20 September 2009
The following are language course resources which you might find useful:
Adult Education Open University Michel Thomas Pimsleur Linguaphone Hugo Spanish Websites Television Influential Books
20 September 2009
www.about.com – Word of the day and saying of the day are both free services from this website. You provide them with your email address and choose what you want and every day they email them to you. In addition they give you links to lessons and discussions that are also free of [...]
14 September 2009
Flash Card Machine is a nice website, you can make your own flash cards and share them with others if you wish. You might be lucky and find that someone else is already sharing their cards. It’s a good way to learn and revise vocabulary. You can randomise the order of the cards [...]
3 September 2009
E-tandem is a free service run through a couple of University servers. The idea is to pair you with a language learner who is fluent in the language you want to learn and who wants to learn your language. Once you make contact it is up to you both how you work it. [...]
2 September 2009
Most of the main Spanish newspapers have online access, at least to their front page, for free. My favourite is El Pais and is the one I check most days, www.elpais.com is the link.
1 September 2009
I was recommended to the News in Slow Spanish website less than a month ago and I like it a lot. You can subscribe to the complete service that gives you transcripts, translations and flashcards in addition to the podcasts. Alternatively you can listen for free to the audio version only, there [...]
25 August 2009
I find the following websites really useful:
YouTube News in Slow Spanish Rollingrs www.elpais.com E-tandem Flash Card Machine www.about.com
20 August 2009
Rollingrs – www.rollingrs.com – contains a lot of short video clips, mostly a few minutes long. The teacher wants you to subscribe to his service that includes transcripts and self tests but he allows anyone to watch selected clips for free. It’s worth a look.
|
Author
Bill Ferguson |
Spanish Teaching Resources Getting good quality teaching and resources
The information I am going to share is an honest account of what I have tried over the past year and my opinions are just that, opinions. I will share my likes and dislikes, what works for me and what doesn't. This is a personal experience, I am not an expert but if you share my ambition of learning to communicate in a third, foreign language, then maybe we can help each other along the way.
According to Friedrich Nietzsche: "One who speaks a foreign language just a little takes more pleasure in it than one who speaks it well. Enjoyment belongs to those who know things halfway."
I think he is right. Its hard to define halfway but I think the fun starts when you know enough of a language to be able to make yourself understood, given sufficient time to think. At this stage you are not merely tolerated but treated as an honoured guest in a foreign country. People see you bravely struggling to speak and understand, and give you credit for trying. They are nearly always kind and supportive.
Go beyond this to fluency and its like a toddler growing up, you are no longer cute and vulnerable. You are competing for resources, in the adolescence of language acquisition unless you have a definite role you are treated with suspicion. Maybe that is the stage to consider moving on to another new language ...
Getting good quality teaching and resources is vital to success: encouraged by an influential book by Harry Ferber I now view language acquisition as a military campaign, I need to use my resources efficiently to overcome all resistance, I need to capture vocabulary and not let it escape. I need to wear down the opposition by attacking daily and not allowing it time to regroup. I need to learn the predictable tricks that the new language will play on me and be ready for them (this means learning grammar). Like any military campaign good quality intelligence is vital. Learning a Third Language My current ambition is to be able to communicate comfortably in English, French and Spanish. I began to study Spanish in 2008. I have been a student of French, on and off, for about 30 years and up to last year ....read more Strategic Planning When I started to think about taking on a third language I realised I had two main worries: firstly I didn't want to lose my second language ...read more Fear of Losing French As I see it there is a simple choice ....read more |
Resources Getting good quality language teaching and resources |
Recent Comments