This is a list of websites
that I have found useful for learning and teaching Foreign Languages,
plus a few other sites that I find interesting or amusing. I regularly
use this page for running training courses for language teachers on
using the World Wide Web. This also ties in with my work on the ICT4LT
website, a substantial set of ICT training materials for language
teachers that I maintain as a labour of love.
If you are looking for my
personal email address, I am afraid you won't find it anywhere at this
site. I have had to remove it to prevent it being harvested by spammers.
Please use my business contact form if you wish to email me:
Contact Form.
Updated
3 February 2010
This set of resources is arranged
alphabetically. I have decided not to organise it into categories as most people
appear to find it more useful in its current format, i.e. as a glossary and
an annotated, cross-referenced list. Click on the letters in the alphabet below
to jump to the first entry under each letter. To search for a specific keyword
or phrase use Edit / Find in your browser.
New websites
I welcome suggestions for additions
to this list, but it may take some time for them to appear. I receive dozens
of requests to add new links - far more than I can keep up with. Websites that
I am in the process of reviewing are held here: New Websites.
Feedback is welcomed if you have already visited these sites or any of the sites
listed below. Please use my business contact form if you wish to email me:
Contact Form
This list of websites is known as
a webliography or a portal, i.e. a gateway to lots of other sites
- rather like the bookmarks or favourite websites that you can
set up in your own browser, the important difference being is that you and I
can access this portal from anywhere in the world. If you want to learn how
to create your own webliography, see my INSET training materials at: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/lspinset.htm
(Task 2). If I were starting to compile this list all over again, however, I
would probably use Delicious, which is a social bookmarking
service that enables you to store your favourite websites online.
Feel free to use this page yourself
and with your students, but please acknowledge the source: see Copyright.
I update the list frequently. If you find a dead link or discover a useful link
that I could add to this list, please let me know via
Camsoft's Contact Form.
A problem associated with link lists like this is that ownership of the domain
name can change without the knowledge of the person who maintains the list.
I have had two bad experiences, which I document here: Dodgy links at
http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/DodgyLinks.htm.
I make an effort to check all these links regularly, but it's easy to miss something.
See, however, the entry under Wayback Machine, the Web
Archive, which helps you locate dead and long-lost websites.
200 Words a Day: Introduces
vocabulary, based on an accelerated learning technique whereby you imagine a
crazy scene - associated with cartoons - which helps you remember the vocab.
In French, German, Spanish, Welsh: http://www.200words-a-day.com
About:
The About sites listed below have lots of language-related information
and links. These are a very useful set of resources.
About French: Free resources
for students, teachers, and lovers of French: lessons, quizzes, dictionaries,
software, linguistics, chatroom, and much more. Edited by Laura Lawless: http://french.about.com
About German: Free resources
for students, teachers, and lovers of German: lessons, quizzes, dictionaries,
software, linguistics, chatroom, and much more. Edited by Hyde Flippo: http://german.about.com
About Spanish: Free resources
for students, teachers, and lovers of Spanish: lessons, quizzes, dictionaries,
software, linguistics, chatroom, and much more. Edited by Gerald Erichsen:
http://spanish.about.com
About Italian: Free resources
for students, teachers, and lovers of Italian: lessons, quizzes, dictionaries,
software, linguistics, chatroom, and much more. Edited by Michael San Filippo:
http://italian.about.com
About Japanese: Free resources
for students, teachers, and lovers of Japanese: lessons, quizzes, dictionaries,
software, linguistics, chatroom, and much more. Edited by Namiko Abe: http://japanese.about.com
Academic Word List: This
website contains lists of academic vocabulary, divided into ten sublists in
order of frequency, i.e. Sublist 1 has the most frequent academic words. You
can submit your own short text, and a program will identify core academic vocabulary
in your text, using the Academic Word List. The text will be returned as a new
Web page with words from the Academic Word List, at the level selected, highlighted
in bold: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/%7Ealzsh3/acvocab/awlhighlighter.htm
Accent,
Dialect, Language: The distinction between these three categories often
provokes fierce debate. Broadly speaking, an accent is distinguished
by features of pronunciation that signal a person's regional or social identity,
whereas a dialect is distinguished by features of grammar and/or vocabulary.
The point at which a dialect becomes a separate language is debatable.
I speak fluent German but I can only understand around one word in ten when
listening to Swiss German, which is regarded by some people as a dialect of
German but by others (and rightly so) as a separate language known as Schwyzerdütsch.
Similarly, Scots (Lallands/Lallans) and Ulster Scots (Ullans) can be regarded
as distinct languages from English. Max Weinreich described a language thus:
"A language is a dialect with an army and a navy" - or "A shprakh iz a diyalekt
mit an armey un a flot" in the original Yiddish ("Yivo and the problems of our
time", Yivo-Bleter, 1945, Vol. 25, No. 1, p. 13.). See European
Minority Languages, Minority Languages, Speech
Accent Archive and - just for fun - Ali G Translator,
Dialectizer. The BBC has some excellent information,
including sound recordings, on regional accents and dialects of the UK: http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/
The Adam
Smith Institute: This site has some interesting downloadable publications
on educational issues. My attention was drawn in particular to Wired to Learn
(2002) by Tom McMullan, which is described as follows: "The government wants
to create the 'school of the future' with ICT-based learning in new-look buildings
and at home. But existing government policy stands in the way of this vision.
Teacher and ICT expert Tom McMullan identifies the blockages: too much focus
on numbers rather than sustainability, low teacher confidence, dismal connectivity,
and the lack of realisation that content, and not hardware, is what it's all
about." See http://www.adamsmith.org/images/uploads/publications/ict-7-jan-02-doc.pdf
Advertisements: The PubsTV
website contains links to video clips of advertisements in a wide range of languages
- click on Pubs par Pays. Requires registration:http://www.pubstv.com.
See also http://www.visit4info.com
Adware:
Adware is software that has been secretly installed on your computer by
a remote site. Many free utilities that you download from the Internet install
hidden software that sends details of the websites you visit and other information
from your computer (which can include your email address) to advertisers so
they can target you with popup ads and spam. See also the entries under Spam,
Spyware and Virus. Further information
can be found on my Cautionary Tale page.
Aiglon College: The website
of Aiglon College, Switzerland. Useful exercises and links for learners of French,
German and Spanish: http://www.aiglon.ch/langlink
Airline
Talk: A project funded under the Leonardo da Vinci programme of the European
Union, involving the development of CD-ROM language training materials for
the airline industry. Further information from Commercial Development, Thames
Valley University, St Mary's Road, London W5 5RF.
Ali G Translator:
Machine translation programs such as Babel Fish often
make mistakes, but this one is pretty good at translating your texts into Ali
G street slang - not very politically correct, of course: http://mackers.com/alig.
The opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice reads: "It is a truth universally
acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want
of a wife." which translates into Ali G slang as "It is a truf universally acknowledged,
dat a single geeza in possession of a wicked fortune must be in dig of a bitch."
See the Dialectizer. See Accent, Dialect,
Language.
ALLE - Alberta Language Learning
Environment: A project based at the University of Calgary, Canada: http://fis.ucalgary.ca/alle.
The project has several aims in common with the ICT for
Language Teachers project, namely: (i) raising consciousness among teachers
as to the opportunities and benefits of current technology, especially the Web;
(ii) equipping teachers with the skills necessary to integrate technology effectively
into their classroom practice; (iii) developing and supporting authoring tools;
(iv) doing ongoing research in the area of technology assisted language learning
and publishing findings; (v) evaluating the results of teacher involvement in
TELL (Technology Enhanced Language Learning). Useful site, with lots of links,
especially to French resources.
AllWords:
A useful multilingual online dictionary: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian,
Dutch. Also lots of useful links for word lovers: crossword puzzles, word games,
glossaries, song lyrics, translation programs, etc: http://www.allwords.com
ALSIC: Francophone Electronic
Journal for CALL: Apprentissage des Langues et Systèmes d’Information
et de Communication: http://alsic.revues.org
Alta Vista: I used to have
a lot of luck finding websites with Alta Vista, but my favourite search engine
is Google. Alta Vista does, however, include a translation
function, based on the original Systran translation package, one of the
oldest and most reliable MT packages - now known as Babel
Fish. See http://www.altavista.com
Amazon Bookshop: The UK branch
of the famous online bookshop. Some bargains to be found here: http://www.amazon.co.uk
. Did you know that Amazon's customer services department is moving from Slough,
UK, to Cork, Ireland, because it cannot recruit staff in the Slough area that
can handle European languages? In a 2005 European Commission poll conducted
by Eurobarometer, 30% of UK inhabitants surveyed said they could speak a second
language at conversational level. In Ireland, this figure was about a third
higher at 41%. So much for our government's policy on language teaching in schools!
APACALL: The Asia-Pacific
Association for CALL, University of Southern Queensland, Australia: http://www.apacall.org
University
of Arizona, Critical Languages Series: This site contains information on
CD-ROMs and Web-based instructional materials for "critical languages"
- also described as Minority Languages - e.g. Brazilian
Portuguese, Turkish and Korean: http://clp.arizona.edu/cls/
Ashcombe School's Language College
Modern Foreign Languages pages: Lots of materials, advice, software evaluations,
worksheets, exercises for different languages, etc. A comprehensive and well
maintained site - a lot more useful than most of the sites maintained by UK
government agencies: http://www.ashcombe.surrey.sch.uk/Curriculum/modlang
Ask:
Ask a question in normal English. This search engine will parse your input and
then search the Web, trying to find the answer: http://uk.ask.com
AsíSeHace:
A free website, created and maintained by José Picardo, containing Spanish interactive
exercises specifically designed to help GCSE and A-Level students and generally
useful for anyone learning Spanish: http://www.asisehace.net.
See also Box of Tricks.
Asset Languages:
Asset Languages is a new way of recognising achievement in foreign languages
learning: http://www.assetlanguages.org.uk.
The Asset Languages assessment scheme supports the DCSF's National
Languages Strategy and is designed to provide voluntary accreditation options
for learners of all ages and abilities from primary to further, higher and adult
education. It is being developed by Cambridge Assessment (http://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk)
through OCR (Oxford Cambridge and RSA Examinations - http://www.ocr.org.uk)
and Cambridge ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages - http://www.cambridgeesol.org).
It has a lot in common with the Common European Framework
(e.g. "can do" statements relating to the four language skills) and is tied
in with the Languages Ladder.
À Tantôt: A website that
provides French and German online resources which are designed to be used in
class on an interactive whiteboard. Resources include videos, starter and plenary
activities, games, useful links and much more: http://www.atantot.co.uk
ATnotes: A free program which
creates post-it like notes on the Windows desktop. It lives in the system tray,
takes very few resources and is available in 35 different languages: http://atnotes.free.fr/download.html
Audio Clips:
Most of these contain sound effects, etc, but they may be worth exploring:
Auralog: Producer of CD-ROMs
and supplier of online language learning services: e.g. Tell Me More:
http://www.tellmemore.com
Austrian TV: The website
of ORF. Very handy for news reports in German - and especially for weather reports
whenever I am about to go skiing in Austria: http://www.orf.at
The Authoring
Suite (Wida Software): An old favourite, developed from a range of packages
originally sold separately. Widely used in EFL/ESL institutions and departments
for creating interactive exercises: http://www.wida.co.uk.
See Authoring Programs.
B
Babel
Fish:Babel Fish is an automatic translator that derives from one
of the oldest and most reliable Machine Translation packages, originally known
as Systran: http://babelfish.yahoo.com.
Babel Fish has limitations, however. Don't expect a polished translation,
and watch out some really bad errors. Most automatic translators can only convey
the gist of a document and indicate if it’s worth having it translated
properly. See Section 3 of Module 3.5 at the ICT4LT site: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod3-5.htm.
See also the entries under Free Translation and Logos.
For fun stuff see the Ali G Translator and Dialectizer.
Google has
a translation tool too. Click on Language Tools on the Google opening
page: http://www.google.co.uk
BBC Jam:
An educational website tied in closely with the UK government's Curriculum
Online initiative. The BBC Jam site has now been suspended: seeBBC Jam: a personal view.
BBC Languages: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/.
Lots of online language learning materials at various levels from the BBC covering
French, German, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, Greek - and
more! I worked as a consultant on German Steps, an introductory course
in German: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/german/lj
BBC Learning Zone: Useful
video clips for teaching and learning foreign languages are available at the
BBC Learning Zone: http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/
BBC World Service: This is
the Web version of the BBC’s excellent news service. As well as texts,
you’ll find sound and video clips too. Schedules of broadcasts can also
be found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/
BECTA:
British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, formerly known as
NCET (National Council for Educational Technology): http://www.becta.org.uk.
An extensive source of information on educational technology - if/when you can
find it, as BECTA is another one of those restless sites, where documents are
constantly being moved to new locations. BECTA tends to be strong regarding
the technology and weak regarding the pedagogy and suffers a bit from the not-invented-here
syndrome, e.g. the BECTA website appears to be blissfully unaware of key sources
of information concerning ICT and Modern Foreign Languages, such as the websites
of EUROCALL and the ICT for
Language Teachers project, which don't get a mention anywhere at the BECTA
website. See the BECTA Schools site: http://schools.becta.org.uk.
There are some materials for Modern Foreign Languages in this section: http://schools.becta.org.uk/index.php?section=cu&catcode=ss_cu_ac_mfl_03.
See also Research for information on BECTA's ICT Research
Network forum.
Before You
Know It: An interactive flashcard program by Transparent Language, covering
64 different languages, for learning basic words and phrases. A free trial version
is available for download. Ready-made flashcard activities are included, e.g.
multiple-choice matching, pronunciation and dictation, and you can create your
own additional lists of words and phrases. You can also record your own voice
and compare it to native speakers. http://www.byki.com.
See Vocabulary.
Tim Berners-Lee: My hero,
the inventor of the World Wide Web - and he's British! This is his personal
site: http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee
Bibliography of CALL: See
the ICT for Language Teachers Resource Centre for a select bibliography of CALL
and links to other comprehensive bibliographies: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_resource.htm
Blackwell’s Bookshop: An
enormous bookshop in Oxford. I have rarely failed to find what I was looking
for: http://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk.
You can order books online. Delivery is quick!
Bonjour:
A set of resources for school learners of French, developed by Stephane
Derône: http://www.bonjour.org.uk.
