Dr Lid King on Lingu@net Worldwide

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Earlier this month I had the pleasure of speaking to Dr Lid King Director of The Languages Company and National Director for Languages in England from 2003 to 2011 about the Lingu@net Worldwide project which launched in May of this year.

Aimed at adult language learners and teachers looking for useful resources and advice, the new version of the website is an evolution of the Lingu@net Europa initiative which began in 2001 and is now available in an impressive 32 languages!

As Lid explains in our short discussion, the multilingual site is divided into four sections.

• What's your level?
• Ways to learn
• Meeting point
• Search

In the first section, users have the opportunity to assess their language level to help them to evaluate which resources will be the most appropriate for their needs. The second section allows them to explore information about learning styles and read about the experiences of other language learners. The third section suggests how learners can keep in contact with each other and the final section lets them search through nearly five thousand free online resources which have been quality assessed by the Lingu@net Worldwide team.

The highlights section on the right-hand side of the main interface features links to the latest resources and underneath are the Twitter and Facebook accounts associated with the site. Lid admits that they are still experimenting with the use of social media, but ultimately would like to nurture a community of like-minded learners and teachers who wish to comment on resources and add their own.

If you'd like to get involved, the team would welcome your feedback and suggestions on how the site can further develop.

Thank you to Lid for sparing the time to raise our awareness of this exciting free resource and for giving us the opportunity to participate in its growth. Comments are welcome as always.

Comments

[Maryanne Burgos]

Thanks so much for posting about this great online resource. I teach in a teacher preparation program and I will definitely share this site with my students next semester.

[Deena Martin]

This seems like a very good program to help with learning styles for adults and anyone willing to use it!