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2012-10-01T09:46:00.000-07:00

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Language Learning News - Archive

2008-02-12T09:44:00.000-08:00

Click here for past editions of Language Learning News.

February 2008 : New Mandarin GSCE to be Introduced; Overseas Placements for Trainee Teachers; What's on the BBC this month?

January 2008 : Last Eyak Speaker dies; Language is Power; What's on the BBC this month?

December 2007 : Dead But Still Kicking

November 2007 : Lost in Translation; British and US Children the Least "Globally Aware"

Language Learning News - February 2008

2008-02-12T08:16:00.000-08:00

New Mandarin GCSE to be introduced

12 February 2008

A new GCSE qualification in Mandarin Chinese is to be introduced in Britain this autumn.

While a Mandarin GCSE already exists, it is currently directed at native speakers, and is therefore off-puttingly difficult for learners of the language. Since 2001, the number of students taking the exam has fallen by 14%.

In the past, various organisations - including teachers’ associations, the British Council and the Confederation of British Industry - have all suggested that the teaching of Mandarin should be encouraged. Currently it is offered as an option in around 12% of secondary schools, but the lack of available teachers may be an obstacle to any great increase. Only two of this year’s batch of Chinese graduates went on to train as teachers, and there are currently only 85 Chinese language assistants in British schools.

For more information - BBC News - Education

Overseas Placement for Trainee Teachers

7 February 2008

Language teachers intending to work in British primary schools are now spending a month in an overseas school as part of their training.

The government intends that by 2010 all 7-11 year olds will have language lessons as part of their regular curriculum, and that there should be at least one specialist language teacher in every school. This means a large increase will be needed in the number of qualified primary language staff. Currently there are approximately 1,000 teachers for approximately 19,000 primary schools in the country.

The overseas placement is aimed to help trainee teachers improve their language skills, and also to experience a different educational context. By the end of their placement the trainees are expected to be able to teach another subject in the children’s mother tongue.

For more information – BBC Education News

What's on the BBC this month?

1 February 2008

Japanese Language and People: 05 Feb 02:00-06:00
Real Chinese: 12 Feb 02:00-04:30
China Close Up: 12 Feb 04:30-06:00
Sueños World Spanish: 19 Feb 02:00-06:00
Sueños World Spanish: 26 Feb 02:00-03:00
Working with the Spanish: 26 Feb 03:00-03:30
Make Spanish Your Business: 26 Feb 03:30-05:30
Eurografters: Spain: 26 Feb 05:30-06:00

Go to the archive

Language Learning News - January 2008

2008-01-03T05:16:00.000-08:00

Last Eyak speaker dies

26 January 2008

Marie Smith Jones, believed to be the last native speaker of the Eyak language, has died in Alaska aged 89.

Eyak, spoken in the area of Cordova on the Gulf of Alaska, is a language belonging to the Na-dené family of languages, which includes Tlingit, also spoken in the region, and Navajo. Linguists believe that it began to develop as a separate language about 3,500 years ago.

The Eyak were always a relatively small group who traded and intermarried with members of other language groups, in particular the Tlingit, leading to a decrease in the native speaking population. By the 1880s only about 200 remained – a number which decreased even further over the next fifty years due to smallpox and influenza epidemics. A further blow to the language came with the US government’s policy of allowing only English in schools and discouraging the use of native languages in public or even at home.

Since the 1990s Jones had been an active campaigner for the rights of native peoples. As well as speaking twice at the United Nations, on peace and the importance of indigenous languages, she had also been working with Michael Krauss, a linguist and professor emeritus at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Krauss, who was director of the university’s Alaska Native Language Center up to his retirement in 2000, had collaborated with Jones to write an Eyak dictionary and grammar, as well as recording various Eyak tales.

Krauss is one of a number of linguists who believe that up to half of the world's languages will no longer exist by 2100. Currently over 300 languages are "nearly extinct", meaning that parents no longer teach them to their children, and 60 percent of the roughly 6,500 languages existing have less than 10,000 speakers.

Sources

The Daily Telegraph
Insight Guide Alaska
Eyak Language - Wikipedia
Too late ... The New York Times

Krauss, M. (1992). The world's languages in crisis. Language, 68, 6-10.

Language is Power

20 January 2008

When it comes to language learning, the personal is also political. You may think you are learning a language for reasons of your own, but governments also have vested interests in promoting the language of their own countries.

Two articles from the BBC this month point this out only too clearly. The first Mandarin learning soars outside China points to a dramatic rise in the number of people who have taken up Mandarin in the last five years – there are now estimated to be some 30 million learners of the language, and the number of students in UK universities and colleges has doubled during the period.

The fact that the increase is happening now points clearly to the fact that language learning choices are frequently inspired by economic motivation. Parents who are encouraging their children to take Mandarin as a school subject undoubtedly have their eye firmly on their career prospects, not simply on their general cultural development.

And the economic and political implications of language dominance aren’t lost on the Chinese government either, which since 2004 has started setting up “Confucius Institutes” along the lines of the Institut Français, British Council or Goethe Institut, as well as sending 400 teachers to Africa.

So could Mandarin take over as the global language of business and intercultural communication? The British Government is fighting back. The second article reports that Gordon Brown last week announced plans to open an English language learning website, which will offer self-access materials and VOIP tutorials, and aims to reach 2 billion people by 2020. And, not purely by co-incidence I suspect, it is to be directed initially at China.

At the same time, the British government will also be focusing on the other emerging economic giant, India, where 750,000 teachers will be trained over a period of five years.

What's on the BBC this month?

3 January 2008

If you're in Britain, don't forget that the BBC regularly transmits language courses during the night (on BBC2), which can be videoed and then used later. The complete course often last three to four hours, so make sure your cassette is long enough and the video set to long play mode. This month there's a choice between French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. The programmes are all backed up by on-line activities on the BBC website. Click on the links for more information.

Ma France: 08 Jan 02:00-06:00
Talk Spanish: 15 Jan 02:00-03:30
Spain Inside Out: 15 Jan 03:30-06:00
Talk Italian: 22 Jan 02:00-03:30
Italy Inside Out: 22 Jan 03:30-06:00
Talk Portuguese: 29 Jan 02:00-03:30
Brazil Inside Out: 29 Jan 03:30-06:00

Have you seen the articles in the December edition of Language Learning News ?

Language Learning News - December 2007

2007-12-11T02:48:00.000-08:00

Dead But Still Kicking

12 December 2007

Guardian Unlimited reports this week that Latin is making a comeback in British education - in both London and Oxfordshire it's being introduced to primary schools.

Clearly a Latin lover in the most academic of senses, the writer of the article, Charlotte Higgins, is enthusiastic. And so, naturally, are the proponents of the scheme. It's going to "help children get to grips with English", allow access to medical and legal terminology, and improve "language and general learning skills". It also "has the advantage of sidestepping all that business of ordering a beer or reserving a hotel room. Instead you delve right down to the bones of the language, understanding it at a deep, structural level that is both immensely rewarding for its own sake and very useful when that understanding is applied to any other language".

Oh come on. There are certainly arguments for offering Latin as an option in schools - but at primary level, when there is so much else to do? None of the arguments stand up - what exactly is it that they're supposed to learn about English or language learning in general by studying Latin rather than another language (or English itself for that matter)? Nothing I would argue. You want them to understand about nominatives, accusatives and genitives ? Study German. You want them to understand about person and verb agreement? Study Italian. You want kids to get really interested in language learning? Presenting them with a language which they'll never be able to use to say hello to anyone is not, in my opinion, the best way to do it.

I studied Latin at school and went on to study classics in my first year at university - so I am in no way a Latin hater. But to claim for it the utilitarian values that Higgins asserts is absurd. If I thoroughly enjoyed reading Latin classics and studying the history of the period, there's nothing special about it. I've enjoyed the literature and history of every language I've ever studied. And if I now know a bit of medical terminology it's not because I learnt it from my Latin lessons. Half of it's Greek anyway.

Why exactly Higgins believes that the amount of Latin which could be learnt in primary school is going to reach the objectives she states is not clear. Even at GCSE level, the amount of a language students have really mastered is pitifully small. And understandably so. True mastery of a language involves a lot of time and effort, and the chance to interact with native speakers - to order a few beers as Ms Higgins would put it.

Higgins seems stupified at the fact that in 1968 one of the demands made by demonstrating students was for the abolition of Latin as a compulsory language. As someone who lives in a country where students still have to study Latin for four or five hours a week up to the age of eighteen, I'm in full agreement. Latin should be there - as an option. But leave it for those who enjoy it and want to learn it. It won't teach you anything which you couldn't learn in other, far more useful ways.

Have you seen the articles in the November edition of Language Learning News ?

KOREAN

2007-12-03T05:35:00.001-08:00

If you're trying to learn Korean, there are a number of free sites on the web which can help.

The Korean Broadcasting Service has produced Let's Learn Korean - a useful site if you already understand some Korean and want to consolidate what you know, but unlikely to help a complete beginner. After an introduction to the pronunciation and grammar of Korean, the units are based around recorded dialogues, presented in written (with Roman transcription), audio and flash form. They are then explained, word for word, in the recorded lessons. However, there's no systematic step by step analysis of the language - ie focusing on one grammatical point at a time - or practice activities. This means each lesson is far too overloaded with material unless you are already at elementary, rather than beginner, level.

The Korea National Tourism Organisation also links to Let's Learn Korean, as well as providing two other resources. The first, for travellers, is just a collection of handy phrases. The Korean script is given and the translation, but if you can't already read the script, it's difficult to understand the pronunciation from the audio. The second is an intermediate level course, Korean language adventure, which provides reading practice, conversational dialogues, and some practice activities. The site also provides a information on Korean culture and other information useful for the tourist or traveller.

Lack of Roman transcription is again a problem for the complete beginner trying to use the Sogang Korean Program, produced by Sogang University. The course starts by introducing the alphabet - but at that point with no reference at all to pronunciation, leaving them as a meaningless list. When pronunciation is introduced, the recording is not clear enough to let you understand fully how each symbol is pronounced - a Roman transcription, however approximate, would be invaluable in the early units.

After the introductory units on the script and pronunciation, the course is then composed of progressive units which try to combine the introduction of "useful" language with a systematic approach to analying the language. Unit One, for instance, introduces greetings along with the Korean equivalent of the verb BE, demonstrative pronouns, and a number of other grammatical features. Again, however, the usefulness is marred by the lack of Roman transcription and the impossibility of fully understanding the pronunciation from the tape. A useful course, however, if you've already learnt the sound-symbol correspondance from other sources.

For that, try David Eisenberg's An Introduction to Korean. The site provides (as well as some basic vocabulary and grammar) a slow, gradual introduction to the written form, with Romanisation, audio and practice activities. Once you've worked through them, you can then test yourself with the activities at Learn Korean. It also covers some basic vocabulary and grammar.

Once you've learned the basics, try the Defense Language Institute's Korean Sustainment and Enhancement Course. You'll need a good knowledge of the grammar because that's not covered, but other than that it's a fully comprehensive course.

Other sites don't provide complete courses, but have practice activities which are useful once you already understand some Korean. Check your knowledge of vocabulary and ability to read the Korean script with these vocabulary quizzes, or practice your pronunciation and listening with the University of Indiana's on-line materials. These go from Korean 101 to Korean 402, and are clearly accompanied by written material available only to the students of the university. As there's no explanation or written form available on-line, you need to understand the Korean of the audio before you can use them (instructions for the activities are given in English). However, if you are studying with other courses, these lessons would still be usable as consolidation.