Now part of a commercial site: Linguascope.
Bonjour de France: An interactive
magazine for learners of French. Lots of exercises - vocab, grammar, idiomatic
expressions and games: http://www.bonjourdefrance.com
Box of Tricks:
José Picardo's blog on Education and ICT, with a main focus on ICT in teaching
and learning foreign languages: http://www.boxoftricks.net.
See also AsíSeHace.
The
British Council: The British Council is the UK's international organisation
for educational and cultural relations: http://www.britishcouncil.org.
Its purpose is to enhance the UK's reputation in the world as a valued partner.
It does this by creating opportunities for people worldwide with programmes
in education, English language teaching, the arts, science, governance and information
through a network of 230 offices and teaching centres in 109 countries. The
British Council receives a grant-in-aid from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
(FCO) and earns income from teaching English, conducting British examinations
and managing development and training contracts. See also The British Council's
LearnEnglish website.
BULL:
If you have trouble writing critical essays then this is the place for you:
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/nholland/critic.htm.
BULL stands for Basic Unitary Literary Language. It’s a computer program
by John Holland that generates impressive-sounding sentences such as "In
a situated discourse, the metonymy of inclusion devolves into the hegemony of
pre-existing structure". I love this kind of stuff . I wrote a poetry generator
along these lines (in collaboration with my old friend David Steel) back in
the 1970s, but it’s a long time since I saw anything as good as this. If
you think the above sample is BULL then the real thing is even better: e.g.
"If such a sublime cyborg would insinuate the future as post-Fordist subject,
his palpably masochistic locations as ecstatic agent of the sublime superstate
need to be decoded as the ‘now-all-but-unreadable DNA’ of a fast deindustrializing
Detroit, just as his Robocop-like strategy of carceral negotiation and street
control remains the tirelessly American one of inflicting regeneration through
violence upon the racially heteroglossic wilds and others of the inner city".
This text is authentic and written by one of the winners of the Annual Bad Writing
Contest, Volume 11, 82 of the Humanist Discussion Group. See also Dialectizer,
The Postmodernism Generator and Shakespearean
Insult Generator.
Business and International Communication
(SOLVIT): This is a new and very useful site maintained by CILT, BLIS and
RLN. It covers all the important aspects of communicating and doing business
overseas under the headings Spoken Communication, Written and Visual Communication
and Cultural Communication: http://www.solvit.org.uk
C
C&IT
Centre, University of Hull: A centre dedicated to language learning and
new technologies that began life in 1989 as the CTICML. The C&IT Centre
is now closed, but the archives of the CTICML are still around: see CTICML.
CALICO:
A long-established professional association, based in the USA and devoted to
promoting the use of technology enhanced language learning. CALICO is affiliated
to EUROCALL and currently headed by Bob Fischer,
Executive Director, Texas State University: http://www.calico.org.
CALICO and EUROCALLhave recently set up a joint EUROCALL/CALICO
Virtual Worlds Special Interest Group that aims to explore the possibilities
of language learning and teaching in virtual worlds such as Second
Life. Their joint Welcome Pavilion in Second Life is located here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/EduNation%20III/31/35/22
CALL4All: A large categorised
collection of links to websites relating to language learning and teaching,
compiled by John Paul Loucky: http://www.call4all.us
CALL@Hull:
Fred Riley's website of Internet Resources for Language Teachers and Learners,
which contains some of the resources formerly located at the CTICML and C&IT
websites: http://www.fredriley.org.uk/call/langsite
CALL-EJ
Online:A refereed professional journal on Computer Assisted Language
Learning and related fields, published bi-annually. It began publication in
1999 after CALL-EJ in Japan and ON-CALL in Australia
merged. CALL-EJ Online is now an international journal that welcomes
contributions from around the world: http://www.tell.is.ritsumei.ac.jp/callejonline/
University
of Cambridge: CALL Facility in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages.
Lots of useful information and links: http://www.mml.cam.ac.uk/call
Camsoft:
My own business partnership, specialising in the development and retailing
of CALL software, CALL consultancy and ICT training for language teachers. The
site lists all our software, who we are and what we do, and includes around
800 links to other projects and websites: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk
CanooNet is great as a reference
source for German grammar and the new spelling rules. It include dictionaries
too: http://www.canoo.net
CAPL (Culturally
Authentic Pictorial Lexicon): An image bank set up and maintained by Michael
Shaughnessy & Jason Parkhillis, Washington and Jefferson College, Pennsylvania.
It consists of a searchable and categorised bank of 2000 or so images. You are
free to use the images for non-commercial educational purposes as specified
in the terms of a Creative Commons licence: http://www.washjeff.edu/CAPL/.
See Clipart.
CEMLL (Centre
for Excellence in Multimedia Language Learning): Based in the School of
Languages and Literature at the University of Ulster, the focus of CEMLL is
to research the use of computer-based multimedia teaching facilities and develop
appropriate teaching methods. CEMLL's approach to multimedia language learning
is to integrate use of digital technology in class to promote active engagement
and to support dynamic intervention. The primary aims of CEMLL are to: -(i)
develop teaching excellence and encourage innovation in the use of multimedia
resources, (ii) integrate the use of multimedia resources with face-to-face
teaching, (iii) research and evaluate the effectiveness of teaching in a multimedia
environment, (iv) collaborate with colleagues within the University of Ulster
and other HE Institutions and share good practice: http://cemll.ulster.ac.uk
CERCLES:
Confédération Européenne des Centres de Langues dans l’Enseignement
Supérieur / European Confederation of Language Centres in Higher Education
/ Europäische Konföderation der Hochschulsprachenzentren: http://www.cercles.org.
Founded in Strasbourg in 1991, CERCLES is a confederation of independent associations
from 10 countries of the European Union. It brings together some 200 Language
Centres, Departments, Institutes, Faculties or Schools in higher education whose
main responsibility is the teaching of languages. Its members have several thousand
academic, administrative and technical staff and some 250,000 students who learn
all of the world’s main languages. The equivalent US-based association
is IALLT.
Cervantes Institute: Central
Virtual Cervantes. A very comprehensive website, containing lots of useful links
for teachers and learners of Spanish: http://cvc.cervantes.es
CILT:
The Centre for Information on Language Teaching, London - now known as the National
Centre for Languages: http://www.cilt.org.uk.
CILT is, in my opinion, the leading information centre on language teaching
in Europe - maybe the world. They’re doing a grand job! ICT features prominently
in CILT's activities - check the website's publications section and the ICT
links. See also Languages ICT and Primary
Languages.
Classroom 2.0: A social networking
sitesite for anyone interested in the practical applications of computer technology
(especially Web 2.0) in the classroom and in their own professional development:
http://www.classroom20.com
Cliché Finder: Just the ticket
for people who like to incorporate hackneyed and/or boring phrases into their
essays. Search for a word and this search engine will return any clichés which
use that phrase, e.g. "in the pink", "kill the goose that lays
the golden eggs", "talk through your hat", "feather your
nest", "keep a stiff upper lip"... http://www.westegg.com/cliche
Clicker: A powerful and incredibly
easy-to-use writing support and multimedia tool by Crick Software, which enables
you to write with whole words, phrases or pictures. It has won five BETT Awards,
the "Oscars" of British Educational Software, as voted for by teachers.
It can be used to support any area of the curriculum: http://www.cricksoft.com/uk/ideas/languages.htm
Common European
Framework of Reference (CEFR) for Languages: Also known simply as the Common
European Framework (CEF). The main aim of the CEFR is described thus:
"[...] the Council of Europe should develop a comprehensive, transparent and
coherent framework of reference for the description of language learning and
teaching at all levels. This instrument will provide a basis for the international
comparison of objectives and qualifications, thus facilitating personal and
vocational mobility in Europe, and will provide a valuable tool for policy making
in member States." See: http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/
The six levels of language proficiency
that are described in the Common European Framework are used as yardstick in
the DIALANG diagnostic testing project and in most EFL/ESOL
examinations and national examinations in Europe. See also the entries under
Council of Europe, Languages Ladder,
Language Testing and Linguanet
Europa.
Computer
Assisted Language Learning journal: Also known as the CALL journal,
formerly published by Swets & Zeitlinger and now taken over by Taylor
& Francis. The current editor is Jozef Colpaert, University of Antwerp.
Computer Mediated Communication
Special Interest Group (CMC SIG): A Special Interest Group of EUROCALL:
Concordances
and Concordancing Programs: See Module 2.4, titled Using concordance
programs in the Modern Foreign Languages Classroom, at the ICT for Language
Teachers website: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod2-4.htm
The Consultants-E: The Consultants-E
is a leader in online and distance education and is an innovative company of
consultants specialising in online learning and teaching in higher and adult
education. The EduNation islands in Second Life are
owned and managed by The Consultants-E: http://www.theconsultants-e.com
ContentGenerator: This website
offers a range of Flash-based tools for the generation of quizzes, games and
other applications: http://www.contentgenerator.net
Copyright:
A thorny issue, especially in this electronic age. Generally speaking, materials
published on the Web are subject to copyright and may not be disseminated without
the author's permission unless stated otherwise. The materials contained on
this page are subject to copyright, but I have no objection to them being downloaded
and used for non-commercial purposes, e.g. as printed handouts in a teaching
or training environment, subject to the prominent inclusion of an acknowledgement
of my authorship. I would, however, strongly object if I found this list or
a substantial part of it on someone else's website or intranet without due acknowledgement
of its source. See the link to the Creative Commons Licence
at the foot of this page. A page at the ICT for Language Teachers website is
devoted to Guidelines on copyright - many useful links: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_copyright.htm
Courses in CALL: Want to
take CALL seriously? The ICT for Language Teachers
website covers a wide range of topics for beginners, intermediate and advanced
students and is probably the most comprehensive set of free training materials
of this type on the Web. For a list of postgraduate courses in CALL see EUROCALL's
list of links: http://www.eurocall-languages.org/resources/courses.html
Creative Technology: This
is the website of a business that specialises in computer-based packages for
learning and education: http://www.cict.co.uk/software.
One of the shareware packages that can be found at this site is Martin Holme’s
Markin, a program for marking work submitted by students
as text data, for example via email or as a word-processed document. Markin
was developed as a marking system for courses delivered via the Internet, and
can produce marked work in the form of HTML files that can be viewed using a
Web browser, or as RTF files that can be viewed in a word-processor.
The
Crown Bar, Belfast: This magnificent ornate bar, complete with real
gas lights, is in my personal World Top 10 of Favourite Bars. There used
to be a live camera situated at one end of the bar, so you could make
an arrangement with your friends and relatives anywhere in the world to
see you enjoying a pint of Guinness or a glass of Bushmills. This is a
picture of Sally and me on 2 October 1998. We were not aware at the time
that we were being watched by David Herren in the USA. David sent us this
picture that he downloaded at Middlebury College. It looks like I am just
about to order a second pint. See: http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/images/photos/belfast/crown.htm
CSLU Speech
Toolkit: An excellent tool that helps deaf people to learn how to articulate.
The toolkit was eveloped by Ron Cole, who is based at the Centre for Spoken
Language Research (CSLR), University of Colorado. The tool features BALDI, an
animated 3D talking head that automatically synchronises natural or synthetic
speech with realistic lip, tongue, mouth and facial movements: http://cslu.cse.ogi.edu.
The CSLU Speech Toolkit can be downloaded from http://cslu.cse.ogi.edu/toolkit.
See also Speech Technology.
CTICML
(Computers in Teaching Initiative Centre for Modern Languages): This centre
was set up in 1989, based in The Language Institute at the University of Hull:
http://www.hull.ac.uk/languages/langinst.html
The Centre changed its name in 2000 to the C&IT Centre
and was initially linked with the Subject Centre for Languages,
Linguistics, and Area Studies at the University of Southampton. The C&IT
Centre was finally closed in 2002, bringing to an end a long association between
Hull and language learning technology. Most of the CTICML and C&IT electronic
archives have now been relocated to the CALL@Hull
and the EUROCALL websites.
Curriculum
Online: A UK government initiative that ran from 2003 to 2008 and which
had the noble aim of providing ring-fenced funding, known as e-Learning Credits
(eLCs), to schools to enable them to buy software and online services to support
their teaching. Unfortunately, the initiative was surrounded with an atmosphere
of controversy from the outset, resulting in court action against the BBC, accusations
of high-level bungling and a very expensive and complex website. My personal
perception of Curriculum Online is that it was a technological and bureaucratic
sledgehammer that wasted far too much money on the technical infrastructure
and created cosy clique of suppliers who dominated the market place and forced
many smaller specialist suppliers into liquidation. The whole initiative had
a pre-1989 East European flavour. Having gained control over teachers with the
introduction of the National Curriculum, the DCSF
tried to gain control of educational suppliers. Tom McMullan described the Curriculum
Online initiative as being a government plan for "backdoor nationalisation
of the UK educational content marketplace" (Wired to Learn, Adam
Smith Institute). The Curriculum Online website was radically revamped several
times in response to feedback from teachers, but it still had a labyrinthine
look and feel. Moreover, the listing of a product at the Curriculum Online site
was not a guarantee of quality as only random checks were carried out. There
was an evaluation process operated by independent agencies, but for an exorbitant
fee that small businesses could not afford. See also BBC Jam.
CyberItalian: Online materials
for learners of Italian. Log in as a visitor and try a lesson free of charge:
http://www.cyberitalian.com
Declan Software: A range
of flashcard activities, including audio, and tools for learning to read and
write: Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Russian, French, Arabic, German, Spanish,
Italian and Indonesian: http://www.declan-software.com
Delicious:
A social bookmarking service that enables you to store your favourite websites
online. You can also use Delicious to see the interesting links that other people
bookmark, and you can share links with them in return. You can even browse and
search Delicious to discover bookmarks that everyone else has saved - which
is made easy with tags that enable you to organise and remember your
bookmarks: http://delicious.com
Department
for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF): http://www.dcsf.gov.uk
- formerly the Department for Education and Skills (DfES). One of
two ministries responsible for Education in the UK, the other one being the
Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS): http://www.dius.gov.uk.
A useful source of information of information, but I do wish they would stop
reorganising their websites and failing to indicate where important documents
have gone. See also:
Languages
Ladder: One of the outcomes of the UK government's National Languages
Strategy. The Languages Ladder aims to introduce a voluntary recognition
scheme to complement existing national qualification frameworks and relate
them to the Common European Framework. See
Languages Ladder and Asset Languages.
