding Council
for England (HEFCE) and the Department for Education (DfE).
Under the programme, a number of regional consortia have been established where
groups of universities will work together, with schools and colleges, to enthuse
and encourage people to study languages. National networks have been set up
to promote translation and interpreting as careers; and three research projects
have been commissioned. The programme is running for four years from 2006/07
to 2009/10. The project is led by the Subject Centre for Languages,
Linguistics and Area Studies (LLAS), University of Southampton, in a partnership
with the University Council of Modern Languages (UCML) and CILT,
the National Centre for Languages: http://www.routesintolanguages.ac.uk
Simon Fraser University, Language
Learning Center: Use materials and link for many different languages: http://www.sfu.ca/language-learning-centre/
University of Southampton:
The seat of the Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and
Area Studies (LLAS).
University of Ulster: See
CEMLL.
DISCUSSION
LISTS, BLOGS, WIKIS, SOCIAL NETWORKING
Box of Tricks:
José Picardo's blog on Education and ICT, with a main focus on ICT in
teaching and learning foreign languages: http://www.boxoftricks.net.
See also AsíSeHace.
Delicious:
A social bookmarking service that enables you to store links to your favourite
websites online. You can also use Delicious to see the interesting links that
other people bookmark, and you can share links with them in return. You can
even browse and search Delicious to discover bookmarks that everyone else has
saved - which is made easy with tags that enable you to organise and
remember your bookmarks.
Diigo:
A website which allows you to bookmark and tag websites. Diigo also allows users
to highlight any part of a Web page and attach post-it notes to the whole page
or sections of a page. These notes can be kept private, shared with a group
within Diigo or forwarded to an individual. Diigo is an acronym standing for
Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff - pronounced "deego".
Edmodo: A private
social platform for teachers and students to share ideas, files, events and
assignments: http://www.edmodo.com/
E-Language:
A resources wiki, created by Mark Pegrum, containing a wealth of information
and resources for teachers and learners of languages: drills, quizzes, webquests,
simulations, Web 2.0 in education, social networking, podcasting and virtual
worlds: http://e-language.wikispaces.com/
Facebook: Facebook is a
huge social network with millions of members, and there are many sub-networks
based around a workplace, a region, a school, a college, a charity, etc: http://www.facebook.com/.
You'll find me on Facebook: Graham
Davies.
ICT
for Language Teachers Blog: http://ictforlanguageteachers.blogspot.com/.
This blog is linked with the ICT for Language Teachers (ICT4LT) website,
which was initiated with funding under the Socrates programme of the European
Union: http://www.ict4lt.org
Isabelle Jones:
Resources, research, news and views about language teaching in the UK. Lots
of useful information and links: http://isabellejones.blogspot.com/
Joe
Dale: Joe is the author of the blog titled Integrating ICT into the Modern
Foreign Languages Classroom at http://joedale.typepad.com/.
This covers a variety of topics relating to the teaching of foreign languages,
especially blogging, podcasting and using interactive whiteboards.
Language Teaching
Blogs: A useful list of
blogs relating to language teaching, written by and for language teachers:
http://www.frenchteacher.net/blogs.html
Linguanet
Forum: A discussion list for language teachers and researchers. This is
an extremely lively discussion list and well worth looking at.
LinkedIn: A
professional network, where you can post information about yourself and find
links to people with similar interests: http://www.linkedin.com/
. My LinkedIn profile can be found here: http://www.linkedin.com/in/grahamdavies
MFL
Resources Forum: A very active forum, used mainly by secondary school language
teachers in the UK: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mflresources/
Nik Peachey's Blogs:
Ning: A platform that enables
you to create your own social network: http://www.ning.com/.
A Ning enables anyone to create a network focusing on a particular topic or
catering for a specific membership, for example a group of teachers working
together on an educational project. Typically, a Ning includes blogs, announcements
of events, a forum, live chat and facilities for uploading photographs and video
clips. See, for example, the EUROCALL/CALICO
Virtual Worlds Special Interest Group. The word "Ning" derives
from the Chinese word for "peace"
Palabea: A social network
site that connects people who share interests in learning languages and in discovering
different cultures. Users can improve their foreign language skills by communicating
together with native speakers from all over the world in audio or video conferences.
