Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Why Learn Sign Language?

Posted on July 11th, 2009 in Uncategorized | No Comments »

I recently prefabricated a commitment to impact on improving various aspects of my life in order to become a more substantially rounded person. For example, when I realized that I hadn’t taken any kind of class since I mark from college 10 years ago, I definite there and then that learning something new would be a priority. After a lot of consideration, I definite that I would like to learn clew language, so I recently purchased materials that will help me do that.

I’ve been telling my friends and family most my new interest, and the first question everyone asks me is why I want to learn clew language. After all, I’m not deaf or hard-of-hearing myself, nor is anyone in my immediate family. While hearing impairments would obviously be the most pressing reason to learn clew language, it’s certainly not the only one. Here are just two more reasons that helped me attain my decision.

First, I really wanted to try something different. I ever hear most friends who are studying Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, or any number of other languages, but none of those appealed to me. I would much kinda learn American Sign Language (ASL) because of its relative uniqueness.

Second, I want to learn clew module because of its utility. I can say with certainty that I’ll have a chance to use my ASL skills at some saucer in my life. Whether it’s helping a hearing impaired customer when I’m at work, or carrying on a casual conversation with someone I meet at the gym, there’s bound to be ample opportunity for me to apply my knowledge in practical situations. That’s more than I can say most my friends who studied Asian for all four years of college, and then never spoke another syllable of it after they left campus!

Once I definite to learn clew language, I just had to find a class that I could attend. Since my impact hours are ever changing, I didn’t want to commit to specific evening or weekend hours at my topical community college. Instead, I definite to check out a few of the many online resources that are available to people with an interest in ASL. I found individual classes that are delivered entirely over the Internet, as substantially as individual more courses that are offered on video (or DVD).

I chose to learn clew module via DVD because this format allows me to watch the classes on my 42\” television screen kinda than my 17\” computer monitor. I can see exactly what’s going on, and can replay certain sections as many times as necessary to attain sure I understand everything.

I’ve only been studying ASL for a couple weeks now, but I’m already making rapid progress. I can’t wait to move with my courses and develop my skills even more!

ACFTL conference, a new era of learning, but the golden trinity remains the same.

Posted on January 1st, 1970 in Uncategorized | No Comments »

I am sitting in my hotel room collecting my impressions from the ACFTL conference. I will be posting on this over the next few days or week or so. I will talk about the good, the bad and the ugly.

My overall impression is that things are moving fast. Technology is going to dictate massive changes that not all teachers are equipped or prepared to deal with. On the other hand, many of them are, and are taking great initiatives. Many teachers, of all ages and languages groups accept that they have to learn from their students.

I also heard confirmation to me of what I have always believed. This came from the Director of the Language Learning Centre of a prestigious university, whose name I do not remember, but I will give her credit later. She said:

Language learning depends on three things, and I call this the golden trinity.

1)Time on task

2)Motivation

3)Attentiveness

Everything else is secondary.

Best wishes to all LingQ members.

Posted on January 1st, 1970 in Uncategorized | No Comments »

どうして英語が難しいか?

Posted on January 1st, 1970 in Uncategorized | No Comments »


 

英語がむずかあしいですか?どうして?教えてください。

Posted via web from LingQCentral 日本

Mark Frobose , the language guy

Posted on January 1st, 1970 in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Has anyone heard of Mark Frobose, the language guy and his method. In his video at his website, he claims to be fluent in 5 languages. He seems to be an effective simplifier. “If you can say SOS, you can speak Spanish” he says.

Anything that simplifies language learning is a good thing. I think that he might be the American Michel Thomas.

I am always wary of methods that have you speaking right away. I think it is misleading to think that you can do any more than order a beer or find the bathroom. Once I grab  a hold of a language I want to be able to read, understand, and communicate in a number of situations. But maybe most people just want a smattering of the language for that next trip to Paris or Mexico.

