Learn a foreign language – over the Web

Checking Barbara Sawhill's Twitter stream this morning I came across an interesting article on using Skype in the foreign language classroom called Learn a foreign language – over the Web. Published by the Christian Science Monitor, it includes many practical examples of students enhancing their language learning skills by communicating with native speakers over the net using VoIP technology. Sources for the piece were requested by Barbara in her post Do you use Skype in the language classroom? which generated some interesting responses. Read the article here

Being a relative Twitter newbie myself, it is interesting to see how edubloggers such as Barbara are using the tool to share their ideas across the web in 140 characters or less. Like many other current twitterers, I notice she is using the useful Tinyurl site to shorten long web addresses so they fit more easily into the text limits of each post. Why not read Grammar Girl's Unofficial Twitter Style Guide for some more tips on using the new service or Newbie's Guide to Twitter by Rafe Needleman?

For me the tipping point for using Twitter was when I added the official widget to my blog so I could read all the twitterings from the bloggers I had chosen to follow. By scrolling through, I could find out the latest musings, conversations and useful links from practitioners I enjoy reading anyway in bite-sized chunks.

I can see now how Twitter can be very useful for keeping up to date and pooling expertise with your favourite bloggers in an immediate and engaging way. For the same reasons, it could be helpful to enhance foreign language learning with students from different countries. Moreover, as twitterers can choose who follows them, this can be done in a safe and moderated way.

Please get in touch if you have been using Twitter to learn a foreign language or send me a message on my widget. That would be cool.

Comments

[enzaac]

Just started experimenting with Twitter and teaching intermediate italian language learners. Any advice or insight you could provide, given your post is from late summer?

Thanks, enza

[Joe Dale]

Hi Enza,

Have a look at this post which could give you some ideas:
http://joedale.typepad.com/integrating_ict_into_the_/2007/08/test-your-langu.html