[RNLD] Message to r-n-l-d at lists.unimelb.edu.au Exploring online language learning, for example 'Duolingo' or 'Say something in'

Wed Apr 29 00:27:56 UTC 2020

Dear Angela

Cathy’s shell is also used by Muurrbay so good to share that work

However Drupal also runs a module eLearn. This is a more flexible system with more plugins, and the drupal 8 interface is a vast improvement. Also more flexible with api to allow integration of mobile apps and your language site.

It seems you want to use as an app – both of these systems are mobile friendly sites if you choose the right mobile-friendly template (so can view on browser on phone) and you can transfer between drupal and wordpress systems somewhat if want to change later

Doug Marmion and Cathy Bow are trying to get a language into DuoLingo but the work required by the community to support this is high. Good to tell them you are interested though

Kind regards,
 |\ /|
=o=
 \  /
Cat Kutay
0418 455 089

From: Ruth Singer <rsinger at unimelb.edu.au>
Date: Wednesday, 29 April 2020 at 9:04 am
To: Peter Nyhuis <p.nyhuis at student.unimelb.edu.au>
Cc: Angela Harrison <angela.harrison at batchelor.edu.au>, "r-n-l-d at lists.unimelb.edu.au" <r-n-l-d at lists.unimelb.edu.au>, Samantha Disbray <s.disbray at uq.edu.au>
Subject: Re: [RNLD] Message to r-n-l-d at lists.unimelb.edu.au Exploring online language learning, for example 'Duolingo' or 'Say something in'

Hi Angela,

I'm just starting to build a Mawng course using LearnPress, which is a part of WordPress.

Aiming for something like the Bininj Kunwok language course:
http://language-shell.cdu.edu.au/course/bininj-kunwok/

Cathy Bow (Charles Darwin University) who designed the Bininj Kunwok course, with Jill Nganymirra (Bininj Kunwok Regional Language Centre) sent me some instructions on how to set it up in LearnPress - you can add audio and video and structure the course into learning units as you want. Because it's on WordPress it should keep working for some time, without rebuilding, that's the big plus in my view. But I'm not sure yet how much it can tweaked to look good on tablets and phones.

Ruth

On Tue, 28 Apr 2020 at 17:27, Peter Nyhuis <p.nyhuis at student.unimelb.edu.au<mailto:p.nyhuis at student.unimelb.edu.au>> wrote:
Hi Angela and Kumalie,

It depends a lot on what kind of learners you have and what they hope to achieve. Are they adults or children? Are they heritage speakers or total outsiders to the language? Do they want to learn useful phrases, grammar, or do they want to expand their existing vocabulary? Are they literate in their first language?

Most of the offerings out there (even Duolinguo, despite the way it sells itself) only really provide translation-based vocab training. If your learners don’t read English comfortably, or the platform doesn’t allow you to change the language of instruction to one they can read, then it won’t be very useful. And in the case of Duolinguo, it’s not even designed to be an open platform that you can contribute languages to – even if you did manage to convince them to work on an Arrernte course, it may be difficult for the language community to maintain ownership and control over the process. Memrise, on the other hand, allows contributions from anyone in any language, but is even more exclusively driven by translation-based vocab training. And if you are trying to teach young kids, they're probably not going to be very excited by flashcard-based apps for long, no matter how shiny and colourful. Even for adults, staying committed to regular practice of a new language is always a struggle, with or without an app (as I’m sure everyone here knows!). These flashcard apps work best when they support a larger learning pathway (including speaking practice, learning grammar, etc), rather than when they are just used in isolation.

However, if you do want to go down the flashcard road, it might be worth taking a look at Anki, which is (like Memrise) a so-called ‘spaced repetition system’. It’s much uglier to look at than Memrise, but it’s more flexible, allowing flashcards where you have to fill the blanks (which can be useful for teaching grammar), or where you have a picture or video on one side and a word to learn on the other (which means you don’t have to rely on translation). It’s also open source, so if you have the funding you could get a developer to take Anki’s basic system and then design an interface that suits your particular needs, and you wouldn’t have to pay Anki anything for it.

If you’re looking for some non-flashcard ideas, when I was working in the Wubuy revitalisation program at Numbulwar school I prototyped a few web-based video games for teaching kinship terms, verb prefixes, directions and so forth – shoot me an email if you would like to take a look. (They can all be freely adapted for other languages too)

Hope that helps,

Peter

On Tue, Apr 28, 2020 at 4:12 PM Angela Harrison <angela.harrison at batchelor.edu.au<mailto:angela.harrison at batchelor.edu.au>> wrote:
We are looking at investing some funds to create online language lessons in Arrernte. We have looked at a few platforms and are interested to hear feedback from others in the language teaching world as to their experiences.
We have looked at ‘Memrise’ – which looks good from the point of view of accessibility, ease of use and vocabulary learning, however we would like something which is more sophisticated and allows learners to learn to build sentences.
‘Say something in’ looks like it uses a lot of the same principles as master-apprentice, like focussing on intensive speaking and listening rather than reading and writing. This one has the advantage that the learner can listen and repeat without needing to look, which is great for using on car trips, or while bike riding or walking.
‘Duolingo’ appeals the most to Kumalie Riley, Arrernte teacher, who says it is most like the Arrernte teaching she is familiar with in that it uses flashcards and has a focus on speaking and listening as well as reading and writing.

We have tried to contact both Duolingo and Say Something In but have received no communication in response.
We are interested to hear the experiences of others – is it likely that we will hear back from them? Has anyone had experience with putting a language into one of these platforms?
Thanks,
Angela and Kumalie

Regards
Angela Harrison
Project Manager
Centre for Australian
Languages and Linguistics (CALL)
Desert Peoples Centre Campus
Alice Springs
p:
8951 8344
w:
batchelor.edu.au<http://batchelor.edu.au/>
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--
Peter Nyhuis
Language Documentation Lab
School of Languages and Linguistics
The University of Melbourne
Parkville VIC 3010

--
Dr Ruth Singer
School of Languages and Linguistics, University of Melbourne
Research Unit for Indigenous Language (RUIL): http://indiglang.arts.unimelb.edu.au/
ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (CoEDL): http://www.dynamicsoflanguage.edu.au/

https://unimelb.academia.edu/RuthSinger
http://www.findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/display/person2621
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