Kevin Ryan in Tokyo

Author: tokyokevin

  • I am donating to this wonderful project

    Pronunciation Evaluation
    Project to develop branching readers with pronunciation practice

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Let me count the ways this project is good; good for the world, good for language learners, and good for me. First let me explain what it is. (Or you can go directly to their KickStarter page.)

    Did you ever try one of those “Choose your own adventure” books? No? You read a page or two, then you have a choice. Depending on your choice, you jump to a different page. Read that page, another choice. Another jump. I learned how to use hypertext while developing an online version of a Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA). This was all before the World Wide Web. Now, people like Marcos Benavides are using CYOA for readers for language learners.

    This project mixes Choose Your Own Adventure plots with Speech Recognition, to improve pronunciation. Most pronunciation software fails because it is not intrinsically linked to neither a purpose nor an important outcome. Linking the story and plot to your ability to pronounce should provide both. This project looks really, really interesting.

    It is good for the world. This project is Open Source, it will be offered to the world for free when it is finished. Anyone can use it without paying for the software. People will even be able to work on it to improve the tool. I will guess that people will be able to write books for the project. It also means that is will be developed using suggestions from users.

    It is good for language learners because it is based on stories, the mental unit that works best with memory. It mixes oral production (pronunciation) with reading in a way that is both natural and good challenging to language learners.

    There are also a lot of ways that this project is good for me. I have been interested in both CYOA and Speech Recognition, and its application to language learning, main topics of my research in the early 90’s. I learned about it from a journalist from Colorado. One of the promoters is from Barcelona Spain (I used to live there). The developers are from Singapore and India.  A truly international affair. It is also a bit of a geeky endeavor. So much fun just to be a part of it. I just pledged $100.

  • Japan a market so mature it is dying

    A good friend in the business has been long telling me that Japan is a mature market for language learning books, materials and software. The shrinking commercial areas at language conferences attest to this. Now, another indication I came across this morning. Mindsnacks is a new software for language games, with apps for iPads and iPhones. If you will notice below, we have a nice app for learning English as a Second Language (ESL). The interfaces for learning have lots of different interfaces. If you speak Spanish, Korean or Chinese, and many other languages, you have instructions in your language to learn English. The notable exception? Japanese.

    mindsnacks
    Koreans and Chinese can use Mindsnacks easily

  • The New University

    Coursera
    Coursera

     

     

    ……..

    It has finally arrived. The new university. The first update in 500 years. And it looks really good for learning. You get the best lectures and the best materials and the best classmates in the world, for free. Some people call it a MOOC, and there are some common elements. But the innovations bring people and computers, and all their strengths, together. All you have to do is work at it. It is up to you. Read this article about how it works. Or just go to the web site where the newest example looks like it is going to change education. Everywhere.

    I’ve been watching for this. I knew it was going to come. I figure I will be just be able to retire with the traditional university still intact, but decaying. The university as we know it will not last much longer. There will be a place for teachers, professors, and people that tell good stories. But it certainly will not pay as well as it does now. Except for a few “rock star” professors who will make millions. The future of course production will be more like a movie studio, and the organizations that can put the right producers, directors, writers and actors together will have hit courses. So we will see teachers in their 20’s gravitate to one or another of these roles gradually, deconstructing what a teacher is, over the next generation. I fear for them, but am also excited for education in general.

  • Link to questionnaire

    Here is the link to the questionnaire.

  • Progression of Courses

    How to lie cheat and steal with numbers in English
    My new class

    I teach on Tuesday over at the University of Tokyo. I make a new course each semester to keep myself sharp and draw in some students again. The students visit the first week and choose. I get a great mix of students with high proficiency in English and others from abroad (Todai has more foreign students than most universities).

    Dad is reading a new book called “The American Way of Eating” about the diet in America and how industry has influenced it. It got me to thinking about the progression of my courses over the last few years. Here is what I wrote him.

    The American Way of Eating looks really good. I teach a class I call “Hamburgers and Rhetoric” where we look at books, movies (documentaries) and software games, and how they persuade people. The common link is McDonald’s. Se we start with Fast Food Nation (the book, I assign the movie for extra credit), then go on to Super Size Me (Morgan Spurlock eats only McDonald’s for 30 days), then we do the McDonald’s Game (at Molleindustria home of many Serious Games).

    That morphed into another course about “Documentaries and the Truth” Where we started with Super Size Me, then went onto Food Inc., and the Cove, then Temple Grandin. If they made a documentary about The American Way of Eating, it would be in this class too. I would recommend Food Inc as a precursor of TAWOE.
    That has morphed into “How to Lie Cheat and Steal with Numbers in English”. In HTLCASWNIE, we look at numeracy, or numerical literacy and critical thinking. We look at big and small numbers, then how to talk about numbers, then we look at different ways to represent numbers (infographics and visualizations), and then finally, how to use statistics and numbers to change people’s perceptions.
    These classes are for my University of Tokyo students, the ones who go on to rule the nation. I think it will be a really good course.
    Now that I have the skill set we are going to target in the class, I am working on collecting examples from media. The topics are falling into a list of “what not to talk about at a party”. Sex, drugs, rock-and-roll, politics, religion, money, race, and education. Will keep you updated on how it goes.