Language podcasts

February 27, 2008 at 6:07 am · Filed under Technology and language learning

My interest in

I do not think are of much value to learn a . Why? When I started to create learning materials, I thought of everything from to java games. Colorful cartons to video and speech technology. I did not choose to put in my programs because when talking about learning I am talking about learning efficiency. I think are for the people making the to make money, not for people with a sincere interest in learning. I tried them and are not efficient.

learning is not efficient

learning is all about efficiency. You do not want to take years to learn a . You need to really get up to speed on vocabulary fast, then and only then, you can to start to watch or listen to your target and get something out of it.

Learning words with

While the learner is learning a few words and phrases in a nice little , another learner could learn scores of words faster with music, or mnemonics or flashcards, testing and retesting oneself. At the end of a month the person could know 100 words well though semi passive learning, while the mnemonic or flashcard learner could know 1000s. At which point the non learner could start watching real TV, and the guy would still be watching .

Watching videos, , TV,

Let me explain. To learn a , you can watch TV in a foreign or even get videos if you want multi media. This is all good. But you need to build a base. The reality is to learn a you really need to learn 1000s of words fast before you will start understanding anything, and to learn this it has to be a very active process of testing and retesting. You want to be able to do this anywhere, in your car in the shower, when walking, you want to be immersed in the . That is why audio learning is good. If you want to learn from your computer, which is great, flashcards, they are interactive. Then you can watch all the fun in a foreign and actually get something out of it.
by their nature are generally passive.

for learning will give you a false sense

for learning will lull you into a false sense of, I am learning just watching these videos. If you are a passive learner music is eons better.
Think about what I said. Do you want to take a month or two before you can understand people or years.  Learning a with will be the latter.

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2 Comments on Language podcasts»

  1. Hyunwoo Sun said,

    February 28, 2008at 1:55 am

    Great blog, first of all, :-) and I really appreciate all the posts that you’ve written so far including this one, and I’d like to say that I have a slightly different opinion on this topic, because, although I agree with you on the general idea that the learner can spend the same time to learn more words or phrases rather than just passively listening to podcasts, that doesn’t make podcasts not worthy of studying with. :-) Podcasts are just another format of distributing the lessons that can be offered in other ways as well :-) And yes, studying with podcasts doesn’t and can’t take the greater portion of my entire studying time, but still the podcasts that I’m listening to keep me updated when I’m on the go. When I find it difficult to read books or try to download videos onto my portable media players everytime just to be able to study while commuting, audio/video podcasts are a great way for me to learn foreign languages including English because they are so easy to get :-)

    Anyway, that’s just what I think. Hehe. Keep up the great work!!

  2. Jon Bischke said,

    March 2, 2008at 11:44 pm

    Great post. I’ve been collecting language videos for quite some time and are trying to be the best collection of such videos on the Net.

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