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Foreign Languages

Go directly on this page for informaton particular to:
Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Japanese, Malay, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish

Foreign Language Resources

BBC Languages: Among various sections in a wide variety of languages, there you will find a special section for talking activities. http://www.bbcworldwide.com/talk/intro.htm
One CALICO "Access to Language Education" 2006 Honorable Mention went to Gary Cziko, founder and major contributor for the Autonomous Technology-Assisted Language Learning site, also called The ATALL Wikibook: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/ATALL This site gives us all a chance to share our best ideas on language learning. Gary wants to encourage greater collaboration from current and potential Wikibookians
The Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning has a "Curricular Materials Developed With Consortium Grants": http://consortium.dartmouth.edu/Data/The%20Organization/materials.html for numerous languages.
CTI Centre for Modern Languages (EUROCALL office at the university of Hull, UK) has an 'Internet Resources for Language Teachers and Learners' list at http://www.hull.ac.uk/cti/langsite/. You can search the online database at: http://www.hull.ac.uk/cti/searchdb.htm You can also purchase REAL reading and listening materials in various languages at the REAL website - http://www.hull.ac.uk/cti/real/
The Guide to Learning Disabilities and Foreign Language Learning
Hull University maintain a large collection of sites in many different languages at http://www.lang.ltsn.ac.uk/cit/langsite/ and hosts the SIB project for the "less used and less taught languages of the European Union" (i.e. all the languages of the EU minus German, French, English and Spanish): http://www.hull.ac.uk/sib
International Tandem Network, European Union funded, can put you in touch with a native speaker learning your language. See, for instance, http://www.slf.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/
Iowa State: K-12 NFLRC
LearnPlus at http://www.learnplus.com is recommended by one of my online students and offers German, Spanish, Italian, French and English.
Linguist's Software, Inc., at http://www.linguistsoftware.com
Northwestern University - Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and the Multi-Media Learning Center claim to have an online foreign language placement test which is "the first of its kind known to exist." You used to be able to take any of the Foreign Language Placement Tests in French, German or Spanish online and check your results - according to posting 20 Feb 1999 on Calico-l; for more info, see http://www.wcas.northwestern.edu/advising/nuexam.html
The REALIA Project: Rich Electronic Archive for Language Instruction Anywhere: http://www.realiaproject.org/. From the site: "The REALIA Project publishes faculty-reviewed media for the teaching and study of modern languages and cultures. Faculty and students at all levels are encouraged to contribute materials to our searchable, online database. The focus of the REALIA Project is realia: Materials which convey the everyday life of different cultures."
The web page of the Language Learning and Research Center at the State University of New York at Stony Brook is at http://www.sunysb.edu/llrc/llrc2.html. The Links to Other Language Centers from this page appears quite comprehensive. There is a meager collection of Technology and Education links, but there are links to other foreign languages, language by language.
Steve Thorne's Foreign Language Resources on the Web (temporarily overloaded on Jan 26, 2007)
The Sussex Language Institute Virtual CALL Library http://www.sussex.ac.uk/langc/CALL.html has a nice set of links to CALL software and resources in a number of languages (as of Feb 2007)
Web-Based Activities for Foreign Languages, and interesting sampling of "creative ideas others have used to incorporate interactive Web exercises into their language pedagogy", at http://www.furman.edu/~pecoy/lessons.htm
Links to various language resources: http://www.interport.net/~abishop
The Language Plaza, http://www.languages.dk/
UCLA Language Materials Project -- http://www.lmp.ucla.edu
The University of Arizona's Critical Languages Series CDROMs: Beginning Brazilian Portuguese, Beginning Cantonese, Beginning Chinese, Beginning Kazak, Beginning and Continuing Korean, and Beginning Turkish are now all available from the University of Arizona Press for $69.95 per language. You can order online at http://www.uapress.arizona.edu or call them at 1-800-426-3797. Each language's double CDROM set contains 20 lessons, at least 25 video clips, 6500 audio recordings, graphics, exercises, and extensive grammatical and cultural notes. For details, see http://clp.arizona.edu/cls

