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Setting up a High-Tech Language School?
Posted by
Cliff
on Fri Dec 17, 2004 04:35 PM
from the effective-use-of-technology-to-enhance dept.
from the effective-use-of-technology-to-enhance dept.
Bakerybob writes "My wife and I are currently setting up a small Japanese language school, and I am in charge of all of the technical aspects, with a small but not tiny budget. What would Slashdot recommend as technologies we could use to improve the student experience (and hopefully to interest more students in the school!)? We have the easy bases (free Wifi access for students, a stunningly poorly designed homepage, and a few cheap computers lying around for them to play on between classes) covered, but I'm sure there are a lot of better ideas out there. Has anyone used Moogle? What about online lessons via webcam? Give it your best shot, revolutionary thinkers!"
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PDAs (Score:3, Insightful)
Not PDAs, iPods! (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, some schools are using iPods.
Aside from the standard "My pencil is yellow" fare, you cold load them up with popular Japanese songs (and traditional ones.) Mini-immersion, if you will.
The iPods even have some PDA functionality, so you get that, too.
PLUS, for c. $250 per pupil, you can add some serious 'polish' to people's perception of your school. "You get an iPod? To keep?" You'll be amazed at what that does to their willingness to fork over the big dollars! (There's almost certainly a discount for schools, too.)
Heck, set up a 'podcast' exchange with a Japanese english school. (Podcasts are recordings meant to be downloaded for later listening in the iPod.) Have the Japanese students do three minutes of dialog in Japanese, and in exchange the Yanks do three minutes in American.
OR, distribute lessons in podcast format, and charge people for distance-learning! (OR, distribute them for free and charge for the testing!)
Good Luck!
Parent
How about a disappointment booth? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How about a disappointment booth? (Score:2)
How's this for a "rest of the story"? (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh sure (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you insane? You opened up the door to an entire world of culture, literature, games, movies, and people, and you're saying you wasted your years? Also, I mean, come on, how much of those years did you actually spend studying japanese? About a fifth of each, right? One class out of five.
Re:Oh sure (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, there are other (and pretty stupid) reasons [idge.net] to learn japanese.
Extreme Language Courses (Score:2, Funny)
What you do is give them a few hours of very basic vocabulary training, then drug them and transport them to a part of the world that predominantly speaks that langauge, and only that language (ie if it's Japanese, drop them off somewhere in backwoods Japan). Give them a few yen to get started, and leave them to their own resources.
When they show up at your door (possibly armed), a few months down the line, they will have a far greater command of the languag
Computers and education (Score:5, Insightful)
I know there has been this massive rush to get computers into everything-education, but its simply not needed.
The tech you need is a good language teacher, some dictionaries, and maybe a few textbooks/workbooks.
Maybe a japanese->english english->japanese dictionary could be useful, but even then it could make for some seriously lazy students. But I imagine those kids already know about babelfish.
Maybe I'm being shortsighted, but I feel that, in this specific case, computers would be more of a distraction then a benifit.
Re:Computers and education (Score:3, Insightful)
My dream would be a japanese class where I could speak for hours (I'm serious!) with real life people. Speak and practice! that's what I miss the most because in the end, it's always some guy speaking alone (and this guy doesn't really care, he's the teacher, he has nothing to learn...)
Re:Computers and education (Score:5, Informative)
Bottom line: You are wrong when you assert that computers can be programmed to replace competent language instructors. But, the grandparent of this post is also wrong when they claim that they are not good for classroom instruction.
It takes some knowledge about what makes for effective foreign language learning. What it boils down to is interaction. The traditional school of thought used to be that foreign languages would be learned by studying the grammar of the language first, understanding the grammatical transformations that go on from L1 to L2. Then, drop in the appropriate vocabulary, and boom. You're bilingual! Problem is that this made people very good at translation but barely passable in communication. After this, another trend of thought was that students would learn the language with a shitload of input. Just keep hammering them with endless streams of data, and eventually the innate learning algorithms of the brain would kick in and bilingual ability would magically appear. Hence the number of hours one has to pull at language labs. Most students sleep at these labs. There are a zillion and one approaches that claim to be superior but are, more often than not, a theory for a dissertation. In alot of these cases, the "superiority" claim comes from the nature of the evaluation criteria. Like I said previously, those taugh tin the old school "learn the grammar then the vocab" school of thought were really good translators, but horrible at communication. Both of the methods above are illustrations of transmissive learning. The idea that students are just empty cannisters waiting to be filled with facts and figures and somehow, they will magically think and solve problems.