Lesson Planning

2007-11-20T04:14:00.001-08:00

Why do you need to plan lessons ? In an article on the site Teaching English, Callum Robertson suggests that a lesson is like a journey and the lesson plan is the map. It shows you your starting point, where you are trying to get to, and the route which you need to take in order to get there. Like journeys, lessons are usually (though not always) more successful when these three things are clearly planned in advance.

Inexperienced teachers often find that lesson planning takes up a considerable amount of time. It’s inevitable – you need to think through everything for the first time, look for activities without knowing exactly what’s available and where, and so on. When you do an initial training course you’re usually asked to make your thinking explicit by writing out your plans fully –essential if your tutor is to understand what you’re trying to do, and also an extremely useful way of helping you really clarify your ideas. Back in your own classroom and as you become more experienced, the amount of time you need to spend on planning will decrease. Apart from the fact that you’ll know how to find materials more easily, you also won’t need to write everything out quite so explicitly – often your plan will be no more than a list of notes with an activity sequence. But this isn’t the same as not planning. Once you’ve used a particular type of activity several times, you’ll know how to set it up and use it most effectively – the knowledge is in your head and you no longer need to write it down.

One way of cutting down your lesson planning time considerably while you’re still gaining experience is by following a good coursebook with an explicit Teacher’s Book, and/or by using the ready-made lessons plans which are available from various sites on the net. But no class is exactly the same as any other, and you will still have to consider if the teaching sequence which the Teacher’s Book suggests, or the steps on the plan you’ve found are exactly right for your particular learners. For example, the plan may assume the knowledge of a language area (a structure, a function or a lexical area) that your learners may have seen before but have not yet fully assimilated. In that case, you’ll have to insert a stage into the lesson where you revise the area before continuing with the activities suggested.

So what is an effective, well planned lesson? There’s no way of laying down a template which will work for every single lesson – one of the things which makes teaching so challenging and stimulating is that there are exceptions to every rule. For every occasion where, in the rest of the article, I may say that something “should” happen, there will be times when it would be better to do something different. I’m also, for the moment, ignoring a number of alternative methodologies which would argue for a different approach to the lesson. But there are general principles which apply to most situations, and these can be summarised in the words clarity, balance, coherence, variety, and flexibility.

First of all, the lesson needs to have clear, precise objectives. These may be functional/structural, lexical, phonological, skills or other types of objective, but will generally need to include a balance of old and new material. There are two reasons for this : firstly, previously taught items need to be constantly recycled or they may easily be forgotten, and secondly the course will also seem more coherent to the students if each lesson builds on what has been taught before. For example, a lesson in an Italian course aiming to teach the expression (Non) mi piace / mi piacciono (I (don’t) like ...) might start by revising food and drink items which had been taught previously, and then present and practise the new language by finding out the students likes and dislikes.

After you have decided on your objectives, you then need to provide a logical, coherent sequence of activities in order to achieve them. The students need to be moved gradually from zero knowledge of an item or skill to the point where they can use it spontaneously. This won’t happen in a single lesson of course – hence the need for constant recycling - and the teacher needs to recognise where the students are on the learning continuum and then help them move to the next stage – without trying to push them on too fast. For example, in the phase immediately after the students have first met the new language trying to move immediately into productive practice might well be moving too fast for the students. The insertion of one or two receptive practice activities would, on the other hand, give them the chance to hear more examples of the target item, and the time to assimilate more fully before being asked to produce it. This article discusses receptive practice in an ESL context, but the activities described can easily be adapted for other languages.

It’s not only the teacher but also the students who should understand the objectives of each lesson, recognise the logic and coherence of the activities and see how they contribute to achieving those objectives. There should be a recognisable beginning, middle and end to the lesson with activities flowing naturally from one into the other. The lesson shouldn’t resemble a “Monty Python” sketch – And now for something completely different … This coherence can be achieved by, for instance, centring the lesson around a single topic area, so that even though various language points are practised the lesson has a unifying theme. Conversely, the contexts and topics may change but the lesson focuses on a specific language point from start to finish. Furthermore, the lesson should end at a coherent point, where the students can see that “this is the end” and feel that they have completed and achieved something.

To achieve this, your objectives will need to be limited. Complex areas will need to be broken down into chunks or steps which you can deal with in single lessons, and you’ll need to predict the time each activity will take in order to make sure that everything “fits”. If it doesn’t, your objectives are still too broad and need to be broken down further.One of the most common problems of inexperienced teachers (and a lot of experienced ones!) is thinking that an activity will take less time than it actually needs. In addition, unforeseen problems may arise during the lesson which mean that the activity takles longer than you had planned. So keep your plan flexible. Decide on two or three activities which you must complete during the lesson and time them generously – especially if you know you tend to underestimate the time needed. For example, if you think an activity will take ten minutes, then allot it fifteen.Then, fit into the lesson various “if time” activities. These are optional activities which will give useful extra practice if you do have time to fit them in, but will not affect the flow of the lesson if you don’t. If you have to skip them, you can set them for homework if they’re written, or use them as a revision activity in a subsequent lesson so that they’re not “wasted”.

You also need to keep in mind that you need to teach the students, not the plan. There is no point ploughing on with planned activities which get progressively more difficult, if you see that the students are having excessive difficulty with the earlier ones. Again here your “if time” activities will come in useful. If you find you haven’t planned enough simple “obligatory” activities, then abandon the idea of going on to the more complex stages and of reaching the end of the plan. Use your easier “if time” activities to make sure that the students fully understand what they’re doing and leave the later more difficult activities for a future lesson.

The lesson also needs to be varied and engaging, or students will get bored and pace and concentration will drop. Variety can be achieved by :

Changing the activity type : written or oral exercises, listening etc.
Using different materials : pictures, the textbook, the board, video. However good the textbook may be, if nothing else is used for the whole lesson a drop in pace is almost certain.
Changing approach from lesson to lesson : for example, new language could sometimes be presented using a text, sometimes a dialogue, sometimes through pictures, and in various other ways. Too many different approaches might be confusing, but if the lesson has exactly the same format time after time, it’s likely to become predictable and boring. You need to achieve a balance between methods that the students are familiar with and which are therefore “unobtrusive” and reassuring, so that the students are free to concentrate on the content, and methods which are new, and therefore possibly more stimulating.
Varying teacher/student interaction patterns : different stages of the lesson should involve different T/S interaction patterns -teacher to class, students working individually, students working in pairs or groups. Similarly, students can change partners so that they’re not always working with the same people, or can do activities on their feet circulating amongst all the other members of the class. In particular, make sure that teacher/class work takes up no more than about one third of the total lesson time, and never goes on for longer than about ten minutes at a time.

MODERN GREEK

2007-11-18T08:53:00.001-08:00

The first problem you'll face when learning Greek is trying to read the alphabet. The best place to start is at David Eisenberg's site, An Introduction to Modern Greek. He starts slowly, taking you through one or two letters at a time and then showing how they're combined in useful words and expressions - so you'll start learning to speak Greek at the same time. He also provides some fun ways of remembering the sounds and plenty of practice activities. The letters are provided by the exercises so you don't have to worry about the font. Start on the page we've linked to, and then progress through the rest of the unit by clicking on the green arrow bottom right.

By the time you've finished David's exercises on the alphabet, you'll be ready to start the BBC's Talk Greek course. It's designed to accompany the TV series of the same name, but can also be used independently. It consists of ten short units, each based around a situation that might be useful when you're travelling in the country - introducing yourself and other people, asking for directions, ordering a meal, taking a boat trip and so on. Start by watching the Slideshow to learn the language - you'll see and hear the Greek expressions, and their pronunciation and English translation. Then look at the TV transcripts - you'll be able to watch excerpts from the shows as well as see the scripts. Deepen your learning by using some of the ideas suggested in the Learning Tips article Two steps forward and one step back. Finally, test your understanding of what you've learnt with the Fast Track exercises. If you're in the UK and want to follow the shows too, check out the times with the BBC's programme search, or look at our Language Learning News section (see the sidebar) where we'll tell you what programmes can be seen each month.

After Talk Greek, consolidate and deepen your knowledge of the language with Learn Greek On-line - a great site produced in collaboration with the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation. It provides seven courses, each made up of fifteen lessons and at different levels of ability. The lessons are based on an audio format, but full transcripts are available. You need to register but it's free. As with the BBC course, you'll be able to use the transcripts to create your own written exercises for consolidation.

And if you're a teacher or home-schooling parent looking for tips on methodology, lesson plans and practical activities to use in the classroom, go to our section for Teachers and Parents.

PORTUGUESE

2007-11-18T08:52:00.001-08:00

If you want to learn Portuguese, the first thing you need to decide is whether you want to speak the European or Brazilian variety. Don't panic though - whichever you learn you'll be understood everywhere, and most sites will indicate the main diferences between the two varieties so that you can understand speakers from both regions. For a quick summary of the main differences see this article or this list.

If you're a complete beginner, you may find it useful to start with an introduction to the pronunciation of Portuguese. It's not very easy to find a good one though. Learning Portuguese has a very clear explanation of the sounds of European Portuguese, but sadly no audio. Look at it and then go to Portuguese language On-line to hear the sounds individually (click on Pronunciation) and in words (click on the green arrow at the bottom of the page).

If you want to hear how sounds are pronounced in Brazilian Portuguese, try Carl Youngblood's site. This does have audio, but annoyingly you have to click on the sounds and wait for them to load one at a time.

There aren't many really good Portuguese sites on the net, and in particular very few which have adequate exercises. The BBC's Quick Fix and Talk Portuguese give a basic introduction to Portuguese for travel, covering both the European and Brazilian varieties, but there's not much practice. Talk Portuguese provides a slideshow with language and explanations, and then some video clips. Make the most of what's there by using the dialogues to create the sort of activities which were recommended in the Learning Tips article, Two steps forward and one step back.

In addition, if you're in Britain, you can also use the TV programmes which accompany the course. You'll find the schedule on the BBC site, or check in our Language Learning News section.

De Tudo Um Pouco is intended as a beginners' course in European Portuguese - but for me it throws too much in at once to be suitable for complete beginners. It's more suited to elementary learners. It's also an annoyingly difficult site to navigate, though there is a navigation guide on the home page. But here are some tips. The world map top left takes you to the Home page, while the book icon leads to a complete glossary of the vocabulary used, and the little man with a spanner takes you to the grammar. The letters and numbers top right take you to the individual lessons, or "episodes". A and B are introductory, and are followed by eight further units. Click on one of the numbers or letters and you'll get a list of the language items (grammar, pronunciation etc )covered in that episode. Click on each one for an explanation, and then click on the green arrow at the bottom to get to the exercises. The speech bubble signal links to the audio. One of the most useful sites on the web, as long as you're not a complete beginner.

Sonia Celegatti Althoff 's site focuses on Brazilian Portuguese and gives a pronunciation guide, grammar explanations, exercises and more. Off putting layout but again, one of the best of a sadly bad bunch.

As you get to the post beginner stage, you can start to test your knowledge of Portuguese verb forms at Verbs On-Line.

At intermediate level, a good resource is the university of Austin's Ta Falado. The course is a series of podcasts, which can be played straight from the computer or downloaded, aimed at helping you to understand spoken Brazilian Portuguese, and focusing also on the pronunciation and grammar. Transcripts of the conversations used in the podcasts can be downloaded in PDF format.