Posted via web from Lingosteve’s place

Language learning is not about performance

Posted on January 1st, 1970 in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Athletes compete to see who can run faster, or jump higher, or execute their moves with more precision, or score more goals. Athletes train in order to improve their performance. Learning languages is different. It is, for me, about communicating and enjoying another culture. In fact the learning process, itself, is enjoyable, regardless of the outcome, regardless of the performance. It is possible to enjoy languages without performing at all, without speaking. And when we speak we do not want to be judged, or at least I do not.

I often get comments on my foreign language youtube videos along the lines of:

“your Portuguese is not very good, don’t you care?”
” your Japanese sounds a little American, you should work on your accent.”
” you made a mistake in your Russian.”

Well, I don’t care. I am not in competition with native speakers, nor with other non-native learners of any language. If my mistakes are pointed out, it is likely that I will make the same mistake the next time. I know what gives me trouble in these languages. I try to pay attention to these things when I listen, read or speak. But I know that I will continue to make mistakes and will only gradually improve.

I have spent over 3 years on Russian. If we had had Czech or Korean at LingQ I would probably have spent time on them as well, and less time on Russian. But it does not matter whether you go in depth in one language or dabble in three. The main thing is to enjoy the process, not to chalk up more languages to your credit. It is not just the language, it is the culture. For me, in Russian, it is all the books and articles that I have read and listened to, the lively discussions from radio stations about things of interest to Russians.

When I get into Czech and Korean I will enter new worlds, and the quality of my performance will be the furthest thing from my mind. It will be what it is and gradually improve. And whatever it is, I will be satisfied, and just keep going.

— @ WiseStamp Signature. Get it now

Posted via email from Lingosteve’s place

The role of the language classroom

Posted on January 1st, 1970 in Uncategorized | No Comments »

The language classroom has two purposes.

1) To create independent language learners, by inspiring, exciting or challenging students, and convincing them that they can enjoyably learn a language, mostly on their own. That is what happened to me at age 17.
2) To provide some language exposure to the over 90 % of learners who refuse to be converted into independent language learners, and who probably will not learn much until they do so.

— @ WiseStamp Signature. Get it now

Posted via email from Lingosteve’s place

Self-study beats the classroom

Posted on January 1st, 1970 in Uncategorized | No Comments »

A report from Portland State University on adult learners who never graduated from high school, indicates that people who rely in whole or in part on self-study, do better than people who rely on classroom programs. This result was deemed “surprising”. This comes on the heels of a report from the US Department of Education that showed that e-learning delivered better results than classroom studying.

What’s surprising about this? I have known this for a long time. Only the motivated learner learns. The motivated learner is an independent learner. I have seen the same results by reading reports put out by the US Center for Applied Linguistics, on ESL learners in the US. What people do outside the class is more important than what happens in the class, when it comes to language and literacy learning.

But in my experience, the vast majority of the language teaching establishment wants to fight this obvious fact. They want to protect their classroom fortresses rather than using the classroom as a place to organize, stimulate, and support independent learning by a much larger number of learners than can ever make it to class. They are sacrificing the interests of learners, in order to try to maintain their control over what learners do. Governments continue to support this anti-education stance of most established teachers. It really is a waste of money and human potential.

Posted via email from LingQCentral

#Rosetta Stone ROI (return on investment) versus other solutions?

Posted on January 1st, 1970 in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Rosetta Stone claims to be the fastest way to learn a new language. I just heard their ad on TV.

What is the average ROI (return on investment) for a Rosetta Stone purchase?Is it possible to add up all the money spent by people who buy the system, and compare that to the number of learners who continue long enough to learn a new language. I wonder how  the return on the investment in a Rosetta Stone system compares with the return on investment in other language learning solutions including schools, books and online options like LingQ. Some third party should do a study, in the public interest.

Posted via email from LingQCentral

Café Brasil podcast

Posted on January 1st, 1970 in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Gosta muito de Café Brasil podcast a LingQ.

Posted via email from LingQCentral Portuguese