We’ve made some innovations in listening recently. This is part of an overall development focus and reflects a belief in the vital importance of innovation. Never before has it been possible for the humble instructional designer to collaborate with communities of language learners in the ways that we now can. In fact, it […]
Author Archive for Ken Carroll
Now you can review and practice speaking with ChinesePod
Published by June 18th, 2007 in ChinesePod. 44 CommentsTwo things to tell you about, and both concern additional audio features that we’re introducing.
First, we have the ChinesePod News and Features show. This show will bring you updates and information to help you keep up with any developments on ChinesePod, get more from it, and make your study as effective as possible. I’m […]
I case you haven’t seen it, the second installment of ‘Qing Wen’ was released yesterday. Just go to the Connect section and you’ll see it. (The first one is here.) In this show I rap with Amber and Aggie on the subject of verb reduplication, that tendency amongst Chinese verbs to reduplicate for effect, such […]
Clive Shepherd is a UK e-learning consultant who writes a great blog. He has 30 years experience in the field and I find his insights engaging and readable - recommended.
Yesterday, he did a short review if ChinesePod. I was delighted to see his expert observations. Unfortunately, Blogspot is blocked in China, so I couldn’t […]
ChinesePod, SpanishSense, and Praxis in the Economist
Published by June 8th, 2007 in ChinesePod in the media. 4 CommentsThe Economist ran a story on Praxis this morning, Mandarin 2.0.
It’s usually me who talks to these journalists, so I get all the quotes. Yet, what am I but a mere pawn, or mouthpiece, or a piece in the jigsaw … or something…?
We have such a great team, but they don’t usually get to talk […]
Qing Wen
Today we’d like to bring something new - an audio show called ‘Qing Wen’. Qing Wen answers to your questions about speaking Chinese. The hosts, Amber and Connie, have been answering your questions on ChinesePod.com for the last year, but now we bring you a sample of their great work in audio […]
I’d like to share some insights I’ve had during the 18 months of working pretty intensively with audio.
First of all, I’d make the distinction between listening and hearing. Hearing is involuntary, while listening involves conscious orientation. Listening also requires a tremendous level of of cognitive activity. For example, the brain is forced to filter out the vast […]
The Shanghai Daily ran a story on us in this morning’s edition.
Ken Carroll
The Practice Plan offers the chance to practice speaking Mandarin for a few minutes every day on Skype with a ChinesePod coach. (Here’s a description of the Practice Plan when it was known as the 8 Week Program, though the details differ slightly now.)
You can never reach fluency in a second (or 3rd) language […]
Text has dominated learning for 500 years, but no longer…
Here’s a post I meant to link to last week but never got round to. Jeff Jarvis notes how Google plan to include video, photos, and news into their search results. He says:
This promotes other media to the exalted rank of text… You […]
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