Is Computer Language Learning Suitable For Me? By Terry Roberts

Computer-assisted language learning (CALL), often known simply as computer language learning, is a form of computer-based assisted learning. The first thing to be said is that it is not a method, but a tool to facilitate learning - under whatever method is being used. Perhaps one of the most useful things about computer language learning is that it is student-centered and allows each user to progress at their own speed. Moreover, it can be programmed to be interactive and, as a result, individualized. Finally, it can form a stand-alone course, and be used on its own, or it can be used as a reinforcement of class learning.

Where computer language learning is used in the latter role, as learning reinforcement, it has often led to a revision of both the teacher's and student's role in the language learning process. For example, when it is used as a major component of a foreign language course, the teacher must get used to the fact that they are no longer simply the provider of knowledge, but must now guide the student in their interaction with the computer. The student, for their part, must become accustomed to taking on greater responsibility for their own learning.

It is often said that computer language learning, even when used to provide a stand-alone course, does not entirely eliminate the need for an instructor, or teacher. While this may be true in certain circumstances, the latest CALL courses, usually available for self-study in stores or on internet, incorporate many advances that enable a motivated learner to take almost complete control of their learning experience. Speech-recognition software allows them to compare their pronunciation to the computer's model, and access to an instructor, either by phone or via an internet forum, gives them the support necessary at crucial moment in the learning process.

Indeed, for many students, computer language learning can create a much more stimulating environment than a classroom. Although some students learn better in a classic teaching setting, with instructor and peers, others may find it intimidating. This is obviously true for shy students, who can feel freer in their own self-created learning environment.

However, the advantages are not limited to shy students. The use of technology tends to make learning more interesting for many people. Personalizing information, by integrating the student's name or familiar contexts within the instruction, can promote motivation. Another very successful way to do this is to use much more realistic contexts (real-world or fantasy) that are not directly related to language learning per se.

One way a program or activity can promote motivation in students is by personalizing information, for example by integrating the student’s name or familiar contexts as part of the program or task. Others include having animate objects on the screen, providing practice activities that incorporate challenges and curiosity and providing a context (real-world or fantasy) that is not directly language-oriented.

Finally, computer language learning gives the student the ability to control not only the pace of their learning, but also, in many cases, the actual content. This is because they can choose what to learn, in what order, they can omit lessons they think are unnecessary and do extra work - or devote more time - to their perceived problem areas. This makes them feel more competent in their learning. Moreover, students tend to prefer the type of exercise where they can control the content and direction of their learning, such as branching stories, puzzles, logic problems or adventures.

All in all, if you're not too worried about not being able to learn in a classroom environment, with permanent access to an instructor, computer language learning could be just the thing you're looking for to bring greater motivation to your language learning experience.

Resource: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=374299&ca=Education

Do You Think Learning Italian is Hard? Try With Some Italian Courses in Florence By Lorenzo Cardelli

Do you think learning Italian is hard? It’s no harder than learning Spanish and like any other language the absolute best way to learn as an adult is to immerse yourself in the language on a daily basis. The best way to do this is by taking Italian language courses in Italy. If you are trying to learn in the United States or any other English speaking country then practicing outside of class is quite difficult. You also have limited exposure to the language, even in a university level course the most time you will spending will be five hours a week. Enter the Italian learning experience.

Whether you are attending school in Italy, taking an extended vacation or relocating for work, taking Italian courses upon your arrival will make your transition immensely easier. You will have classmates from around the world to practice with. In Florence, for example, everyday you walk out to study Italian into streets filled with speakers you can practice with. The further away from the tourist zones you are the easier it will be to practice as well. Not falling into the speaking English as a default helps to learn as well. Many Italians speak English and will welcome the practice, but if you maintain your responses in Italian you will find that a few weeks of day to day life complements your Italian language course greatly, especially in the ability to retain the information.

The benefit of learn Italian in Florence, while you are surrounded by native speakers, is greatly increased by the pace of many programs. While it is possible to take only an hour a day in lessons, which is ideal for students who will be in the country for an entire year, most of the programs will be roughly four hours a day. This reinforces everything you learn well, building day by day on what you have covered the day before. You may be quite surprised at how quickly you are able to pick up the language at this pace. The fact that you are able to add private lessons and also do intensive programs increases greatly the speed at which you can learn in most Italian courses in Florence, Italy. Here there is a large number of ex patriots and tourists, and you will find the greatest variety of schools.

For those with the love and the motivation learning Italian will not be that hard. Any background in other Romance languages helps a great deal, and the idiomatic expressions will come more slowly than verb conjugation. But by taking Italian courses in Italy you will get the benefit of native speakers being around you everyday. They will help you immensely, especially in the form of language exchange, practice English for an hour, then Italian for an hour. Very shortly you will learn to never order a latte unless you want a glass of milk and that an espresso is a newspaper and not a coffee and you will be on your way to speaking like a native.

Resource: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=374742&ca=Education

Lassen Peak National Park By Allison Ryan

The volcanic national parks in the Untied States include Lassen, Crater Lake, Mount Rainier, Yellowstone, and Hawaii. Lassen, Crater Lake, and Mount Rainier are distributed along the Cascade Mountains running from northeastern California through Oregon and then on to the northern edge of Washington.

