I tried a new program today at www.lingq to practice my Spanish. Maybe, my global learning style keeps pushing me towards trying something new each time.
LINGQ is an interesting program. It has audio presentations and transcripts for each audio. The unique aspect of this program is that Babylon Dictionary is tied into the program and it has a procedure for choosing a word or phrases that you want to remember/study and you can automatically put them in a flash card for later study. When it sets up the flash card it automatically takes the word that you highlight, puts it in a flash card along with the words before and after to keep it in context without your having to type in the word in a sentence. Then, you have an option to put a hint - which can be anything you want, such as the definition, grammar description, etc. I found this feature much easier than my trying to keep an on-line vocabulary list. It also has the ability to send a writing sample to a tutor who will give feedback.
This program has content for many languages. If you would like to try this it with your language, just go to www.lingq . Set up a username and password. It is not the easiest program to get started with. Just Follow demo and choose workdesk. Choose the content you want. If you get lost trying to find content, you can click on Store for a more clear list. (There is no charge as long as you only keep 5 or less activities on your desktop.)
In my practice today, I chose a 2 minute audio on Colombia. My goal was to practice some general comprehension and to focus on meaning, usage, tenses of verbs. I listened a few times and then read the script. Used the dictionary to check words that I didn't know to fill in gaps in my comprehension. I picked out each verb and created a flash card for each verb. Put the base form of the verb, the tense, and a translation as a hint on each card. I practiced the flash cards. The last time using the cards, I made sentences using the verbs and then checked my usage with the hints. Maybe next, I will try to write sentences with the verbs in the flashcards and send them to the tutor and/or do a dictation of the sentences with the verbs.
2 comments:
Hi Howard,
Did you use an online dictionary or web or program-based one?
Hi Elissa,
What is nice about the program is that the dictionary is built into the program template. So you just highlight the word and press a dictionary button and the definition comes up. I think it hooks into Babylon to give the results. The only disadvantage to this is that I have not found a way to set any parameters for the dictionary, i.e. Spanish-Spanis or Spanish-English. This is the same with the flash cards. They are there as part of the program.
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