LLAS Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies

HumBox Project

German: Podcasting Goethe
This website is designed to enhance the study and enjoyment of Goethe’s early poetry. It features readings of a selection of poems, available as podcasts, which span the period from roughly 1771 up to Goethe’s departure for Italy in the autumn of 1786. German transcriptions are provided, as are English translations to help listeners through the poems: these translations are of varying quality and are included as a guide only.

Language Testing: Dialang: Diagnostic Tests for Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish

DIALANG offers validated tests of different language skills, together with a range of feedback and expert advice on how to improve your skills. It also offers scientifically validated self-assessment activities and allows users to determine their language level, strengths and weaknesses as well as to increase their awareness of current skills and of what it means to know a language. It has been developed by more than 20 major European institutions, with the backing of the European Commission and is based on the Council of Europe's "Common European Framework of reference", which has become established throughout Europe as the most widely recognized frame of reference in the field of language learning.

Czech Online
A collection of materials for Czech learners inlcuding grammar exercises, reading, games, dictionary, essays. Most of the material is freely available for use, but the source must be acknowledged.

Linguistics: Quizzes
These quizzes are designed for students at the early stages of their Linguistics progamme or for non-specialist Linguistics students. They have been designed using Hot Potatoes authorware (http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/halfbaked/) which can be used to create cloze, mix, match, multiple-choice exercises as well as crosswords and quizzes. The materials were authored by (and are copyright to) the School of Languages and Linguistics at the University of the West of England, Bristol.

Authorware: The GISMO Project (Guildhall Interactive Software for Multimedia Online)
A selection of teaching materials produced by The Department of Humanities, Arts and Languages at London Metropolitan University using the authoring program developed within the department that allows language teachers to prepare their own audio-enhanced websites containing a variety of interactive exercises. Any educational institution is welcome to use this material. The software combines the ability to edit your own text and then to record someone reading it, all using the same program. The sound and text are then automatically integrated and a web page containing the exercises is generated.

French: E-pack (sample)
These materials represent a sample of the interactive online exercises developed at London Metropolitan University for beginners in French. The exercises combine sound, image and text in a single activity and provide instant feedback. They cover the main language learning skills of listening, reading, writing and grammar and involve a variety of activities, such as matching, reordering and games.

Independent Learning: Manchester University Language Centre's Independent Learning Guide
An online set of resources aimed at supporting independent language learning. The site includes a needs analysis, a reflective questionnaire, tips for language learning, worksheets and guides to using particular resources, e.g. CAll software. Very useful as a complement to a self-access language centre.

French: Reading French 2000
A web-based independent learning course for French for students at the University of Calgary but freely accessible to anyone who wishes to study the course autonomously and online.

Chinese: Language skills for Britain: dissemination of best practice
Over two years, from 2000 to 2002, within the framework of the FDTL 3 programme of the Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund, Oxford's Institute for Chinese Studies has developed an experimental approach to non-intensive teaching of Mandarin Chinese. It goes counter to conventional teaching strategies by isolating particular skills and focusing a teaching programme exclusively upon each one. The aim has been to learn through experience how much can be achieved with volunteer beginners in each distinct skill, and to devise materials which can contribute flexibly to teaching or learning regimes serving individual needs. The four-phase project has dealt with three basic skills – reading, speaking, listening – followed by the needs of native Cantonese speakers embarking on spoken Mandarin. In each case a pedagogical specialist from China, Taiwan or Hong Kong has spent a month in Oxford developing material, and a student-teacher from China or Taiwan has spent four months in Oxford working with a class of volunteers. Achievements and results have been monitored through systematic testing, and the whole programme kept under regular review at the national level by a seminar of professional Chinese language teachers

Dutch: The Virtual Department of Dutch
The Virtual Department of Dutch is an inter-university teaching collaboration programme in Dutch Studies, involving four UK universities. Its web-based, free-standing and interactive self-study packs cover topics in Dutch language, literature, linguistics, history and cultural studies. They cater for different levels of linguistic competence in Dutch, from beginners to advanced. Their use is free.

Spanish: From the caves to modern graffiti

This is a specialist language course for students with an advanced knowledge of Spanish.The materials cover the history of the Spanish language from pre-history to modern times. Language artefacts are taken from disciplines such as archaeology, anthropology, history, historical linguistics and popular media. The course looks into geographical and social varieties of Spanish from a historical as well as from a linguistic perspective.

Spanish: Los Peruanos
A sample of a programme developed on the theme of Los Peruanos which includes linguistic and cultural work on web documents, simplified texts and videoclips. The materials are for intermediate level and can be used in combination with the work done in the classroom or as part of an independent learning programme.

