Teaching Oral Language via Technology

[Mary Hermes]

The Institute for Advanced Studies here is sponsoring a one day workshop between terms (so January, 2012)
for teachers who are trying to figure out how to use this software (Ojibwemodaa).
I will lead, and also use the opportunity  to help them switch toward oral proficiency,
as opposed to the written that many teachers use.  I can invite all of you, I think it is a free-bee,
 a good opportunity to put our heads together about using software to teach indigenous languages.

Basically, we are using unscripted conversations as our content.
There is a grammar reference built in (so grammar on demand) enough sentence patterns along with word by word 
re-dictated flashcards to get a learning going in the direction of speaking. I think it is a step in the right direction.

Please do try the demo and let us know!
Much room for more to do.

--------------------------------------------
Mary Hermes, PhD
I


On Sep 2, 2011, at 11:22 AM, Dale McCreery wrote:

> Hi!  I look forward to trying out Ojibwemodaa.  A few years back I
> downloaded the pimsleur Ojibwe course and found it fairly useful, and have
> been working towards incorporating something similar into a way of
> teaching Michif.  Basically, we created a couple sequences for the
> different aspects of the grammar, morphology, syntax, etc that a new
> student would need to learn and have been making purely audio lessons to
> teach them, though we’re still pretty early in the process.  The idea is
> to combine these with a couple hundred hours of audio recording that has
> been done going over the SIL Dictionary Development Plan (?), which is the
> way i learnt the language myself (though I used a couple different Cree
> textbooks to acquire the grammar of the language before doing the
> documentation).  Once the students have the structural knowledge to
> understand what is being said, they can then learn the vocabulary and
> reinforce their knowledge of grammar through hearing it used in
> conversations (translated) and they should also then be able to learn more
> from our elders who speak the language but might not have an idea as to
> how to teach it.
> 
> I think that a method that can naturally introduce the grammar of a
> language (orally), combined with (lots of) recordings that explore the
> vocabulary in a natural setting is probably the easiest approach, at least
> in terms of how much work it takes to produce compared to the results (I
> hope!).  Especially for languages where the community does a lot of
> arguing over orthography.
> 
> -dale-
> 
> 
>>> 
>>> Hi Craig and All,
>>> 
>>> We have created a software for teaching Ojibwe, using tools from
>>> Transparent Language.
>>> Teachers are starting to use this for distance language courses (I
>>> know two in particular).
>>> Still not a perfect replacement for a speech community, but at least
>>> offers videos of semi-natural conversations.
>>> It does have built in voice recognition, pronunciation practice and
>>> conversation practice.
>>> Our tool is: Ojibwemodaa, find it at :
>>> www.grassrootsindigenousmultimedia.org
>>> 
>>> And write to me or Kevin if you want more info!
>>> Good luck
>>> What language/s do you work in?
>>> 
>>> --------------------------------------------
>>> Mary Hermes, PhD
>>> Visiting and Associate Professor, Curriculum and Instruction
>>> University of Minnesota
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Sep 2, 2011, at 9:30 AM, Craig Spaulding wrote:
>> 
>>> What can anyone recommend for an approach to teaching language via
>>> the internet or DVD where the main goal/focus is oral language
>>> without all the trappings and issues of dealing with literacy? I use
>>> to work at Rosetta Stone and their approach was highly integrated
>>> with literacy, though it could be customized by the user to focus on
>>> the audio/verbal component. Unfortunately, they are not taking on
>>> any more projects for the near future and I wondered if there were
>>> other software approaches that list members know of or have
>>> experience using that are effective.
>>> 
>>> Thanks in advance.
>>> 
>>> Craig
>> 
>>