Skype and Language Learning

[Daniel Hieber]

Hi Phil,

We use Skype all the time in our Endangered Language Program at Rosetta
Stone and find it extremely useful. While we don't use it for language
learning, per se, we do a lot of elicitation work with it. Unless you're
doing phonetic analysis of a language, it's actually a really useful tool
for long-distance elicitation.

That said, I think Skype could be a really useful learning tool. My Navajo
language experts, for example, have taught me a great deal about their
language, almost entirely through Skype, and I've become marginally
conversational. I think part of what helped is that, while we're talking,
we're constantly looking at the same sets of pictures in Rosetta Stone.
Having those pictures and lines of text as a reference is extremely helpful.
My Navajo friends can make up sentences about the pictures, correct me when
I say something wrong, and use pictures to illustrate subtle differences in
the language. If we didn't have some common reference to look at, I think
learning Navajo would have been much more difficult. So if someone is
thinking about using Skype for language teaching, I say go for it! But try
to incorporate other stimuli as well.

The biggest problem we have with it is making sure that everyone has their
headphones plugged in and using the right settings, etc. It can take 20
minutes of fiddling, typing to each other, etc. before we're ready to go
some days. And we've occasionally had problems with call quality when
talking with people in northern Alaska.

best,

Danny

On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 1:12 PM, Dale McCreery <mccreery at uvic.ca> wrote:

> Hi All, I’ve done some learning over Skype and over the phone as well, and
> while it works, it is definitely slower.  It’s something similar to the
> effect of trying to footbag under a strobelight as compared to natural
> lighting. Outside in the sun your reactions are full speed.  with
> artificial lighting you can’t track moving objects as well, at least until
> you get used to it.  With Skype I found that my learning was slowed down,
> and I required far more repetitions to be sure I was hearing things.  Once
> I became fairly competent it worked okay, but I know it would have taken a
> lot longer to get to that point using Skype - even video chat with an
> extremely good connection.
>
> dale
>
> > Hi, all. Phil, I can't really comment on using Skype to teach any
> > languages, but I can comment on my own experience with the technology.
> > At my school, we have a large international population. Sometimes,
> > students or dissertation readers are unable to be physically present
> > for meetings, so we use Skype. The delays and interferences can be
> > troublesome at times, and they prevent us from understanding each
> > other. One of our IT people said to use a direct link to our LAN, but
> > that hasn't improved the quality of our communications using Skype.
> >
> > I'm perfectly willing to admit we're experiencing operator error here,
> > though, as I'm the person who knows the most about using Skype ....
> >
> > Resa
> >
> >
> > On Tue, 21 Jun 2011 08:04:53 -0700
> >   Phillip E Cash Cash <cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU> wrote:
> >> Greetings ILAT,
> >>
> >> How is your summer?  Just to encourage some discussion and interest,
> >>I
> >> want to ask if any of you are using Skype as an online medium for
> >> learning and teaching an indigenous language.  If so please feel
> >>free
> >> to share your experience(s) here.  What might be the benefits and
> >> challenges using this medium (including any online exchange sites
> >>that
> >> you might be using)?
> >>
> >> If there are any articles/citations/links that are relevant to this
> >> discussion, please feel free to post these as well.
> >>
> >> Much thanks in advance,
> >>
> >> Phil Cash Cash
> >> UofA
> >
>



-- 
Omnis habet sua dona dies.
     ~ Martial
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