#1  
Old October 09, 2008, 03:30 AM
pogo pogo is offline
Ruby
 
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 87
pogo is on a distinguished road
Language learning software

I'm thinking of writing my own language learning software (Spanish will be first) but I'm a bit unsure of the best approach to take to create something that will actually help people learn.
At the moment I'm thinking of having a number of lessons with each lessons revolving around a simple conversation, the point of the lesson is to help you understand everything in the conversation. But beyond that I'm not sure.
So I'd love to hear any suggestions people have about what they've either found useful or think would be useful.
   
Get rid of these ads by registering for a free Tomísimo account.
  #2  
Old October 09, 2008, 04:50 AM
Rusty's Avatar
Rusty Rusty is offline
Señor Speedy
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: USA
Posts: 11,299
Native Language: American English
Rusty has a spectacular aura aboutRusty has a spectacular aura about
I like the idea of following conversations as a learning tool, but this has been done by a lot of software products. May I suggest that you use real conversations? Find several native speakers and ask if you could record their actual conversations. You may have to do this over several weeks to get enough elements of current speech. Make transcripts of the conversations to use in your software. Make absolutely certain the audio is available with your software. You should probably provide the ability to listen to both fluent speech and individual words. You may have to have someone else pronounce the individual words.
As each lesson progresses, you may just want to showcase certain items (not the whole conversation, but provide the whole thing for ear training exercises), like subjects, then objects, and adjectives, then verbs. I believe we all learn things a little bit differently, so this approach may not work for everyone. But, I think helping someone listen for key elements is always going to work. You may want to let the user drive (let him/her decide what elements to listen for and learn).
  #3  
Old October 09, 2008, 05:59 AM
pogo pogo is offline
Ruby
 
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 87
pogo is on a distinguished road
I like the idea of using real conversations as opposed to scripted ones but I think that could cause problems for beginners. Even with a transcript I imagine it'd be quite difficult to follow. I also really like the idea of giving users certain things to listen out for.
Have you had a look at mangolanguages.com? They do a similar thing where they have a conversation and then try to break it down. I like how their system works but I don't want to just rip them off.

Last edited by pogo; October 09, 2008 at 06:40 AM.
  #4  
Old October 09, 2008, 06:23 AM
Rusty's Avatar
Rusty Rusty is offline
Señor Speedy
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: USA
Posts: 11,299
Native Language: American English
Rusty has a spectacular aura aboutRusty has a spectacular aura about
Hmm. mangolanguages.com certainly has some good things going for it. I liked the format. The sample lesson I heard was simple. But when they explained the grammar, it wasn't too interesting. I think gramar is very important, but I didn't like their approach. I hope you can improve on that, or at least allow interactive learning of grammar at any point.
  #5  
Old October 09, 2008, 06:31 AM
geeper's Avatar
geeper geeper is offline
Ruby
 
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 53
Native Language: English
geeper is on a distinguished road
I think that having pictures that go along with the conversation would be good as well. For instance, if the conversation is talking about a house - put up a picture of a house then a tree when the conversation mentions a tree. I enjoy the Spanish word/picture relationship as in Rosetta Stone vs. Spanish word/English word relationship.
__________________
Corrections welcome!
  #6  
Old October 09, 2008, 06:39 AM
Rusty's Avatar
Rusty Rusty is offline
Señor Speedy
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: USA
Posts: 11,299
Native Language: American English
Rusty has a spectacular aura aboutRusty has a spectacular aura about
Yes! Good point!
Pictures (or pointing at an object) is how we learn to associate a word with an object in the first place. That is essential.
  #7  
Old October 09, 2008, 06:46 AM
pogo pogo is offline
Ruby
 
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 87
pogo is on a distinguished road
I've used Rosetta stone as well and it's very good for teaching you to remember objects such as different fruits or animals for example but doing more complicated things gets very difficult to describe with images.

One idea i did have was to include bonus vocabulary to expand upon things mentioned in the conversation, so if a speaker in the conversation asks ¿Comó estás? you could give a number of alternative responses to this question. I guess this could also be expanded to explain some grammar point such as how to conjugate estar in the present tense so people can start to ask questions such as ¿Comó está? or ¿Comó están?
  #8  
Old October 11, 2008, 04:40 PM
Jessica's Avatar
Jessica Jessica is offline
...
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: PA
Posts: 8,187
Native Language: English, Chinese
Jessica is on a distinguished road
What do you mean by language learning software? and what do you mean by "Spanish will be first"?
I'm confused!
Oh, yes Rosetta Stone- I have it, but it's not downloaded into my computer. I have it for Chinese and Spanish.
  #9  
Old October 11, 2008, 09:15 PM
Tomisimo's Avatar
Tomisimo Tomisimo is offline
Davidísimo
 
Join Date: May 2006
Location: North America
Posts: 5,664
Native Language: American English
Tomisimo will become famous soon enoughTomisimo will become famous soon enough
Quote:
Originally Posted by jchen View Post
What do you mean by language learning software? and what do you mean by "Spanish will be first"?
He's planning on creating a computer program to help people learn languages, and Spanish will be the first language that he makes it for.
__________________
If you find something wrong with my Spanish, please correct it!
Closed Thread

 

Link to this thread
URL: 
HTML Link: 
BB Code: 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Site Rules

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Best forum software Tomisimo Suggestions & Feedback 18 February 12, 2009 04:50 PM
Just learning Spanish Tina Introductions 3 April 08, 2008 03:05 PM
Learning Spanish dottie13 Vocabulary 5 September 22, 2007 04:50 AM
Forum software updated Tomisimo Suggestions & Feedback 2 February 07, 2007 10:45 AM
Article on language learning Tomisimo General Chat 1 August 24, 2006 08:10 AM


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 07:27 AM.

Forum powered by vBulletin® Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.

X