TeacherTube

I blogged earlier in the year about my frustration at the slow take-up of new technology by learning institutions. Another concern I've had is learning institutions taking years to copy an idea like myspace or youtube, only to produce a substandard offering when the original idea is old news.

Following an interesting blog by Donald Clarke who likens education to bad theatre (check out the discussion following the blog) I came across www.teachertube.com.

Yes, it's youtube for teachers. Launched early March 2007, it aims to "provide an online community for sharing instructional videos...to fill a need for a more educationally focused, safe venue for teachers, schools, and home learners. [Teachertube] is a site to provide anytime, anywhere professional development with teachers teaching teachers. As well, it is a site where teachers can post videos designed for students to view in order to learn a concept or skill."

The site seems to be well-designed, intuitive and simple. Although it's still young and the content I viewed had an American bias, it's well worth checking out and using!

I recommend Did You Know? by Karl Fisch.

Self-motivation and Language Learning

I did French for five years at school - from 11-16. And after those five years, I know how to say 'tournez à gauche' (why????) and 'Je voudrais un homme après minuit' thanks to several lunch breaks where my friends and I would sit and translate Abba songs into French.

The rest of the language seems to have disappeared into the murk of my mind. The translation of Abba songs was fun. It stuck in my head longer than the audio cassettes or the text books. We didn't have any computerised language-learning aids in the classroom back then. But my inability to learn French wasn't just down to the way we were taught.

The thing is, I never thought French was the sort of language I should be using. I lived in Northern Ireland. The only school trips I got on were cross-community trips to Denmark, where we learned more Danish in 2 hours than we learned French in five years. I knew that France was a lovely sort of country, but a country that probably wouldn't welcome us troubles-scarred types into its lush countryside, chic cities and warm sunshine.

If anyone had asked me what I thought of the French language, I would have told them that it was glamourous and seductive, a language that was to be used by tall thin ladies with expensive coats and complicated beauty routines. That French was for rich people, lovers and poets. French wasn't really meant to be spoken by spotty Ulster teenagers in a miserable little town choked by security checkpoints and drowned in rain. So I never really believed I could learn it.

Now I'm all grown up things are different. And that's lucky, because I'm heading off to Cuba on April 15. Cubans, apparently, don't speak English. And I don't speak Spanish. So I have 12 days in which I can learn some basic Spanish from my Michel Thomas Speak Spanish in Just 8 Hours CD course. This will be the first time I've ever had to attempt language-learning for real. As in, I'll be going to a country where it won't just turn out easier for us all to speak a bit of English.

Michel Thomas is on my ipod. So far I've learned 'No es possible para me', which is undoubtedly a useful phrase, but I do recognise I would benefit from a wider vocabulary. And the ability to understand what someone is saying to me...

What I'm wondering is whether there will be a difference in me spending five years learning a lovely language that I didn't feel worthy to speak and me spending 12 days cramming essential survival phrases into my head, using whatever online/audio and written resources I can find.

Necessity is the mother of invention they say. So I'm wondering if desperation is the key to language learning? I'll keep you posted...

Adiós ;)