Video Cameras and the Speaking World

My post this week will cover two topics in specific: possible video ideas for the Mini Project 3, and my new technological discovery, palabea.net. I am going to be doing my Mini Project 3 with a good friend who is also in the TIFLE class at UF, and he and I have been discussing possible project topics. We haven't exactly decided on a topic or a format, but we have knocked some ideas around. I was originally completely against the idea of having people in the video (living people anyway), just because I'm always wanting to try something new. I was thinking about maybe using puppets or even just objects--you know, busting it out Baby Einstein style--but after some brainstorming, I think we may go for real people in the end. Before talking about our ideas, I want to share a video idea that I was working on in a previous class, which I've been keeping in the back of my mind hoping that it will serve to inspire me on this project.

I formulated the plan for the particular video I just mentioned while taking a French Phonetics class in undergraduate with a professor who was in her last semester of teaching. She was a huge fan of Phonetics and she always talked about how much she enjoyed teaching the class, and since she and I were good friends, I wanted to make her a little going-away gift. So this was the idea: in French, there are certain liaisons (word-linking) which are prohibited (before words beginning with an h aspiré, after the conjunction et, in the plural forms of compound words, etc.); these are called liaisons interdites in French, which to me really sounded like a soap opera title. My idea consisted of making an old-timey film, in three acts with subtitles, which would use a dramatic scenario to explain each of the liaisons interdites. I wanted the film to include subtitles so that the students could see the words written, and the film was going to include one character who would serve as the "reminder" that the liaison was interdite, so for example, s/he would appear at random moments when the liaisons were being used incorrectly and do something completely out of context to call the students' attention to the liaison.

I never actually created the video because I couldn't find enough friends/students to agree to collaborate with me in writing and creating the video, so it went without being done. Maybe one day....For now, though, I am trying to focus on Spanish because that is my field of study, and I am also hoping to produce something I can use in the classroom. The idea that my partner and I have discussed involves a dance-instruction video (salsa, tango, etc.) that we could use to, simultaneously, explain how direct and indirect objects work: who does the action of the verb, who receives the action of the verb, etc. Still, the idea is pretty incomplete and requires a lot more thought and effort. We'll get there eventually though, so that's all I'm going to say about that.

The final thing I want to discuss in this post is my recent technological discovery: palabea.net. It's an online community of language learners, similar to livemocha, only much better (ironically, a Brazilian who I met through livemocha and speak to regularly turned me on to Palabea!). In case you aren't familiar with either of these, livemocha has as its principal goal live contact with native speakers, and it does work quite well. You can either enroll in a language course (from a VERY limited selection) or you can just search for native speakers of the language you are learning and then connect with them through the website. Livemocha has its own chat software, which, to be honest, works rather slowly but includes interesting features like a translation window and a second-language dictionary. Other drawbacks are that if you speak English as a mother tongue, you won't get any work done because so many people will be trying to chat with you. Still, you can deny chat requests and then talk to the ones you want to...you just might have to test it out a while to find a good partner. One thing I can say for livemocha, the native speakers I have come into contact with through it have all been very good about sharing language exchanges equally and correcting me when I make mistakes.

Palabea is a little different, and I think it's MUCH more relevant in a pedagogical sense. Palabea also offers contact with native speakers through synchronous chat (text, voice AND video), but it offers SO much more than that. It is actually connected with various language schools around the world, and you can enroll in their courses for free. These schools all maintain their own pages where they can upload documents (lessons, worksheets, etc.) as well as video-lessons (which can be really interesting or really boring), podcasts and other forms of media. The website itself also maintains a blog site that can be used by any member. The setup is nice in that it gives you the opportunity to enroll in whichever course you like and then all of the information you access is stored in your account and saved there for you to see later if you like. Another interesting thing: it allows every member to create their own course in which they can upload their own documents, videos, podcasts, etc., so that, for example, you could potentially run your entire class from the internet if you really felt like filming yourself teaching every day. It's very interesting and I think it deserves some research attention. It also houses a very interesting non-language-learning-exchange section where you can, for example, find a job as an au pair, and I think it has great potential for creating a real "community" of online language learners.

One other thing I would like to mention about Palabea is that after spending some time on the site, I've noticed that a couple of notable researchers maintain pages there, such as Orlando Kelm from UT Austin (he hosts the amazing Tá Falado website). There are some drawbacks though: the site is a BETA site, so it's still in the beginning stages, but it's very well designed and the interface is aesthetically pleasing and easy to use. That said, you will have to navigate around for a while to figure things out, like which tabs mean which things. Still, I strongly suggest you try it out...it's worth the time.

**Sorry about the long post.......again.......hehe