wikipedia

Just came across an interesting (and short) blog entry by linguist Steve Kaufmann, of LingQ fame:

http://thelinguist.blogs.com/how_to_learn_english_and/2009/04/what-we-need-in-language-learning.html

In this article he states that those interested in improving the language learning climate need to do the following:

1) Convince learners that they need to leave the learner content behind as soon as possible. i.e. within 3-6 months.

2) Stop wasting money on text books, schools, conferences, linguistics research, language teacher training, and spend the money on transcribing all the wonderful content that is available free of charge on the Internet.

3) Show learners how to find content of interest, and how to learn from it, meaning mostly listening to it in a concentrated fashion.

Bravo Steve! To this, Free Language would add that any resources created by learners and teachers would benefit from remaining Free and Open in the public domain - protected for future learners - by empowering the content with the GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL), the same license chosen by Wikimedia for all of their projects (Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikiquotes, Wiktionary, etc.).

It is important that we move collectively on the Web towards truly Free and Open language methods, resources, materials, etc. A recent article here overviews some of the existing Free and Open language learning materials.

Let's make sure access to language education materials is free for everyone, learners and educators alike.

Visit LingQ.com to learn ten language and counting, including Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish.

Here are some of the latest additions to the front page. One of my favorites is the Deutsche Welle German InternetTV Miro Player!

Deutsche Welle Miro Player for Instant Access to DW's Audio and Video Content in German, English and More
BBCChinese.com BBC News in Mandarin Chinese
Simple English Wikipedia Free and Open Encyclopedia for Learning and Teaching through Topics Written in Basic English

I just published a couple of articles on Freestyle Language:

Simple English Wikipedia is a Good Way to Practice English Reading Comprehension
The Swadesh List and Action-Oriented Language Learning

The second article has some information about action-oriented language learning, a theory that I am only just beginning to develop.

A few of the latest updates include the August Free Language Letter, Wikipedia entries for Italian and Portuguese and commercial resources for Rosetta Stone Learn Italian and Rosetta Stone Learn Brazilian Portuguese.

Below are the latest front page updates (since the last ones).

Of special note is the new section for learning Persian (Farsi).

SpanishRomance.com: A Variety of Spanish Language Content
English1010.com Free Audio and Written English Lessons Online
Tá Falado Free Brazilian Portuguese Podcast for Spanish Speakers
BetteratEnglish.com Better at English ESL/EFL Podcast for Real People
Loads of Podcasts in Spanish and Portuguese Languages
Top ESL/EFL/TESOL/TEFL/TESL and TOEFL Salad Websites
Verbs-Online.com Study French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, English with Verb Tools
Download Free FSI German Language Audio Courses
SpanishSense.com Learn Spanish on Your Terms Podcast
UMN's Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition
Newseum.com Free Front Page News from over 50 Countries in Loads of Languages
Learning Arabic Language from Didactiques Langues Publications
Learn Afrikaans Wikibook in English
WordChamp Language Toolbar for Firefox
Persian Grammar Book for Farsi Study on Google Books
Farsi/Persian Language Lessons, Reading and Dialogues for Study Materials
Free Learn Persian Flashcards in Sets from Flashcard Exchange
Free and Easy Persian/Farsi Lessons from EasyPersian.com
The Iran Podcast
BBCPersian.com BBC Persian News in Farsi
Wikipedia Language Portal
Free and Open Mandarin Chinese University Lectures from Archive.org
Free Mobile Phone Phrasebooks for French, Spanish, German, Italian, Greek and Portuguese
Fancy French: Learn to Speak, Read and Write French Online in Total Immersion with Free Podcast Downloads
Learn about the English Language at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
Rosetta Stone Learn UK British English Language Software Level 1 (Commercial)
itcansay.com Huge Database of Audio Samples for English Pronunciation Practice, Dictionary, Online Text Reader
Englishmate.com.cn English Mate Podcast for Learning English Online with Real Teachers