At higher levels check out the different regional accents of both European and Brazilian Portuguese at Learning Portuguese or try reading and listening to the news on BBCBrasil.com

And if you're a teacher or home-schooling parent looking for tips on methodology, lesson plans and practical activities to use in the classroom, go to our section for Teachers and Parents.

MANDARIN CHINESE

2007-11-18T08:51:00.002-08:00

The languages spoken in China are a collection of related, but also mutually unintellible languages. The most widespread is Mandarin, with around a billion speakers, but if you're planning a trip to China don't take it for granted that that's the variety which will be most useful. Check here for a list of all the different languages of China, and the regions in which they are spoken.

If you are thinking of learning Mandarin Chinese however, or if you've already started and want some extra practice, here are some good sites to start you off. You'll probably find you need to use more than one - some are great at providing useful dialogues, but don't explain the language adequately, whilst others have good explanations and examples but no audio. You'll need to switch backwards and forwards from one to the other.

One exception to this is Chinese-Tools.com - a nice slow approach, lots of useful dialogues and explanations. The site is available in a number of languages from French to Polish, which may be helpful if you're not a native English speaker - or if you want to practise two languages at once!

For more explanations try Wikibook's Chinese (Mandarin) course. Again, it's slow and the explanations are clear, but there's no audio. Good for reference and consolidation though.

The BBC's Real Chinese course is based on the TV programmes of the same name. The dialogues are realistic and there's a pronunciation guide, langauge notes, video clips and so on. It would need to be used as supplementary material to another course or, as intended, in conjunction with the programmes. If you're in the UK you can find out when they're airing by checking the site, or alternatively by looking at out section Language learning news, where the schedule is posted at the beginning of each month. But well worth checking out whether you can see the programmes or not.

The Ashcombe School only has one example of Mandarin in its collection of foreign language videos, but once you've followed a beginner's course, try it to see how much you understand!

hanyu.com's site to accompany the beginner's textbook book Learn Chinese with Me is intended for High School students but would be good for adult beginners too. It's a collection of short animations, moving from saying hello onwards. You can see the pinyin script or the hanzi characters, but there's no translation. Not a place to start but useful for extra listening and pronuciation practice - try shadow reading the text.

They provide similar activities for adult learners at their site to accompany a textbook called the New Practical Chinese Reader. Again there are some video clips for listening practice, but this time with no written support. Good supplementary practice though. This site also lets you learn to read Chinese characters. Each character is "translated" into pinyin, but there's no English equivalent. So again, you need to recognise the vocabulary.

Once you've done a few units from the sites listed above, you can start to get extra vocabulary recognition practice at the site of the University of Hawaii. You can practise vocabulary starting from the Chinese and recognising the English meaning or vice versa, and can visualise the words either in Chinese characters or in pinyin.

Berkley University also has an on-line first year course, to accompany the course Integrated Chinese. There's no English translation so you either need to be following the book or to use the online materials as consolidation after you've followed another beginner's programme.

Once you're past the elementary stage, the University of Oxford has a great video based course - probably the best online - with plenty of explanations and practice. Once you've had an initial look at the video, go to the Listening and Speaking section where you'll find the conversation in pinyin, hanzi characters and English. Then work on the Grammar and other exercises.

China.org.cn provides learning dialogues for lower intermediate learners onwards. It frightened the life out of me when I first went in until I realised that for some reason I was looking at Lesson 51. Click on the drop-down menu to get to earlier lessons. It's not a site for a complete beginners, and the dialogues are a bit stilted,but if you're past the elementary stage it could be useful.

As you progress and if you need help with pronunciation or characters, try the Harvard site.

The Defense Language Institute's advanced course is intended to be used with a tutor. But if you do have a Chinese speaker helping you with your learning, it would be one way to structure your course.

And if you're a teacher or home-schooling parent looking for tips on methodology, lesson plans and practical activities to use in the classroom, go to our section for Teachers and Parents.

JAPANESE

2007-11-18T08:51:00.001-08:00

There are a number of sites offering free Japanese lessons, but they're of varying quality, and none are complete. Here are the ones we rate as the best.

You need to register for Japanese Online but it's free, and you gain access to a series of lessons intended to start from complete beginner level. In reality, it would probably be too fast if used as an independent course - particularly because the Japanese Hiragana script is introduced with inadequate explanation. It's not used at all in the first lessons, so get going with those first, but when it is, there's no gradual explanation. At that point go to one of the sites listed below which deal with written Japanese. In any case, it's probably the best free site on the net. Each lesson starts with a dialogue which is available in written form with the translation and the audio. An explanation of the grammar and vocabulary contained in the dialogue is then followed by a couple of brief exercises. In addition, you can also access a selection of grammar and multimedia activities.

To supplement Japanese Online, try eLanguageSchool or Study Japanese, both of which are good on explanations of both the Hiragana and Katakana scripts and the grammar but suffer from lack of audio and no or insufficient practice activities. The same is true of Free Japanese Lessons and Teach Yourself Japanese.

Lack of audio is again the problem with what would otherwise be a very useful site : Nihongo o narau - Learn Japanese. But again, its explanations and exercises are a useful supplement to Japanese Online. it also has some fun sections. While you're there, check out the lyrics of Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer in Japanese.

Japanese has three writing systems : Hiragana and Katakana - which are the phonetic systems taught in the courses listed above, and Kanji - a set of over 7,000 ideographic characters imported from China. About.com has a good explanation of the differences and which are most useful. If you want to learn Kanji, then check out the University of Chicago's site Kanji Alive, and later test yourself with Drill the Kanji.

The Japanese Grammar Course also has a guide to the three writing systems of Japanese, and then grammar explanations going up to a good intermediate level. Again no audio and no practice material, but again useful in conjunction with other courses.

If you're at a more advanced level, test your understanding with a series of Dictation Quizzes

And if you're a teacher or home-schooling parent looking for tips on methodology, lesson plans and practical activities to use in the classroom, go to our section for Teachers and Parents.

Teaching French

2007-11-17T04:46:00.000-08:00

Sites of interest to French teachers and home-schooling parents.

General

The Sunderland Schools site has various resources for teachers of French from KS1 to A level.
Try the French.about site for French Teaching Tips and Tools

Primary

Teaching young children? BBC Primary French has guides for both teachers and parents, giving advice on methodology and tips on how best to use the on-line materials which the site provides.
This Primary French site provides worksheets and some on-line vocabulary activities.

Using Storytelling in Primary Language is produced by the Northumberland Grid for Learning. It has an on-line story in French to use with children (Goldilocks and the Three Bers) and lots of suggestions on how the story can be exploited in follow up activities. Well worth a visit.

Secondary

Frenchteacher.net is run by the teachers of Ripon Grammar School mainly provides resources for students from 11-18, including activities to accompany the course Encore Tricolore . They also have a list of games, and suggestions on lesson planning, advice on using texts and on organising a French exchange.

For lesson plans and worksheets aimed at getting your learners to use Frenchlanguage sites on the web, visit the Internet Activities for Foreign Language Classes site. It has printable worksheets with weblinks for three different levels of proficiency, from elementary upwards. Be warned, not all of the links work. But it should be easy to find other sites with similar information and adjust them.

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Teaching Foreign Languages

2007-11-17T03:03:00.001-08:00

The articles in this section are full of practical ideas to help you teach foreign language. whether you are a class teacher, a home-schooling parent, or just a parent who wants to give their child some extra, fun practise, you'll find help, ideas and suggestions here.

Complete List of Contents

Teaching Younger Learners

Practising Colours and Numbers : A Game

Practising Parts of the Body : A Game

Recycling Vocabulary : The Handkerchief Game

An Activity for Christmas

General

Some Picture Games (1) : Spot the Differences

Make the Most of your Coursebook!
Lesson Planning

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This section of the site is under development. More articles will be added soon, so bookmark us and come back!

An Activity for Christmas

2007-11-15T02:43:00.000-08:00

Here’s a Christmas activity to use with elementary school children which you can keep going all the way through December : making an Advent Calendar.

Objectives of the lesson :

To revise and consolidate pronouncing and writing the date; to introduce or consolidate lexis associated with Christmas.

You’ll need :

A real advent calendar if you can get one; a normal calendar or diary to check the dates; and the following things for each pair of children – two sheets of paper, one white and one coloured, A4 or A3 depending on the number of lessons you have in December, a ruler, coloured pens or pencils, scissors, a glue stick, and sellotape.

Procedure

A. Vocabulary Review

Revise the pronunciation and writing of dates in the language you are teaching.
Show the children an advent calendar, and check that they understand what it is. Ask (in the foreign language) What’s the picture for December 12th? and let the children open it and find out. Put the words on the board – NB try and use a calendar with simple Christmassy objects that the children have met in previous years.
Ask them to look at the real calendar and work out the number of lessons which they have with you in December, and when they are. Write the dates up on the board.

B. Making the Calendar

Give each pair of children a piece of white paper. With a ruler they should draw a square for every lesson in December, and inside draw and colour a picture of a Christmas object. They also write the name in the box.
They then place the coloured paper over the white paper, and draw a square in exactly the same position as on the sheet below. (1) They then cut around three sides of each square on the coloured paperto make the door.
They then rub the glue stick between the pictures on the white piece of paper, taking care not to get glue on the pictures themselves. The coloured paper is then stuck on top of the white paper, leaving the doors free. On each door, the children write the date of a December lesson, and then stick it down with a very small piece of sellotape across the join – just enough to close it, but not so much that it will tear when it's reopened.
The calendars are then given in to be kept by the teacher, or if possible are pinned up on the wall.

C. Using the Calendar

At the start of each lesson during December, give out the calendars, one to each pair of children (or ask each pair to go in turn to one of the calendars pinned on the wall) making sure that no-one is looking at the calendar they made themselves. In turn, each pair opens the door for that date and says what the picture is.

Notes

(1) With smaller children, give them the pieces of paper with the boxes already drawn on.

Make the Most of your Coursebook!

2007-11-15T00:40:00.001-08:00

The texts and dialogues included in foreign language coursebooks are generally there to develop reading and listening skills. But they also contain a lot of language that the students could usefully “notice”, and this potential is often ignored. After the texts have been used for initial comprehension work, how can they be recycled and used to help develop the students general linguistic competence?

Published texts are obviously covered by copyright, and any sort of adaptation of the text involves photocopying. However, some publishers do now accept that teachers need to be able to adapt materials in order to meet their students needs and make them more appropriate to their own teaching style. One example is Oxford University Press which, on its EFL website, publishes the tapescripts of some of its courses in Word format, so that teachers can copy and adapt them.

Here's a list of a few of the activity types which you might create using the texts in your coursebook. Examples are given in English, but the activities can be applied to whatever foreign language you are teaching.