Foreign Character Keyboards:

"The following URL: http://jimmy.com/Software/KeyMapPro2/index.html gives access to GIF images of the following 56 PC Language Keyboard Layouts. Russian and other Slav languages are perhaps the most obvious omissions from the list." - 30 Mar 1999 calico-l posting

"FingerTip software (http://cyrillic.com/index.html) has a neat program called 3-D Keyboard that allows you to reconfigure the keyboard as you wish, including using Western characters. You can download an evaluation copy that runs for 45 days. It will work with all programs in Windows 3.1, 95, 97, 98. The program costs $25." - 30 Mar 1999 calico-l posting

Newspapers

A comprehensive collection of links to newspapers worldwide: http://www.start4all.com/newsp.htm

Translation services

Real-time language translation is now available on the AltaVista Search site http://www.altavista.digital.com - allows users to easily search, retrieve and translate Web search results from:

Spanish to English, English to Spanish
French to English, English to French
German to English, English to German
Portuguese to English, English to Portuguese
Italian to English, English to Italian

Arabic

As part of its commitment to provide the Arab world with a comprehensive informative news portal, Arab Wide Web has announced the launch of its content-rich Arabic language site http://www.arabwideweb.com/arabic. Over 2.4 million internet users in the region, in addition to Arab communities living abroad, will be able to access the very latest news and information most relevant to them in either Arabic or English languages. Arabwideweb.com, a community portal co-owned and managed by a consortium of pan-Arab publishers, hosts information on a variety of regional issues covering politics, financial markets, technology, sports, art and culture, lifestyle and leisure.
According to their promotional materials, Nova Intelligence at http://www.nova-intelligence.com, produces the CD-ROM Arabic for English speakers, which is "the only teach-yourself Arabic CD-ROM to use voice recognition and writing assistance technologies. Currently, Nova Intelligence is at the forefront in the development of interactive tools designed to teach the Arabic language."

Chinese

In Dec 2007, Aiden "accidentally found this site http://www.language.berkeley.edu/ic/toc.html It has good tutorial and activities for learning basic Chinese (Mandarin)."
These lessons are good for beginners: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/real_chinese/start/ (viewed Aug 2007)
Power Chinese is a CD-ROM product for Windows. Mandarin/Beginner is the target audience. See http://www.transparent.com
Chinese Star 2.97 demo version is available at http://www.suntendyusa.com; over 8.MB
There's a podcast in Mandarin: http://chinesepod.com/
Alison Sommer Gustavus Adolphus College St. Peter, MN was running in Jan 2007 an introductory level Mandarin class and was very pleased with the results of using The New Practical Chinese Reader textbook, workbook and audio CDs, and having students record the "Listening and Speaking" exercises from the workbook using Garageband Podcast maker and then having them submitted via Moodle. "It is easy for the students and makes grading a lot of audio files fast and efficient for me. Any time you teach a tonal language like Mandarin speaking practice is a must, and I really recommend this method, especially i the teach-student ratio makes it hard to speak to students in person. (Mine is 22 to 1). If you have any questions, please feel free to e- mail me."
You can see bopomo characters (Taiwan pronunciation system) and hear them pronounced at http://www.mdnkids.com/BoPoMo/ 1st row 6 over is zhe
http://www.cnpedia.com/pages/knowledge/baserule.htm shows Chinese characters and pronunciation

This one times out Jan 26, 2007: http://www.chinavista.com/hyper-c/hyper-c.html

Dutch

http://bop.vgc.be is the Brussels Education Point (BOP), a Flemish education site and a home base for Dutch speaking teachers, schoolmasters and their pupils. There you find (educational) links to French, Dutch and German sites, and also readymade exercises in French and Dutch.