DeutschAkademie: An online
comprehensive German course. The grammar and vocabulary exercises are structured
according to selected textbooks and to the levels of the Common European Framework
of Reference for Languages. Requires registration: http://www.deutschakademie.de/online-deutschkurs/english/
Deutsche Welle: German news
service: http://www.dw-world.de. News in
German and 30 other languages. Texts and streaming audio and video
Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst:
An organisation that provides information and assistance for students wishing
to study in Germany, and for German students wishing to study abroad: http://www.daad.de
DIALANG:
A major EC-funded project on online diagnostic language testing, co-ordinated
by the Freie Universität Berlin. The project aims to design sets of diagnostic
tests at 6 different levels in 15 different languages, linked to the Common
European Framework. Access to the tests is currently free of charge: http://www.dialang.org.
See also the entries under the DCSF's Languages Ladder,
Language Testing and Linguanet
Europa.
Dialectizer:
See: http://www.rinkworks.com/dialect/.
Some years ago I recall being given a copy of a DOS program that converted any
text into Jive slang. I suppose it had to come... here's a website that converts
websites into Cockney, Jive, Redneck, Elmer Fudd, etc. Alternatively, just feed
in a text of your choice. Here's my original text, followed by Cockney: (i)
"I was walking down the road the other day when I felt thirsty, so I went
into a pub and ordered a pint of beer." (ii) "I were walkin' dahn
the road the bloody uvver day wen I felt firsty, so I went into a rub-a-dub
and ordered a pint of beer." Hmm, a couple of rhyming slang opportunities
missed, I think: (i) "road" = "frog" ("frog and toad"),
(ii) "beer" = "pig's" ("pig's ear"). The Jive
version is better: "Ah wuz walkin' waaay down d' road t'oda' day when ah
felt dusty, so's ah went into some pub an' o'dered some pint uh beer. Ah be
baaad..." See BULL, The Postmodernism
Generator and Shakespearean Insult Generator. See the
Ali G Translator. See Accent, Dialect,
Language.
Dordogne Hotels and Restaurants:
Quite a useful site for teachers looking for authentic materials in French -
to practise online searching, seeking and understanding information, etc. Also
handy if you really do want to book a hotel or find a restaurant: http://www.hotels-restau-dordogne.org/choihot0.htm
Download Accelerator Plus:
A useful tool for accelerating and scheduling big downloads, e.g. WAV and MPEG
files: http://www.speedbit.com
Dudley Modern Foreign Languages
Resource Centre: Bright Ideas Task Exchange site - free downloadable resources
for teachers of Modern Foreign Languages and links to useful sites: http://www.edu.dudley.gov.uk/mfl
Educational
Jargon Generator: Stuck for a fine-sounding phrase for your thesis or report?
Look no further: http://www.sciencegeek.net/lingo.html.
Some examples: "to facilitate holistic curriculum integration", "to harness
research-based differentiated lessons", "to expedite top-down staff development",
"to synergize problem-based differentiated lessons". See also the
The Postmodernism Generator.
E-Language:
A resources wiki, created by Mark Pegrum, containing a wealth of information
and resources for teachers and learners of languages: drills, quizzes, webquests,
simulations, Web 2.0 in education, social networking, podcasting and virtual
worlds: http://e-language.wikispaces.com
elearningeuropa: An initiative
of the European Commission. A comprehensive portal on e-learning: articles,
EC-funded programmes, tools and resources, etc: http://elearningeuropa.info
e-Learning Factory (ELF):
The e-Learning Factory (ELF) is a concept developed by Lynn O'Neill, a CPD/ICT
specialist with over 25 years experience of designing and delivering comprehensive
training solutions within the UK education sector. ELF consists of experts in
education, teacher training, the National Curriculum and ICT. The team provides
a range of courses and support facilities to enable organisations and individual
teachers and trainers to make effective and appropriate use of ICT in their
teaching and training programmes: http://www.inevent.com/elf/
Elementary French Exercises (ELFE).
ELFE is delivered in two formats: (1) Hot Potatoes, from which you can create
SCORM or HTML pages for use in a variety of environments, (2) Moodle (as Hot
Potatoes activities), with reporting of results: http://apps.carleton.edu/its/flt/osmain/othersw/elfe/elfe3/
Encarta: Microsoft's online
encyclopaedia. Useful articles, including a dictionary, thesaurus, atlas, quizzes
and multimedia clicps: http://encarta.msn.com
english-4U: A website run
by ESL teachers for ESL teachers. The site offers free, ready-to-use lesson
plans in PDF format based on current news stories and lyrics of songs: http://www.english-4u.com
English-to-Go: This site
produces a useful resource for English teachers, namely photocopiable lessons
based around Reuters news articles. There is either a free lesson each week
or you can subscribe to a library of lessons: http://www.english-to-go.com
ePals: A community of ePals
in educational institutions all over the world. Useful for finding partners
with whom to exchange emails: http://www.epals.com
ESL Language Studies Abroad:
A business based Montreux, Switzerland, specialising in the organisation
of language travel programmes abroad for teenagers and adults. The programs
they provide are language courses (standard, intensive or courses preparing
for internationally recognised certificates), internships, paid jobs or voluntary
working experiences in a foreign country: http://www.esl.ch
(Language Studies Abroad) and http://www.esl-languages.com
(Language Schools Worldwide).
Essentialist Explanations: A
collection of amusing definitions of different languages in the form "Language
X is essentially language Y under conditions Z". English is described thus:
"English is essentially bad Dutch with outrageously pronounced French and
Latin vocabulary." French is described thus: "French is essentially the
first syllables of Latin words spoken with a headcold." See http://mercury.ccil.org/~cowan/essential.html
E-Strategy:
In 2005 the UK government published a document titled Harnessing technology:
transforming learning and children's services. This document describes the
UK government's E-Strategy, i.e. the use of digital and interactive technologies
to achieve a more personalised approach within all areas of education and children's
services: http://publications.dcsf.gov.uk
EUROCALL:Graham Davies was the Founder President of EUROCALL,
a professional association devoted to promoting the use of technology enhanced
language learning, which was set up with the aid of EU funding in 1993.
The current President of EUROCALL is Ana
Gimeno, Polytechnic University of Valencia. There is a wealth of information
at EUROCALL's website, with numerous links to publications and other sources
of information: http://www.eurocall-languages.org.
You can also join the EUROCALL discussion list at: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/eurocall-members.html.
EUROCALL organises an annual international conference that attracts participants
from all over the world. The EUROCALL 2009
conference took place in Gandía, Spain. The EUROCALL 2010 conference
will take place in Bordeaux, France. EUROCALL's affiliated association in
the USA is CALICO. EUROCALL and CALICO have recently
set up a joint EUROCALL/CALICO
Virtual Worlds Special Interest Group that aims to explore the possibilities
of language learning and teaching in virtual worlds such as Second
Life. Their joint Welcome Pavilion in Second Life is located here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/EduNation%20III/31/35/22
EUROMOBIL: A multimedia language
learning and information project promoting student mobility in Europe. The website
contains demo exercises from the CD-ROM as well as information on the partner
countries and the EUROMOBIL project in general. English, German, Finnish and
Hungarian are the target languages: http://www.euro-mobil.org
Euronews: A news round-up
in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Arabic. This site is maintained
by the Lyon-based Euronews company, which is now owned by ITN. The news is presented
here from a European perspective: http://www.euronews.net
Europanto: The emerging new
lingua franca of the European Union, an amusing mixture of several different
European languages, the brainchild of of Diego Marani: http://www.europanto.be
European Centre
for Modern Languages (ECML): The Council of Europe's
centre in Graz, Austria. The ECML runs regular workshops for teachers of Modern
Foreign Languages, including workshops on ICT. The website includes reports
on past workshops, useful resources, and announcements of forthcoming activities:
http://www.ecml.at
European Computer
Driving Licence (ECDL): An internationally recognised qualification in ICT:
http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=nav.5829.
See also the ECDL for Educators, which is designed specifically to help
teachers, support staff and ICT coordinators develop practical computing skills
for teaching and learning in the classroom and leads to an internationally recognised
level of certification: http://www.educatorsecdl.com
European
Minority Languages:http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/saoghal/mion-chanain/en.
Some of the languages listed here were completely new to me, e.g. Casubian and
Nenets. Scots (Lallands/Lallans) and Ulster Scots (Ullans) have been recognised
as languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages:
http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/Treaties/Html/148.htm.
My wife Sally is from Belfast. I had a few problems understanding my mother-in-law
when we first met. I was fooled by the following expression that she used in
a early conversation that we had: "Thon wee fellow fernenst me" = "The
chap who lives opposite me". I love Ulster expressions such as "He got
a quare gunk" and "Give my head peace", the latter being the title of a BBC
Ulster sitcom: http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/gmhp/.
Another example: "Laird Laird, Heich Executive o tha Ulster-Scotch Agencie,
said Juin at he trows tha role o tha Agencie is uphauldan Ulster-Scotch feks,
an no takan thaim owre. He eikit 'Ulster-Scotch maun be an inclusiv cultur,
no an exclusiv. Bein inclusiv is whit bein Scotch-Airis bes'" - see http://www.ullans.com.
See Minority Languages. See Accent,
Dialect, Language.
European
Railway Timetables: An interesting task for the language learner is to plan
a journey by train, making use of authentic railway timetables. You can find
details of most train numbers, connections and prices by consulting the websites
of national railway networks. The three that I use most are Deutsche Bahn
(Germany: http://www.bahn.de), ÖBB
(Austria: http://www.oebb.at) and SNCF
(France: http://www.sncf.fr), which can be
consulted in English as well as in the national language. The Dutch Railways
site at http://www.ns.nl is also very good for
national and international connections. For the UK I tend to use the National
Rail site, which - significantly - is available only in English:
http://www.nationalrail.co.uk. Try
planning a rail journey from Oxford to Munich or from Manchester to Brussels.
The Deutsche Bahn website allows you to do this, detailing all connections and
the time that should be allowed for using the London Underground between stations.
The SNCF site is much more temperamental, offering less detail and falling over
if there are too many connections or if you choose an unacceptable preferred
departure time or date. According to National Rail, however, UK trains only
connect with Eurostar trains departing from Waterloo: end of the line. I guess
this is what happens when you set up a privatised railway network, which is
barely capable of handling connections between the different private train services
in the UK, let alone international connections.
European Schoolnet: The European
Schoolnet is an international partnership of Ministries of Education developing
learning for schools, teachers and pupils across Europe and beyond. It provides
insight into the use of ICT in Europe for policy-makers and education professionals.
This goal is achieved through communication and information exchange at all
levels of school education using innovative technologies, and by acting as a
gateway to national and regional school networks: http://www.eun.org
European
Union: This is the European Union's homepage, with lots of multilingual
links: http://europa.eu. The following pages
will link you to some of the EU's key programmes and activities:
European Symbols,
etc: The European Flag and links to List of Member States, Europe in
12 Lessons, Key Figures, History, Maps, Travelling in Europe, European
Anthem, Europe Day, Eurojargon, Glossary, Treaties and Law: http://europa.eu/abc/symbols/index_en.htm
University of Exeter German Course
for Beginners: Thiscourse, by Paul Joyce, is now located at the
University of Portsmouth.
F
Filtering
Software: Unfortunately, the Web is a jungle. You can be unpleasantly surprised
by what you encounter. Children in particular need to be protected. If you maintain
a links site in a school you should install filtering software, e.g. CyberPatrol:
http://www.cyberpatrol.com. There could
be legal repercussions, e.g. the parents of a child accessing an offensive site
via a school's set of links might take action if they thought the school had
been irresponsible. See my Dodgy links article at http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/DodgyLinks.htm
Flo-Joe: A resource for teachers
and students preparing for the Cambridge First Certificate in English (FCE)
and the Certificate in Advanced English (CAE). The site is maintained by a small
team of teachers and coursebook authors and includes interactive practice tests,
strategy training, a writing class and forums. The site is updated with new
vocabulary every day: http://www.flo-joe.co.uk
FLTeach: Foreign Language
Teaching Forum, an extensive set of resources for language teachers and students,
maintained by the State University of New York College at Cortland: http://www.cortland.edu/flteach/
Le Français Fantastique:
A website maintained by Marilyn Banack. Marilyn gathers together materials
provided by teachers across North America and makes them available to other
teachers via this site: http://home.ican.net/~marilyn
France-Jeunes Net: An information
site and discussion forum for young people, covering topics such as: books,
cinema, humour, music, people, sport, television, etc. Aimed at native speakers
(and therefore authentic), but useful for teenage learners of French of any
nationality: http://www.france-jeunes.net
FreeDict:
Lists of online multilingual dictionaries in a variety of languages: http://www.freedict.com
FreeTranslation: Type a text and get it translated. Covers most European
languages: http://www.freetranslation.com.
It works - more or less! See also Babel Fish.
French by Podcast: This site
is a good example of the direction in which we should be heading. The recordings
are of high quality, professionally produced and backed up by useful downloadable
printable materials: http://www.learnfrenchbypodcast.com
FrenchTeacherNet: The site
is maintained by Steven Smith Ripon Grammar School and aimed at anglophone French
teachers looking for worksheets, links and interactive tasks: http://www.frenchteacher.net
French Verb
Conjugations:Le Devoirconjugal is a package that conjugates
over 7000 French verbs, i.e. the totality of those found in Robert and Bescherelle:
http://www.pomme.ualberta.ca/devoir.
Includes a number of less-frequently used verbs and Canadian French verbs. Part
of the Pomme project, led by Martin Beaudoin at the University of Alberta.
See also Verbix.
Futurelab:
NESTA Futurelab simplified its name to Futurelab in April 2006. A
high-tech educational initiative, working in partnership with industry policy
and practice. Futurlab is beginning to become active in the area of ICT in Modern
Foreign Languages and has produced the following articles and reports and articles.
I do wish, however, that they would keep their feet on the ground. Some of the
projects that they support are pie-in-the-sky stuff.