Each user is both a pupil and a teacher. Palabea has created virtual classrooms
where all members can upload contents which they can work on together and correct
one another. Members can create their own content: record video lessons, record
podcasts and create documents. It is also possible to search for friends and
language courses in an accredited language school: http://www.palabea.net
|
Second
Life: The fastest growing Multi User Virtual Environment (MUVE)
on the Web, a three-dimensional virtual world that you can explore
in the guise of your chosen avatar: http://secondlife.com/
More detailed information
on Second Life with lots of useful links, including introductory tutorial
materials written by Graham Davies, can be found in Section
14.2.1 of Module 1.5 at the ICT4LT website.
EUROCALL
and CALICO have set up a joint EUROCALL/CALICO
Virtual Worlds Special Interest Group - see the link on the right.
EUROCALL and CALICO
also have a joint headquarters in Second Life, which is maintained by
Graham Davies (Groovy Winkler in SL) and Randall Sadler (Randall Renoir
in SL) on EduNation III Island. This is the SLURL of the HQ: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/EduNation%20III/74/199/31
|
|
Times
Educational Supplement: The Times Educational Supplement manages the Modern
Foreign Languages Forum, where language teachers can air their views and
ask questions.
| Twitter:
A social networking site. As the Twitter site says: "Twitter is a service
for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through
the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are
you doing?": http://twitter.com/.
You will find me in Twitter - click on the Twitter logo on the right. See
also Twitter Groups at http://twittgroups.com/ |
|
WikiSpaces: http://www.wikispaces.com/.
You'll find me on Wikispaces: Graham
Davies.
YouTube:
A social networking site where anyone can post videos. Some useful materials
for teaching and learning foreign languages can be found here if you search
hard: http://www.youtube.com/
See also Section
12 of Module 1.5 at the ICT4LT website.
PRESS,
RADIO AND TV ON THE WEB
BBC World Service: This is
the Web version of the BBC’s excellent news service. As well as texts,
you’ll find sound and video clips too. Schedules of broadcasts can also
be found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/
Euronews: A multilingual
news round-up. The news is presented here from a European perspective: http://www.euronews.net/
Kidon Media-Link:
This is where you find links to all kinds of media - newspapers, magazines,
websites, press agencies, radio and TV stations - all over the world: http://www.kidon.com/media-link/.
A remarkable resource for language learners and teachers.
Newstrans:
An extremely useful site for locating newspapers in a wide range of languages.
The quality and accuracy is what you can expect from an automatic translation
system - but you can get the gist, e.g. "The red-green coalition agreement
pushes in the SPD obviously increasingly on criticism" as a rendering of
"Die rot-grüne Koalitionsvereinbarung stößt in der SPD offensichtlich zunehmend
auf Kritik".
SCOLA:
Clips of news broadcasts in a variety of languages for language teachers and
learners. The materials consist of a transcript of the first five minutes of
a news broadcast in the original language and an English translation, supplemented
by vocabulary, quizzes, and/or topics for discussion: http://www.scola.org/.
See also Kidon Media-Link.
World Radio Network: Radio
stations around the world, including radio stations broadcasting in foreign
languages: http://www.wrn.org/
See also under the resources sections
for individual languages: English, French,
German, Italian and Spanish.
CONCORDANCING
Concordancing,
namely searching a corpus of authentic texts for examples of Key Words in Context
(KWIC), is widely used in language teaching, especially by teachers of English
as a Foreign Language. The late Tim Johns dubbed this Data Driven
Learning (DDL) and wrote one of the first commercially available classroom
concordancers, MicroConcord. Read more about concordancing at the ICT4LT
website in Module
2.4, Using concordance programs in the Modern Foreign Languages classroom.
KWiCFinder:
A concordancer, written by Bill Fletcher, that rides on the back of a standard
search engine, enabling the whole of the Web to be used as a text corpus: http://www.kwicfinder.com/
USEFUL
ICT TOOLS
iBrowse:
An interactive PowerPoint Web browser that allows you to easily add live Web
content such as HTML, PDF and Flash to your PowerPoint presentations. Simply
insert the PowerPoint Web Browser control into your slide and specify a starting
URL to add live Internet Web pages linked with your presentation contents.
DeskBot:
Freeware, multi-featured clipboard reader.
