Open School of Languages
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The Open School of Languages would be an international, multilingual community for learning languages and teaching them at once. Naturally, it should reside in Wikibooks.
Plans
editAn assembly line for language lessons
editFind and gather wiki enthusiasts. Some of them (the students) will want to learn a language that is native to some others (the teachers). There should be a hard core of about eleven people participating regularly, knowing the know-how.
Enthusiasm is scarce: let the teachers not work a lot. So, the students will first do the boring homework (grammar and vocabulary)[1] then try to translate a text into the language they would learn. Only then the teachers kick in, proofreading the text[2]: corecting error’s, stylistic queernesses, and putting clever and beautiful words instead of simple words. Once, say, three native speakers have proofread the text, it should be marked as complete and approved. The student will then use the “highlight changes” function of the wiki to compare the corrected version to the original text.
Ideally (yet quite possibly), as a result we get an original, quality translation of a valuable, educative text (a story or a document or something).
- Other students of that language can read it for practice.
- Or, before they read the approved text, they can test their knowledge and skill by looking for errors in the initial version
- In the end, the first student has translated a valuable text (perhaps a useful document, like a letter to his friend) and got it proofread for FREE[3] Moreover, with the “diff” highlighting, he gets a convenient summary of his errors.
This is a REVOLUTIONARY NEW method of E-LEARNING!!!
by Ramir Kapitonovich, ca. 2006
It’s FREE! Enrol now!
- ↑ Thus, the firstest lesson in our language courses will be made of recommendations of other literature: grammar books, “teach yourself … in an hour” audio courses, dictionaries and that. Those are plenty in public libraries.
- ↑ There is no excuse for the texts not to be mirthful, witty, memorable and useful to the reader
- ↑ The “free” part is optional: the person may choose to pay someone to proofread the document in the wiki environtent, and we’re OK with that.
Spoken lessons and original audiobooks
editA native speaker with a pleasant voice and clear diction could make spoken versions of approved texts. And not only the texts made here: there is literature in the public domain that we are allowed to read aloud. Language practice and amusing stories, Two in One.
Virtually, a school. A virtual school.
editWe have the technological basis for a full-fledged online learning community. Discussion pages, user pages, categories, images and multimedia, a hypertext environment… all the things that help revolutionize education in the 21st century.
(To do: explain how Wikiversitans are a pack of wretched usurpers and malicious false prophets)
(+ JavaScripts for pop-up translations from Wiktionary: flabbergasting new technology opens new horizons)