Categories
BRAVE Blog

How To Learn a Language From a Hole In the Wall

Okay, let’s start again. One professor with a TED Prize wish tells a hall full of English teachers that sometimes kids learn best with no teachers around. Teachers react differently. Teachers have discussions. Teachers write blog posts, ask questions (the professor answers some of them).
I want to move beyond teachers today. There’s plenty in this conversation for a language learner. And if the whole idea of teacher-less learning is discussed by educators, it should at least be on the radar of some future polyglots.
Here’s a hint before we begin, though: many of us have been doing this for ages.

Categories
BRAVE Blog

Bilinguals, Pickers and Choosers: Language Materials for Guerrilla Learners

learning french and german can be cheap or free with the right booksI’m on a mission to find out how affordable language learning could get. I’ve taken up some exciting challenges (and a crazy one about French). Today I’m returning to a question of learning materials: how much does price influence quality for language learning aids?

Categories
BRAVE Blog

Beyond the Hour: Time in Language Learning

Six years of my teaching and training career were paid “by the hour.” The same thing applied to all the language courses I took: and hour cost this much, and I got that much in return. Today, I will try to think about language study differently. Do all foreign language classes have to revolve around the question of time?

Categories
BRAVE Blog

Apps, Immersion, User Engagement – Back to Duolingo

Funny - A Hoot 

If I had to find my internet sweet-spot – the language lover’s paradise, the virtual playground for foreign language study – I’d go for Duolingo. This week the Android-loving polyglots have even more reasons to rejoice. Android language learning app from Duolingo is here. What else has changed with Duolingo since my last review?

Categories
BRAVE Blog

The Full Memrise Review: Web + App + Behind the Scenes

Happy times for language hackers. Memrise has finally got the Android app out – and now is a good time to come back to this super-popular learning service. How does this help language learners? Is it a useful tool for online foreign language study? Here’s what I’ve found so far.

Categories
BRAVE Blog

The Flipped Classroom – an #ELTChat Summary

This is a summary of an #ELTChat that took place on the 24th April, 9pm BST. We discussed flipped classrooms in language teaching. If you’re keen to find out more about #ELTChat, visit the website and join the discussion every Wednesday!