Scrambled texts. Copy and cut up the paragraphs or sentences of the text , and give them to the students in random order. the students them put them back into the correct order. They may be on separate strips of paper so that the students have to physically rearrange them on the desk ( if you back them on card they’re more likely to be re-usable with a later class), or simply printed on a sheet of paper with a box next to each one where the students can write the appropriate number. When using this activity you need to be sure that there are enough clues in the text to make the activity doable. These will often be cohesive clues – linguistic connections between parts of the text, for instance pronouns which refer back to a previous noun How was your trip? / It was fine thanks or demonstratives and synonyms with the same function : We could face the danger of the disease reaching pandemic proportions . This risk would .... Additionally or alternatively the order may be signalled simply by logical relationships, or coherence, within the text. The sequence How are you? / Oh not so bad. is coherent, whereas How are you? / Tomorrow is not. Be careful however – these links don't always exist and/or there may be more than one possible answer. Always check for this when you're preparing the activity. If you can't identify clear, specific and unambiguous links, the students will not be able to complete the activity. If you identify a potential problem, you can get round it by writing the number of the problem sentence or paragraph next to it, so that students know where to place it in the text.

Scrambled sentences. Another possibility is to give the sentences in order, but with the words of each sentence jumbled. This is a useful activity for students who have problems with word order in the foreign language.

Gapped texts. There are various ways you can gap a text. You can use from strict cloze technique (systematically taking out every fifth, seventh or ninth etc word) or more focused gapping – for example, removing all the prepositions or simply choosing whichever words which you feel the students could usefully focus on. Obviously, this should not be a memory test : it must be possible to deduce the necessary word from the surrounding context. Compare for example I saw a ............. yesterday with Can you pick ….. that piece of paper please? In the first example the possibilities are endless, whil in the second the only appropriate word is up. Where there is more than one possibility, or simply to make the activity easier, the correct words can be provided in random order at the top of the exercise, or the first letter of the word can be included: Can you g…………. me a hand with these boxes?

Use the correct form. This is another variation of a gapped text. It’s very often used with verbs – the verb is gapped in the sentence and the infinitive given in brackets (or, this time to make it harder, in scrambled order before the exercise) : I …… (go) to Spain last August. there's no reason, however, why it can't be used, for other word classes – for comparatives and superlatives, for instance Barcelona is the ………………… (beautiful) city I know. Alternatively, the exercises can focus on prefixes, suffixes or general word formation : He was fired because his work was ………… (satisfaction).

Find the Mistake. Again there are a number of variations of this activity. You can :
· Include a certain number of mistakes into the text, for example : Did you have a good travel? As in the last exercise, the mistakes can focused on a specific problem (prepositions,verb forms, spelling etc) or mixed, focusing on the words you want the students to notice. The activity will usually work better if you tell the students how many mistakes there are – for example, one per line, or ten in the whole text..
· Give alternative words : How was your trip/travel? Barcelona is the most/more beautiful city I know. The students have to choose the correct word from the alternatives given.
· Add an extra, incorrect word into each line of the text : I went to Italy the last July or, alternatively, take out one word from each line : I have to go to office. Again, the words you choose to add or omit will depend on the difficulties your students have, and which you want them to work on. This type of personalisation is the reason why this type of exercise can best be designed by the teacher rather than the coursebook writer, especially if the book is intended for global use.

Rewrite the text. Give the students a version of the text almost but not quite the same the original and ask them to rewrite it. For example, they might have a version which doesn't use pronouns but repeats the noun. They have to rewrite it putting the pronouns back in where necessary.

All of these activities have the advantage that the students can self-correct by looking back at the original text, which encourages a deeper form of cognitive processing than just having their work corrected. However, there are other variations which need a teacher’s confirmation. For example, if two three possibilities were given in Find the Mistake, two of which were correct and one wrong : Did you have a good trip/travel/journey? The students would find one of the correct possibilities in the original dialogue, but would need help for the second. The same is true if there is more than one possible answer in a gapped passage : Can you ……… me a hand with these boxes? The original text might have used give, but lend is equally appropriate. Similarly with the rewriting activity mentioned, if students at more advanced levels were given an informal version of a business letter they had studied previously and had to convert it back to the formal style of the original. There would probably be more than one acceptable formulation of each phrase.

But aren't the students going to get fed up of seeing the same text again and again? They won't if the activities are varied and have increasing levels of difficulty, and if the recycling is mixed in with other, newer work. It may even happen that they don't remember having seen the text before. This probably means that their processing of the text did not go very deep. One way to increase the cognitive “depth” of the processing is to ask them to create an exercise themselves. List the various exercise types on the board, check that the students remember them, and then give each student a previously studied text. Ask them to choose one of the exercise types to apply to their text. They then create the exercise, possibly in class the first time so the teacher can help, or for homework, and in the next lesson exchange activities and do the exercise which another student created.

Recycling Vocabulary : The Handkerchief Game

2007-11-13T07:37:00.000-08:00

This activity is a fun way of recycling vocabulary with younger learners. You can use it to practise numbers, the alphabet, or any lexical field (colours, clothes, animals, toys, school objects, months, food, actions etc ) you like. It needs space, so you may want to move into the gym or the playground rather than use the classroom.

The children are divided into two equal teams. Each child has a flashcard showing a number, letter of the alphabet, animal or whatever it is you want to practise. The children stand in two parallel lines facing each other and about ten metres apart. Each child has the same flashcard as the child opposite (if you number them on the back it's easier to get the order right). The teacher stands in the middle of the two rows and holds up a handkerchief or small scarf. At random s/he calls one of the words on the cards in the foreign language (A horse! Thirteen! She's running! or whatever). The two children with the same card have to race to the centre and try and grab hold of the handkerchief. Whoever gets it scores a point for their team. With a large class, use four teams and have them stand around four sides of a square. Or if you have unequal numbers, let one student hold the handkerchief and call out the words (you can cue these by showing the child a flashcard).

Some Picture Games (1) : Spot the Differences

2007-11-13T07:02:00.000-08:00

Pictures can be invaluable in the classroom for stimulating discussion, and if you have a digital camera you can take your own so that they bring up exactly the language items which you want your students to practise. Here's an activity which uses pictures to set up an "information gap". Each student has half the information necessary to complete the task, and therefore has to communicate with a partner in the foreign language, asking questions and sharing their information in order to reach a conclusion.

Find or take two similar but not identical pictures, which are suitable for the age group you're teaching and which will bring out the language you want the student to practise - those illustrated were originally produced for an ESL group who were learning expressions like He looks as if and He seems to be ..... Pair the students and give each student in the pair one of the pictures. They must not show their picture to their partner. Tell them the number of differences there are between the pictures and then ask them to describe their pictures to each other, asking questions as necessary, to find out what the differences are - all obviously in the foreign language.

If you are teaching only one student, you can take the role of the second student, or the activity can be done in the following way : show the student one of the pictures for about ten seconds, and then ask her/him to turn it face down on the table. Then give the student the second picture and ask what differences s/he notices. After s/he has described as much as s/he can remember, the first picture is turned over again and the student can compare the two, adding any details which s/he did not remember previously.

Teaching Parts of the Body : A Game for Younger Learners

2007-11-12T08:56:00.000-08:00

One of the vocabulary areas which you comes up in almost every children's course is Parts of the Body. Here’s a fun way to practise the vocabulary after it’s initially been taught.

Use an A3 sized piece of light card to draw a friendly looking monster or alien. Give it four legs, five arms, three eyes, six ears or whatever. Cut it up into jigsaw type pieces so that each part of the body that you want to focus on is on a separate piece. (It's not necessary for the pieces to be "traditional jigsaw shape)

In class, give out the pieces to the children at random. Ask one of them, in the foreign language "What's that?" The child, again in the foreign language, replies "It's an ear" (or whatever), comes to the teacher's table and puts it down. In turn each child names their piece, comes up and puts it in position until the jigsaw is complete.

Divide the children into groups and give each group a sheet of A3 paper. Each group then draws their own monster or alien and cuts it up as before. They then pass their jigsaw on to the next group.

As each group receives a new jigsaw, the pieces are placed face down on the table. In turn, each child in the group picks one up, says "It's an eye" etc and puts it in position on the table to create the jigsaw.

The groups can then exchange jigsaws again and repeat the game - or alternatively you can take in the jigsaws and redistribute them in the next, or a later lesson, to revise.

If the children are too young to be able to draw the monsters effectively, or if you don't have enough time to spend on the drawing in the class, then draw extra ones yourself. You could also just do the outline and get them to colour it.

Obviously if you are home-schooling and are using the game with just one child, it will have to be adapted. The first time, when the child is putting together the pieces of your jigsaw, the pieces can be placed in a pile, in random order, and the child can take one at a time. After s/he has made his or her own monster, you can do the game - but this time make mistakes so the child can correct you. For instance you might say (in the foreign language) "It's an eye" and the child will reply "No! It's an ear!"

Further Reading ...

For Teachers and Parents

2007-11-12T08:19:00.000-08:00

Whether you are a class teacher, a home-schooling parent, or just a parent who wants to give their child some extra, fun practice in the foreign language, you'll find help, ideas and suggestions in the links on this page.

Click here for the Languages, Languages articles on foreign language teaching. If you're looking for advice on methodology, or games and practical activities which can be used to teach any foreign language, this section can help.

Annenberg Media has some excellent videos on teaching. Try the series Teaching Foreign languages K-12 :A Library of Classroom Practices to see various activity types demonstrated in foreign language classrooms, or Teaching foreign Languages K-12 : Workshop for teachers and researchers discussing a variety of issues related to language teaching. You need to register for this site but it's free and not to be missed.

The Primary Languages site contains articles on different aspects of methodology with demonstative videos. The link will take you to the home page - click on the drop down menu in the left-hand sidebar for specific topics. Once selected, sub topics will appear below. Well worth a visit - especially for its clear demonstrations of games, drama activities, story telling and other active learning techniques. Check out Number Tennis in the Embedding section.

Teacher's TV also has a large number of videos related to FL teaching, and for a couple more see the Ashcombe School site - which also contains one of the most impressive collections of materials on the net from any single school. See the sections for individual languages for further references.

If you need help designing a curriculum, check out the UK government's The Standards Site, which provides suggested schemes of work for primary and middle school age groups for French, German and Spanish. Click on Select a subject to see the drop down menu.

Click here to download the young learners version of the European language portfolio, plus a Teachers' Guide on how to use it, and a report on a British Council symposium on the use of the portfolio at all levels.

If you're trying to decide which course to choose with Younger Learners, try the CILT Information Sheets and advice on Teaching Materials.

Developments in ICT have enormous implications for the teaching of languages. Languages ICT prevides help and guidance.

Global Gateway is a useful site, especially if you're teaching in the British education system, but it's maddeningly difficult to navigate. If you're looking for help with teaching a specific language, try typing that language into their search box and then click on the first link that comes up. I haven't been able to find a complete list of the languages covered, but so far I've come across French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and Russian.

Some sites focus on one language only. Click below for help with teaching specific languages, both at home and at school.

Teaching French

Teaching German

Teaching Spanish

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Teaching Colours and Numbers : A Game for Younger Learners

2007-11-12T07:59:00.000-08:00

This game for younger learners aims to consolidate the numbers 1-6 and the colours. if you are a class teacher you can play it with the children working in groups, and if you're a home-schooling parent you can play it yourself with your child. For each group of players you will need : two dice – one with numbers and the other with colours; a counter for each child; and a playing board. The playing board should have the same colours as those on the dice and is easy to make using Word and clipart. If you don’t have a colour printer, just leave the circles blank and then colour them by hand. The number of circles you use will depend on the age and attention span of the children. There are also various ways the game can be played – choose depending on which you think your learners would take to best.

Version One : Each player places his or her counter on the first circle of a different line on the board and then takes a turn at throwing the colour dice and saying the colour which comes up in the foreign language. If it’s the same as the colour of their “path”, they can then throw the number dice, say the number that comes up, and move their counter forward the same number of circles. The first one to reach their house is the winner.