21st Century Technologies
for Learning Languages (2002) by Ben Williamson, Futurelab: Web-Article613
Literature Review in Languages,
Technology and Learning (2002) by James Milton, Centre for Applied Language
Studies, University of Wales, Swansea: Literature-Review395
Computer Assisted Language
Learning: Where are we now and where are we going? (2003) Graham Davies,
Educational Software Consultant, Camsoft: Web-Article590
The potential role of ICT
in modern foreign languages learning 5-19 (2004) by Keri Facer and Martin
Owen, Futurelab: Discussion-Paper260
G
GapKit:
An authoring package for the generation of gap-filling and multiple-choice exercises
linked with pictures and audio files. Lots of ready-made materials are already
available for GCSE examinations: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/gapkit.htm.
See Authoring Programs.
German Electronic Textbook:
Basic German grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary by Gary Smith, The College
of William and Mary, USA: http://www.wm.edu/modlang/gasmit/german/
German Spelling Reform: These
sites are useful for information on the German Spelling Reform (Die neue
Rechtschreibung), which came into effect on 1 August 1998:
German Studies Trails on the
Internet: A big collection of resources and links, compiled by Andreas
Lixl , University of North Carolina at Greenboro.When does this man sleep?
He must spend thousands of waking hours surfing the Web and hunting down resources
for teachers and students of German - and other languages: http://www.uncg.edu/~lixlpurc/german_WWW/index.html
GlobalEnglish: Online courses
for learners of EFL/ESL. Sample lessons and assignments are available free of
charge: http://www.globalenglish.com
Glossary of Terminology:
See the ICT for Language Teachers website for a comprehensive Glossary of Terminology
- both technical and CALL terms: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_glossary.htm
Goethe-Institut:
The Goethe-Institut maintains and sponsors a number of websites. http://www.goethe.de
- Jetzt, a site maintained by Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen. German
for advanced learners and tips for teachers: http://www.goethe.de/z/jetzt/
- Goethe-Institut London: Lots of useful links for teachers and learners
of German: http://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/lon/deindex.htm
The Good
Practice Guide: A guide to good practice for learning and teaching in Languages,
Linguistics and Area Studies. Located at the website of the Subject
Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies (LLAS), University of
Southampton. Contains a collection of commissioned articles written by recognised
authorities in their field and reviewed by an editorial board. Browse the guide
by author name or subject (e.g. CALL, an article by Graham Davies): http://www.llas.ac.uk/resources/guidecontents.aspx
Google:
An efficient search engine, and currently the most popular on the Web. It's
my personal favourite. Simple to use and very fast. I've had a lot of luck with
Google - and it finds the Camsoft homepage almost immediately!
Try the "I'm feeling lucky" button, which homes in on the site that
is most likely to fulfil your needs. You can also search for images and news
items in the world's press. Two other useful features of Google: (i) type "define:"
immediately in front of a word and Google will search for definitions of that
word; (ii) type "link:" immediately in front of a URL and Google will
find Web pages that link to that URL. Google's UK homepage is at http://www.google.co.uk.
Try Google's Language Tools at http://www.google.co.uk/language_tools
and search the Web in a variety of different languages. Google also offers a
basic automatic translation service - not 100% accurate but it will give you
an idea of what the text or website is all about.
Our family have always been
greyhound fans. Flash
was our first dog, a lurcher (a greyhound/terrier cross), adopted from
the RSPCA in 1978, and he was followed by Henry, Whistler and Swifty,
all of whom came from the
Greyhound Welfare kennels in Hersham, Surrey:
see photos below. We have recently adopted Brett, a retired racing greyhound
(photo right), following
the death of our beloved Swifty in July 2009. There is an embedded YouTube
video of Swifty below the photos.
Gutenberg:
The Project Gutenberg is a huge archive of free books which are in the public
domain: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page.
Many of the audio texts stored at the LibriVox website
are based on the versions stored in electronic format by the Project Gutenberg.
H
HangOut:
A website that enables you to create and customise your own 3D room, where you
can hang out with your friends: http://www.hangout.net
History of CALL: Philippe
Delcloque's History of CALL began as a poster exhibition that was produced to
mark the beginning of the new millennium. It was then set up as a website (now
closed) and is now available in PDF format: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/History_of_CALL.pdf
Hodder &
Stoughton: A very useful site that ties in with the Hodder & Stoughton
fusée French course is fusée en ligne.
Contains useful ICT activities and links.
Hot Potatoes:
See: http://hotpot.uvic.ca. A suite of five
Web authoring tools for language teachers, written by Martin Holmes and Stewart
Arneil at the University of Victoria, Canada. Create
your own Web exercises in Windows or Mac format: i. Multiple-choice quizzes,
ii. Jumbled sentences, iii. Short-answer questions, iv. Gap-fill exercises,
v. Crosswords. A library of Clipart for use with Hot
Potatoes and other authoring tools is available at the University of Victoria
site: http://hcmc.uvic.ca/clipart/.
See also Quandary, another product from the Holmes/Arneil
team. See Authoring Programs.
Hugo's Podcasts: Podcasts
in French and Spanish by Hugo, a ventriloquist's dummy skilfully animated by
Stuart Gorse, The Royal Grammar School, Lancaster: http://hugowho.podomatic.com
University
of Hull: Former seat of EUROCALL and the CTI
Centre for Modern Languages - a former partner in the ICT for Language Teachers
project. The University of Hull offers an MEd in ICT for TESOL - see Courses.
Human Languages Page: Now
known as iLoveLanguages, a comprehensive guide to language-related Web sites.
Tyler Chambers (né Jones) is a great gatherer of information about foreign
languages. You’ll find these pages worth a visit: http://www.ilovelanguages.com
I
IALLT:
The US-based International Association for Language Learning Technology. Established
in 1965, this professional association changed its official name from IALL to
IALLT in May 2001: http://www.iallt.org.
IALLT is dedicated to promoting effective uses of media centres for language
teaching, learning, and research. The equivalent European association is CERCLES.
IATEFL:
The UK-based International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language:
http://www.iatefl.org. IATEFL embraces a
Special Interest Group for Learning Technologies - formerly known as the Computer
SIG and formerly known as MUESLI (Micro Users in ESL Institutions): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LearningTechnologiesSIG/.
See also TESOL, the US-based association.
i-c@fé: A fresh and
innovative website for students and teachers of French, German and Spanish,
maintained by Oxford University Press. It includes regular online magazines
for 11-16 year olds, i-c@fé français, Deutsch and español,
packed full of interesting articles and interactive activities, and a separate
area for teachers: http://www.oup.com/uk/i-cafe/
ICT
for Language Teachers (ICT4LT): http://www.ict4lt.org.
This is the website of the ICT for Language Teachers (ICT4LT) project, initiated
with funding under the Socrates programme of the European
Union. ICT4LT is a Web-based course in Information and Communications Technology
for Language Teachers. The site consists of 15 modules at three different levels,
plus an additional module on Computer Aided Assessment (CAA). The site also
contains a comprehensive Glossary of Terminology, a Resources Centre and over
1000 links to other sites. The ICT4LT blog can be found at: http://ictforlanguageteachers.blogspot.com.
Access to the ICT for Language Teachers website and blog is free of charge.
The English language version of the site is updated every week by Graham
Davies. The original partners in this project were Thames
Valley University (coordinating institution), University
of Hull (UK), CILT (UK), University
of Venice (Italy), University of Jyväskylä
(Finland). A positive review of the ICT4LT website, by Jean W. LeLoup & Robert
Ponterio, appears in the online journal, Language Learning &
Technology 8, 1 (January 2004): 3-7: http://llt.msu.edu/vol8num1/net/default.html
Illustrated Vocabulary: Around
500 basic words of vocab in English, French, Dutch and Danish. Simple multiple-choice
exercises with pictures. Institut de la Providence, Belgium: http://www.illustratedvocabulary.ip-providence.net
iLoveLanguages: Formerly
known as the Human Languages Page, a comprehensive guide to language-related
Web sites. Tyler Chambers (né Jones) is a great gatherer of information
about foreign languages. You’ll find these pages worth a visit: http://www.ilovelanguages.com
Institut für Interkulturelle
Kommunikation (IIK): Offers language courses, language tests and puzzles,
teacher training. Develops multimedia software for business language in German,
French, Spanish and Danish. Lists a variety of German-language search engines.
A handy site: http://www.iik.com
The Institute of Linguists:
The UK-based association for the languages profession: http://www.iol.org.uk
Interlex:
A free vocab acquisition package by Andrew Quilley. It supports several different
languages, is easy to use, comes with lots of ready-made vocab files, and students
can write their own files to test the words they want to learn. The website
also lists lots of useful links and has a file swap area where users can post
the files they have created and share resources with other learners: http://www.vocab.co.uk.
See Vocabulary.
Internet Learning Centre:
A mine of information about the Internet, compiled by Walt Howe. An ideal introduction
for beginners, divided into different sections: Internet Learning Tree, History
of the Internet, Internet and Web Glossary, Navigating the Net, Publishing on
the Web: http://www.walthowe.com
Intute: Intute is a free
online service providing access to a wide range of Web resources for education
and research. The service is created by a network of UK universities and partners:
http://www.intute.ac.uk
Isabelle Jones: Resources,
research, news and views about language teaching in the UK. Lots of useful information
and links: http://isabellejones.blogspot.com
J
Japanese: Software for learning
Japanese: Ready Steady NihonGO! An introduction to Japanese at KS2 and
KS3, created by Japan 21 and the Japan Foundation. Downloadable free of charge:
http://www.japan21.org.uk/teachers/resources/rsn.html
Japanese, Monash University:
This site (Sakura) is designed for students of Japanese language of Monash University
in Australia, but it is also available for general use: http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/japanese/resources/sakura/
Japanese Online: A useful
site for learners of Japanese. Since 1996, Japanese Online has been providing
free learning services to people who wish to study the Japanese language. This
service was later expanded to include Japanese mathematics and a very popular
forum/bulletin board service: http://www.japanese-online.com
JClic:
JClic is a freeware application, developed by Francesc Busquets, for the development
of multimedia activities for language learners. With JClic you can create different
types of activities: puzzles, associations, crosswords, identification activities,
exploration actitivities, open-ended answers, multiple choice, etc: http://clic.xtec.net/en/jclic/index.htm.
See Authoring Programs.
Jennifer's Language Page:
Jennifer seems to spend all her time collecting words and phrases in different
languages. She lists languages that I had never heard about before. I found
a link to over 300 different ways of saying "Merry Christmas" here:
http://www.elite.net/~runner/jennifers/.
Jeopardy: A computerised
version of the TV quiz show. Free software that enables you to build questions
on any subject you like, including questions in foreign languages: http://stuhasic.com/jeopardy
JISCMail:
A mailing list service that facilitates discussion, collaboration and communication
within the UK academic community and beyond. You can now join all kinds of useful
discussion lists and follow the threads at this site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk
Joe Dale:
Joe is the author of the blog titled Integrating ICT into the Modern
Foreign Languages Classroom at http://joedale.typepad.com.
This covers a variety of topics relating to the teaching of foreign languages,
especially blogging, podcasting and using interactive whiteboards.
John Higgins:
One of the veterans of CALL and co-author of the first two CILT publications
on CALL: Davies G. & Higgins J. (1982) Computers,
language and language learning, London: CILT and Davies
G. & Higgins J. (1985), Using computers in language learning: a teacher's
guide, London: CILT. Also co-author of the seminal work by Higgins J. &
Johns T. (1984) Computers in language learning,
London: Collins. See http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/wordscape/
Joseph Rézeau: My
friend and colleague from the University of Rennes II. A Francophone EUROCALLer
with lots of experience in CALL. Useful contacts and links. Nice site: http://www.uhb.fr/campus/joseph.rezeau
La Jolie Ronde: French language
learning materials for children aged 3-11 years. Lots of useful stuff: reading
and listening materials, recordings of songs, plastic euro coins and copies
of euro banknotes, puppets, games, etc: http://www.lajolieronde.co.uk
JUMA magazine: A "webzine"
designed for young learners of German (i.e. teens). It ceased publication in
January 2006, but there are still some useful reading materials in the archives:
http://www.juma.de
University
of Jyväskylä: One of the partners in the ICT for Language Teachers
project: http://www.jyu.fi
K
Kidon Media-Link:
This is where you find links to all kinds of media - newspapers, magazines,
websites, press agencies, radio and TV stations - all over the world: http://www.kidon.com/media-link.
A remarkable resource for language learners and teachers. See also Adodoc,
Newstran, SCOLA, World
Radio Network.
Kindersite: The aim of this
website is to build an Internet-based system that will add to the body of research
on the subjects of early-learners’ use of technology and to provide Internet-based
content as a an educational tool. This non-commercial project has two aims:
(1) the building of a child-safe Internet site where children, either on their
own or with the attention of caregivers, can search and find the best, age-relevant
content on the Internet; (2) the creation of a research tool that will enable
academic educational researchers to ascertain the effectiveness and relevancy
of technology and types of content as a tool of learning and language acquisition
for the very young: http://www.kindersite.org
KLAR (Keep Learning And Revising):
Heid Behrens' collection of vocabulary and grammar exercises for learning
German in the classroom or for independent study at home. Includes PowerPoint
presentations (with sound), games and exercises to reinforce vocabulary or grammar
points. Also included are reading and listening tasks: http://www.klar.co.uk
Klett: This
publishing company maintains a number of sites that offers tests, activities
and materials for learners and teachers of German: http://www.klett.de
Korean, Monash University:
A learning and teaching environment for learners and teachers of the Korean
language, encouraging independent learning, collaboration, cooperation and networking
between learners and teachers, between learners and other learners, and between
learners and native Korean speakers: http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/korean/
KWiCFinder:
KWiCFinder is a concordancer, written by Bill Fletcher, that rides on
the back of a standard search engine, enabling the whole WWW to be used as a
text corpus: http://www.kwicfinder.com.
See See Module 2.4, titled Using concordance programs in the Modern Foreign
Languages Classroom, at the ICT for Language Teachers website: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod2-4.htm
Language Advantage: A wealth
of information about languages, including online materials, translation services
(also online translation), CD-ROMs, books, jobs, events, news, features, advice
on where to go to learn a language for business and private users, cultural
awareness, etc: http://www.languageadvantage.com
Language Café: An
EU-funded project, coordinated by the Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics
and Area Studies (LLAS) University of Southampton: http://www.languagecafe.eu
Language
Colleges: Part of the network of schools in England with specialist status.
Such schools are granted government funding once they have qualified for designation.