French and Dutch: The CALICO "Access to Language Education" 2006 Award winner was the Franel site, which provides diverse language learning resources for people learning French and Dutch. http://www.cognistreamer.com/learningmanager/%5Fcustom/Franel/index_flash.htm In 2006, we also awarded two Honorable Mentions. Gary Cziko is the founder and major contributor for the Autonomous Technology-Assisted Language Learning site, also called The ATALL Wikibook: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/ATALL This site gives us all a chance to share our best ideas on language learning. Gary wants to encourage greater collaboration from current and potential Wikibookians, and I hope he will post a message about the ATALL site. The other 2006 Honorable Mention was awarded to a site created by Franziska Lys and others in the German Department at Northwestern University. This site offers German language cultural and learning materials linked to a context familiar to the Northwestern students: Bauhaus and Beyond: Influences on Chicago's Skyline http://chicago-architektour.mmlc.northwestern.edu/

French

Elementary French Online is a course developed at Carnegie Mellon University in the context of the Open Learning Initiative (OLI), with additional support from the National Science Foundation through the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center. The course is web-based and can be adapted for a blended delivery system (face-to-face and on-line) or a purely distance delivery. Hallmarks of the course include a carefully chunked and highly interactive presentation of French language and culture and a media-rich course environment including new video shot in France with professional actors. A publicly available version intended for independent learners can be accessed at http://www.cmu.edu/oli. Christopher Jones of Carnegie Mellon University is Project director and co-author along with Sophie Queuniet and Bonnie Youngs of Carnegie Mellon, and Heather Allen of the University of Miami. Marc Siskin of Carnegie Mellon is technical lead. - March 2007
Flash-based templates for French Online. > free and open version at www.cmu.edu/oli
Tennessee Bob's 5000 French links is at: http://www.utm.edu/departments/french/french.html. Tennessee Bob Peckham is Director of the Globe-Gate Project, University of Tennessee. Globe-Gate's Regional French & French Romance Dialect Dictionaries at http://globegate.utm.edu/french/globegate_mirror/dicoreg.html. Globe-Gate is a part of LEXIMAGNE. French Grammar Central is (according to Tennessee Bob) "the world's largest single-language grammar site (385 links)" at http://globegate.utm.edu/french/globegate_mirror/gramm.html.
Mot Pour Mot is an inexpensive vocabulary learning tool, info at http://www.amug.org/~a108/
The BBC's French language site is at: http://www.bbcworldwide.com/talk/French/Frintro.htm
See the section on French at the PSMLA Web Workshop at http://ml.hss.cmu.edu/psmla/web/index.html
"some interesting stuff" on http://www.momes.net
Jim Hudson's French chat project, IRC Francais at http://www.cc.gatech.edu/elc/irc-francais
Erwan Allery, Flash enabled French teacher at the MLI: http://www.chez.com/fleprof

German

One CALICO "Access to Language Education" 2006 Honorable Mention was awarded to a site created by Franziska Lys and others in the German Department at Northwestern University. This site offers German language cultural and learning materials linked to a context familiar to the Northwestern students: Bauhaus and Beyond: Influences on Chicago's Skyline http://chicago-architektour.mmlc.northwestern.edu/
There is a hypertext introduction to German grammar at http://www.wm.edu/CAS/modlang/gasmit/grammar/grammnu.htm
See the section on German at the PSMLA Web Workshop at http://ml.hss.cmu.edu/psmla/web/index.html
John B. Lyon <[email protected]> has created a web-project for intermediate and beginning language learners. It's a set of on-line cultural exercises in German culture, meant to supplement textbook study and built around authentic German web-sites; the students respond to these websites and submit their answers on-line (the program will allow them to submit the answers to any e-mail address). The URL is: http://www.colby.edu/german/deutsch_ueben
Gary Smith has created online German drills to accompany my German grammar site (http://www.wm.edu/CAS/modlang/gasmit/grammar/grammnu.htm). Gary says "I have tried to incorporate a communicative approach by having the students respond to questions whenever possible, or at least embedding the drills into real situations, rather than just creating artificial sentences that illustrate a specific grammar point."