Version Two : The first player throws the dice, but this time the player on his/her left calls the colour and the number. If either of those two players has the correct colour, s/he can move her counter the appropriate number of places. This makes the game up a bit quicker, as there’s a one in three chance of someone moving, instead of only one in six.

Version Three : One child in each group is the dicemaster but does not play. The dicemaster throws the dice and calls the colour and number that come up. The player on that colour moves their counter forward the appropriate number of circles. At the end, the winner becomes the dicemaster, and the old dicemaster joins the game. This way the game speeds up considerably, as someone moves on each throw.

The obvious problem with any game of this sort is that it’s quite possible to play without saying anything – which defeats the object of the activity in an foreign language classroom. On way to get round this with Version Three is if the dicemaster throws the dice behind a barrier (such as a large book. This means the group can't see the result and have to listen to what is said. Another option would be for the teacher to throw the dice and call the colour and numbers to the whole class. Obviously, in this case there should be a winner in each group at the same moment. This is only useful for consolidating the children’s receptive knowledge of the language items, but can be a good way of introducing Version Three and making sure the children understand the game before they continue playing in groups.

Further Reading ...

Language Learning News - November 2007

2007-11-12T07:13:00.000-08:00

Lost in Translation

19 November 2007

When was the last time you read a book by a Chinese author? How many contemporary Italian authors have you read? Can you name the most important writers in Arabic at the moment?

If your answer to any of those questions was Erm.... , you're not alone. Of all the books published by British or American publishing houses last year, only about 2% were translations. And the "about" isn't just a matter of rounding off the figure - there is so little interest in translated works that no-one even bothers to keep statistics.

Publishers claim that publishing a translated book can cost up to £10,000 more than publishing an original manuscript. But no, don't let that kid you into believing that becoming proficient enough in a language to translate will net you millions. It's so badly paid as a profession that at this month's ceremony for the Society of Authors Translation Awards, only two of the winners were full-time translators.

The publishers' reluctance to deal with translations is situation is so bad that many countries and organisations will subsidise translations from their own countries' literature. Without a grant from the Americas Society in the 1960s, Marquez' novel One Hundred Years of Solitude would never have reached an English speaking audience so quickly. Yet even when grants are available, British and American publishers are often slow to take up the offers. The Book Institute of Poland has funded over 500 publications in recent years, but of these only ten went to the States. France and Germany, on the other hand, won 27 and 43 grants respectively.

In most countries, translated texts make up a far higher percentage of new publications annually than they do in the English speaking world. In Spain it's 28% and in Turkey 40%. And anywhere between 40 and 60% of these books will be translated from texts which were originally in English. In addition, the ever-increasing overseas market for exported books in English is already around $3 billion dollars per year.

In short, in one way or other the world is reading us. But we're not reading the world. Which leads to a blinkered cultural view in which our only impression of other cultures comes from our own media. As the director of the British Centre for Literary Translation, Amanda Hopkinson says : "We shouldn't be discussing other cultures through English culture," she says, "we should be discovering their own cultures, what they have to say for themselves."
Hopkinson however sees hope for the future, believing there to be a "groundswell of opinion from the grass roots ... which we should be taking notice of".

The 2007 Society of Authors Translation Awards and prizewinners were :

The Premio Valle-Inclán for translation from the Spanish Nick Caistor for The Sleeping Voice (La vos dormida) by Dulce Chacón (Harvill Secker )

The Saif Ghobash-Banipal prize for translation from the Arabic Farouk Abdel Wahab for The Lodging House (Wikalat 'Atiya) by Khairy Shalaby (American University in Cairo Press)

The Schlegel-Tieck prize for translation from the German Sally-Ann Spencer for The Swarm (Der Schwarm) by Frank Schätzing (Hodder)

The Scott Moncrieff prize for translation from the French Sarah Adams for Just Like Tomorrow (Kiffe, Kiffe Demain) by Faïza Guène (Chatto)

The Vondel prize for translation from the Dutch or Flemish Susan Massotty for My Father's Notebook (Spijkerschrift, Uitgeverij De Geus) by Kader Abdolah (Canongate)

The Risa Domb/Porjes prize for translation from the Hebrew Dr Nicholas de Lange for A Tale of Love and Darkness (Sippor Al Ahava Vehoshekh) by Amos Oz (Vintage)

The Rossica prize for translation from the Russian Joanne Turnbull for Seven Stories by Sigizmund Krzhizanovsky (Glas)

Sources and Further Reading

The Guardian 16 Nov 2007

The Guardian 9 Nov 2007

KA Dilday, Lost in Translation : the narrowing of minds

Publishing Trends, International Bestsellers : translation salvation

Rudiger Wischenbart, Cultural Diversity : a pipedream?

British and US children the least "globally aware"

12 Nov 2007

According to research carried out by the British Council, American and British children have the lowest international awareness among 11-16 year olds in ten countries surveyed.

The survey asked over four thousand schoolchildren with internet access in the USA, UK, Germany, Czech Republic, Spain, Brazil, China, India, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria, about their attitude to international affairs and language learning. The research found that more than twice as many Brazilian (69%) and German (61%) children claimed to be interested in current international events than their American (30%) and British (28%) peers.

Brazilian children were also among the most likely to agree with the statement "it is a good idea for schools in my country to have links or partnerships with schools in other countries" even though they were the least likely to attend schools with similar links.

When asked whether they saw themselves as citizens of the world or of their own countries, most children replied the world. Only those in the three countries assessed as having the lowest international awareness - the Czech republic, the US and Britain – did they see themselves as predominantly belonging to a single country.

Fewer than three-quarters (70%) of UK school children felt speaking a foreign language would be important for their future working life, with the figure dropping to 65% in Scotland. This was in sharp contrast to the 100% of schoolchildren in Saudi Arabia, 97% in Brazil and India, 85% in China and 73% in America who replied that it would be.

This comes after last week’s news that fewer than half of English schoolchildren now choose to study a European language to GCSE level. Following a government decision in 2004, languages are no longer compulsory after the age of 14.

When British children did see a foreign language as being important to learn, French was in first place (40%), then Spanish (31%), German (8%) and Chinese (6%, rising to 9% in Scotland).

The overall results of the survey, scored on a scale of 0-7 points were :

Nigeria, 5.152

India, 4.863

Brazil, 4.534

Saudi Arabia, 3.745

Spain, 3.296

Germany, 3.247

China, 2.978

Czech Republic, 2.519

US, 2.2210

UK, 2.19

Sources : Guardian Unlimited 12 Nov 2007 and bbc.co.uk 12 Nov 2007

Learning Spanish - Mid Secondary

2007-11-04T05:14:00.001-08:00

If you're in the 14-16 age range, get the edge in your Spanish classes by doing some extra practice with these sites!

If you're studying at elementary or intermediate level, try the online activities which accompany the Realidades series. Even if you're not using the book, you'll find the activities for levels 1 (elementary) 2 (pre-intermediate) and 3 (intermediate) useful. The same publishers (Prentice Hall) provide similar activities to accompany Paso a Paso. Again, the course is structured in three levels : 1, 2, and 3.

By 15 or 16 many of you will already have studied Spanish for a couple of years so most of the materials for this age group are not for complete beginners. In Britain, the mid-secondary years are the time when students are working towards their GCSE exams, and many of the websites providing materials for this age reflect this. The BBC's Bitesize Spanish pages provide guidance and practice activities for each part of the exam - listening, speaking, reading and writing - at two levels (Foundation and Higher). And even if you're not taking the exam, provide useful skills practice. There's also a fun game, Destination Death.

Practise your listening comprehension with these great videos from the Ashcombe School, and also with the five-episode series Avventura Vascas from Teachers' TV. (Only available in the UK.)

And don't forget Languages On-Line, which has some specific GSCE Reading Practice, as well as a wealth of other activities useful for general language practice at this level.

Aiglon College also has some Vocabulary Quizzes aimed specifically at providing GCSE revision, but useful practice for anyone studying at this level.

And if you need help planning your revision for the exams, and making sure you don't get too stressed, Revision Centre has some excellent advice.

The Channel Four website offers Homework High, a service where you can ask questions about Spanish and get an answer from a teacher. They also provide some interactive activities, at four different levels, intended to accompany the TV course Extra. It's not as useful as it might be, but has a few things worth looking at. If you'tre in the UK, you can also watch the videos on Teacher TV .

Learning French - Mid Secondary

2007-11-04T05:12:00.000-08:00

By 15 or 16 most kids will already have studied French for a couple of years so most of the materials for this age group are not for complete beginners. If you are starting from scratch, see the materials listed under Younger Secondary. Many of them are fine for older learners as well.

In Britain, the mid-secondary years are the time when students are working towards their GCSE exams, and many of the websites providing materials for this age reflect this. The BBC's Bitesize French pages provide guidance and practice activities for each part of the exam - listening, speaking, reading and writing - at two levels (Foundation and Higher). And even if you're not taking the exam, provide useful skills practice. There's also a fun game, Destination Death.

If you're taking the exam, check out the S-cool site too. It gives advice on taking the exam and practice for the topics on the syllabus - free time, house and home, food and drink and so on.

Aiglon College in Switzerland has some good exam revision activities, again organised around the topics necessary for the exam. Choose the topic which you want to revise from the drop-down menu and click on Go.

Practise your listening comprehension with some great videos from the Ashcombe School. You can also try the quizzes and other activities which they provide. And if youexchange E-mails with a French friend, check out their list of useful phrases.

The education system in Scotland is slightly different and students of this age group will be working towards their standard grade exams. The BBC Scotland Bitesize site caters for this syllabus, providing revision and practice for the exam. As ever, of course, you don't need to be studying in Scotland to find the materials useful.

The Channel Four website offers Homework High, a service where you can ask questions about French and get an answer from a teacher. They also provide some interactive activities, at four different levels, intended to accompany the TV course Extra. It's not as useful as it might be, but has a few things worth looking at. if you're in the UK, you can also see the videos on Teachers' TV.

But learning French doesn't just mean learning the language and doing exams, but also learning about the culture and customs of the country. The online resource centre for C'est a toi!provides a fun way to do so. Each activity takes the form of a webquest, during which the student is directed to a French website to find out information on French culture and lifestyle. At the lower levels the questions are in English - they change to French as the student progresses through the three levels of the course.

And if you need help planning your revision for the exams, and making sure you don't get too stressed, Revision Centre has some excellent advice.

Learning German - Mid Secondary

2007-11-04T05:11:00.000-08:00

By 15 or 16 most kids will already have studied German for a couple of years so most of the materials for this age group are not for complete beginners. If you are starting from scratch, see the materials listed under Younger Secondary. Many of them are fine for older learners as well.

In Britain, the mid-secondary years are the time when students are working towards their GCSE exams, and many of the websites providing materials for this age reflect this. The BBC's Bitesize German pages provide guidance and practice activities for each part of the exam - listening, speaking, reading and writing - at two levels (Foundation and Higher). And even if you're not taking the exam, provide useful skills practice. There's also a fun game, Destination Death.

If you're taking the exam, check out the S-cool site too. It gives advice on taking the exam and practice for the topics on the syllabus - free time, house and home, food and drink and so on.

Practise your listening comprehension with some great videos from the Ashcombe School, and try out some of their interactive exercises too.

