Monday, March 31, 2008
I looked at the Spanish L2 site. Wasn't thrilled with it. However, I did look at the basic lessons. I am discouraged by the fact that the site will only help us to read Spanish and not speak it. A little bit of background on the language and the cultures that speak it would have made the learning more fun. For example, the site teaches the informal "TU" before the formal "USTED." Why not have a short explanation about that? Again it would make the learning experience more meaningful. Everything is in context and spoken VERY CLEARLY and VERY SLOWLY. I like that as a learner; however, I am discouraged by the sites fatal flaws.
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3 comments:
Felipe, You make a good point about wanting cultural context/information to motivate your studies. I've noticed that Longman Eng. Interactive worked hard to provide students with that. There were cultural notes to go along with dialogue and pictures (ie appropriate things to say/not to say in certain work settings, dress, etc). I wanted that when I studied Spanish as well.
Many websites leave me wanting. I like that I can work at my own pace and read what I want, but culture is left out and is never well done if it is. Culture is part of a living being not part of a website. Also, words, phrases and gestures another thing I want and even when to be careful of mispronouncing something. Mispronouncing "nice to meet you" in English sounds very much like a Very dirty and derrogatory word toward women. I learned that from a person. That is something that comes from a living being in the culture.
YOu know, I wonder if I have any REAL objectives when it comes to learning. I mean the only thing I think of is, "I want to Speak X language." I believe many of students have this general idea in mind. Others might put it as "I want to learn English to get a better job." However, they don't think about what to do while they are learning. I think I should look a one or two things and work hard on those. For example, learn verbs, their meanings, conjugations and where they are placed in a sentence. I think that is a more realistic objective than I WANT TO SPEAK THE LANGUAGE NOW! However, now I have to think of how to get this idea into my head as well as my students!
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