Category: tools

I am often astounded by how slowly everything goes in class. It is like everyone is living in molasses. The answers are always carefully considered before being uttered. This is not how communication works. It is not good enough to speak correct English, you have to speak it fast.

Learning goes the same way. You need to have a steady pace, and be constantly learning. I like to say that the absolute worst language learning environment is the classroom, a room with no input, bare walls, only other students for interaction, with perhaps one or two exchanges with the teacher each session. Dismal.

Look at this kid learn. He knows how to do it.

OK, OK. It’s not a computer thing. This is a simple board game, one you play at the dinner table after dinner. Did you know Germans are real big fans of board games, instead of TV?

10 Days in the USA is a simple geography game that takes about 45 minutes the first time you play it, but after 2 or 3 tries, you can do it on about 20 minutes. The goal is to set up a travel schedule for a 10-day trip in the USA.

The gameplay is very simple, you play with cards that you replace each turn you get. The first to set up a trip with no gaps in it is the winner.

This is great for student to read the instructions (which are very simple), and sometimes check each other (no real negotiation necessary), and it really helps with the geography of the US.

If you want to give the students a great little electronic (computer based) geography lesson, try Statetris (that’s Tetris with US states…Japan version too.)

The Moth is a podcast of short stories told by amateurs, and a few professionals. They are told at a weekly event in New York or Los Angeles. People are selected to get up on stage and tell their stories, without notes, to the other story-tellers (the hardest audience).

You can listen to the Moth on their website or through iTunes. Nathan Furuya over at Kasai Gaidai recommended the podcast to me, and he is putting together of list of the best ones for teaching. I’ll share it with you when he gets it done.  For now, they have a contest every once in a while, and here you can listen to the winners of the StorySlams.

iKnow grew out of a project at Cerego, a company here in Japan that made English language learning software. They moved the content online, made it free, and “socialized” it, made it have more Web 2.0 features.

After that they expanded the content to include more than English, to other languages, and then beyond langauges. All with a simple interface and a few great tools for language learners. The best part, however, is the interaction between learners. Watch the introductory video to get a quick overview. My students like this site as well.

LiveMocha is a social web site, like Mixi or Facebook, or MySpace, but better.  This social web site is all about language learning and language exchange. People teach each other or simply interact in foreign languages. The New York Times has taken notice (look at the quote on their home page). I ask my students to sign up and use LiveMocha as part of my Computer Literacy Class. They seem to really like it. You can get points by teaching other people, or helping to create materials in your own language, and use those points for learning. A whole new economics of teaching is being created here.