German: Angelika's German webpages
Reading comprehension exercises for beginners, threshold and intermediate levels. They can be used to supplement the Themen neu course books, and are intended for independent study.The exercises are part of my website which, in part, is a portal to Internet resources.

Teaching and learning Africa (19 Feb 2004)
Event date: 19 February, 2004
Location: University of Birmingham

Web-based learning and teaching for languages, Linguistics and Area Studies (Beginners)
Event date: 30 March, 2001
Location: Unversity of Westminster

Creating Web-based Resources
Event date: 6 April, 2001
Location: C&IT Centre, Hull

Teaching Economics in Area Studies Programmes
Economics has long been a component in interdisciplinary or combined programmes. At one-half or less of a degree the subject should be relatively non-mathematical, but for specialists it should retain its introductory and intermediate theory, its economic history and applied economic components. It lends itself well to applied study, such as German economy, French economic history, European economic integration. Foreign language sources and target language teaching, where appropriate, offer considerable gains of focus, directly relevant a wealth of web-based sources, but care must be taken with linguistic levels and register.

Spanish,the language and culture
The article offers a statistical overview of the growth and current status of Spanish teaching in UK HEIs. It covers in detail current practice in the teaching both of Spanish for beginners and for Honours level students, paying particular attention to ways in which courses build on the customary "four skills" paradigm. It examines Spanish as the sole or major component in degrees and as part of joint and combination degrees, and indicates the ways in which the language is studied as relating to the cultures and identities of contemporary Spain and the language's wide global context.

Computers and the internet in Area Studies teaching
The essay explores the application of Internet technology in the teaching of Area Studies. It is a descriptive commentary on recent good practice in this area. Special attention is given to the role played by 'virtual seminars' in teaching and learning.

Technology-mediated learning
Introduction to the use of educational technology in higher education in the UK and beyond. This article provides an overview of the available tools and their effective use. It also mediates three major beliefs about the reasons for employing technology-mediated learning - appropriacy for flexible, distance and open learning, widening participation and cost-effectiveness.

Resource-based learning
The entry covers what Resource-Based learning - or RBL - refers to, the history of RBL and the issues raised by RBL in relation to conceptions of the transmission of knowledge in Higher Education.

Teaching linguistics via the web

This section lists different resources widely available on the web and can contribute to the teaching of linguistics. It also refers to customised web resources specifically developed to teach or test linguistics on-line, often with restricted access. Some urls are provided as examples. Different models of integration are considered as are issues related to quality control and assurance.

WWW-based stylistics teaching
This paper describes the development of an interactive, learning should be fun, WWW-based introductory undergraduate course in stylistics and a pedagogical experiment to be undertaken involving the course. The WWW-based course is itself derived from a more traditional lecture-seminar course and the aim is to compare student reactions to, and performance on, the two different versions of the course. The pedagogical principles underlying the two versions of the course are discussed, as well as the design of the experiment. Stylistics teachers in other HE institutions are invited to take part in the pedagogical experiment.

Linguistics in first year single honours courses
This document suggests ways of building up the first year of a single honours course in linguistics. It suggests that the year should consist of certain core courses introducing basic concepts relevant to the field, most importantly phonetics, grammar and semantics. In addition, there should be a set of optional courses on aspects of the field which interact with other subject areas (e.g. sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics). The document provides some ideas for text books to be used and also gives some other sources, in particular web-based facilities. The document also contains a brief discussion of assessment.

Towards a framework for expansion and collaboration: A web-based multilingual grammar resource

The paper aims to discuss: the use of an authoring package designed to produce interactive web-based CALL materials that integrate text and the spoken word; provide hands-on experience in the use of the authoring package; the integration of interactive web-based language teaching material into daily practice.

The gruppo 62 Italian project: undergraduate collaboration between the universities of Hull and Leeds

This paper reports quite briefly on a project in progress, funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) through the Collaboration Programme in Modern Languages proposed by the University Council for Modern Languages (UCML) and directed by Professor David Robey.

On-line and face-to-face language learning compared: the student experience

This paper discusses the student experience of Lagelands, an on-line Dutch course for beginners. It will compare the experiences of students who took this course in combination with face-to-face teaching as part of their degree at the University of Hull, with that of students who took the course completely on-line. Before embarking upon the comparison itself, the Lagelands course and the two learning contexts in which it is offered will be briefly outlined.

The role of the European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML) in the development of a varied set of strategies to integrate ICT into language learning (a case study)

This objectives of this paper are to: present a case study of what an international organisation like the ECML can do to address current needs in language teaching and learning; outline the major issues involved in such an initiative.