Language Course - Lesson Four

Did you enjoy reading this course? For me, I had some experience learning and teaching foreign language , and the tips from the course help me a lot. In the fourth lesson, the author will talk about using the Internet as a method to learn foreign language, and I prove it by myself. Last year I cannot write a single paragraph. Today I can write most of the thing I want in the 'simple' English. I hope next year I can write anything I want in the 'intermediate' skill... this improvement come from my time on-line, reading and writing...

So, here is the part 4 from the course...

Part 4 - Using the internet in language learning

Welcome to part 4 of your language learning mini-course. Today weare going to discuss how to use the internet to help you learn aforeign language.

The internet boom in the mid-nineties was supposed to be a greatevent for language learning. Instant access to vast amounts ofinformation would be available at the click of a button. Inshort, the face of language learning would be changed forever.

Fast forward a few years and do you get the impression that thepredicted boom never quite happened? Here we are, in a time wheninternet access is ubiquitous across the majority of homes inthe US and UK, yet still 99% of people looking to learn aforeign language will head down to the bookstore to buy a paperor audio cassette/CD course rather than log onto the web.
The fact of the matter is, the revolution of the internet hasactually done very little at all to change the face of languagelearning.
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So what are the reasons for this?

Well most of the language learning information that appears on thenet is not very good for a start. Many are hobbyist sites whichdisplay little information whilst larger sites on the net areoften inadequate to help you learn a language. These sites nevercontain enough audio or visual material and are nearly alwaysinferior to good, book-based, courses.

The second reason is the mass saturation of the web with uselesswebsites. There are good sites out there for language learning.There are brilliant sites that can teach you to how increase yourFrench vocabulary, or learn Chinese characters, or understand themany slang words in Spanish.

Unfortunately however, there are millions and millions of siteson the web, all vying for your attention, and the good sitescan often get lost in a sea of rubbish. Sites such as internetmalls, sites with just pages of links to other sites, are a primeexample of the sort of site which can push useful sites to thebottom of the search engines.

With thousands more sites being added everyday, the web isbecoming ever more saturated, and finding that elusive usefulsite, is becoming an ever harder task.

Why don't you go and try it out right now? Go to one of the mainsearch engines such as Google or Yahoo and try to find somesites which have some useful information about what you wantto learn. Hard isn't it?

I wouldn't be surprised if you were just swamped with poor sitesthat had absolutely no relevance to what you were actuallylooking for.

After reading this far you may begin to think that using theinternet to help you with your language learning is a completelyuseless and unproductive use of your time. You'd be mistakenhowever. Whilst the web is unlikely to ever become the top mediumfor language learning, it can provide a valuable tool to add toyour other methods of learning if you use it in the right way.

The way you use the internet for language learning is not to lookfor information, but to find foreign language materials. Thiscontradicts one of the main focal points of the net. The internetis supposed to be the information medium, a place where you cango to find out anything, at any time.

Unfortunately the saturation scenario mentioned above has madethis unrealistic, and searching for information on any topic, notjust language learning, is now an arduous and frustratingprocedure.

The correct way to use the web, is to find materials that helpyou to learn, as opposed to information. This mean authenticmaterials such as books and videos in the language you are tryingto learn. The internet provides an indispensable medium fortracking down these items.
There are two ways of going about this.

1. The first way is to actually browse the web for websites inthe language you want to learn, or you could alternatively lookfor radio stations or audio clips. This provides learningmaterials on demand, whenever, and wherever, you need them.

2. The second way is to use the web to buy books, video etc.,items you may have difficulty tracking down in your home town.The global nature of huge sites such as Amazon and Ebay, as wellas a multitude of minor internet stores, means you can find justabout anything you would ever need to learn a foreign language.

Use the internet smart and efficiently and you'll find itbecomes a powerful tool to add to your language learningrepertoire.

Want more tips like this?
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We've only got one more part to go now in the language learningmini-course.
In part 5 we'll discuss how to continue with your studies in thelong term, and how to never lose motivation for learning alanguage.
See you in part 5

All the best,David
http://www.freewebs.com/anylanguage
davidfisher@iespana.es
P.S. Please feel free to forward this report to your friends andcolleagues. If you have received a forwarded copy you can get thecomplete course by clicking the following link.www.languagepassion.com/popup
(c) David Fisher - all rights reserved