Fast forward to today. Educators have found that the most effective methods for learning are those that allow students to be actively involved in the problem domain. Allowed to explore and discover structure and make observations on their own with little guide posts to keep them on topic, students gain a more thorough understanding of the underlying principles.
The same is true for foreign language learning. Some of the best results come from students who are allowed and encouraged to vocally produce their own sentences (NOT simply read, write, or translate) in dialogues with other students or people fluent in the target language. Given feedback during the conversation, either implicitly or explicitly, students are allowed to explore and learn from mistakes while engaging in an activity that was, on the whole, more enjoyable than lecture or "drill-and-kill" exercises. This makes sense in light of research on language acquisition in infants which shows that social interaction is crucial for proper development of language skills. It is also anecdotally observed by all learners of a foreign language that one doesn't really learn the language to the point of communicative competency until one actually goes to a country and interacts with people in the language. (Where else will you learn that when you say "gan4", instead of "gan1" in Mandarin that it means "fuck" instead of "bottoms up?" Trust me, when I say "gan1" these days, my pitch is nice and level!)
This sort of activity isn't really encouraged in most foreign language learning classes. Especially at the high school level. In some universities it is, but for the most part it isn't. Most universities have the model of classroom time/lab time with tapes. One of the problems is student teacher ratio. When one is teaching 30 students, it's difficult to have proper dialogues with them... most resort to having students repeat phrases or reading scripted dialogue.
Another problem is that students might feel shy about speaking the language. No one likes to make mistakes, and among peers, this can be a particularly acute fear.
This is where computers can fit in. Dialogue systems (in the researc
Parent
Don't ask us (Score:3, Funny)
Set this [engrish.com] up as the home page.
force them into using it (Score:2, Interesting)
Computers are only tools, in school we have to learn how to use our mind as a usefull transparent tool By forcing the students to use their foreign language they will understand things better and quicker.
Minor Advice (Score:2, Funny)
VoIP to speak with live native Japanese speakers (Score:3, Interesting)
Anime... (Score:2)
I'd also layer some artwork on top of various letters and let the kids make up their own stories for them.
ie: (That's Ku I think) drawn sort of like O and calling it a "Ku ku bird" makes the memorizing muuuch easier.
I'd also throw in some songs... my favorite was. Heh...
Hitori, fu
English school (Score:5, Interesting)
Microphones and webcams are pretty cheap. Yahoo Instant Messenger is probably more than adequate for your communication needs.
Have the Japanese-speaking people speak as much English as they can, and have the English-speaking people speak as much Japanese as they can.
Nothing beats talking to a real human.
Japan discussion listings. (Score:2)
You could check our Japan [chatmag.com] discussion and chat listings for some online help.
More details, please (Score:3, Insightful)
Is that a school in Japan, or a Japanese language school in the US (or elsewhere), or a school where all the classes are taught in Japanese?
I 'think' youre talking about a school where Japanese is taught as a second language (spoken? written?), but it's not entirely clear.
Define 'small'. 10 students? 50, 100?
small but not tiny budget
Define 'small' budget. $500, $500, $50,000?
What about online lessons via webcam?
What kind of classes? Some types work better, some don't. Teaching Japanese might fit into the "don't" category (resolution and frame rate).
It's not entirely clear what you are trying to teach, or what problem the 'high tech' solution is supposed to fix.
Technology not always the answer (Score:2)
Check out the Hippo Family Club (Score:2, Insightful)
Transnational College of LEX - Hippo Family Club [lexlrf.org]
Make everything accessible via the web. (Score:2)
And you'll be able to do it all with OSS, if you like - PHP and Postgres or MySQL will get you most of what you need right there. Serve your study documents in someting everybody can read - PDFs of you don't want people changing things.
Past Experience (Score:4, Informative)
1) Technology should be used to supplement langauge lessons - never teach them. Distance learning can be done via webcam if absolutely necessary, and you can take advantage of existing technologies for that. Look into Placeware or more likely WebEx.
2) You can license existing e-learning platforms from companies like Auralog, they sell on a sliding scale.
3) Students love to be able to see schedules and homework assignments online. Computer software applications also make great supplements for at-home practice. Also consider setting up a community bulletin board for students to communicate with eachother in their non-native tongue.
I know none of this is revolutionary thinking - but it is sage advice for teaching language with technology. My company tried to teach through technology alone and it failed - the lesson learned was even eLearning needed to be a supplement - not the basis for learning.
Best Luck!
Buy Cartoon DVDs for the subtitles (Score:3, Informative)
DVDs because the multiple languages and subtitles are a great way to learn a new language. Cartoons because animation has simpler phrases.
Re:Ask.Slashdot: We'll do your work for you! (Score:2)