Second Life in the Language Classroom (Belma Gaukrodger at Sharefest)

Belma asked some questions first to see who has learned a second language, is a language teacher, and would like to learn a second language. She then posed the question "What is Second Life", and there were some great conversations around the literal and methaphorical meanings of second life.
A self-process novice, Belma is first and foremost a language teacher, and she has only Internation students.

The lessons are in computer labs, and Belma was wondering how she could help enagage her students. After attrending a PD session with Claire Atkins she was introduced to Second Life and saw an opportuntiy to motivate students. Anecdotally, to date, the approach has been very effective as far as engagment and raising interest in the learning of English.
Image via WikipediaBelma then showed a couple of videos that introduced Second Life as an envrionment and what you can do there. One specific example was Cypris Village which is a space for learning English.


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Learning and teaching French: Examples and resources

Image by Storm Crypt via Flickr

BEFORE you start reading - please note that all the links (shown in green text) in this blog post go to examples, sites and tools,

If you are learning or teaching French you are likely to find some of these ideas and resources of interest. There is definitely a trend to empowering learners to create their own multimedia artefacts, and to collaborate, not only as a class or local group, but also on projects with learners across the world. Multimedia tools are being used by teachers to create content, as well as to capture learners' voices in creative approaches. The fostering of thinking skills is also catered for with interactive, often inquiry-based activities.

Voicethread is being used extensively for language learning and teaching, and some example of Voicethreads in action are: L'art franais, French for maths, To find out more about Voicethreads, click HERE.

For listening annd visual resources, the French Listening Resources Page offers a variety of podcasts and videos. The BBC also have a wide range of multimedia resources for learning French at beginner, and intermediate levels - for example, there are 10 online topics based on the 20-part TV series that build on the absolute basics of Talk French. With French in a click learners can access topic-based modules with exercises, explanation and activities, play interactive language games for free online (but you need to be a member to hear the audio), find out about French grammar and vocabulary, and use the online dictionary.

Teaching French at school? For primary students there are links to sound files, songs, newsletters, podcasts, and lesson plans on a range of common topics. For teachers of slightly older students there are movies, stories and letters, grammar explanations and activities, and worksheets.

If you are looking for a comprehensive annotated list of links to resources Frenchteacher.net is the place to go. There are links to the usual worksheets, quizzes and Powerpoints, as well as to ready-created multimedia resources. The Free Language site also has links to French learning podcasts, TV, videos, and communities.

There are also sites that offer complete, free courses in French. The Word to Word site lists about 10 such sites, and if you click here this link will take you to an example of one such course.