Learning German doesn't just mean learning the language, but also learning about the culture and customs of the country. The online resource centre for Deutsch Aktuell provides a fun way to do so. Each activity takes the form of a webquest, during which the student is directed to a website to find out information on German culture and lifestyle. At the lower levels the questions are in English - they change to German as the student progresses through the three levels of the course.

And if you need help planning your revision for the exams, and making sure you don't get too stressed, Revision Centre has some excellent advice.

The Channel Four website offers Homework High, a service where you can ask questions about German and get an answer from a teacher. They also provide some interactive activities, at four different levels, intended to accompany the TV course Extra. It's not as useful as it might be, but has a few things worth looking at. If you're in the UK, you can also see the videos on Teachers' TV.

Learning Spanish - Older Secondary

2007-11-04T05:05:00.000-08:00

In Britain students of 17-18 will probably be working towards their A Level exams - either at level A2 or A/S, while in the States AP exams may be looming. A lot of sites specifically for this age group reflect this, with content which is specifically oriented towards the exams - though this doesn't mean they're not necessarily of interest to advanced learners in general. But if this is not what you're looking for, check out the links in the section on adult courses, where you'll find everything from beginners upwards.

Languages Online has specific material for both AS and A2, as well as a lot of general grammar and vocabulary exercises which would be useful revision.

If, on the other hand, you're working towards your AP exams, the EMC/Paradigm Publishing site for A Toda Vela may help. It contains exercises on grammar and vocabulary, as well as useful weblinks.

Practise your listening comprehension with these great videos from the Ashcombe School.

The Channel Four website offers Homework High, a service where you can ask questions about Spanish and get an answer from a teacher. They also provide some interactive activities, at four different levels, intended to accompany the TV course Extra. It's not as useful as it might be, but has a few things worth looking at. Two stars.

Learning Spanish - Younger Secondary

2007-11-04T05:04:00.002-08:00

If your kids are studying Spanish at school and want some extra practice, or if you're looking for sites to support your home-schooling lessons, try these. The sites are all aimed at kids in the 11+ age range, but can often be useful for older beginners too.

Languages Online is a super site, mainly intended for 11-18s, but also very useful for adult beginners. It starts from zero and has a step by step, graded approach which gives plenty of practice of one thing before moving on to the next. The activities for the 11-14 age group are intended to supplement the Caminos series of coursebooks but can also be used independently. The site is not particularly flashy, but it's well-organised and easy to use, and in terms of content definitely gets a five-star rating.

La Tienda de Luis is a Spanish course aimed at 9-12 year olds which can be found on Teachers' TV. (Only available in the UK.)

Prentice Hall, the publishers of Paso a Paso have provided useful on-line accompanying material which can also be used by learners following other courses. Levels A and B are specifically designed for younger learners in this age group, who can pass straight to levels 2 and then 3 of the course when they finish. Older learners can start with level 1.

The same publishers produce Realidades, which follows a similar scheme. Levels A and B are specifically designed for younger learners in this age-group, after which they can pass straight to levels 2 and then 3. Older learners starting from scratch can start at level 1.

The Channel Four website offers Homework High, a service where kids of 11-19 can ask questions about Spanish and get an answer from a teacher. Useful for home-schooling parents too, if you've got a doubt.

Learning Spanish - Primary

2007-11-04T05:04:00.001-08:00

If you're a home-schooling parent, or if you just want to encourage your kids to practise the Spanish they're learning at school, these sites will help.

The BBC Schools website has some interesting stuff for Primary Spanish. It has topic based units at two different levels, which include sections presenting the language to be learnt (as well as listening to the Spanish, you can choose to see the written Spanish version and/or a translation, so there's no problem about not understanding), and games to practise the language learnt. There's also a good Teacher's Guide to help teachers and parents decide how the site can best be used. Four stars.

La Tienda de Luis is a video course aimed at 9-12 year olds that can be found on Teacher's TV. (Only available in the UK.)

The Prescott School's Primary Spanish site contains some fun activities on vocabulary topics such as animals, colours, numbers, the family and the names of days and months. A pity that the spelling of the English instructions is so appalling. This was written by teachers?? Three stars.

If you're homeschooling, the Primary Resources site has a large number of resources - worksheets in Word or PDF, Powerpoint presentations etc - to help you organise your child's Spanish course.

Learning Italian - Secondary

2007-11-04T05:02:00.001-08:00

Italian is not a language which is commonly taught to this age group, and there are few resources on the web to help. If you're studying Italian at school and want some extra practice, or if you're a parent looking for sites to support your home-schooling lessons, try these...

Languages Online - a super site for the 11-14 age group. Sadly there's less on Italian than for some of their other languages, and what's there is predominantly vocabulary oriented, but hopefully the section will grow. It starts from zero and has a step by step, graded approach which gives plenty of practice of one thing before moving on to the next. The activities are produced by Ruth Smith and Andre Balaam, two British secondary school teachers, and while the site is not particularly flashy, it's well-organised and easy to use.

If you already know a bit of Italian, practise your listening with some great videos from the Ashcombe School. The topics are designed specifically to reflect GCSE and "A" Level syllabus requirements, but are also excellent general practise for anyone at a lower or upper intermediate level.

Learning Italian - Primary

2007-11-04T05:01:00.002-08:00

Sadly, there's very little on the net for primary level Italian, and even what there is is not particularly wonderful. Here's the best of a bad bunch ...

Snaithprimary focuses on Italian vocabulary. The words they include are fine but there's nothing you can do with them but listen and repeat. Click on the topic you want from the sidebar and then on Italian.

Learning French - Older Secondary

2007-11-04T05:01:00.001-08:00

In Britain students of 17-18 will probably be working towards their A/S or A/2 level exams, and most of the sites for this age group reflect this. They're either specifically oriented to the exam or are in any case at an advanced level.

Two great sites focusing mainly on exam preparation and practice are the S-cool site, and French Revision (follow the link and click on Advanced). Both provide guidance and practice for different aspects of the exam but are also usable just as advanced level practice materials. You'll find work on grammar and vocabulary as well as practice in listening, speaking, reading and writing. Don't miss them. Five stars each.

The site run by NelsonThorne, publishers of Au Point provides supplementary activities for the course which are useful for anyone working at this level. On the site you'll find grammar and vocabulary activties, and links to useful French websites related to topics covered in the course such as relationships, education, health and so on. Four stars.

You can practise your listening comprehension with some great videos from the Ashcombe School. And for some good advice on how to write a discursive essay in French for the exam, have a look at the Sunderland Schools site.

One course aimed at young adults but starting for scratch and not focused on A level is Allons-y. The official Companion Site for this course provides various accompanying on-line activities, as does the French Online Grammar site of the City College of San Francisco. In general though, if you're looking for non-exam based courses, look at the materials listed under the section for adults.

The Channel Four website offers Homework High, a service where you can ask questions about French and get an answer from a teacher. They also provide some interactive activities, at four different levels, intended to accompany the TV course Extra. It's not as useful as it might be, but has a few things worth looking at. Two stars.

Learning French - Younger Secondary

2007-11-04T05:00:00.002-08:00

If your kids are studying French at school and want some extra practice, or if you're looking for sites to support your home-schooling lessons, try these. The sites are all aimed at kids in the 11+ age range, but can often be useful for older beginners too.

Whether or not you're using the Equipe Nouvelle series, the publishers' website has a number of activities which will be useful for the first three years of French study. These are practice activities - you need to understand the grammar and vocabulary before you do them, but they'd be a useful part of any home study course. Click here for activities to accompany Books 1 and 2. The link to book 3 is currently not active, but try clicking here to see if it's been activated.

Languages Online is a super site withexcellent materials for all ages. The activities for this age group follow the Encore Tricolore, but can easily be used without the book. They start from zero and have a step by step, graded approach which gives plenty of practice of one thing before moving on to the next. The site is produced by Andre Balaam, a British secondary school teacher, and while the site is not particularly flashy, it's well-organised and easy to use, and in terms of content definitely gets a five-star rating.

WildFrench on the other hand, has produced materials to accompany the series Metro and Avantage. Again, the activities can easily be used without the books.

The Channel Four website offers Homework High, a service where kids of 11-19 can ask questions about French and get an answer from a teacher. Useful for home-schooling parents too, if you've got a doubt.

Learning French - Primary

2007-11-04T05:00:00.001-08:00

If you're a home-schooling parent, or if you just want to encourage your kids to practise the French they're learning at school, these sites will help.

The BBC Schools website has some great stuff for Primary French, with a strong emphasis on listening comprehension. There are activities at two different levels, which include little dialogues to listen to and act out, and games and songs, plus some printable worksheets to consolidate the language learnt. There's also advice for teachers and parents to help you decide how best to use the site. Five stars.

Changing channel, Channel Four has collaborated with the Scottish government to produce Chez Mimi, a site aimed at children between 9 and 12. However, each activity is offered at three different levels, and younger children who had been learning for a while could easily cope with the lowest level. Chez Mimi is also a TV series - the programmes are shown during the night and can be videoed for later use. If you're in the UK, check here for the schedule. Or - again if you're in the UK - check them out on Teachers' TV. Otherwise the programmes are also available on DVD or CDRom, with an accompanying Activity Book and Teachers Guide Check out the Channel Four site for other information, and also the programme transcripts.

Languages Online also has a Primary French section, with lots of exercises of topics such as numbers, colours, clothes, animals and parts of the body. well worth a look.

The Prescott School's Primary French site contains some fun activities on vocabulary topics such as animals, colours, numbers, the family and the names of days and months. A pity that the spelling of the English instructions is so appalling. This was written by teachers?? Two stars.

If you're homeschooling, the Primary Resources site has a large number of resources - worksheets in Word or PDF, Powerpoint presentations etc - to help you organise your child's French course.

Learning German - Older Secondary

2007-11-04T04:59:00.002-08:00

In Britain students of 17-18 will probably be working towards their A or A/S level exams, and most of the sites for this age group reflect this. They're either specifically oriented to the exam or are in any case at an advanced level. If this is not what you're looking for, check out the links to adult courses.

Aiglon College in Switzerland has a great A Level site with loads of material. It's worth looking at if you just want advanced level practice, too.

The site run by NelsonThorne, publishers of Brennpunkt, provides supplementary activities for the course which are useful for anyone working at this level. Not all the links work, unfortunately, but the grammar section is worth a visit.

The Goethe Institute also provides links on various topics relevant to the exam which are also of general interest.

Practise your listening comprehension with some great videos from the Ashcombe School.

And for some good advice on how to write a discursive essay in German for the exam, have a look at the Sunderland Schools site.

Learning German - Younger Secondary

2007-11-04T04:59:00.001-08:00

If your kids are studying German at school and want some extra practice, or if you're looking for sites to support your home-schooling lessons, try these. The sites are all aimed at kids in the 11+ age range, but can often be useful for older beginners too.

Whether or not you're using the Komm Mit! series, the publishers' website has a host of activities which will be useful for the first three years of German study. These are practice activities - you need to understand the grammar and vocabulary before you do them, but they'd be a valuable party of any home study course. Four stars.

Kathleen Pepin and Hank Schwab are two American language teachers who also provide links to materials for Komm mit! and also to activities based around various other courses and for general use. The pages aren't very attractive visually, but don't let it put you off. There's a lot of good stuff there. Three stars each.

