Babel

The multilingual, multicultural online journal and community of arts and ideas. There's a heaven above you, baby.

Babel

Archives for October, 2010

The science behind language learning

Posted by  on Friday, October 29th 2010     

I just read the “Science Grows on Acquiring New Language” article in Education Week by Sarah D. Sparks highlighting research about how we learn foreign languages. Researchers think that the “critical period” to learn foreign languages well may be longer than previously thought and that babies exposed to hearing people speak in different languages learn [...]

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Rosetta Stone or a teacher? Foreign language learning technology

Posted by  on Thursday, October 28th 2010     

About a week ago, I received an email from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages asking the members if they felt that the ads for the Rosetta Stone foreign language learning software were threatening the jobs of foreign language teachers. I went to the You Tube links they embedded in the following [...]

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Multiculturalism failed? Change your educational system!

Posted by  on Thursday, October 21st 2010     

Earlier this week, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor remarked that Germany’s attempt at multiculturalism was a total failure and that Germany’s immigrants need to learn German to integrate. I thought about the problems of language learning and how it effects cultural integration. My father speaks limited English after living in the US for 30 years [...]

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Laurentius de Voltolina Explains Pac-Man

Posted by  on Wednesday, October 6th 2010     

Laurentius de Voltolina Explains Pac-Man I created this image to accompany Game Design and Higher Education at The Handy Vandal’s Almanac, my game design blog.

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