The Specialist Schools Trust manages the Specialist
Schools Programme on behalf of the DCSF. Language Colleges
emphasise languages as a specialist subject area.
Language
Guide: A wealth of free resources for language learners and teachers, including
vocab guides (words, picture and audio), grammar guides (text, audio and quizzes)
and readings (written texts and audio). The project is being coordinated and
operated by Language Revolution, a non-profit organisation based in Austin,
Texas: http://www.languageguide.org.
See Vocabulary.
Language Interactive: Two
websites created by Bob Godwin-Jones, Virginia Commonwealth University: (i)
Language learning and the Web, is a good introduction for language teachers
wishing to make use of the Web: http://www.fln.vcu.edu/cgi/1.html,
(ii) A trailguide to creating dynamic Web pages, which contains useful
information for language teachers wishing to create Web-based materials: http://www.fln.vcu.edu/cgi/interact.html
The
Language Investigator: This site is aimed mainly at primary school teachers
who are interested introducing a multilingual dimension into their lessons,
but the materials are relevant to teachers and pupils in secondary education
too. The work is a result of a one-year project called Thinking through Languages
which was developed within a group of Coventry primary schools. The project
was funded by the Nuffield Foundation. An excellent
site for raising awareness about languages, with lots of useful links: http://www.language-investigator.co.uk
Language Learning
and Language Technology (LLLT): A book series, published by Swets
& Zeitlinger (now part of the Taylor & Francis group) and edited
by Graham Davies and Carol Chapelle.
Language Learning
and Technology: A refereed Web journal. A goldmine of information. I used
to be on the Editorial Board of this journal: http://llt.msu.edu
Languages Online: A large
collection of resources for language teachers and students of French, German,
Indonesian and Italian, managed by the Victoria State Government, Australia.
The website contains over 220 interactive tasks and games that introduce, reinforce
and recycle vocabulary. They are self-paced and self-correcting and can be repeated
as desired. Activities are presented in 35 topic-based sections and include
recordings by native speakers. Downloadable "game maker" templates enable teachers
and students to build their own multimedia language games and activities. Games
can be made using any language installed on your computer. Languages Online
also includes over 190 printable worksheets with a variety of guided speaking,
reading, writing and research tasks to complement the online activities in French,
German, Indonesian and Italian: http://www.education.vic.gov.au/languagesonline/
Languages
on the Web: A large number of links to sites offering LWULT
languages. Includes numerous links to translations of short stories presented
in parallel with the original texts: http://www.lonweb.org
Language
Skills: Interactive activities for teachers and learners of French, German,
Spanish and Welsh, each of which has its own section of the site: French
(Zut!), German (Gut!), Spanish (¡Oye!) and Welsh
(Sut!) - plus a Junior Zut! section. The site includes exercises
for the interactive whiteboard, Powerpoint presentations and pronunciation sections.
Between the hours of 9.00am and 4.00pm (your time), there is a 12-month registration
fee for each site of £40 + VAT per school in the EU (£46 for everybody else)
or £25 + VAT for private users in the EU (£28.75 for everybody else). The rest
of the time, the sites are free. You will need a separate subscription per site:
http://www.languageskills.co.uk
Latin: Keep
up your Latin by listening to and reading the news. This is the website of the
Finnish radio station that broadcasts in Latin and maintains a Latin language
website with news reports: http://www.yleradio1.fi/nuntii/
- also an active discussion list. See also http://www.textkit.com
and Perseus Digital Library.
Laura Lawless's About French
Site: Free resources for students, teachers, and lovers of French: lessons,
quizzes, dictionaries, software, linguistics, chatroom, and much more: http://french.about.com.
See the other About sites for German, Spanish, Italian
and Japanese.
LearnDirect: A UK government-sponsored
online training initiative. Now offers online introductory courses in French,
Spanish and German. Try the downloadable diagnostic tests to see how you get
on! See: http://www.learndirect.co.uk
LEO - Link
Everything Online: An online service provided by Informatik der Technischen
Universität München. A very useful lookup facility that operates in English
and German. I use it mainly as a English-German/German-English dictionary: http://dict.leo.org.
See Dictionaries.
Leonardo da Vinci: The the
name of the vocational training programme of the European
Union. This programme is geared towards the implementation of EC vocational
training policy and includes a number of language training projects.
LET: Language Education and
Technology (LET) assocation of Japan, formerly known as the Language Laboratory
Association (LLA), which now embraces a wider range of language learning technologies:
http://www.j-let.org
LexiCool:
A directory of bilingual and multilingual dictionaries, with links to over
2000 online dictionaries: http://www.lexicool.com.
See Dictionaries.
Lexique FLE: Vocabulary activities
and exercises for learners of French. Clickable pictures, with sound files,
plus exercises. Contains downloadable versions of the activities as well as
online activities: http://lexiquefle.free.fr
LibriVox
provides free audio books and files of literary classics which are in the
public domain. Many of the texts are based on those stored at the Gutenberg
website: http://librivox.org
Lingro:
A tool which allows you to read a Web page in its original language and
then click on individual words you don't know to both see and hear the word
in a variety of other languages. It even remembers which words you've looked
at to give you a words list to learn from. Available for English, Spanish, French,
German, Italian and Polish: http://lingro.com.
See also Ultralingua and VoyCabulary
Linguanet
Europa: This project has recently undergone expansion to incorporate an
interface in a number of new languages and addresses in particular the needs
of adult learners and independent learners. The site includes advice on ways
of assessing and improving one's current ability in different languages (including
links to websites that offer diagnostic and placement tests), communicating
electronically with other language learners and finding appropriate resources.
A substantial online catalogue of language learning resources is also being
built up here: http://www.linguanet-europa.org.
See also Language Testing.
Linguascope:
Stephane Derône's website for learners of French. An impressive set of materials
- some free, some for sale, and some available by subscription: http://www.linguascope.com
LinguaWeb: Online language
learning resources for teachers and students: (i) Learn a language, (ii) Revision
club, (iii) Resource centre for teachers, (iv) LinguaWeb café, (v) News Room:
http://www.linguaweb.co.uk
LinQ: A website that links
the language learner to a variety resources and language learning tools, as
well as an online community of learners and native speaker tutors: http://www.lingq.com
Lively:Lively by Google:
A social networking facility that had a very short life in 2008. Lively enabled
you to create an avatar of yourself and to design your own 3D room where you
could chat with your friends. It looked in many ways like Second
Life. Try HangOut as an alternative.
LLAS:
Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies: http://www.llas.ac.uk.
Based at the University of Southampton, this centre is part of the Higher
Education Academy: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk.
Extensive electronic resources can be found here: see, for example, The
Good Practice Guide. The E-Learning section of the LLAS forum, including
the E-Learning Café, can be found here: http://www.llas.ac.uk/forum/.
Scroll down the page to locate the E-Learning section. Registration for the
LLAS forum is free of charge.
Logos:
A huge multilingual reference facility containing dictionaries, verb conjugators,
resources for children, and a cheat facility for crossword addicts - whic h
finds anagrams and matches patterns: http://www.logos.it/index.
See Dictionaries.
Logos Library: A massive
database of searchable texts in a wide range of languages, containing multilingual
novels, technical literature and translated texts: http://www.logoslibrary.eu
LookWAYup:
LookWAYup combines a multilingual dictionary, thesaurus, translation, and
other handy tools. With a double-click you can look up the meaning of a word,
search it on the same site or the whole Web using your favourite search engine,
and more! All that without leaving the Web page: http://lookwayup.com
Love
Language: An EU-funded Grundtvig project, focusing on retaining the interest
of young males in continuing to study languages and to learn new languages.
Careers Europe (UK) is one of the project partners:
http://www.love-language.org
LWULT:
The European Union's official term for what most people call Minority
Languages. It stands for Least Widely Used and Least Taught languages. I
prefer the French acronym Langues Modimes (Languages moins diffusées
et moins enseignées). Another term is LCTL (Less Commonly Taught Languages).
MALTED:
A project funded under the Educational Multimedia Taskforce initiative of
the European Commission. MALTED stands for Multimedia Authoring for Language
Tutors and Educational Development and consists of a set of authoring tools
for developing multimedia courseware for language learners. It was initiated
by the Language Centre, University College London. The package has been widely
trialled in Spanish schools and is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education.
Pity that our own DCSF doesn't show the same kind of enthusiasm.
Download the (free) MALTED package from here: http://malted.cnice.mec.es/ingles/maltedproject.htm
University of Manchester: This
is the homepage of the Language Centre, which contains lists of available language
learning resources and many links to language sites and to software suppliers.
The Language Centre offers a wide range of courses for the public: http://www.langcent.manchester.ac.uk
MARIPOSA: A website which
offers a variety of services for those who enjoy learning and teaching English,
working with English, and travelling to English-speaking countries: http://www.mariposa-services.com
Markin:
A useful tool, developed by Martin Holmes, University
of Victoria, Canada. This is a program for marking work submitted by students
as text data, for example via email or as a word-processed document. It was
developed as a marking system for courses delivered via the Internet, and can
produce marked work in the form of HTML files that can be viewed in a Web browser,
or as RTF files that can be viewed with a word-processor: http://www.cict.co.uk/software/markin/
Martindale's
Language Center:A
wealth of information on languages all over the world, compiled by Jim Martindale.
Fascinating stuff including dictionaries, translation services and information
on American Indian and Australian indigenous languages: http://www.martindalecenter.com/Language.html.
See Dictionaries.
MDM Creative: A graphic design
business, set up by one of Camsoft's former partners, Siân Martin (née
Davies): http://www.mdmcreative.com
Merlot: A free and open resource
designed primarily for teacher and students in higher education. Numerous links
to online learning materials can be found here, along with annotations such
as peer reviews and assignments. Materials for Modern Foreign Languages can
be found under Humanities / World Languages and Humanities / Languages and Literature:
http://www.merlot.org
Michael Quinion's World Wide
Words: "Investigating international English from a British viewpoint"
- a useful and amusing site that takes an oblique look at the English language:
new words, weird words, fun words, slang, etc: http://www.worldwidewords.org
Modern
Foreign Languages Games:From the creators
of LinguaCentral, this site offers a range of games
for learners of French, Spanish and German: http://www.mflgames.co.uk
Modlangs.co.uk: An online
service for language teachers and students. Feline and Felinx
are the main resources, with the new Purrfect collections designed specifically
to support new demands at post-GCSE / Standard grade levels. The Pointers
and Calendars sections are site listing services which identify French,
German, and Spanish websites with useful content. Pointers is a general collection
of reviewed and graded sites. The Calendar sections cover festivals, holidays
and celebrations in France, Germany and Spain, providing background information
and website links for further exploration: http://www.modlangs.co.uk
Momes: Lots of activities
for learners of French. Designed for native speakers of French but useful for
young learners of any nationality wishing to learn French: http://www.momes.net
Le Monde: The Web version
of the well-known French newspaper: http://www.lemonde.fr.
See also Newstrans and Kidon for
links to other newspapers.
Moodle:
A software package designed to help educators create online courses. Moodle
is descibed as a Course Management System (CMS), which is one of a variety
of different names used to describe such systems: see the entry under Virtual
Learning Environment (VLE). Moodle is open source and can be downloaded
free of charge, which means you are free to download it, use it, modify it and
even distribute it: http://moodle.org. Moodle
has its own language teaching community: http://moodle.org/course/view.php?id=31
- log in as a guest.
National
Curriculum: These Web pages bring together the complete National Curriculum
for 5 to 16 year olds for all the required subjects in England: http://curriculum.qca.org.uk.
See my document on ICT and Modern Foreign Languages in the National Curriculum
at http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/ictmfl.htm.
The National Curriculum for Modern Foreign Languages is seriously off the beam
in my opinion. See the reference to the Languages Ladder.
National
Grid for Learning (NGfL): National Grid for Learning: The UK's National
Grid for Learning (NGfL - originally at http://www.ngfl.gov.uk). The
site was set up as the result of a government consultation process in 1997.
However, the NGfL turned out to be rather different from what people imagined
it would be and it was not really a "grid" - more a collection of resources
and links. The website closed in April 2006 and its contents were incorporated
into the BECTA website.
NCET: The National Council
for Educational Technology, Coventry, UK, now known as BECTA.
Formerly, it went under other guises: Council for Educational Technology (CET)
and Microelectronics Education Support Unit (MESU).
NESTA Futurelab:
See Futurelab. NESTA Futurelab simplified its name
in April 2006.
NetLearn Languages: Study
English, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, German, Russian, Croatian and other
languages live via the Internet with qualified and experienced native-speaker
teachers: http://www.nll.co.uk
NetLingo:
An online dictionary about the Internet. It contains thousands of words
and definitions that describe the technology and community of the World Wide
Web: http://www.netlingo.com
Net Transport (NetXfer):
A downloading utility for capturing media, including streaming audio and video
media such as RealPlayerRM files, where there
is no direct URL indicated so that you cannot use "Save As..." to get the whole
file: http://www.xi-soft.com
NeoWORX: This site offers
some interesting widgets that show where visitors to your website come from:
http://www.neoworx.net
New Opportunities
Fund (NOF): An ICT training initiative at national level in the UK was undertaken
with the aid of National Lottery money, beginning in April 1999 and ending in
December 2003: http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk.
The NOF initiative was one of the most extensive ever undertaken in in-service
training (INSET). Funded with 230 million pounds worth of National Lottery money,
the initiative aimed to enable thousands of teachers in all subject areas, as
well as school librarians, to make effective use of ICT. A nominal sum of 450
pounds was allocated to each full-time teacher in the maintained sector. NOF
was not a roaring success, however, and was heavily criticised by OFSTED.
See Section 2 of my article titled ICT and Modern Languages in the National
Curriculum: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/ictmfl.htm
Newstran:
This site is headed "Automatically Translate Virtually Every Major Newspaper
in the World!". It is extremely useful for locating newspapers in a wide range
of languages. The quality and accuracy is what you can expect from an automatic
translation system - but you can get the gist, e.g. "The red-green coalition
agreement pushes in the SPD obviously increasingly on criticism" as a rendering
of "Die rot-grüne Koalitionsvereinbarung stößt in der SPD offensichtlich
zunehmend auf Kritik": http://www.newstran.com.
See also Kidon Media-Link.
