Setting up a High-Tech Language School?

Bakerybob writes "My wife and I are currently setting up a small Japanese language school, and I am in charge of all of the technical aspects, with a small but not tiny budget. What would Slashdot recommend as technologies we could use to improve the student experience (and hopefully to interest more students in the school!)? We have the easy bases (free Wifi access for students, a stunningly poorly designed homepage, and a few cheap computers lying around for them to play on between classes) covered, but I'm sure there are a lot of better ideas out there. Has anyone used Moogle? What about online lessons via webcam? Give it your best shot, revolutionary thinkers!"

Comments

Computers and education

[bludstone]

Do yourself a favor. Dont waste your money on computer stuff for a LANGUAGE class. Most of the language programs out there simply wont help the kids do any better.

I know there has been this massive rush to get computers into everything-education, but its simply not needed.

The tech you need is a good language teacher, some dictionaries, and maybe a few textbooks/workbooks.

Maybe a japanese->english english->japanese dictionary could be useful, but even then it could make for some seriously lazy students. But I imagine those kids already know about babelfish.

Maybe I'm being shortsighted, but I feel that, in this specific case, computers would be more of a distraction then a benifit.

Re:Computers and education

[mizhi]

I think I can speak at least somewhat authoritatively on this topic since it's at least part of my area of thesis research.

Bottom line: You are wrong when you assert that computers can be programmed to replace competent language instructors. But, the grandparent of this post is also wrong when they claim that they are not good for classroom instruction.

It takes some knowledge about what makes for effective foreign language learning. What it boils down to is interaction. The traditional school of thought used to be that foreign languages would be learned by studying the grammar of the language first, understanding the grammatical transformations that go on from L1 to L2. Then, drop in the appropriate vocabulary, and boom. You're bilingual! Problem is that this made people very good at translation but barely passable in communication. After this, another trend of thought was that students would learn the language with a shitload of input. Just keep hammering them with endless streams of data, and eventually the innate learning algorithms of the brain would kick in and bilingual ability would magically appear. Hence the number of hours one has to pull at language labs. Most students sleep at these labs. There are a zillion and one approaches that claim to be superior but are, more often than not, a theory for a dissertation. In alot of these cases, the "superiority" claim comes from the nature of the evaluation criteria. Like I said previously, those taugh tin the old school "learn the grammar then the vocab" school of thought were really good translators, but horrible at communication. Both of the methods above are illustrations of transmissive learning. The idea that students are just empty cannisters waiting to be filled with facts and figures and somehow, they will magically think and solve problems.

Fast forward to today. Educators have found that the most effective methods for learning are those that allow students to be actively involved in the problem domain. Allowed to explore and discover structure and make observations on their own with little guide posts to keep them on topic, students gain a more thorough understanding of the underlying principles.

The same is true for foreign language learning. Some of the best results come from students who are allowed and encouraged to vocally produce their own sentences (NOT simply read, write, or translate) in dialogues with other students or people fluent in the target language. Given feedback during the conversation, either implicitly or explicitly, students are allowed to explore and learn from mistakes while engaging in an activity that was, on the whole, more enjoyable than lecture or "drill-and-kill" exercises. This makes sense in light of research on language acquisition in infants which shows that social interaction is crucial for proper development of language skills. It is also anecdotally observed by all learners of a foreign language that one doesn't really learn the language to the point of communicative competency until one actually goes to a country and interacts with people in the language. (Where else will you learn that when you say "gan4", instead of "gan1" in Mandarin that it means "fuck" instead of "bottoms up?" Trust me, when I say "gan1" these days, my pitch is nice and level!)

This sort of activity isn't really encouraged in most foreign language learning classes. Especially at the high school level. In some universities it is, but for the most part it isn't. Most universities have the model of classroom time/lab time with tapes. One of the problems is student teacher ratio. When one is teaching 30 students, it's difficult to have proper dialogues with them... most resort to having students repeat phrases or reading scripted dialogue.

Another problem is that students might feel shy about speaking the language. No one likes to make mistakes, and among peers, this can be a particularly acute fear.

This is where computers can fit in. Dialogue systems (in the researc

English school

[Viking Coder]

How about a broadband connection to a computer in Japan where there are people in a similar age-group who are trying to learn English?

Microphones and webcams are pretty cheap. Yahoo Instant Messenger is probably more than adequate for your communication needs.

Have the Japanese-speaking people speak as much English as they can, and have the English-speaking people speak as much Japanese as they can.

Nothing beats talking to a real human.

Past Experience

[IAmTheDave]

I worked for the largest language school in the world for 5 years, during which we rolled out a series of e-learning applications. I can tell you the following things:

1) Technology should be used to supplement langauge lessons - never teach them. Distance learning can be done via webcam if absolutely necessary, and you can take advantage of existing technologies for that. Look into Placeware or more likely WebEx.

2) You can license existing e-learning platforms from companies like Auralog, they sell on a sliding scale.

3) Students love to be able to see schedules and homework assignments online. Computer software applications also make great supplements for at-home practice. Also consider setting up a community bulletin board for students to communicate with eachother in their non-native tongue.

I know none of this is revolutionary thinking - but it is sage advice for teaching language with technology. My company tried to teach through technology alone and it failed - the lesson learned was even eLearning needed to be a supplement - not the basis for learning.

Best Luck!

How's this for a "rest of the story"?

[greenmars]

When I moved to the Big City after graduation, and I started sending my resume to places looking for Japanese language proficiency, I got a call from a lady who worked for a Japanese airline's local office. She asked if she could take me out to lunch. I was suprised and happy. Then she spent the entire hour telling me why I should look for some other kind of job because of how badly the Japanese bosses were going to treat me and how almost no American could take it. Then she paid for the lunch and left. I took her advice and got into the computer biz with no looking back. Still, I do think about all that time and energy I spent learning Japanese, living in Japan for a year, and I wonder if I could have spent it taking classes that would have been more useful for my present life.

Not PDAs, iPods!

[OECD]

Seriously, some schools are using iPods.

Aside from the standard "My pencil is yellow" fare, you cold load them up with popular Japanese songs (and traditional ones.) Mini-immersion, if you will.

The iPods even have some PDA functionality, so you get that, too.

PLUS, for c. $250 per pupil, you can add some serious 'polish' to people's perception of your school. "You get an iPod? To keep?" You'll be amazed at what that does to their willingness to fork over the big dollars! (There's almost certainly a discount for schools, too.)

Heck, set up a 'podcast' exchange with a Japanese english school. (Podcasts are recordings meant to be downloaded for later listening in the iPod.) Have the Japanese students do three minutes of dialog in Japanese, and in exchange the Yanks do three minutes in American.

OR, distribute lessons in podcast format, and charge people for distance-learning! (OR, distribute them for free and charge for the testing!)

Good Luck!