Wednesday 1 April 2009

PGP session 1

Learning numbers in French (for beginners) or Chinese/Russian etc challenge.
Aim was to put you in the place of a beginner. I suggested Chinese and Russian since the writing system would be no help! Many did other languages including Punjabi, Gaelic, Polish.
Strategies you used to acquire this language
  • your own personal trainer - eg parent, son or daughter, friend or pupil at school. Excellent for feedback, correction of your mistakes. Loved the Chinese pupil teaching the teacher!. Another student reported the school they had been in had an international week and pupils with different language backgrounds taught some phrases to the others. Value and celebrate the languages the pupils bring with them.
  • books - very few used a book
  • youtube - you can find a native speaker to teach you and you can see their mouth. no text; and
  • internet generally - good for audio and notes. You can play the sound as often as you like. The computer doesn't get fed up with you! But no correction of your mistakes.
  • Notes - many came with notes, with phonetic spelling 
Conclusions 
  • It is hard to learn strange foreign words 
  • Remembering them subsequently is even harder. 
  • It helps if you can associate the sound with something else eg Chinese 30 sounds a bit like sandshoe. 
  • Don't attempt too many at once
We looked at the website hello-world which has some attractive interactive help in several languages.


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