Fluency for Free!

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Welcome to Fluency for Free
FLUENCY FOR FREE
Melanie Leggatt, Modern & Medieval Languages
Melanie Leggatt
Ian Mackey, Information Services
Modern and Medieval Languages
Ian Mackey
Information Services

What you can achieve with a computer, a network connection
and your inspiration
Based on a graduate training session entitled
The Web, my browser and me

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Historically, an assumption that success was guaranteed if you threw cash at
an expensive language-learning package

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Or indeed locked students in a language lab with grammar aids

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The truth lies elsewhere

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In your own enthusiasm and ability

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You can avoid the financial cost – it's time and effort that count

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Lots of useful resources online, but no shortcuts

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Indeed the true skill likes in navigating through the piles of detritus
to find the hidden gems

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A bit of a gallop so lots of supporting links available online after the session
if you sign the attendance sheet and leave your email

Primarily – that this isn't you

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Quite the opposite – that you're bubbling over with ideas
about what you'd like to do

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You just need the tools to make it happen

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Introducing you to these tools, where to find them and the possibilities
is the focus of this session


The good news is that today we are spoilt for choice because of Web 2.0 and be

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Before we go any further, an aside about Web 2.0 – just what is it?

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Initially with Web 1.0 we all tooled up and went shopping, then something changed. . .
We stopped being merely consumers and started creating instead. Web
2.0 meant write access for all!

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Lots of people posted their own resources and made them freely
available for sharing

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The good news for us is that this included language geeks!

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So, we have whole world of digital creativity to explore

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So which pieces of the jigsaw will you need?

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Gateways
Human-reviewed listings of the best sites around

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Sites like Bab.la and Wordreference provide excellent online dictionaries


Sites like Memrise and Busuu provide excellent online vocabulary resources


Sites like Lang-8 allow you to connect with native speakers who will
Help you with your written language – of course you need to help them too

SOUNDS
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Tunein has a comprehensive listing of international radio stations playing online

SOUNDS

Forvo 2,102,797 words 2,173,421 pronunciations 306 languages

SOUNDS

On demand audio recordings from native speakers
Of course you have to help out others too. Try Rhinospike

The written word
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ICDL provides free access to childrens' books with their limited vocabulary
Excellent for beginners!

The written word
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Online newspaper and media listings provide useful links for more
advanced learners!

TOOLS
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Generate your own flashcards to help extend your vocabulary and grammar
with Anki

TOOLS

Italki: Skyping to improve your language skills

TOOLS

DuoLingo offers totally free high-quality online courses

TOOLS

Internet Polyglot also offers totally free high-quality online courses

TOOLS

Join active online forums like the one at Fluentin3months

INSPIRATION

Benny Lewis' account of how he went from mature monoglot to polyglot

INSPIRATION

Follow the most productive blogs

INSPIRATION

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Follow the most productive blogs

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If you can drive a web browser you can do it!

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So how do we find the stuff to get started?

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Thankfully for us, publishing is now as easy as falling off the proverbial log


And if you can use a web browser and drive a
word processor it's easy to do it with style too

1,000s of people blog on Wordpress so it can't be that difficult,
can it?

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You don't have to publish for everyone to see until you're ready
It can be somewhere for you to organise all your favourite
links, record your thoughts and your progress

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Treat it like your personal language learning diary

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But if you do decide to share your experiences you become
part of the online language learning community too

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And remember you can do it anonymously!

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And you can enjoy knowing you've reciprocally shared back

Which neatly takes us back to systems like Diigo to help us manage all
this information

Scoop.it – curating and displaying your favourite content
created by you and others

Explore the links on the page we'll supply you with

Don't forget to give it a go and have fun!

Fluency for Free!

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