WISER: Learning a Modern
Language
Lucile Deslignères
Librarian, Language Centre
librarian@lang.ox.ac.uk
“The 3 Cs: commitment,
continuity and communication”
Commitment requires dedication and focus
Continuity incremental process over time
Communication use and employ the language
meaningfully and in real contexts, so you can see
the immediate usefulness of it.
From Dante Cerulo, Italian Tutor at the Language
Centre
Aims
• Find valuable resources for learning
modern languages
• Use resources offered by Oxford and from
other referential sites
• Make use of the language you are learning
in your searches
• Find tools for non-latin writing systems
• Search non-English search engines
SOLO
• Searching: Simple and Advanced search
• Browsing: put language in subject box +
Language Centre Library/library of choice
Video guide to searching at
http://languagelibraryatoxford.blogspot.com
OXLIP+
For advanced levels. Which database?
• Browse by subject
• Search if you know the name, cross-search
(as a starter)
Use the "i" button for information about
database coverage
For Dictionaries Oxford Reference Online or
CREDO
OXLIP+ News
• NexisUK for Danish, Dutch, French,
German, Italian, Spanish. Search by
keyword in the language
• Factiva browse the news from Bulgarian
to Turkish, some audio facilities
• News in Chinese? Japanese? Russian?
Browse by subject in OxLIP+ and get help
from Subject Consultants
e-books
Project Gutenberg has audio books in
Chinese, Dutch, Finnish, French, German,
Russian, Spanish and many many more!
Google books
The online Books Page mostly English but
quality links for Foreign Languages in the
Archives
E-books Kindle et al.
Non-Latin writing systems
• Chinese, Japanese, Russian: how do I
type? How do I learn how to type?
Options on PC/MAC computers for installing
Cyrillic, Chinese, Greek, Japanese
Options on web: James Naughton Allan
Wood (including Georgian, Mongolian)
Options on smartphones
Searching the web
Blind Search compares between Google, Yahoo
and Bing
Google but which one? Be cautious with the
Language Search facilities. Best is to go to
Google.fr for French searches, Google.ru for
Russian searches etc…
Advanced searches: exact title search, search
within a site, use the language script (paste or
type)
Phil Bradley’s list of search engines by countries
Browsing the web
GATEWAYS: BUBL
SITES:
As starters Omniglot and Wikipedia
For learning at beginner’s level BBC
for “less commonly taught languages” UCLA
Browsing/searching Delicious pages
Language Centres
• AULC Cambridge Language Centre, King’s
College London, SOAS… and many
others…
• Oxford University Language Centre
Language links: multilingual, individual
Library blog, Language Exchange
Programmes, WebLearn
Start-up page & blogs
• Start-up page: audio and video material
http://www.netvibes.com/languagelibrary
• Blogs (great for learning how to type)
Top 100 language blogs from Lexiophiles
Other ways…
• MIT open course: Chinese, German, Japanese,
French, Spanish
• Mobile phone “apps”
• Facebook: French, German, Georgian societies
• Online radio
• Skype
• Twitter
• Youtube
Conclusion
• Going back to Dante’s words: commitment,
continuity, communication
• What is your aim? Travelling? Research?
• Don’t spend too much time searching
websites or apps
• Not much between beginners and
advanced level (A1, C2 CEFR)
• Work on what you are NOT good at!
Where to go from here?
Other WISER sessions
• Finding Stuff series: books etc. on SOLO,
articles, conferences.
• Finding quality information on the internet
• Session organised by your Language Subject
Consultant: Arabic, French, Russian etc…
• Getting information come to you
• E-books
Reference
Bradley, Phil, Internet Q&A in Library & Information Update, p.22, Sept 09
for http://blindsearch.fejus.com
for everything related to web 2.0
technologies done by Oxford Librarians (flickr, facebook, netvibes,
twitter, wiki etc…)
http://socialoxfordlibs.wikispaces.com/
WISER presentation archives http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/services/training/wiser
CEFR Common European Framework of Reference for Languages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages
Thank you to Hitomi Hall and Minh Chung, for their advice on writing
tools for, respectively, Japanese and Chinese. And thank you to
Andrea Stich for giving me the German example for the news
databases
©Oxford University Language Centre, for Bodleian Libraries