Multilitteratus Incognitus

Last week was the last formal week of #rhizo14.  Even though we crazy lunatics have taken over Dave's P2PU course site and are continuing the course on our own (for now), life goes on and other MOOCs start and finish.  This week was the week I completed the Introduction to Communication Science from the University of Amsterdam , and the course Diseño, Organización y Evaluación de videojuegos y gamificación (design, organization, and evaluation of video games, and gamification)from the Universidad Europea, using the Miriadax platform. The former was taught in English, using the all too familiar Coursera model, while the latter was taught presented entirely in Spanish (with one or two interviews in English). The Communications course isn't technically over, next week in the final week, but the final exam was this week.  Since I am done with both, I think it's good to have a little post-mortem analysis. Coursera - Intro to Communication The novelty that got me into t...

Image by DawnOfHope2012 Over the past few weeks I've been knee deep in an initial literature review. This past summer, while vacationing, I met up with a colleague who teaches for my department as an adjunct, but he's got him own full post in Greece as well.  While having coffee and talking about life in general we spoke about my PhD prospects, and my current feeling on the subject is that I am interested in getting my hands dirty and working on a dissertation already.  I have already spent 2004 - 2010, full time (including summers) as a graduate student, having earned 4 masters degrees. Throughout those six years, I have taken 47 courses (138 credits). Thus, at this point, the prospect of spending late nights in class (another 14 of them minimum), plus qualifying papers before I get to have my dissertation proposal approved doesn't specifically appeal to me. If there were a PhD where I could just start working on my cool dissertation project, and fill in any gaps in my...

This past week, crazy events in Boston aside, two new MOOCs began: LTMOOC , on Blended Language Teaching, and the Phonetics and Phonology MOOC from the Virtual Linguistics Campus at the University of Marburg.  The Edx course on the Ancient Greek Hero took a hiatus week to allow people to catch up.  I am still sticking to the Ancient Greek Hero course, and I did try to catch up with the scrolls, a secondary reading that's meant to be "fast reading," but apparently I am not fast enough (I seem to be taking my time).  In any case, my strategy for the Edx course is to read the main reading, and participate in the course, and worry about the scrolls later. As far as the language MOOCs go, I decided to stick only with the Phonetics MOOC.  Blended learning is something that I already know about since I am an instructional designer, and given my applied linguistics background I can put 1 + 1 together; so with limited time and resources I opted to just keep an eye out on...

In a previous post I wrote about a call for paper from Language Learning & Technology for their special issue on Mobile Language Learning.  I've been thinking about mLearning, MOOCs and Language Learning for a while as a potential dissertation topic (when I get started with PhD program anyways).  I was thinking that this would be a good place to start building a frameworks for mMOOCs (mobile massive online open courses) that have a specific focus on teaching language. Here is an initial title and abstract: Title:  The intersection of mLearning, MOOCs and Language Learning: A Framework for SLA using mMOOCs Abstract: In recent years Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs), based on connectivist, and some times connectivist and constructivist, principles, have been the center of attention for educational researchers. At the same time the idea of mobile learning (mLearning), activities that allow individuals to learn through a compact digital portable device that...

While looking up the most recent issue of  Language Learning and Technology I came across their most recent call for papers. This time around the topic is mobile language learning, both topics I am interested in!  I was wondering if there are any change MOOC participants out there who are interested in mLearning, and Language Learning to work as part of a collaborative research team on the theme :-) Here's the actual call for papers: There has been increased interest in portable technologies which allow learners to access tools for learning languages in virtually any time or place that suits them. The quickly developing functionalities of mobile phones, MP3 players, laptop and tablet computers, and other hand-held devices with touch screen technology mean that the range of possibilities for language learning has greatly diversified. GodwinJones (2011), for example, points out that iPhone and Android phones have ushered in a phenomenal expansion in the development of Apps ...

I am happy to see that the topic of MOOCs as a language learning tool have come up in Change11! Again, even though I am not a PhD student yet, I am considering topics for a potential dissertation. The idea is that if I have an idea going in, and it's partially developed, I won't be stuck in dissertation purgatory :-) In any case, I've been participating in, and observing, various MOOCs over the past nine months and what's emerged is that different MOOCs take different approaches to the running of the class.  Some are more loose (see eduMOOC) and some are more controlled (I think LAK11 was more controlled), and of course there are other MOOCs that are somewhere in-between those two spectrums.  In thinking of a language learning MOOC (at least my potential dissertation topic), I am thinking of a MOOC that is more on the controlled side. The MOOC is going to be an introduction to Modern Greek, so there are some standards, some criteria, that students would have to m...