Greek

all links broken in this category

Japanese

http://www.sla.purdue.edu/fll/JapanProj/FreePhoto/default.html is a site offering photos of signs in Japanese for students learning to read Japanese.
See the section on Japanese at the PSMLA Web Workshop at http://ml.hss.cmu.edu/psmla/web/index.html

Malay

The Malay WAOE Chapter serves Brunei and parts of Indonesia along with Malaysia. The site in Malay is at: http://www.geocities.com/begumwaoe/waoe.html Contact WAOE officer Begum Bt Mohamed Ibrahim at: [email protected]

Portuguese

See the section on Portuguese at the PSMLA Web Workshop at http://ml.hss.cmu.edu/psmla/web/index.html

Russian

Andrei Strukov announced on calico-l, 22 Jan 1999: "Tovarishch X" ("Comrade X") is a free program for Macintosh designed to improve and develop comprehension skills for the 2nd,3rd and 4th year students, studying Russian. Lots of fun and cultural experience are brought to you by using clips from Russian radio stations and the television channel "ORT-1". All of the assignments are arranged in the ascending difficulty; the further --the harder! Download from http://www.colby.edu/personal/astrukov/
See the section on Russian at the PSMLA Web Workshop at http://ml.hss.cmu.edu/psmla/web/index.html

Spanish

The BBC offers free online language learning videos in Spanish and other languages at http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/talk/
http://www.rocketspanish.com by Mauricio Evlampieff offers paid 'premium' services but also offers free lessons for beginner students learning Spanish or teachers wanting extra resources on the language. There is also a full book on grammar available for free. Viewed online October 2005.
"Basic Spanish for the Virtual Student - Extensive beginning Spanish lessons. Includes vocabulary, grammar, verb conjugation, and a list of 500 irregular Spanish verbs (with definitions)." Accessible via "The Human-Languages Page" at http://www.june29.com/HLP/ - Follow the "Language Lessons" link from the main page." - Jerry Bicknell, neteach-l, July 12, 1999
http://www.studyspanish.com has the 15-cdrom "Camino del Exito"
Espanol Interactivo is a multimedia beginners course on 2 cd-rom's, plus a student guide, which comes with two support languages: English and French. Espanol en Marcha is a multimedia course for lower intermediate to intermediate students of Spanish on 1 cd'rom (plus student guide) which comes with three support languages: English, French and German. Both packages are available from DIFUSION, S.L., Barcelona, [email protected]. Use http://www.upv.es/camille for downloadable demo exercises. For purchases in Australia, Brasil, Canada, and the U.S.A, go to http://www.interactivespanish.com
On Active Worlds, Construction Classes, Thursdays 7:00pm VRT - Spanish, and Tours of Mundo Hispano, Fridays at 7:30PM VRT - Spanish http://objects.activeworlds.com/cgi-bin/teleport.cgi?Spanish (info current April 1999)
See the section on Spanish at the PSMLA Web Workshop at http://ml.hss.cmu.edu/psmla/web/index.html
http://www.businessspanish.com/
The Spanish language WAOE chapter had a site using Flash at: http://www.entrename.com/waoe-espanol/test/waoe.htm, Not Found July 25, 2002; Contact WAOE officer Rafael Molina-Velazquez at: [email protected]
There is a collection of Spanish Newspapers at "El rincon de los becarios" at http://becarios.tsx.org ; click on "Periodicos Hispanos".
For Encyclopedias "Centro virtual Cervantes" at: http://cvc.cervantes.es/
"La pagina del idioma espaniol" is at: http://www.el-castellano.com
http://www.businessspanish.com/Homepage/links.htm
USA Weekend in Spanish: http://www.usaweekend.com/diffday/diffday_spanish.html
The single most comprehensive collection of anything related to Latin America on the internet (newpapers, government sites, univeristies, arts, cultures) can be found at the Univeristy of Texas, Austin's Latin American Network Inter Center. http://lanic.utexas.edu
Web exercises (Spanish): http://www.lclark.edu/~benenati/gramatica.html
http://www.elcorteingles.com (shopping lessons)
http://www.edu-red.com
http://www.mtvla.com

Swahili

Penn State has some Flash exercises and other types of CALL Activities for Swahili at http://complit.la.psu.edu/swahili/modules.html

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Last updated: December 22, 2007 - 05:00 GMT

Copyright 2007 by Vance Stevens
under Creative Commons License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/

January 26, 2007

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