Nicoland: Free interactive
multimedia activities for young learners of French (aged 6-12). Colourful clickable
pages introduce the topics. Covers topics such as animals, the human body, dinosaurs,
the Vikings, the Middle Ages, the Pharoahs, etc. Also spelling and conjugation
exercises: http://www.nicoland.com
No Comprendo.es: A free online
Spanish course available in English, German, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian and Spanish.
Spanish teaching resources can also be downloaded free of charge. The free online
Spanish course at NoComprendo.es is visual and interactive, and you can choose
between several subject areas: http://www.nocomprendo.es/learn_spanish_online/eng
Nous les jeunes: An online
youth magazine for native French speakers - and very useful for teenage learners
of French too. Covers fashion, music and many other topics: http://www.nlj.free.fr
The Nuffield
Foundation: An independent charity that supports self-contained projects
which advance education or social welfare, often by means of research or practical
innovation. Here's the Languages Archive of the site: http://languages.nuffieldfoundation.org/languages/home/.
Check out the final report of the Nuffield Languages Inquiry, Languages:
the next generation (1998-2000), which can be be downloaded in PDF format.
The Nuffield Languages Inquiry was established to assess the language needs
of the UK in the 21st century. The final report is a dense document, indentifying
the UK's problems and making recommendations. I have fond memories of Nuffield.
Nuffield supported the development of the famous Ealing courses in the late
1960s, which I used in my first HE post at Ealing Technical College in the early
1970s.
ON-CALL:
Australian Journal of Computers and Language Education, published by the University
of Queensland, Australia. In January 1999 the ON-CALL journal became
available only online and in May 1999 merged with CALL-EJ
in Japan.
Open School
for Languages (OSFL): Just under £6 million worth of funding for setting
up the OSFL, as recommended in the Dearing Languages Review (2007), has
been awarded to Lightbox Education, a subsidiary of RM, Oxfordshire. The OSFL
is now known as MYLO (My Languages Online).
The Open University Faculty of
Education and Language Studies: The Open University offers distance learning
courses in Modern Languages. Study materials include printed course books and
audio materials that cover survival language for the traveller as well as the
communication skills needed in a range of settings, at home, work or leisure.The
Open University makes use of both face-to-face tuition and online tuition using
a voice and visual conferencing system: http://www.open.ac.uk/education-and-languages/.
See the LearningSpace page for sample materials in French, German and Spanish:
http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/course/category.php?id=9
Oxford English Dictionary: http://oed.com.
In conjunction with a major forthcoming BBC2 series, the Oxford English Dictionary
has extended an invitation to the public to document the origin of a number
of neologisms, for example "full monty", "pass the parcel",
"something for the weekend", all of which I remember from the 1950s
or earlier - but the OED insists on documenting the first printed evidence,
which usually appears much later: http://oed.com/bbcwordhunt/
Oxford University Language Centre:
A set of useful links to resources, websites and publications: http://www.lang.ox.ac.uk
Oxford University
Press: The main website is at http://www.oup.co.uk.
See the following website for information about CD-ROMs and other Electronic
Products: http://www.askoxford.com/shoponline/ep/.
Camsoft has produced sets of materials tying in with OUP's Equipe, Klasse
and Español Primero coursebooks. See Camsoft's Fun with Texts
page for information on the OUP textfiles: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/fwt.htm
P
Pacific Software Publishing (KanjiNet):
Lots of useful CALL material, particularly for Japanese. Camsoft imports Pacific
Software products from the USA: http://www.kanjikit.net
El Pais: The Web version
of the popular Spanish newspaper: http://www.elpais.es.
See also Newstrans and Kidon for
links to other newspapers.
Palabea: A social network
site that connects people who share interests in learning languages and in discovering
different cultures. Users can improve their foreign language skills by communicating
together with native speakers from all over the world in audio or video conferences.
Each user is both a pupil and a teacher. Palabea has created virtual classrooms
where all members can upload contents which they can work on together and correct
one another. Members can create their own content: record video lessons, record
podcasts and create documents. It is also possible to search for friends and
language courses in an accredited language school:http://www.palabea.net
Parsers: An online parser
can be found at the Visual Interactive Syntax Learning (VISL) website: http://visl.sdu.dk.
See also Module 3.5 (Human Language Technologies) at the ICT for Language Teachers
website: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod3-5.htm
PassportStamp: A site which
allows users to create a personalised map of their travels across the globe
and discuss their exploits with other Web users: http://www.passportstamp.com
Peachey, Nik: Nik Peachey's
EFL / ESL links:
Learning technology teacher
development blog - Tips, resources and teaching materials for EFL and
ESL teachers: http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com
Daily English Activities.
This site is for EFL / ESL students. Each day you can find a new simple online
activity to help you improve your English: http://daily-english-activities.blogspot.com
Penguin Classics: A useful
site for literature buffs. Descriptions of many of the classical works of literature
published by Penguin Books. Resources for both teachers and readers, as well
as information on books that have been made into films - including forthcoming
TV broadcasts. There is also an online bulletin board for people who want to
join in worldwide discussions about literature: http://www.penguinclassics.com
Perseus
Digital Library: A gem of a site for Classicists. Everything you need to
know about Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Based at Tufts University, USA,
this site contains masses of texts, pictures, tips for learning Greek and Latin,
dictionaries, help with fonts and many other resources: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu.
See also http://www.textkit.com and the
entry under Latin.
Phonétique(French): French
pronunciation - presentation and exercises. High-quality sound files: http://phonetique.free.fr
Picture
Dictionary: A picture dictionary in English, French, German, Spanish and
Italian. Also contains activities such as flashcards, fill-in-the-blank, etc:
http://www.pdictionary.com
University of Pittsburgh:
See the website of the Robert Henderson Language Media Center at http://www.polyglot.pitt.edu/index.html
and the personal site of the centre's director, Claire Bradin Siskin, at http://edvista.com/claire.
Both sites have lots of excellent links and tips.
Plusnet: My ADSL service
provider. Unlimited bandwidth at around £20 per month: http://www.plus.net
Podcasts:
Podcasts are a facility that enables time-shift listening to Web radio broadcasts
that can be downloaded to your PC or to an iPod or similar device. See Section
3.5.2 of Module 2.3 at the ICT4LT site: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod2-3.htm#podcast
Poésie française: French
poetry online. As the site says... "Bienvenue sur le site créé par Webnet,
société de conseil et d'ingénierie e-business. Vous aimez la poésie, nous aussi.
C'est pourquoi nous avons sélectionné plus de 5700 poèmes de langue française,
du Moyen Âge au début du XXème siècle": http://poesie.webnet.fr
Polar FLE: A mystery game
in French. Learn French by assisting Inspector Roger Duflair to solve a crime.
The site also contains links to other games sites in French: http://www.polarfle.com.
Reviewed on Teachers' TV.
Pop-up: European Youth Online
Magazine in German and in English: http://www.pop-up.org
University
of Portsmouth, Beginners Course in German: An online German course for beginners,
designed by Paul Joyce. It consists of a set of dialogues and exercises which
are designed to give the absolute beginner a grounding in the rudiments of the
German language, as well as providing background information about life and
culture in all the major German-speaking countries: http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~joyce1/abinitio/
The
Postmodernism Generator: I am grateful to Tim Johns
for drawing my attention to this clever CGI program at http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/.
Written by Andrew C. Bulhak, it generates completely meaningless but impressive-sounding
essays, e.g. Baudrillardist hyperreality and subpatriarchialist theory,
by V. Andreas Buxton, Department of Gender Politics, University of California,
which begins as follows: "Sexual identity is part of the paradigm of narrativity,"
says Foucault; however, according to Finnis [1] , it is not so much sexual identity
that is part of the paradigm of narrativity, but rather the fatal flaw, and
subsequent futility, of sexual identity. It could be said that Sartre suggests
the use of presemiotic textual theory to attack sexism. Foucault uses the term
'Baudrillardist hyperreality' to denote the difference between art and class."
Great stuff! See also Dialectizer, BULL
the Educational Jargon Generator and Shakespearean
Insult Generator.
Primary
Languages: CILT's national gateway to advice, information and support for
everyone interested in primary languages: http://www.primarylanguages.org.uk.
See CILT.
Question Writer: A tool for
creating flash quizzes using 20 different templates. You can put your quiz on
a CD or on the Web. Look at your results online or download to Excel: http://www.questionwriter.com
Quia:
Create your own learning activities: http://www.quia.com.
Includes lots of ready-made examples in foreign languages and a variety of other
subjects - all submitted by keen registered users. See
Authoring Programs.
Michael Quinion's World Wide
Words: "Investigating international English from a British viewpoint"
- a useful and amusing site that takes an oblique look at the English language:
new words, weird words, fun words, slang, etc: http://www.worldwidewords.org
R
Radio Lingua Network: Learn
a language with the Radio Lingua Network by downloading free materials to your
computer or mp3 player, or improve your language skills by purchasing support
materials: http://rlnvault.com/rln09/
RealFrench: A useful site
for learners and teachers of French, maintained by Chris Dawson at Manchester
Metropolitan University. The site includes a large number of interactive vocabulary
games, grammar notes and interactive exercises, links, Internet worksheets and
message boards: http://www.realfrench.net
Reall Languages: A range
of learning resources for learners of French, German, Spanish, Italian, Swedish,
Russian, Japanese and Latin. Covers basic words and phrases, wrapped up in a
set of games and fun activities: http://www.reall-languages.com/languages.htm
RealPlayer:
A plug-in used for playing sound and video files downloaded from the Web.
You can also use it to listen to live radio stations and view TV stations broadcast
over the Web. I like the Country Music station in Alberta - very relaxing while
you're word-processing. If you don’t have RealPlayer on your system,
then download it from here: http://www.real.com
Research:
How effective is ICT as a tool for teaching and learning Modern Foreign
Languages? BECTA’s ImpaCT2 study (2002), claimed that ICT has the potential
to improve the quality and standard of pupils' education and had some positive
things to say about using ICT in teaching Modern Foreign Languages. See EUROCALL's
pages on research, in particular the link to the joint EUROCALL, CALICO, IALLT
Research Policy Statement at http://www.eurocall-languages.org/research/index.html
Routes into Languages: The
Routes into Languages programme is funded by the Higher Education Funding Council
for England (HEFCE) and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF).
Under the programme, a number of regional consortia have been established where
groups of universities will work together, with schools and colleges, to enthuse
and encourage people to study languages. National networks have been set up
to promote translation and interpreting as careers; and three research projects
have been commissioned. The programme is running for four years from 2006/07
to 2009/10. The project is led by the Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics
and Area Studies (LLAS), University of Southampton, in a partnership with the
University Council of Modern Languages (UCML) and CILT, the National Centre
for Languages:http://www.routesintolanguages.ac.uk
Ruslan: John Langran’s
business - specialists in the development of materials for learners and teachers
of Russian. Some good stuff here: http://www.ruslan.co.uk
Russell
Stannard: An excellent set of online Teacher Training Videos, created by
Russell Stannard: http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com.
The videos are captured, walk-through screen videos with voiceovers, made with
Camtasia Studio, and show you step-by-step how to use a range of new technologies,
including blogs, wikis, Audacity, podcasts, iTunes, downloading from YouTube,
Photoshop, Delicious, Second
Life and many other applications. His site also contains videos relating
to applications for English Language Teaching. In 2008 Russell won the Times
Higher award for Outstanding Initiative in ICT.
Russian:http://www.russlandjournal.de/en/russian.html.
This site provides a lot of materials for learners of Russian: Russian language
exercises with audio samples, Russian alphabet, information about grammar and
pronunciation.
Russian: A variety of learning
games and learning materials, including Russian songs, an English-Russian dictionary,
and a transliteration tool, phrasebook: http://www.practiceRussian.com
Russian Literature: A joint
project between the University of Sussex and the London School of Economics
and Political Science. Learn Russian through the study of Russian literature.
The student can critically explore the works of Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy and
Blok, each presented in their historical context. Includes reading texts, audio
and video files, and interactive exercises: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/russian/Ruslang
S
SACODEYL: Structured video
interviews in seven different European languages with pupils between 13 and
18 years of age - the outcome of an EU-funded project. The interviews have been
annotated and enriched for language learning purposes: http://sacodeyl.inf.um.es/sacodeyl-search2/
Schoolzone:
In theory, this sounds like a good idea - an independent evaluation service
for educational digital resources: http://www.schoolzone.co.u
. In practice, there are very few current Modern Foreign Languages resources
that have been evaluated by Schoolzone. When you look closely at the site, you
find that any publisher can submit a title for evaluation on payment of a large
evaluation fee plus a renewable annual fee. A nice little earner! Moreover,
the evaluations are pretty thin and often out of date. See also TEEM.
SCOLA:
Clips of news broadcasts in a variety of languages for language teachers and
learners. The materials consist of a transcript of the first five minutes of
a news broadcast in the original language and an English translation, supplemented
by vocabulary, quizzes, and/or topics for discussion: http://www.scola.org.
See also Kidon Media-Link.
Second
Life: The fastest growing Multi User Virtual Environment (MUVE)
on the Web, a three-dimensional virtual world that you can explore
in the guise of your chosen avatar: http://secondlife.com
My step-by-step tutorial materials
in Word format for newcomers to Second Life can be downloaded from
here: Introduction
to Second Life. EUROCALL and CALICO
maintain a joint headquarters in Second Life and have set up a joint EUROCALL/CALICO
Virtual Worlds Special Interest Group - see the link on the right.
