Listening

Web-based Materials for Self-studying the Kansai Dialect

This project involves the creation of a web-based, guided, self-study program on the Kansai dialect, a powerful regional dialect spoken by over 20 million people in the Kansai area of Japan, where Osaka and Kyoto are located. The website helps users gain basic knowledge of structure and intonation patterns of the Kansai dialect, and build up basic aural and oral communication skills with Kansai native speakers. By including video clips of interviews with various individuals from the region, this site is also a helpful resource to examine how this dialect relates to local identity.

This project was funded from the Consortium in 2006, (refer to the previous description at http://www.languageconsortium.org/node/175) and four out of seven chapters have been created and uploaded as a prototype that contains texts and exercises along with numerous audio files and video clips. The prototype website has been presented and disseminated at language/technology-related conferences. This year’s fund enables this project to be updated and more complete in terms of programming (e.g. make the site IE compatible) and site-design as well as contents.

Living in Beijing

Living in Beijing is an interactive hypermedia project that integrates the study of Chinese language and culture. The project, built on the Metamedia platform, attempts to showcase Beijing’s current transformation in the context of urbanization, globalization, and the transition to capitalism. To this end, the socio-economic and cultural aspects of ordinary people’s lives in the Asian Games Village (AGV) community, located in the northeast of the city, have been chosen as the focus of the hypermedia archive. To present life in Beijing in action, the project contains footage of recreational programs and street scenes, in addition to one-on-one interviews. Students will therefore be exposed to the Chinese language as used in various culturally authentic settings.
When finished, Living in Beijing will have two main components: a Metamedia archive and a web site with interactive maps and links to external web sites. The archival materials will provide the students with an authentic picture of contemporary life in Beijing, whereas the web site will guide the students to the wealth of on-line resources related to these topics.
Living in Beijing is geared towards high-intermediate-level and advanced-level Chinese learners, including heritage learners. The classes will have theme-based units that focus on Beijing’s current socio-economic and cultural transformation.

Video Clips on French Social Issues: A Tool for Practicing Listening Skills Outside of Class

Development of Audio-Visual Materials

Business Chinese Teaching Material Development

Looking for Belgium: Contemporary arts as a gate to Belgian culture and history

This project will be repository of digital and scanned images, written documents, video fragments, songs and interviews that will introduce our students to Belgian culture and history through Belgian contemporary arts. Artists will be chosen within the visual arts (painting, sculpture, video art, architecture and photography), the ninth art or art of comic strips as well as those working in music, film, theatre, dance, literature and those preserving the traditions, gastronomy and popular culture in Belgium. The main scope of the repository will be artists who are currently active or who have created their work in the last decades of the 20th century. These contemporary artists will be the starting point for different chains of references to Belgian culture and artists. Indeed, this project will present contemporary materials as links to Belgian history, culture and artists of the past. It will give students access to a unique culture with different influences, mainly the French, the Flemish and the German communities living together in Belgium and each contributing to what Belgian culture represents. Therefore, artists from the three communities will be included in the repository.

The materials will be organized within a traditional MetaMedia archive, which will include the different themes around which the classes will be structured, and each theme will feature the artists most relevant to the theme being studied. The selection of artists within each theme is not exhaustive. This will allow students to make their own selection of materials to be included under a theme and to assume the role of an online curator creating different links between artists.

Web based material for self-studying the Kansai dialect

The purpose of this project is to develop web-based self-study material related to the Kansai dialect, a regional dialect spoken by over 20 million people in Japan. This proposed product aims to 1) assist students who wish to communicate with local Kansai people at work or in daily life, to 2) help students learn to appreciate diversity in Japan; through the understanding of the Kansai local culture and local identity of Kansai people. The proposed product targets English speakers who have studied college-level Japanese for two or more years or those of intermediate to advanced level proficiency.
The website will consist of 1) the basic factual information about the Kansai culture and characteristics of the Kansai dialect, followed by 2) the linguistic-focused chapters for the purpose of the acquisition of the basic grammar and functional expressions that are essential for survival level communication, and 3) situational/thematic chapters for the exploration of cultural aspects of Kansai through their communication. In the situational/thematic chapters, users will be exposed, through video clips taped in Kansai, to unscripted conversations among local people in various settings and interviews and debates on various topics. Linguistic chapters will contain not only descriptive texts, but audio resources attached to the sentences and drills, and video-clips from interviews with local people for the purpose of comprehensive exercises.

Generation in Change

The website will consist of 100 video segments plus difficult words, phrases and grammar points culled from these segments. The material will allow our students to study the influences of social change and economic development on the values, morals, and daily life of Chinese students their age as well as the consequent changes to their philosophies of life and their educational experience. Additionally, the material will give our students the opportunity to study the experience of Chinese parents and grandparents regarding these topics before and after the open door policy when China shifted its attitude to the rest of the world as well as reveal the attitudes of the older generations towards the younger generation’s changes.
The website will be a rich resource, giving our students a variety of things to explore. Our students will engage video and other media to develop their interpretations and understanding of Chinese culture, modern society, economics, and family relations. Our students will be able to save the visual materials needed in folders for their own research, projects, papers, and presentations.

España Hoy

España Hoy is a Web-based unit that examines life and culture in today’s Spain, building on and updating our 1998 Consortium project, España de cerca .
España Hoy consists of a new set of video interviews with a variety of people in different regions of Spain talking about life, society and culture in today’s Spain. These interviews will be edited, annotated and cross-referenced. Additional contextual materials, (newspaper and magazine articles, surveys, advertisements, public service campaigns ads, songs, radio reports, photographs, maps, additional digital video and other web links) will be added to provide a more general perspective to the personal viewpoints expressed by the interviewees. While this project aims to bring up to date many of the basic topics that formed the core of España de cerca, it will also address other issues confronting Spanish society today, such as growing immigration, international terrorism, rapid urbanization and its ecological consequences.

Kiswahili Listening Exercises Using Sunchronized Multimedia

Continued development of Web-based materials for Swahili with sound, images, and video. Topics include transportation, health, tourism, festivals, at the market, history, occupdatons, politics, religion, and education.