This whole range was volcanic. It resulted from a great outpouring of lava, forming a plateau about eight thousand feet high. Peaks were formed upon it due to further eruptions which heaped up cones of lava and ash forced through vent holes. Some of these volcanoes were big, others were little.

Many of the smaller volcanoes disappeared under the growing bulk of their mightier neighbors. They did not have the technology to create a petition online or the brain capacity to create a petition, so they didn't file a petition to create equal opportunities for smaller volcanic formations.

Lassen Peak is named after a Danish settler named Peter Lassen, who had a ranch near the base of the volcano even before the area was declared as a part of the United States. It stood at 10,453 feet, well above its surroundings. Lassen used it as a landmark to pilot westbound parties from Humboldt Sink over high ridges into Sacramento Valley.

Lassen Peak probably had no plume of smoke or steam at its summit a hundred years ago, for it seems to have been dormant for several hundred years prior to its volcanic activity in 1914. On May 30, 1914, the mountain awoke with a shudder of earth-shaking explosions.

Although activity continued during the next seven years, none was very destructive and the flow of lava was not large, especially when contrasted with the fountains that have several times in recent years poured huge lakes of molten rock from Mauna Loa on the island of Hawaii. No concerned citizens attempted to write a petition in protest or to write petition letters just because they wanted to write a petition.

About a year after this activity began glowing lava squeezed up and filled the bottom of the crater before leaking out through a low place in the west rim wall, flowing 1000 feet or more down the mountain's side. The resulting heat melted the late-lying snows. The floods coursing down the northeast slope caused great mud flows.

They also loosened huge boulders that bounced down Lassen's broad flanks and rolled 5 and 6 miles out into Hat Creek and Lost Creek valleys. A few days later there were more mud flows, followed by a hot blast that poured down the northeast slope with such violence that it flattened trees 3 miles below the crater.

A column of vapor and ash rose some 5 miles into the air, and the devastation in the area was so great that after more than 40 years the forest cover slowly begun to heal the wounds. Had it been a major corporation and not a volcano doing the action, many environmentalist groups would have protested. They might have even decided to get an online petition to start free petition sites and use petitions to get the companies to stop destroying the forest.

Much of the park is carpeted with a heavy evergreen forest, although there are large areas, too, of chaparral thickets, principally manzanita, tobacco brush, and chinquapin. There are enough aspens, cottonwoods, willows, and alders along the creek beds so that there is a warmth of color in the fall; and there are several hundred varieties of wildflowers, which bloom between May and late September.

The crimson snow plant invigorates the meadows in the spring, and it and other flowers follow the melting snow up into the high country. The Indian paintbrush, scarlet bugler, bleeding heart, mimulus, and tiger lily are very common, and the subalpine uplands are aglow in mid-August with lupine, pentstemon, laurel, and heather.

Resource: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=374876&ca=Education

Home School: Child Development By Jose Rocha

School at Home

There are a number of dissimilar alternatives available to people where their education is concerned and home schooling is one of those alternatives. The method of home schooling simply requires that the student is schooled at home by their parents, guardians or a teacher that is specially hired by the point for the child. Teaching at home school in terms of set of courses can be diverse, but at the same time the learner will end up learning a lot of the same things that they would have learned had they stayed in public school or had they gone to the private school that was near by to them.

The attractiveness of learning

While there are a number of dissimilar countries in the world that have a sizable chunk of their inhabitants involved in home schooling, at the same time the attractiveness of the activity in different countries vary. The countries in which home schooling is most established are the countries of Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. Other countries with close ties to the UK such as Australia and New Zealand also be inclined to have a reasonable amount of home schooling in their country, whereas other Western European Countries like France, Germany and so forth tend to have little to no home schooling because of a state mandate.

Reason

There are many causes as to why parents might want their children to receive an education through home schooling. If you ask the standard person in a popular home schooling country like the United States what they thought the reasons might be, most people would probably guess that the parents objected to the teaching of certain subjects or their children education of certain subjects on religious grounds. And yes, while it is certainly true that many students that are home schooled by their parents are schooled due to religious grounds, at the same time this is not the main reason that is given in surveys.

Students being home schooled for religious grounds number around 38.4% of the total home schooling population and that is in fact not even the most frequently given reason. In a recent survey done on the reasons for home schooling, 48.9% of people that answered the question actually felt that they could provide their children a better tutoring through home schooling than they felt they were getting at their local community school. This has to do with all walks of teaching and not just the one or two that people might object to for religious reasons.

An additional reason that was well liked on the list of grounds for home schooling was that the parents felt that there was a poor teaching environment at school where the quality of poor teaching was inadequate and the material being taught was perhaps a little bit below where other neighbouring districts or states might be. Some parents follow what their children learn very carefully and some in doing this have reached the conclusion that the school is either not teaching material at a fast enough pace, is not teaching the material suitable to a specific class or is doing something else that the parent feels is dropping the quality of education that their child gets. There are many grounds for parents home schooling their children so if you have a particular qualm with the public school system, chances are there are many other parents that share that bad feeling with you.

Other main grounds for home schooling a child comprise family convenience, mood that the child is not being challenged enough at school, The parent having a career that avoids them from seeing the child at a far away public school and of course the child having disabilities that definite school can not attend to.

Resource: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=372973&ca=Education