Sí, Spain: A comprehensive
service, provided by the Directorate General of Cultural Affairs of the Spanish
Foreign Ministry. Contains information on Spanish current affairs and Spain’s
historical, linguistic and cultural development. As demonstrated enthusiastically
by Ambassador José "Speedy" Luis Pardos at EUROCALL 98, University
of Leuven, 10 September 1998: http://www.sispain.org
Skype: A free Internet telephony
service that enables audio communication via a PC with anyone in the world,
including audio conferencing with more than one person at a time. There is also
SkypeOut, a very cheap pay-as-you-go service that enables you to call ordinary
phones via your PC: http://www.skype.com
Slovenian: Slovenian language
and cultural resources, based at the Institute for Slovenian Studies, Victoria,
Australia: http://www.thezaurus.com
Spam: Spam
is the term for unsolicited email advertisements, the Internet equivalent of
junk mail. A "spammer" can email an advertisement to millions of email
addresses, newsgroups, and discussion lists at very little cost in terms of
money or time. The term spam comes from a sketch in the "Monty Python's
Flying Circus" TV series. See also the entries under Adware,
Spyware and Virus. Further information
can be found on my Cautionary Tale page
Spanish: Spanish Learning
Services, Anchorage, USA: Online materials for learners of Spanish - both free
and fee-paying: http://www.studyspanish.com
Spanish Cooking: The "A
Cocinar" site - for gourmets. Some good recipes in Spanish, recommended
cookery books and links to restaurants in Spain: http://www.acocinar.com
Spartacus Educational: Spartacus
Educational publish the newsletter Education
on the Internet every week. The newsletter includes news, reviews of websites
and articles on using ICT in the classroom. Members of the mailing list are
invited to submit information for inclusion in future newsletters. The Spartacus
site includes lots of useful educational links, including Modern Foreign Languages:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REVlanguages.htm
Special Educational Needs and
Language Learning: A very comprehensive and useful site, maintained by David
Wilson: http://www.specialeducationalneeds.com
Specialist
Schools Trust: These are schools in England with specialist status. They
are granted government funding once they have qualified for designation. The
Specialist Schools Trust manages the Specialist Schools Programme on behalf
of the DCSF. These schools include around 200 Language
Colleges which emphasise languages as a specialist subject area. See the
Specialist Schools Trustwebsite for further information: http://www.specialistschoolstrust.org.uk
Speech
Accent Archive: The site is maintained by Steven Weinberger, George Mason
University: http://accent.gmu.edu. It examines
the accented speech of speakers from many different language backgrounds reading
the same sample paragraph. There are over 300 speech samples. If you click on
"English" you will find samples of native speakers of English from the UK and
around the world. There are many other useful linguistic resources on Steven's
Web pages: http://mason.gmu.edu/~weinberg/.
See Accent, Dialect Language.
Speech Technology:
A growing area of research. A practical application for helping deaf people
how to artculate is the CSLU Speech Toolkit. For other ground-breaking
applications see ICT for Language Teachers Module
3.5, Human Language Technologies. For more down-to-earth applications,
see ICT for Language Teachers Module
2.2, Introduction to multimedia CALL.
Der Spiegel: The online version
of the well-known German news magazine: http://www.spiegel.de.
See also Newstrans and Kidon for
links to other newspapers.
Sprachcaffe: An organisation
of language schools that helps students locate schools in different countries
where they can study English, French, German, Spanish or Italian: http://www.sprachcaffe.com
Spyware:
Spyware is similar to Adware - it may be used synonymously
- but it implies more sinister motives on the part of the person who has dumped
it onto your computer, e.g. with a view to stealing private information such
as bank account numbers, credit card numbers, passwords, etc. See also the entries
under Spam and Virus and on my Cautionary
Tale page.
Staffordshire Modern Foreign
Languages website: A useful site for modern language teachers. Contains
links, contacts, resources, lists of publishers, and suggested tasks and activities
for students: http://www.sln.org.uk/mfl/
Stella:
An EC-funded Minerva project, focusing on the development of a generic system
for creating online courses, including LWULT languages,
based on the Common European Framework (Level A1, Breakthrough):
http://www.minerva-stella.info.
Includes: English with language of instruction in German, English with language
of instruction in Italian, English with language of instruction in Czech, English
with language of instruction in Hungarian, Danish with language of instruction
in English, Hungarian with language of instruction in English, Spanish with
language of instruction in English. See: http://www.eulearning.net
Stille Nacht / Oberndorf:
Here's the multilingual website of the Austrian village, Oberndorf, where you
can read story of the creation of the Christmas carol "Stille Nacht": http://www.stillenacht.info
- or start with the German version: http://www.stillenacht-oberndorf.at.
You'll find a link to a webcam, with streaming audio of the original version
of "Stille Nacht", as written for accompaniment by guitar: http://www.stillenacht.info/de/kapelle/d_webcam.asp
St Johann in Tirol: My favourite
ski resort: http://www.st.johann.tirol.at.
Remarkable for its easy slopes (essential at my age) and the highest concentration
in the whole of the Alps of mountain restaurants and bars per kilometre of piste
(also essential at my age). Our favourite hotel is the Hotel Park, which
is run by the Grander family and where we have been guests every skiing season
since 1989: http://www.park.at
St Peter’s School, York:
An extensive site for Modern Foreign Languages. Numerous resources and links
to all things language-related, including interactive exercises for the Encore
Tricolore course, topic-organised links to sites useful for AS French research,
links to French media sites and to other language practice sites: http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/stpmlang/index.html
Super Language Sites: Jim
Becker's extensive list of useful links that can be helpful in learning another
language and culture. Most of the sites listed link to several others: http://www.uni.edu/becker/
Systran:
One of the oldest and most reliable MT packages, which is available online under
the name Babel Fish.
T
Tagesschau: Short news texts
in German, plus streaming sound and video clips. Ideal for keeping up with the
news: http://www.tagesschau.de
TALLENT: A Socrates-funded
project that offers one-week or two-week training courses in ICT for language
teachers in the European Union. I contributed to the TALLENT course at the University
of Limerick, July 2000, and wrote some of the materials stored at the website.
Check out the TALLENT website for further information: http://www.solki.jyu.fi/tallent.
See Jeannette Littlemore's report on the TALLENT course delivered in Birmingham
in 2001: Littlemore, J. (2002) "Setting up a course in ICT for Language Teachers:
some essential considerations", CALL-EJ Online, 4 (1): http://www.tell.is.ritsumei.ac.jp/callejonline/journal/4-1/littlemore.html
Tandem Learning: Useful and
comprehensive information on Tandem Learning, University of Bochum. Tandem Learning
involves electronic communication between two language learners, each of whom
wishes to learn the other’s language: http://www.slf.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/Tandem/
Target Language: This site
is full of free resources to help you learn French up to GCSE or Common Entrance
level. Click on Level 1 in the grid above to get started straight away or carry
on from where you left off on your last visit. To study a particular topic or
area of grammar visit the contents section to find what you need. There is also
a dictionary to help you: http://www.targetlanguage.co.uk
TaskMagic: An easy-to-use
authoring tool, produced by Martin Lapworth at MDLSoft, for creating non-Web-based
interactive exercises for use in schools. Includes: Picture Match, Sound Match,
Multi-Choice, Mix & Gap, Dialogues, etc: http://www.mdlsoft.co.uk
& http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/taskm.htm
Teach the Children Well: An
American site containing fun learning activities for young children. Links to
sites for young learners of languages can be found at: http://www.teachthechildrenwell.com/language.html
TeacherNet: A site developed
by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) as a resource to
support the education profession. See Learning, teaching and managing using
ICT: http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/wholeschool/ictis/
Teacher Resource
Exchange (TRE): A moderated database of resources and activities created
by teachers. All resources on the TRE are checked by subject specialists to
ensure they are of the highest possible quality: http://tre.ngfl.gov.uk
Teacher's
Pet: A free set of utilities (macros) for Microsoft Word, developed
by Chris Lacey. The macros make the job of creating exercises with Microsoft
Word fast and fun: gap-fill exercises, multiple-choice exercises, word jumbling,
sentence jumbling, pronunciation exercises, punctuation exercises, dictionary
searches, thesaurus searches, crosswords, storing word lists: http://www.teachers-pet.org
- and more to come!
Teacher Training Videos for ICT
and English Language Teaching: See Stannard, Russell.
Teacher Training and Modern Foreign
Languages: Have a look at the ITT MFL Support for Teacher Trainers website
(Initial Teacher Training and Modern Foreign Languages): http://www.ittmfl.org.uk.
There is also an associated forum at http://www.mailtalk.ac.uk/archives/ittmfl.html.
The aim of the forum is to generate discussion, information exchange and mutual
support for providers of teacher training, both in universities and in school-based
programmes.
Teachers
TV: An independent TV channel for teachers, plus a website. A small selection
of reviews of Modern Foreign Languages software and websites have been reviewed
in the Secondary Zone sector: http://www.teachers.tv
TeacherTube: A sort of YouTube
for teachers. An online community for sharing instructional videos, targeting
teachers, schools and home learners: http://www.teachertube.com
TEEM (Teachers
Evaluating Multimedia): In theory, this sounds like a good idea - an independent
evaluation service for educational digital resources, with evaluations written
by practising classroom teachers: http://www.teem.org.uk.
In practice, there are very few current Modern Foreign Languages titles that
have been evaluated by TEEM. When you look closely at the site, you find that
any publisher can submit a title for evaluation on payment of a large evaluation
fee plus a renewable annual fee. A nice little earner! Moreover, the evaluations
are pretty thin and often out of date. See also Schoolzone.
TELL&CALL:
The journal of CALL-Austria. Contains articles in German and English. The online
edition is currently inaccessible.Watch this space.
TELL Consortium: University
of Hull, producers of the Encounters series of CD-ROMs (to which I contributed),
plus a range of other software packages for learners of modern languages: http://www.hull.ac.uk/cti/tell
TESOL:
Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages: http://www.tesol.org
- the US-based professional association. TESOL embraces a Computer Assisted
Language Learning Interest Section (CALLIS). See also IATEFL,
the UK-based association.
Tesoros: A multimedia DVD
course for learners of Spanish, based on a short detective story in which the
students play a key role in the solution of the mystery. A virtual tour around
the Hispanic world is carried out as the story unfolds. The course also includes
vocabulary, grammar and other learning materials based on the dialogues in the
story: http://www.tesoros.es
Tex's French Grammar, University
of Texas Austin: A good collection of French materials for beginners: grammar,
exercises, Web links, audio and video files. Delightful cartoon characters make
this a very entertaining as well as informative site: http://www.laits.utexas.edu/tex/
Text-to-speech
software: Text-to-speech software is invaluable for blind computer users
as it enables them to "read" from the screen. See Section 4.1 (Speech synthesis)
of Module 3.5 at the ICT4LT website, where you can read more about TTS and find
links to several useful TTS websites: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod3-5.htm#synthesis.
See also Voki (below).
Thames Valley
University (TVU): Coordinating institution of the ICT for Language Teachers
project. I used to be Director of the Language Centre at TVU, which was well
known for its extensive CALL and self-access facilities. TVU once embraced two
of the finest language teaching faculties (Modern Foreign Languages and EFL/ESOL)
in the UK, which were inherited from one of its innovative forerunners, Ealing
College. Sadly, both language teaching faculties were forced to close during
the 1990s. Languages no longer figure prominently at TVU.
TheFreeDictionary:
English, Medical, Legal, and Computer Dictionaries, Thesaurus, Encyclopedia,
a Literature Reference Library, and a Search Engine all in one: http://www.thefreedictionary.com
Thematic
Network Projects in the Area of Languages: TNP (Languages) for short: http://web.fu-berlin.de/elc/en/tnp.html.
A series of EC-funded projects that emerged as a result of the founding of the
European Language Council. The principal aim of the
original TNP1 was to respond to the challenges posed to higher education by
a multilingual and multicultural Europe, including new technologies. Two subsequent
projects were initiated as a spin-off from the original project, one featuring
New Learning Environments. A publication emerged as a result of TNP1: Chambers
A. & Davies G. (2001) (eds.) New technologies and language learning: a European
perspective, Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger. This was the
first volume in a series titled Language Learning and Language Technology,
Series Editors, Graham Davies & Carol Chapelle.
Three Little Pigs / Les tros
petits cochons: Listening and grammar exercises for young learners of French,
wrapped up in a popular story: http://lexiquefle.free.fr/cochon.swf
Tiletown: A website based
in Kingston University's School of Education, launched on 9 May 2007. Tiletown
aims to be a repository for resources and training guides across the curriculum,
including Modern Foreign Languages: Watch this space: http://www.tiletown.org.uk
Times Educational Supplement:
The Times Educational Supplement manages a large collection of downloadable
resources for teachers, and there is also the Staffroom forum, where
teachers of different subjects can air their views and ask questions: http://www.tes.co.uk
Tim
Johns: Co-author of the seminal work by Higgins J.
& Johns T. (1984) Computers in language learning, London: Collins. My
former colleague and friend, and collaborator on the EECALL Centre project in
Hungary (1991-96), who passed away in 2009. Tim pioneered the concept of Data-Driven
Learning (DDL) and wrote one of the first commercially available classroom
concordancers, MicroConcord. See the ICT for Language Teachers website,
Module 2.4: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod2-4.htm
Tiny URL: This site offers
a useful facility. Have you experienced frustration when trying to copy and
paste a very long URL into your browser's query box and then find that you have
missed a bit, with the result that the site appears to be unavailable? Tiny
URL reduces long URLs to tiny URLs that you can then paste into emails and other
documents: http://tinyurl.com
Training and
Development Agency for Schools (TDA): An essential source of information
for teachers and teacher trainers: http://www.tda.gov.uk.
Unfortunately, the TDA is constantly restructuring its website (as well as changing
its name from the Teacher Training Agency) without leaving redirection information.
If you can't trace an old document try searching at the Wayback
Machine website.
Travel insurance: So you
think you are fully covered? Think again. Make sure you read your travel insurance
company's terms and conditions very carefully, especially the exclusion clauses
under the heading "pre-existing medical conditions". My personal story
in making a claim for reimbursement of a deposit for a holiday that I was unable
to complete makes interesting reading: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/travelins.htm
Treffpunkt: Intensive German
Courses in Germany, plus lots of links to sites relating to the learning of
German and information on course materials for learners of German: books, audio-
and videocassettes, software, etc: http://www.learn-german.com
Trinity and All Saints Comenius
Centre: Click on "Free resources" on the homepage for a list of links to
online language teaching and learning materials: http://www.leeds-comenius.com
Twitter:
A social networking site. As the Twitter site says: "Twitter is a service
for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through
the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are
you doing?": http://twitter.com .
You will find me in Twitter - click on the Twitter logo on the right. See
also Twitter Groups at http://twittgroups.com
Ultralingua:
As well as offering online and offline dictionaries, Ultralingua offers
a useful facility that can convert a Web page into a "dictionary-enabled" page,
so that the words on the page are clickable and can be looked up in a defining
dictionary (English) or a bilingual dictionary. You type or paste the URL of
the Web page into the address box and choose the source and target language.
The original Web page is then made available as a dictionary-enabled, clickable
page. Some Web pages can't be dictionary-enabled, but it works most of the time.