This semester I was planning on returning to the classroom, the language classroom, to get back into French.  The last time I took a formal french class was my senior year in high school and it was fourth year french (mostly literature from what I remember). In any case, my freshman year in college I frequented Yahoo! Chatrooms to practice my french and I did have a pen-pal for a while. Around 1999 our paths diverged and that was the last time I wrote in french (also the last time I regularly "spoke" it as well). In any case, I was planning on taking a 300 level french course on composition and stylistics. I attended a few class sessions and the course was challenging, but just at the right level for someone as rusty as I am. Due to work, and the fact that I just can't sit for 90 minutes two times per week I decided to stop auditing the course and attempt a different method.  I figured that there are enough french speakers on the internet to help me out.  I thought I wo...

I've been following along last week's posts on Open Education, and the whole concept of MOOCs, open educational resources and language learning has been swirling around in my brain.  I've known people who've learned languages, online, by immersion. I think that they started off conversing using a common language (probably English) and then slowly transitioned over to the language that they wanted to learn.  I am not sure how face-to-face immersion works, but I assume that online immersion probably works around the same lines.  I'd have to do some more research and looking information up to be sure. In any case, thinking ahead to a PhD, I am wondering if anyone has researched open education, or MOOCs, or both in the field of Applied Linguistics and language learning. This might be something that I would be interested in doing and I am wondering if there are people out there in CCK11 that have learned a language just by interacting with others online (and supplement...

I've been mostly lurking these past couple of weeks on CCK11. I've enjoyed reading both assigned readings and reading through blog entries of participants. Most blog entries are in English, which isn't surprising considering that this MOOC is run in English, but at least once, if not, more times per week I've seen postings in Italian , French and Portuguese - I'm sure I've seen Spanish as well, but I really don't remember. I definitely saw some Spanish in LAK11. While I do enjoy reading ( good ) content in English, it's always a breath of fresh air to read it in other languages! I minored in Italian and German as an undergraduate, I self-studied Spanish (in isolation, so my communicative competence isn't that great...but reading is OK) and I took 4 years of French in high school and I spent a year or so in French chat rooms in college (the early days of Yahoo! Chat). For me reading in a second language isn't that difficult - it's ch...

A month or so ago I came across this this post on Salon via OSNews . I read both the OSNews post and the Salon post and I've wanted to write about it since, but something wasn't sitting right - I just couldn't put my finger on it. Well, yesterday - reading about child development, specifically language development, it hit me! Here's an excerpt: Only there's a rub. Most of these later innovations were brought to us by programmers who first honed their abilities with line-programming languages like BASIC. Yes, they mostly use higher level languages now, stacking and organizing object-oriented services, or using other hifalutin processes that come prepackaged and ready to use, the way an artist uses pre-packaged paints. (Very few painters still grind their own pigments. Should they?) And yet the thought processes that today's best programmers learned at the line-coding level still serve these designers well. Renowned tech artist and digital-rendering wizar...

I was reading this article on InsideHigherEd the other day about Drake University's "Outsourcing" of language learning. In short they replaced formal classes lead by tenured faculty (or just faculty who had second language acquisition experience) with the following: small discussion groups led by on-campus native speakers, a weekly session with a scholar of the language, a one-semester course on language acquisition and the use of several Web-based learning technologies. In other words, lower paid undergraduate or graduate students from abroad that probably have little experience with actual second language acquisition. I don't doubt that a learner, when immersed in a foreign language and foreign culture situation can pick up conversational skills. For this I would go back to the learning-acquisition hypothesis --> Acquisition being a "natural" and subconscious process of picking up certain information while Learning being a more structured way of pickin...

Welcome back to the last part (for now) of the discussion on learning and theory inspired by a video blog that I saw recently (more on that in part 1). In the aforementioned video blog, the blogger (Steve Kaufman of "The Linguist on Language") said that Language learning depends on learner, not research. I suppose that when it comes down to it he is correct. Language learning (or any learning for that matter) does depend on the motivation of the learner. That motivation may vary. Some people like the challenge, others want to converse with long lost relatives, and other may want to seek employment opportunities abroad (or one of a myriad of other reasons). Research findings aren't geared toward the learner but rather toward the teacher. If you are one of those lucky teachers that has super-motivated learners in front of them you are very lucky! Your job is much easier! The fact of the matter is that many people take classes because they have to, not because they wa...

Alright, so here is part 2 of my little examination of learning and the role of theory plays on learning and teaching. This was fueled by Steve Kaufmann's semi-recent video blog (see part 1 of this series for link). This part has to do with Research, Politics and the role of linguistics in language learning. First off the bat, we have a comment that research can project just about anything depending on the parameters of the study . Well, I am not really sure how to approach this other than to look at statistics as a parallel. An old professor of mine used to say that: there are three types of liars: Liars, Damned Liars and Statisticians. Of course this was a bit tongue-in-cheek as he was a math professor. The way you determine if a study has any bearing on what you do, or if it indeed is a credible study, is to look at the instrumentation, the methodology, the participants, the sociocultural settings and so on. No study is absolute because they can't test for everything. ...