Languages Online is a super site, mainly intended for 11-14s, but also very useful for older beginners. It starts from zero and has a step by step, graded approach which gives plenty of practice of one thing before moving on to the next. The site is produced by Andre Balaam, a British secondary school teacher, and many of the exercises are intended to supplement the Logo!series of coursebooks. The site is not particularly flashy, but it's well-organised and easy to use, and in terms of content definitely gets a five-star rating.

The Channel Four website offers Homework High, a service where kids of 11-19 can ask questions about German and get an answer from a teacher. Useful for home-schooling parents too, if you've got a doubt.

Learning German - Primary

2007-11-04T04:58:00.000-08:00

If you're a home-schooling parent, or if you just want to encourage your kids to practise the German they're learning at school, these sites will help.

The UK TV channel, Channel Four has collaborated with the Scottish government to produce Hennings Haus, a series of interactive activities aimed at children between 9 and 12. However, each activity is offered at three different levels, and slightly younger children who had been learning for a while could easily cope with the lowest level. Hennings Haus is also a TV series - the programmes are shown during the night and can be videoed for later use. If you're in the UK, check here for the schedule, or - again for UK residents - check them out on Teachers' TV. Otherwise the programmes are also available on DVD/CDRom. Check out the Channel Four site for other information, and also the programme transcripts.

The Prescott School's Primary German site contains some fun activities on vocabulary topics such as animals, colours, numbers, the family and the names of days and months. A pity that the spelling of the English instructions is so appalling. This was written by teachers?? Two stars.

If you're homeschooling, the Primary Resources site has a large number of resources - worksheets in Word or PDF, Powerpoint presentations etc to help you organise your child's German course.

ITALIAN

2007-11-04T04:43:00.001-08:00

There's less free material available on-line for learning Italian, than for some other languages, especially for school age students. Older students in this range should look at the materials listed for adults, as well as in the secondary school category.

Primary (age 5-11)

Secondary (11-18)

Adult

And if you're a teacher or home-schooling parent, visit our For Teachers and Parents section for articles on language teaching methodology, practical activities to use in the classroom, and links to useful sites for teachers of Italian.

SPANISH

2007-11-04T04:42:00.000-08:00

There's a wealth of material available on-line for learning Spanish, for all ages and at all levels. Choose the age range that interests you, and click on the links.

Primary (age 6-11)

Younger Secondary (11-14)

Mid Secondary (14-16)

Upper Secondary (16-18)

Adult

And if you're a teacher or home-schooling parent looking for tips on methodology, lesson plans and practical activities to use in the classroom, go to our section for Teachers and Parents.

FRENCH

2007-11-04T04:41:00.000-08:00

There's a wealth of material available on-line for learning French, for all ages and at all levels. Choose the age range that interests you, and click on the links.

Primary (age 6-11)

Younger Secondary (11-14)

Mid secondary (14-16)

Older secondary (16-18)

Adult

And if you're a teacher or home-schooling parent looking for tips on methodology, lesson plans and practical activities to use in the classroom, go to our section for Teachers and Parents.

GERMAN

2007-11-04T04:34:00.000-08:00

There's a wealth of material available on-line for learning German, for all ages and at all levels. Choose the age range that interests you, and click on the links.

Primary (age 6-11)

Younger Secondary (11-14)

Mid secondary (14-16)

Upper secondary (16-18)

Adult

And if you're a teacher or home-schooling parent looking for tips on methodology, lesson plans and practical activities to use in the classroom, go to our section for Teachers and Parents.

Learning Spanish - Adults

2007-11-03T10:47:00.002-07:00

If you want to learn Spanish online, check out these free sites.

The BBC Spanish site has a number of resources starting with a level test to help you assess which of their programmes is right for you. If you're a beginner you can try the course Spanish Steps to prepare yourself for a trip to Spain, or go into more detail with Talk Spanish. Weekly E-mails are also available to help you with your learning. At intermediate level, try Reportajes - audio based activities which you access either by topic or by language focus - or improve your knowledege of Spanish slang with Cool Spanish.

And if you just want a few phrases to help you get by while you're there, try their Quick Fix. You'll also find crosswords, games and quizzes, learning tips, and details of Spanish language learning programmes currently being broadcast on the BBC, which we also publish each month in our section Language Learning News - click on the link in the sidebar.

There are also a number of courses based on podcasts. Try Notes In Spanish which has podcasts at beginner, intermediate and advanced level. Finally Learn Spanish isn't for complete beginners, but as long as you're at elementary level, their bilingual format should help you cope.

And if you want to improve your Spanish grammar, try the Spanish Verb Conjugation Trainer, then check if you've understood with further exercises from Verbs On-line. Or you could try I23TeachMe.

Beginners can find a series of basic lessons Spanish for Travellers at the Guardian Unlimited site. Practise the language you need for eating out, meeting local people, asking directions and visiting museums.

If you're at a intermediate or advanced level, Guardian Unlimited cam also provide you with some interesting listening and reading. Each activity is based around a newspaper article about Spain and written in Spanish. If you're at Intermediate level, try reading the article first, and then listening without the transcript. Finally listen and read at the same time. If you're at an advanced level reverse the first two stages. Listen first, then read before listening and reading at the same time. And why not try shadow reading too? Read the transcript at the same time as the tape, trying to keep your speed, rhythm, pronunciation and intonation identical to that on the recording.

Finally, for Spanish with a vocational twist try the Vocational Languages Resource Bank. They have downloadable activities with audio at levels from beginners to intermediate, many of which are equally suitable for general purpose learners. Select Language from the first dropdown menu, and then Spanish from the one which appears next. Then click on go.

This section is not yet complete and additional information will be added soon. Bookmark us and come back!

Learning Italian - Adults

2007-11-03T10:47:00.001-07:00

If you want to learn Italian online, check out these free sites. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, but can all be useful to supplement other courses which you're following.

The BBC Italian site has a number of resources starting with a level test to help you assess which of their programmes is right for you. If you're a beginner you can try the course Italian Steps to prepare yourself for a trip to Italy, or go into more detail with Talk Italian or Italianissimo. Weekly E-mails are also available to help you with your learning. And if you don't want a complete course, but just to learn a few phrases to help when you're on holiday, try their Quick Fix . At intermediate level, there's less on offer - the transcripts of a two-part TV documentary Italy Inside Out, Cool Italian - a guide to Italian slang and, if you're thinking of working in Italy, Italian for Work. On the site you'll also find games, quizzes and details of Italian language learning programmes currently being broadcast on BBC TV and radio. You'll also find these in our section Language Learning News - click on the link in the sidebar.

The RAI, Italy's state broadcasting company, also has an on-line course at elementary level. It's not particularly user friendly and is not suitable for complete beginners. There are dialogues, a dictionary, a grammar section etc but none of these are connected. In particular, although the instructions are available in a variety of language, the dialogues are only in Italian, so that if you don't understand something you have no choice but to look it up word for word. There's also inadequate practice and the dialogues are sometimes a little strange. It would seem that Italians have the habit of accosting complete strangers and offering them an ice-cream .... Useful for listening practice but not much else.

The Corso di Italiano On-line has some very nice material. Again, complete beginners would probably find themselves a bit at sea, but for elementary level up it would be useful. The listenings are fast, but natural and the transcripts are available, though again only in Italian. The course is clearly divided into units, and the the practice activities relate to the dialogues in each unit.

Parliamo Italiano! describes itself as an Italian course for English speakers. It's not, it's just a collection of exercises on nouns, articles and numbers. Hardly a complete course. but if you're looking for extra grammar practice in these areas, it's worth a look.

For more grammar and vocabulary practice, try the University of Victoria's Italian 100 exercises. Again, only a small number of grammatical categories are catered for, but they're still useful.

You'll find more grammar and vocabulary at the Centro Studi Italiano. Click on The Electronic Classroom for grammar explanations and The Exercise Mill and Games for practice activities. Or go to Verbs On-line to test your understanding of verbs which you've studied previously.

If you're at a intermediate or advanced level, you'll find some interesting listening and reading at Guardian Unlimited. Each activity is based around a newspaper article about Italy and written in Italian. If you're at Intermediate level, try reading the article first, and then listening without the transcript. Finally listen and read at the same time. If you're at an advanced level reverse the first two stages. Listen first, then read before listening atnd reading at the same time. And why not try shadow reading too? Read the transcript at the same time as the tape, trying to keep your speed, rhythm, pronunciation and intonation identical to that on the recording.

Finally, for Italian with a vocational twist try the Vocational Languages Resource Bank. they have downloadable activities with audio at elementary level, many of which are equally suitable for general purpose learners. Select Language from the first dropdown menu, and then Italian from the one which appears next. Then click on go.

Simplify Your Language!

2007-11-03T03:19:00.000-07:00

Here are some suggestions as to how you could simplify the complex sentences that you studied, so that you could express them even if you only have a fairly basic level of the foreign language :

1. I started learning German three years ago.

2. Perhaps you left it on the bus.

3. He's late!

4. There was another meeting in the room so we couldn't use it.

5. I'm sure he'll arrive late.

Simplify your language

2007-11-03T02:52:00.000-07:00

What do you do when you want to say something in a foreign language which involves grammar or vocabulary which you haven't yet learnt. The answer's easy - simplify!

The ability to express complex meaning simply is one of the most important skills you can learn when you're studying a foreign language. It's going to be quite a long time before you reach a high level of proficiency in the language you are studying - and you may not even want to get that far. So learning to express everything you want to say within the level of the language you already know is a skill which is essential if you are going to be able to communicate effectively.

For instance, you might want to say something like If I'd known, I would have gone. But until you're at at least a high intermediate level in the language, you won't be able to - the verb forms are much too complex. However, you can express more or less the same concepts much more simply if you say I didn't know so I didn't go. Now all you need are past verbs - which unless you're a complete beginner, you will probably have already learnt.

Here are some more complex ideas which you might not yet know how to express in the language you are studying. How could you simplify them so that you can say the same thing using the grammar and vocabulary which you do already know?

1. I've been learning German for three years.

2. (To a friend who can't find her purse) You might have left it on the bus.

3. He was supposed to be here by now.

4. The room was unavailable because it was being used for another meeting.

5. He's bound to turn up late.

Click here for some suggestions.

Maximise your learning

2007-11-01T14:14:00.000-07:00

It's a waste of time studying for hours and hours if a week later you don’t remember anything you learnt. Here are some tips to help …

1.Study regularly — don't leave “forgetting time”

If you only study once a week, you have seven days to forget what you learnt before you sit down to study again. When you’re at a fairly advanced level you can maintain your level of the foreign language by reading or studying just once a week, but at a lower levels it's impossible — you need to do something at least every other day, and preferably more often. This doesn’t mean you have to spend hours and hours studying — twenty to thirty minutes three or four times a week is fine if you can't or don't want to do more.

2. Study little and often

The first and last things which you learn in a study session are the things which you remember best. So, if you study for several hours, you'll probably only remember what you did right at the beginning and end of the session, and forget the rest. Instead of doing all your studying at the same time, split it into half hour sessions, preferably on different days. And if you can’t, then take regular breaks while you study. Stop and do the washing up, or take the dog for a walk. Then come back with a fresh mind.

3. Review what you’ve learnt

Review of your past learning is essential. If you don't go over it again, as much as 70% of what you study one day will be forgotten by the next. So each day, start your study session with a review of what you did in the previous session - and at the end of the week, go over everything you’ve studied that week again. You’ll be surprised what a difference it makes to the amount youremember!