Includes verb conjugation tables too: http://ultralingua.com/online-dictionary/.
See also Lingro and VoyCabulary.
University of Bums on Seats:
The website of the UBS university, UK. Not many people have heard of this university
- interesting place, with an innovative curriculum. Message from the VC: "I
have attempted to revolutionise our educational paradigm to ensure a rich diversity
of abilities are represented in our student body." http://www.cynicalbastards.com/ubs/index.html
Usina Quiz: A variety of
ready-made quizzes and games for learners of French, including quiz generators
for teachers who wish to create their own materials: http://usinaquiz.free.fr/indexjeu.htm
V
University
of Venice Language Centre: Some excellent language and cultural materials
here. One of the partners in the ICT for Language Teachers project: http://venus.unive.it/cli/
Verbix:
A Windows verb conjugator, covering a wide range of languages - plus other interesting
activities: http://www.verbix.com. See also
Le Devoir conjugal for French verb conjugations.
viaMedia: An authoring package,
developed at the University of Alberta, for courseware writers who want to create
cross-platform, multimedia modules for delivery via the Internet. The viaMedia
software package consists of two applications: (i) viaMedia Authoring Tool,
with which course developers create learning modules; (ii) viaMedia Player,
with which students access modules created with the viaMedia Authoring Tool.
Both applications are available in Mac and Windows versions. Demos available
at the Blackstone Multimedia Corporation website, Canada: http://www.blackstone.ca
University
of Victoria, Canada: The Humanities Media and Computing Centre (HCMC) maintains
a useful set of language-related resources and links: http://hcmc.uvic.ca.
Hot Potatoes is a well-known UViC product.
Videoconferencing: Robert O'
Dowd has created two websites full of information on videoconferencing and
telecollaboration:
Virtual Departments
for Minority Languages (VDML): A project funded from 2000 to 2002 under
the JISC DNER development programme. The aim of VDML was to develop a framework
to support students and teachers of minority languages (languages not widely
taught in UK universities). The development was piloted in the Scandinavian
Studies departments of three UK universities (in particular by learners and
teachers of Danish). Other minority language departments were involved throughout
and the framework is being promoted in the UK Higher Education community. The
website is still being maintained by the project team: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/calt/vdml/
Virtual Learning
Environment (VLE): A VLE is a Web-based package designed to help teachers
create online courses, together with facilities for teacher-learner communication
and peer-to-peer communication. VLEs can be used to deliver learning materials
within an institution or within a local education authority. They may even address
a wider constituency, and may be used on a worldwide basis. VLEs have certain
advantages in terms of ease of delivery and management of learning materials.
They may, however, be restrictive in that the underlying pedagogy attempts to
address a very wide range of subjects, and thus do not necessarily fit in with
established practice in language learning and teaching. The two VLEs that are
most widely used by language teachers are Blackboard
and Moodle. Such systems are also referred to as Course
Management System (CMS), Learning Management System (LMS), Learning
Support System (LSS), Managed Learning Environment (MLE) and Learning
Platform (LP).
Virtual Magnifying Glass:
A (free) software package that enables allows the user to magnify anything which
appears on the screen. Very useful for partially-sighted learners and for whole-class
teaching, e.g. highlighting words and phrases on a projection screen: http://magnifier.sourceforge.net
Virtual
Teacher Centre: The Virtual Teacher Centre (VTC), which was set up by BECTA,
closed in December 2005. All its materials are being transferred to the
National Grid for Learning.
Virus:
A virus is a nasty program devised by a clever programmer, usually with malicious
intent. Viruses can be highly contagious, finding their way on to your computer's
hard drive without your being aware of it and causing considerable damage to
the software and data stored on it. Viruses can be sent to you on floppy disk
or in files attached to email messages, e.g. Microsoft Word files. If you use
email, surf the Web, or use floppies emanating from a source other than your
own computer, make sure that your anti-virus software is up-to-date. Further
information can be found on my Cautionary Tale page.
See also the entries under Adware, Spam
and Spyware.
Visual Interactive Syntax Learning
(VISL): An online parser and a variety of other tools concerned with Machine
Translation, corpus linguistics and English grammar - including games and quizzes
-can be found here: http://visl.sdu.dk. See
also Module 3.5 (Human Language Technologies) at the ICT for Language Teachers
website: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod3-5.htm
Visual Link Spanish: Spanish
lessons online, produced by the US Institute of Languages. CD-ROMs and some
free online tutorial materials: http://www.learnspanishtoday.com
Visuwords: A visual dictionary:
you enter a word and then the dictionary shows you all sorts of connected words
and their relationships. Nicely colour coded. With mouseover translations. Probably
a tool for the more advanced student, but really well done: http://www.visuwords.com
Vocabulix:
Vocabulary Trainer and Conjugation Trainer. A free website that helps you
improve your vocabulary in various foreign languages. Vocabulix is divided
into several lessons. You simply choose a lesson in a foreign language and the
system will help you to memorize the words of that lesson. http://www.vocabulix.com
VoiceThread: http://voicethread.com:
A tool for holding and storings conversations around media. A VoiceThread is
a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos
and allows people to leave comments in five different ways - using voice (using
a microphone or telephonephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam).
You can share a VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them
to record comments too. VoiceThreads can even be embedded on websites and exported
to MP3 players or to DVDs. With VoiceThread, group conversations are collected
and shared in one place from anywhere in the world.
Vokabel:
Lots of vocab quizzes on different topics in English, French, German and Spanish:
http://www.vokabel.com. Choose an existing
quiz or create your own. See Authoring Programs. See
also the entry on Vocabulary.
Voki:
A website that enables you to create and customise your own speaking cartoon
character that can be embedded in your favourite social networks, blogs
and websites. You can choose the Text-to-Speech option,
as in my example on the right, to give the character a voice, or you can
record your own voice: http://www.voki.com.
See
also Comic Creator, Comic
Life, MakeBeliefsComix, ToonDoo.
See also:
VoyCabulary:
This site makes
the words on any webpage into links so you can look them up in a dictionary
or other word-reference-site of your choice, by simply clicking on the
words. Anytime you find yourself reading a Web page with words you wish
to look-up, try running the page through VoyCabulary and just click on
the words: http://www.voycabulary.com.
See also Lingro and Ultralingua
Voyetra Turtle-Beach:
Check out this site for very reasonably-priced sound editing packages:
http://www.voyetra-turtle-beach.com.
I use AudioSurgeon.
W
Ros Walker: Ros maintains
a website that, among other things, contains resources for teachers of Modern
Foreign Languages: http://www.ros.org.uk
Wayback
Machine: Dead links on the Web are a growing problem. You find a nice site,
bookmark it, or add it to a list of links like this one, and the next time that
you try to access it, it's gone - or, worse still, it's been transmogrified
into an offensive site: see my Dodgy links article at http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/DodgyLinks.htm.
Linkrot is a growing disease. It was estimated that in 1999 nearly 30%
of the links on the Web were dead - and the situation is probably a lot worse
now. See the state of the Web survey at All Things Web: http://www.pantos.org/atw/35654.html.
However, salvation has arrived: the Wayback Machine(also known as the
Web Archive) at http://www.archive.org.
To start using the Wayback Machine to surf the Web as it was, you just type
a URL (a website address) in the dialogue box, click the Take Me Back button,
and start exploring the past. I've tried it and it works! The site also contains
an efficient text search facility.
Web German: A huge set of
resources for teachers and learners of German: http://www.webgerman.com
Webheads: Online Community
of Practice of Teachers and Educators Practicing Peace and Professional Development
through Web 2.0 and Computer Mediated Communication: http://webheads.info/
Web Literacy:
A set of excellent tutorial materials written by Bernard Moro and located
at the website of the Council of Europe's European Centre for Modern Languages:
http://www.ecml.at/projects/voll/literacy.
See also the materials written by Gavin Burnage.
WebSwami:
An innovative online language and communications training system, combining
interactive activities, personalised video feedback, course development tools,
and a student tracking interface: http://www.webswami.com
WebWhacker by Blue Squirrel:
A useful software tool that allows you to save Web pages, including text,
graphics and HTML links, directly to your hard drive, so you can view them offline
at highly accelerated speeds: http://www.bluesquirrel.com/products/webwhacker/.
However, beware of copyright restrictions on downloading other people's sites.
You should always check the Terms of Use at a website
before downloading it in whole or in part.
WELL:
The Web Enhanced Language Learning (WELL) project: http://www.well.ac.uk.
WELL was co-ordinated by William Haworth, Liverpool John Moores University.
It was set up in 1997 with assistance from the higher education Fund for the
Development of Teaching and Learning (FDTL) in order to promote wider awareness
and more effective use of the World Wide Web in Modern Foreign Languages teaching
across higher education in the UK. The funding period came to an end in August
2001. The website is still available as an archive, but it has suffered from
substantial losses of valuable information.
Welsh: Daphne Percival's
(Daf's) Meirionnydd Languages site, including online lessons in Welsh, Russian,
German and French: http://www.meirionnydd.force9.co.uk.
I just had to put this in - my father was a native Welsh speaker.
Die Welt: The Web version
of the popular German newspaper: http://www.welt.de.
See also Newstrans and Kidon for
links to other newspapers.
Wikipedia is a free-content
encyclopedia on the Web that anyone can edit - yes, anyone, which is
both its strength and its weakness. While Wikipedia covers an enormous range
of subjects in different languages there is no guarantee that what you read
is accurate, as the content can be added to or amended by any member of the
public, and there is no indication of the authorship or the authors' credentials.
On the one hand this can be perceived as a wonderful example of collaborative
writing, but on the other hand it can be perceived as a golden opportunity for
the propagation of oddball ideas and self-promotion. I checked out the article
on Computer Assisted Language Learning in early 2005. It was hopelessly out
of date, sketchy and inaccurate, so I amended it. Two weeks later it was amended
back to what it was, so I amended it again. Many additions have since been made
by someone else (authorship unknown) but the article is generally OK - for the
time being. There's some good stuff in Wikipedia, but it's not a reliable source
of information compared, say, with properly refereed and edited encyclopedia,
either in book form or online: http://www.wikipedia.org
Wildfrench: A site
for teachers and learners of French, including many online resources that complement
popular published courses and GCSE examinations: http://wildfrench.co.uk
Wild Strawberry: These are
the guys who produce the CD-ROMs TV und Texte and Télétextes
for Oxford University Press. An informative site, with some
fun stuff too. Keep an eye on new developments at this site: http://www.wildstrawberry.com
Wimba: A useful set of products
is available from Wimba. Wimba specialises in in asynchronous voice technology
which enables you, for example, to add voice messages to email and add sound
to a website. In addition there is a variety of applications that can be used
for learning languages online: http://www.horizonwimba.com
WinDi Translation Software: A
useful aid for translators and for training translators. Available in seven
different languages. For each language, the software includes a bilingual dictionary,
verb conjugation tables, a reference grammar, and an interactive sentence translator.
A speech synthesiser is included in the package, and the software can also be
used to assist the understanding of websites in foreign languages: http://www.windi7.com
Winged Sandals: A delightful
multimedia website on Greek Mythology created by the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation in association with The University of Melbourne's Centre for Classics
and Archaeology. The website is designed for children 6-12 but will certainly
have a much wider appeal: http://www.wingedsandals.com
WinZip: A really handy tool
for compressing and decompressing files. Indispensable for anyone transmitting
and receiving large files via the Internet: http://www.winzip.com.
I couldn’t do without it!
WordNet: An online lexical
reference system whose design is inspired by current psycholinguistic theories
of human lexical memory. English nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are organized
into synonym sets, each representing one underlying lexical concept. Different
relations link the synonym sets. A useful look-up facility: http://wordnet.princeton.edu
WordPress: WordPress is a
state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, Web standards,
and usability: http://wordpress.org
wordPROF:
A website that offers a series of vocab acquisition activities, using clickable
images and sound files. A CD-ROM is also available: http://www.wordprof.com
WordReference:
Free online dictionaries from HarperCollins. There are four multilingual translation
dictionaries and one extremely big English dictionary: http://www.wordreference.com.
See Dictionaries.
Word Surfing:
This website aims to show learners of English and other languages the many
advantages of creating a well-organised vocabulary book within their long-term
language learning activities.The method explains how to use such a vocabulary
building book together with the help of an audio pictionary, an online dictionary,
teachers, native speakers, the Web, books - and all the other excellent learning
opportunities that are available today: http://www.wordsurfing.co.uk.
See Vocabulary.
WorldCALL:
WorldCALL is a professional association addressing the needs of countries that
are currently underserved in the use of ICT in learning foreign languages: http://www.worldcall.org.
The first WorldCALL conference was held at the University of Melbourne, Australia,
July 1998, where I presented a Keynote Paper titled
"True creativity often starts where language ends". The second WorldCALL
conference took place in Banff, Canada, in May 2003.WorldCALL 2008 is scheduled
to take place in Japan. See the WorldCALL website for further information.
World
Radio Network: Radio stations around the world, including radio stations
broadcasting in foreign languages: http://www.wrn.org.
See also Kidon
Media-Link.
World Wide Words: "Investigating
international English from a British viewpoint" - a useful and amusing
site by Michael Quinionthat takes an oblique look at the English language:
new words, weird words, fun words, slang, etc: http://www.worldwidewords.org
X
Xenu Link Sleuth: A software
package that checks websites for broken links. Link verification is done on
"normal" links, images, frames, plug-ins, backgrounds, local image maps, style
sheets, scripts and Java applets. It displays a continously updated list of
URLs which you can sort by different criteria. A report can be produced in HTML
at any time while link checking is in progress: http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html
Y
Yahoo: This is the UK/Ireland
version of the Yahoo search engine: http://uk.yahoo.com.
Foreign-language versions are also available. See ICT
for Language Teachers Module 1.5. User-friendly and fast.
YJC German Teaching Resources
for KS3, GCSE, AS and A2 level: Over 500 free resources to download or use
online. Activities include: Hot Potatoes, Spellmaster,
PowerPoint, Word, Excel - many activities are whiteboard
friendly. Created by Yvonne Clerehugh, who is an advanced skills teacher for
MFL at Notre Dame High School in Norwich: http://www.yjc.org.uk
YouTube:
A social networking site where anyone can post videos. Some useful materials
for teaching and learning foreign languages can be found here if you search
hard: http://www.youtube.com