The first post of the new year (that's actually academic), is a response to (or rather an addendum to) Steve Kaufmann's recent video blog entry . While I don't agree with Steve (as always) in everything he says, I did find some of what he said on the ball. For example he said that the brain always learns - I agree. However, I do believe that whether someone learns the language "naturally" (i.e. something like immersion - like babies learning their first language) or something more like a classroom, the processes are quite similar. It is true that kids learning their mother tongue don't have to pass quizzes in vocabulary or grammar in the traditional sense (i.e. sit down and take a pen and paper exam - that would be hilarious though) but they do have tests whether one wants to admit it or not. When a kid utters something like "DOG!" when the kid really means "cookie!", this impedes the kid's ability to communicate - in essence failing ...

File this under random thoughts... So, we've been talking about textbooks in my linguistics classes for the last couple of semesters and how most of them suck when it comes to language learning. My classmates who do teach languages for their day jobs constantly find creative ways of working through the deficiencies of the texts that they are saddled with. On the other side of the fence, in instructional design, we do talk about materials selection, and if there is material that will fit your needs, appropriate it, otherwise make your own (if time and money are not an issue). I happened to read a blog post recently with language learning resources on the web and I was reminded again of wikibooks. This lead me down the path of open source textbooks such as wikibooks and Flat World . The big question here is why don't we do it? Why don't we subject matter experts get together and create language textbooks that don't suck? Get some linguists, some language experts and...

I was catching up on my Omniglot Blog unread posts and I came across this post asking people When is a language dead? This whole discussion come up because Manx was declared as a dead language even though there are still speakers of the language. The range of opinions posted in the comments was quite interesting, and it serves to point out there is not consensus on when a language is dead, or in some cases rather remains dead. View 1: A language is dead when there are are no monolingual speakers of that language. I find this line of logic to be wrong. Back when movement across country lines and continents meant long journeys, often expensive, this may have been a good indicator because a lot of people were monolingual. In these days bilingualism (or multilingualism) is the norm. In areas where there is a common language, or history of subjugation, its common to find the language of the conqueror taught first and then the native language. As we move into a more connected world, monolin...

Just as I've started taking a course called "structure of the English Language", which deals with English Grammar, here comes a blog post called " there is no grammar ". OK, now that the other blog got your attention, I think that I agree with the original blogger. Grammar is a construct made up to understand the language we speak. From a language learner's perspective though is it useful to start learning grammar from the get go? Whether you agree or disagree, the article is interesting to read. I think that we shouldn't be so grammar heavy in intro courses to language, however we should learn the rules eventually. Verbal communication only gets you so far, and not knowing the intrinsic, abstracted, rules of grammar will only hurt language learners in the long run if they wish to gain proficiency in a language - IMHO.

Recently I listened to a podcast version of this video-blog . It appears that Steve and I have the same interest in language - learning language in order to communicate :-) While I agree that podcast-only methods of learning a language are not sufficient, I disagree with Steve's thesis that a podcast that has a dialog in a foreign language followed by explanations in the native language is not a good way to learn. It may be true that it's not his preferred methodology (and yes, I have studied ten languages too), but it does work. It doesn't work alone though. Steven talk about jushttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gift using the language, and learning that way. While immersion into a language work, it's a the 'swift-kick-in-the-butt' method of learning, so it may not be the best method of learning a language, again it depends on your wired way of learning. If I were to give someone who doesn't speak Greek a URL for weekendgeeks or vrypan|net|radio (Greek new...

Recently I had posed an open question to people out there to see how much they remember from their intro language courses. I then stumbled upon two relatively recent starred items in my google reader that I had not read yet: The role of grammar in language study and More on grammar . I have to say that I agree with Steve on both his posts, and this comes from personal experience. As an undergrad I spent a lot of time in language courses despite being a computer scientist. The reason I wanted to take language courses was communicative. I wanted to be able to communicate with natives in a spoken and written format. The curiosity about linguistics was a secondary factor. My professors were great, but I find that the format was rather formulaic and of a different era in language teaching. From what I gathered, my professors were literature people, not strictly foreign language pedagogy people, In Italian this wasn't a problem as I had already had French and I could translate my languag...

Hot off the heels of my little rant (and recommendation) on LANG101/102 for high schools and universities, here is a fairly recent video blog from a linguist blog that I subscribe to. I thought it was interesting, it's worth 10 minutes :-)