Fluency in a foreign language is an excellent, useful skill to have. Unfortunately, many teenagers see language learning as just another chore, especially if they are having difficulty grasping the concepts.
Studies have shown that listening to native speakers makes it easier for your brain to pick up a new language. However, it’s hard to get interested in a TV show when you don’t understand what’s going on.
Human interaction is one of the best ways to create interest in learning another language. After all, if you’re just learning the language to pass a test, or satisfy a school requirement, it’s easy to get bored with it. If you’re actually trying to use it to communicate with another person, learning a second language becomes much more satisfying.
Enter Learnosity, a company that produces language learning software.
The Journal reports that Learnosity is partnering with Voxbone, a company that provides toll-free numbers for international calls, to connect students from different countries.
Currently, students can call a Voxbone number and become part of a conference call with other students to practice speaking the language they are studying. Learnosity then provides teachers with an interface that tracks who is saying what and allows each student to be graded individually.
One of Learnosity’s goals, however, is to expand the concept so that students can call native speakers of the language they are studying and talk to them directly.
The idea is that students could use their own cell phones or phones provided by the school to call students in a different country and practice speaking the language. Each student would get a chance to practice speaking the other student’s language. Since Learnosity is partnering with Voxbone, the calls would be billed as local calls instead international long distance.
Learnosity’s CEO, Gavin Cooney, explained the value of the program to The Journal, saying “We can’t provide every student in a country with a laptop, broadband connection and headsets, but we can easily put a phone in the hands of every student. In fact, they already have one in most cases. Also, there is no learning curve for the student. And teachers don’t have to book computer facilities within the school; they just ask the students to take out their phones and dial in. This removes a significant barrier to entry.”
Of course, for this to work in countries like the US, schools would have to start allowing cell phones in class or provide special pre-paid phones specifically for these calls. Still, most teenagers love to talk on the phone, and this program would probably make language classes a little bit more exciting for the students involved.
The idea behind this program is that it uses a series of computer sequenced audio lessons that help you retain information from the very first lesson. Just about every Pimsleur Approach review that you will read mentions how much easier it is to use this program than other methods. The real reason for this is that you do not have to worry about reading, writing, spelling, or conjugating verbs – you simply focus on listening and speaking.
Because there are fewer distractions with this type of learning, people find that they are able to understand native speakers much quicker and easier. Without the distraction of the written word, it is also a better way for people who are only interested in picking up a limited amount of language skills in order to travel.
Although some people have a real requirement to have a substantial knowledge of the written language, for the most part it is far more important for individuals to be able to understand native speakers and to communicate verbally with them. When you read any of the Pimsleur Approach reviews that are online, you will see that because this method of teaching a second language focuses entirely on listening and speaking, it is the preferred method of people all over the world.