Foreign Language

A New Role for Avatars: Learning Languages

May 2, 2013 | 10:02 AM | By Holly Korbey

Flickr: Phillie Casablanca

Most experts agree that the best way to learn a language is by immersing yourself in it. Now, with more sophisticated technology, another theory around language learning is being tested: the use of avatars to practice speaking.

Alongside traditional methods, like listening, repeating, and digital flashcards, created by companies like Rosetta Stone, Livemocha, and AccelaStudy, a few tech companies have leveraged the idea that becoming someone else helps to learn a foreign language, especially when speaking it.

Companies like Second Life and Middlebury Interactive Languages both offer digital avatar programs to give language learners a chance to practice their skills in virtual environments. Britain’s Language Lab has created “English City” using Second Life, where learners are promised realistic conversations with native English-speaking teachers, also using avatars, in virtual but plausible digital environments, like checking in at the airport, going to an art museum, or giving a presentation.

“Speaking practice was only possible in the classroom, and that meant very little practice for students who have no contact with English outside their school.”

Few studies exist on the effectiveness of avatars for language learning, and just as recently as 2009, a study conducted by Griffith University on digital technology and second language learning found that “although significant advances have been made recently with chatbots [avatars] for Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Learning Methods, Teaching With Tech, foreign language, language learning

EDUCATIONAL APPS

¿Hablas español? There’s an App for That

February 14, 2012 | 10:57 AM | By Tina Barseghian

By Polly Stryker

App stores are chock-a-block with apps for language learning. Most of them boast colorful flashcards and cute characters for kids, and others are translators that help travelers with phrases, vocabulary, and pronunciation. The big names are in the mix: Rosetta Stone has apps for both Android and iPhones/iPads, but they’re mobile companions to the expensive software packets that contain the main course. Berlitz sells apps to help you brush up on your vocabulary and phrases before you travel.

But a few new language learning apps are moving in on the “gamification” trend in education, making a game out of learning phrases and words. For young students accustomed to playing games during their off-hours from school, or for adults who have a few minutes to kill on the bus, these game apps are meant to help with casual, conversational language learning in languages like Spanish, Italian, French, German, Mandarin, and Portuguese.

One of the biggest players in the language-learning game app realm is MindSnacks, and as Mindy Eve Myers, Director of Education explains it, the point of the app is not necessarily to teach the language to the point of fluency, but to keep players engaged with something more productive than killing pigs.

“The reason that we wanted the games to look they way they did and to be able to be played in short bursts of time is that we wanted them to fit into those awkward moments of the day where you’ve got a couple of minutes to kill,” Myers said. “So, instead of playing Angry Birds, you can practice your Spanish vocabulary.”

Here’s how it works: You have to match the English word with the Spanish word, for example, “nine” and “nueve,” before the fish tank empties. The water drains faster and faster as numbers are thrown at you.

Another game on the menu: meteors falling to earth, with numbers or vocabulary to match before the meteor crashes into houses. Or your spelling is checked by tapping on parachutes falling to the Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Learning Methods, Teaching With Tech, apps, foreign language, language learning

Can an Online Game Crack the Code to Language Learning?

November 10, 2011 | 11:33 AM | By Tina Barseghian

Practomime.com

By Nathan Maton

What can possibly get kids excited to learn a dead language? This was the challenge for Latin teacher Kevin Ballestrini.

Ideally, he could take the entire class to Rome and walk them through the ruins, where they could practice speaking the language while learning the history. He found a way to do it — at least in the virtual world.

Ballestrini has turned his introductory Latin class at Connecticut’s Norwich Free Academy into an alternate reality. The students’ job: to save the world by joining a shadowy organization on a quest to find the Lapis Saeculōrum that was part of an Ancient Roman society.

“Mr. Bal told us this isn’t school anymore,” says 10th-grader Caroline Scheck. “He told us, ‘You’re on a mission to save the world.’ Naturally, we all thought he was crazy. He even asked, ‘Who thinks I’m crazy?’ and a few of us raised our hands.”

“I took Spanish for four years and I don’t think I’ve learned as much as I have in that class as I have in just two months.”

But there’s a method to the madness. “It’s a mix of a role-playing game and an alternate reality game,” Ballestrini says. Students play the role of Romans in a reconstruction of ancient Pompeii (or ancient Rome) and have to learn to think, act, create and write like a Roman in order to win the game. And those are the same goals of any introductory Latin course.

Using an online portal, student teams direct their character in Latin to find mysterious inscriptions on stones and solve mysteries. Then they can see how other teams’ characters responded to the Continue reading →