Yong Zhao, Professor of Educational Psychology and Educational Technology at Michigan State, wants to teach the world about Chinese culture (and maybe a little Mandarin) before the 2008 Olympics.
Zon is a virtual world where users can live and learn about China through markets, newspapers, television, jobs and other citizens. The Chinese Language Council International contributed […]

‘Languages from the Cradle’ is a European Union funded project to collect the lullabies of Europe.
Lullabies in the original European languages, with their translations and background are available for families, schools and children to use.
Visit the Languages from the Cradle website or you can add your own lullabies to their new Lullabies Wiki.

I’m at the national languages conference, Language World, and have just done a speed-round of Thinking Out Of The (X)box, a presentation showing how computer games can be used as a stimulus for great creative, descriptive, transactional or journalistic writing. I’m now listening to the wonderful Wendy Adeniji, who was a hit at this year’s […]

All Scottish primary schools are invited to join the Junior Language Challenge, the only national language-learning competition of its kind in the UK.
The JLC was started six years ago with the aim of encouraging children under the age of 11 to develop a lifelong passion for language learning, by using cutting-edge multimedia software to learn up to three […]

Speaker - Stephen McCrossan, North Lanarkshire Council
What this workshop’s about
North Lanarkshire schools have established strong links with schools in Mallorca. Stephen will outline how videoconferencing has strengthened these links and enhanced the learning experience of the pupils. He will demonstrate the features of the Marratech videoconferencing software and describe examples of its use in the […]

Presenter - Wendy Adeniji, freelance ICT trainer and consultant, Bradford
What this workshop’s about
Wendy looks at how we can move away from ‘Death by Powerpoint’ and use the interactive whiteboard effectively to encourage use of the target language, to teach and reinforce grammar and to create activities that motivate pupils.
The workshop
Wendy is from Yorkshire and worked […]

Kath Holton leads a workshop on the myriad of ways you can use digital voice recorders and fun plug-ins like Voki on your school blog or website, in an effort to improve students’ performance in foreign language speaking.
The MFLE already carries some ideas on using digital voice recorders in the preparation of speaking assessments, but […]

The international dimension of learning, says the British Council’s John Low, is all about belonging to a community. It’s about seeing the importance and opportunity within an international community. It’s about preparing youngsters for jobs we can’t visualise in places we don’t know yet. The British Council’s Global Gateway programme helps set up the kind […]

Professor Richard Johnstone continues to be in awe of what new technologies permit language learners of 2008 to do, things which back in his 1950s school career would be only a dream.
In the 1950s language was taught as a written code, with the technology of a course book, jotter, pencil, dictionary and a ‘reader’. It […]

Margaret Cassidy from Stirling’s ICT Team talks this afternoon about Crazy Talk, software which allows you to transform illustrations and photographs into (almost walking) talking videos.
Margaret’s been working with LTS’s Consolarium on integrating Crazy Talk across the curriculum and at Communicate.08 will show how it’s being used in Modern Languages. While we wait to catch […]