4. Sleep on it!

While nobody is completely certain how memory works, it seems fairly sure that sleep has an important part to play. As we sleep, the mind “files away” all the new information we received that day, reinforcing the neuron paths that make up memory. So why not try doing your review study immediately before you go to bed—who knows, you may even find you’re dreaming in the language you're studying!

Two steps forward ... and one step back

2007-11-01T14:13:00.000-07:00

When you're learning a language "two steps forward and one step back" is often the most efficient way to progress. You won't remember everything you see the first time you learn it, and you shouldn't expect to. You'll find you need to go back over the same material again and again, especially if it was something you found difficult when you first met it. But in order to maximise the effectiveness of your learning, you need to do it slightly differently the second time around. Here are some ideas :

As soon as you finish doing a grammar or vocabulary activity, translate the sentences it contains into your own language. Then, three days later, translate them back into the foreign language. Check your answers with the original.

If you’re reading a magazine or book (includine graded readers) in the foreign language, make a photocopy of a couple of pages which you’ve already read, and use a thick black felt tip pen to blank out every seventh word. To make the exercise easier, you could write a list of the original words at the bottom of the page, but in jumbled order. Three days later, look at the text again and try to put the words back in. Check your answers with the original.

Make a copy of any text you’ve worked with before, and blank out all the verbs. Write the infinitives instead. Three days later, try and put the verbs into the correct form. Check your answers with the original.

If you've been using a listening text, make a copy of the transcript, and cut it up so that each thing that each person says is on a different piece of paper. Choose a text which is neither too long nor too short - ten to fifteen slips of paper is about right. Jumble the slips of paper and put them in an envelope. Three days later, try and put them back in the correct order. Check your answers with the original.

How can I practise speaking and writing the language?

2007-11-01T14:11:00.000-07:00

Whether you're learning alone or following a class, you'll learn much faster if you can practise speaking the language regularly. And you can do so free by participating in a conversation exchange scheme over the internet.

How does the scheme work?

The concept is simple : you link up with a person who is a native speaker of the language you want to learn, and who also wants to learn the language you speak. You then meet on line at regular intervals for conversation practice, using a programme like Skype, or practice writing by e-mailing each other. The conversation will be half in your language, which your partner is trying to learn, and half in your partner's language, which you're trying to learn.

How do you find a partner?

First of all you'll need to register for a site like eTandemEuropa or The Language Exchange, both of which allow you to find a partner who speaks the language you want to learn. eTandem asks you to register and then finds a partner for you. The Language Exchange allows you to search the list of people who have already advertised for a partner and make your own choice.

What should you talk about?

If you are at an advanced level, you may want simply to meet your language partner and chat about anything that comes to mind, but at lower levels this may not be possible - and neither is it the best way to consolidate your knowledge of the language. set specific objectives for the meetings which allow you to practise the language you have recently been studying in your language learning programme. for example, if you have recently studied past verbs, talk about what you did at the weekend or on your last holiday. if you've been working on dialogues concerned with checking in and out of hotels, tell your partner that that's what you'd like to practise. Or if you've been studying ways of making suggestions, ask your partner to tell you about three problems she has, so that you can give her some advice.

You can e-mail your partner prior to your meeting to tell him or her about your objectives, so that s/he has time to prepare and think about what s/he will say. Of course, you should do the same for him/her as well.

If you are under 18, please tell your parents about the sites and ask their permission before registering.

How to think in a foreign language

2007-11-01T14:09:00.000-07:00

Here’s an easy way to improve without needing to add any time to your study schedule — think in the foreign language!

How much you can think in the foreign language you are studying obviously depends on your level — don’t try anything too complicated at the early levels. But even if you are a beginner you can mentally repeat the same dialogues which you studied on your course — simple dialogues like meeting people and saying hello, checking into a hotel etc. Try it when you’re on the bus or having a coffee. Just two minutes twice a day can help fix the language which you are studying in your mind.

Up until intermediate level, continue to base your thinking on the language you are currently studying on your course. for example, if you've just been studying past form spend 2 minutes in the morning (try it while you’re cleaning your teeth!) going through all the things you did the day before.

“Thinking in a foreign language” doesn’t mean thinking directly in French, Spanish or whatever language you are studying—at least not at the early stages. If necessary, decide what you want to say in your own language and then think how to say it in in the foreign language. The more you practise, the easier it becomes to think directly in the language you are studying.

At higher levels, when you know most of the grammar and basic vocabulary of the language, you can think about anything you want to! Be careful though. Avoid complex expressions which you haven’t yet studied. For example, if you're at a low intermediate level and want to say If I'd known I wouldn't have gone - you can’t! The verb forms involved are too complex, and you've not yet studied them. So change it to something simpler with a similar meaning: Unfortunately, I didn’t know before, so I didn't go. Now all you need to use is the past form, which by that time you will have studied.

The ability to express complex meaning simply is one of the most important skills you can learn when you're studying a foreign language. To learn more about it see the article Simplify your language!

Learning French - Adults

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If you want to learn French online, check out these free sites.

The BBC French site has a number of resources starting with a level test to help you assess which of their programmes is right for you. If you're a beginner you can try the course First Steps to prepare yourself for a trip to France, or go into more detail with Talk French. Weekly E-mails are also available to help you with your learning. If you already know a bit of French, try Ma France, a course comprising 24 interactive videos with explanations of grammar and vocabulary and a wealth of practice activities ranging from vocabulary exercises and dictations to roleplays. At intermediate level, try Reportages - a selection of articles on a wide variety of topics, many of which are used to practise grammar and vocabulary. Or you could try some interactive crosswords, or brush up your French slang with Cool French. And if you're not interested in following a complete course, but just want a few phrases to help you get by while you're their, try their Quick Fix. You'll also find games and quizzes, learning tips, and details of French language learning programmes currently being broadcast on the BBC which complement the courses. (You'll also find these in our section Language Learning News - click on the link in the sidebar.) Five stars - especially for Ma France

The French site of the University of Texas at Austin has an impressive amount of material. Start here and have a look at the drop down menu. You'll find an entire course divided into thirteen chapters and including an amazing amount of material, including grammar explanations and exercises, pronunciation work and downloadable video and audio for listening practice. You can download a Student's Workbook (scroll down to the bottom of the page) which combines the various sections into a coherent course, or you can just work through some of the individual activities which interest you, for example the listening exercises or the activities in Tex's French Grammar. Definitely another five star site.

Universities are a good source of material as they often offer the materials intended for their students online for more general use. See for example the University of Calgary's courses (at four different levels) in Reading French and if you want yet more grammar, this site from the University of Tennessee-Martin, another from the London Metropolitan University, and finally Verbs On-line.

The two-part course Accord contains some useful accompanying on-line material which could be used at elementary and lower intermediate level whether or not you are using the book.

If you're at intermediate level and based in North America, check out French in Action - a couse made up of 52 half-hour video programmes. Made by Annenberg Media it looks similar to their German programme Fokus Deutsch - which is available worldwide. Being based in Europe I've not been able to check the French programme out, but if it's as good as the German equivalent it will be well-worth using. So if you're in the States or Canada, have a look.

If you're at a intermediate or advanced level, you'll find some interesting listening and reading at Guardian Unlimited. Each activity is based around a newspaper article about France and written in French. If you're at Intermediate level, try reading the article first, and then listening without the transcript. Finally listen and read at the same time. If you're at an advanced level reverse the first two stages. Listen first, then read before listening and reading at the same time. And why not try shadow reading too? Read the transcript at the same time as the tape, trying to keep your speed, rhythm, pronunciation and intonation identical to that on the recording.

Finally, for French with a vocational twist try the Vocational Languages Resource Bank. They have downloadable activities with audio from elementary to advanced level, many of which are as suitable for general purpose learners as those who are studying for other vocational purposes. Click on Language in the first drop down menu, on French in the one that appears next, and then on go.

Learning German - Adults

2007-11-01T04:59:00.000-07:00

If you want to learn German online, check out these free sites. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, but can all be useful to supplement other courses which you're following. If you want to use them in combination to create a coherent programme of study which is not dependent on any other materials, watch this space! We'll soon be publishing guidelines to allow you to do just that!

The BBC German site has a number of resources starting with a level test to help you assess which of their programmes is right for you. If you're a beginner you can try the course First Steps to prepare yourself for a trip to Germany, or go into more detail with Talk German. Weekly E-mails are also available to help you with your learning. At intermediate level, learn German for Work, or study German slang. And if you just want a few phrases to help you get by while you're there, try their Quick Fix. You'll also find games and quizzes, learning tips, and details of German language learning programmes currently being broadcast on the BBC. (You'll also find these published monthly in our section Language Learning News - click on the link in the sidebar.) The site for the programmes Deutsch Plus provides the transcripts for the programmes, and even if you can't follow the course on TV you can use them to creates some of the exercises mentioned in our Learning Tips article Two steps forward and one step back. Five stars.

A useful site produced by a language teacher from the States, is Kathleen Pepin's Quia site. I find it horrendous visually, but it has a wealth of activities on points of grammar and lexis, plus a series of exercises to supplement the Komm Mit series of coursebooks. You'll also find links to other German sites. Two stars.

Another site linked to a coursebook, but useable just for general practice is the Hueber site for the three books which make up the Themen Neu course. There are on-line activities and other activities in PDF format for all three books.

Most of the activities on the German for Travellers site are available only on payment, but it does make a certain number of activities available free. These do not provide a systematic course, but can be usefully incorporated into your course as extra or preparatory practice. Despite the name, the language taught is not specifically travel oriented, and is useful whatever your learning purpose. One star.

If you're an intermediate level learner and want to improve your listening comprehension, try the Fokus Deutsch videos. You have to register to gain access to the site, but then you'll have access to nearly fifty videos. The stories are a bit hard to follow as they take place in different locations, involve different people and are full of flashbacks - they're clearly designed for classroom use, where the teacher would want to play a section at a time, then review previous units etc. But who cares - they remain an excellent resource, and the transcripts are available if you really get lost. Five stars as a listening comprehension resource.

The Exeter University Beginner's German course contains some excellent material, but is probably too fast if you're a complete beginner trying to learn on your own. It would be great though, if you were using it as supplementary to a class-based course, or if you already know some German and just need to review the basics before going on. It's not yet complete and has stayed like that for some time, so I'm knocking a star off, but it still gets three.

Beginners can also find some basic German lessons on Guardian Unlimited's German for Travellers, which was originally designed for people travelling to Germany for the Football World Cup. Learn the language you need for eating out, and asking for directions, and if you're a football fan, for discussing your favourite teams.

Once you get to elementary level and above, if you want more practice in German verb forms which you've already studied elewhere, try Verbs On-line.

And if you're at a intermediate or advanced level, Guardian Unlimited can also provide some interesting listening and reading. Each activity is based around a newspaper article about Germany and written in German. If you're at Intermediate level, try reading the article first, and then listening without the transcript. Finally listen and read at the same time. If you're at an advanced level reverse the first two stages. Listen first, then read before listening and reading at the same time. And why not try shadow reading too? Read the transcript at the same time as the tape, trying to keep your speed, rhythm, pronunciation and intonation identical to that on the recording.

Finally, for German with a vocational twist try the Vocational Languages Resource Bank. They have downloadable activities with audio from elementary to advanced level, many of which are equally suitable for general purpose learners. Select Language from the first dropdown menu, and then German from the one which appears next. Then click on go.