Markin:
A useful tool, developed by Martin Holmes, University of Victoria, Canada. This
is a program for marking work submitted by students as text data, for example
via email or as a word-processed document. It was developed as a marking system
for courses delivered via the Internet, and can produce marked work in the form
of HTML files that can be viewed in a Web browser, or as RTF files that can
be viewed with a word-processor. See
the ICT4LT site, Module
4.1, Section 3.3, Marking software.
Microvision:
Supplier of devices that enable you to project images onto a large screen
from mobile devices.
Net Transport (NetXfer):
A downloading utility for capturing media, including streaming audio and video
media, where there is no direct URL indicated so that you cannot use "Save As..."
to get the whole file: http://www.xi-soft.com/
NeoWORX: This site offers
some interesting widgets that show where visitors to your website come from:
http://www.neoworx.net/
Skype: A free Internet telephony
service that enables audio communication via a PC with anyone in the world,
including audio conferencing with more than one person at a time. There is also
SkypeOut, a very cheap pay-as-you-go service that enables you to call ordinary
phones via your PC: http://www.skype.com/
Scoop.It! A useful curation
tool that enables you to set up Web pages that gather together links on a specific
topic, e.g. Computer
Assisted Language Learning or Virtual
World Language Learning. Scoop.It provides a facility for you to "curate"
information on your topics by trawling the Web and finding links that you may
wish to add to your topic pages. The links are laid out like the page of a magazine:
http://www.scoop.it/
Slideshare:
A site where you can upload and share your PowerPoint presentations.
Tiny URL: This site offers
a useful facility. Have you experienced frustration when trying to copy and
paste a very long URL into your browser's query box and then find that you have
missed a bit, with the result that the site appears to be unavailable? Tiny
URL reduces long URLs to tiny URLs that you can then paste into emails and other
documents: http://tinyurl.com/
Virtual Magnifying Glass:
A software package that enables allows the user to magnify anything which appears
on the screen. Very useful for partially-sighted learners and for whole-class
teaching, e.g. highlighting words and phrases on a projection screen: http://magnifier.sourceforge.net/
VoiceThread: http://voicethread.com/:
A tool for holding and storings conversations around media. A VoiceThread is
a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos
and allows people to leave comments in five different ways - using voice (using
a microphone or telephonephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam).
You can share a VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them
to record comments too. VoiceThreads can even be embedded on websites and exported
to MP3 players or to DVDs. With VoiceThread, group conversations are collected
and shared in one place from anywhere in the world.
WebWhacker by Blue Squirrel:
A software tool that allows you to save Web pages, including text, graphics
and HTML links, directly to your hard drive, so you can view them offline at
highly accelerated speeds: http://www.bluesquirrel.com/products/webwhacker/.
However, beware of copyright restrictions on downloading other people's sites.
You should always check the Terms of Use at a website before downloading
it in whole or in part.
Xenu Link
Sleuth: A software package that checks websites for broken links. Link verification
is done on "normal" links, images, frames, plug-ins, backgrounds, local image
maps, style sheets, scripts and Java applets. It displays a continously updated
list of URLs which you can sort by different criteria. A report can be produced
in HTML at any time while link checking is in progress: http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html
GREYHOUNDS
- MY FAVOURITE DOG
|
Our family have always been
greyhound fans. Flash
was our first dog, a lurcher (a greyhound/terrier cross), adopted from
the RSPCA in 1978, and he was followed by Henry, Whistler and Swifty,
all of whom came from the
Greyhound Welfare kennels in Hersham, Surrey:
see photos below. We adopted Brett, another retired racing greyhound (photo
right), following the
death of our beloved Swifty in July 2009.
The Hersham Greyhound Welfare
kennels have a website at:
http://www.hershamhounds.org.uk
You'll find lots of information
about racing greyhounds at:
http://www.greyhound-data.com/
Did you know that the greyhound
is the only dog mentioned by breed name in The Bible? See Proverbs 30:29-31.
|
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Flash d.
1987
|
Henry d.
1993
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Whistler
d. 2002
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Swifty d.
2009
|
YouTube Videos
Swifty
the Greyhound in Our Garden: Swifty used to carry his dinner bowl around.
This video shows him carrying in his dinner bowl from our garden.
Our
Greyhound Brett Rooing: Brett rarely barks, but he loves to roo.
Back
to top
©
Graham Davies 2012. This work is licensed under a
Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
