Ohio Association of Teachers of Japanese

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Ohio Association of Teachers of Japanese

Japanese Language Teacher Workshop

I am honored to be the invited presenter at this year’s Japanese Language Teacher Workshop of the Ohio Association of Teachers of Japanese on Sunday, November 2, 2014 at Wittenberg University.

The workshop is titled Too many choices, where do I start?: Sorting through the abundance of authentic materials and technology options to find the ones that work with Japanese language.

The following links are to the main materials for the presentation:

Slides – Google Drive

Today’s Meet (backchannel)

If you are planning to attend this workshop, please read about the tools and resources below. If any of them sound useful to you, please click the links and explore them in more detail. Particularly helpful will be creating accounts and downloading mobile apps in advance of the workshop. Please come with questions! This will help you get the most out of the workshop. I’m looking forward to working with you!

Tools Presented

Part 1 (75 minutes). Assessment: Gathering data through response systems/in-class technology

• Today’s Meet
  • Cost: Free
  • Platform: Web (including mobile)
  • Description: Online webchat or backchannel. Students can post questions, comments, and resources during class or between classes.
  • Today’s Meet room for this workshop
  • More: 20 useful ways to use Today’s Meet in schools
• Plickers
  • Cost: Free
  • Platform: iPhone, iPad, or Android (only 1 needed per classroom)
  • Description: Students respond to multiple-choice and true-false questions using specially designed paper that they hold up. The teacher scans the room using a smart phone or tablet. The results can be instantly displayed.
• Socrative
  • Cost: Free
  • Platform: Web (including mobile)
  • Description: Instructor creates multiple-choice, true-false, or short answer questions. Students respond using laptops or mobile devices. The instructor can display the results as they come in. You can let students respond anonymously or require students to enter their names. You can also use this system for in-class quizzes.
  • Student login page (use to respond to questions during this workshop)
• J-CAT
  • Cost: Free
  • Platform: Web (not mobile)
  • Description: Proficiency test for Japanese learners that assesses listening, vocabulary, grammar, and reading. This could be used as a placement test or exit test.
• CLEAR Rich Internet Applications
  • Cost: Free
  • Platform: Web (not mobile)
  • Description: Embed these tools in your learning management system (e.g., Blackboard, Moodle), class blog, or web page. (Alternatively, you can use another tools called Mashups to easily create a web page.) Use them to record audio and video in the browser.
  • Audio Dropbox
    • Simple audio recorder.
    • Try it as a student
  • Video Dropbox
    • Simple video recorder.
    • Try it as a student
  • Conversations
    • Simulates a conversation. You record one half of the conversation in advance, and your students each record the other half.
    • Try it as a student
  • More: Workshop materials from the Gettysburg College Language Resource Center, article on Audio Dropbox and Conversations in FLT Mag
• YouTube – video recording & editing
  • Cost: Free
  • Platform: Web, iPhone, iPad
  • Description: Using your webcam, record video in your browser, then use YouTube’s editor to combine, split, and shorten clips and add a soundtrack, titles, and transitions. The mobile app has more limited editing capabilities.
  • More: YouTube Video Editor, basic instructions for using the editor
• IZI.travel
  • Cost: Free
  • Platform: Web, iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows Phone
  • Description: Using the web interface, create an audio tour of a location. Using the mobile app, experience the audio tour. It automatically begins to play when you get close to a location with tour information.
  • More: Ideas for using IZI.travel for language classes

Part 2 (45 minutes). Study resources: Self-study, material preparation, and test preparation

• HelloTalk
  • Cost: Free
  • Platform: iPhone, iPad, Android
  • Description: Language exchange via text or voice. Includes tools for correction, sending images and drawings, and timing your exchange.
  • More: HelloTalk from a teacher’s perspective
• Voice Dream
  • Cost: Free
  • Platform: iPhone, iPad
  • Description: Text-to-speech app. Read Japanese text aloud. Free version reads 50 characters aloud before pausing – which I consider an advantage for learners!
• Kanji LS Touch
  • Cost: $11.99
  • Platform: iPhone, iPad, Android
  • Description: Study writing kanji, including correct stroke order. Study based on JLPT levels, school year, or Joyo kanji. Write using your finger.
• Rikaichan/Rikaikun
  • Cost: Free
  • Platform: Chrome web browser, Firefox web browser
  • Description: Add-on for your web browsers that provides a definition and transliteration of Japanese text.
  • More: Rikaichan from a learner’s perspective
• Jisho (beta)
  • Cost: Free
  • Platform: Any web browser, including mobile
  • Description: Japanese-English bilingual dictionary with advanced features such as handwriting and voice input.
• Eijiro
  • Cost: Free
  • Platform: Web (including mobile)
  • Description: Bilingual dictionary. The strength of this dictionary is its great collection of bilingual examples.
• Kanji Alive
  • Cost: Free
  • Platform: Web (not mobile)
  • Description: Kanji dictionary for learners. Provides details about 1235 kanji, including animated stroke order, audio pronunciations of examples, mnemonics, and historical derivation of radical. Also shows you the kanji written in four popular fonts.
• Quizlet
  • Cost: Free
  • Platform: Web, iPhone, iPad, Android
  • Description: Create flashcards that include images and automatically generated audio. Play games and take tests with the words.

Part 3 (75 minutes). Authentic materials and resources

• Matcha
  • Cost: Free
  • Platform: Web (including mobile)
  • Description: Japanese travel magazine available in multiple languages, including English, Japanese and simplified Japanese. You can find the same article in all three versions–although you will probably have to search, rather than finding them all on the respective homepages.
• DramaFever
  • Cost: Free (ad supported); $9.99/month
  • Platform: Web (mobile apps available on paid plan)
  • Description: Watch Japanese (and other) dramas with or without English subtitles. Shows currently airing in Japan are available, as well as other recent shows.
• 20Q
  • Cost: Free
  • Platform: Web (including mobile)
  • Description: Play 20 Questions in Japanese. Proper names cannot be used.
• Akinator
  • Cost: Free (web, including mobile); $1.99 (mobile app)
  • Platform: Web (including mobile), iPhone, iPad, Android
  • Description: Play 20 Questions in Japanese. Use names of real or fictional people.
• Speech to text
  • TalkTyper
  • Dictation.io
  • Mobile devices (e.g., Siri on iPhone)
  • Cost: Free
  • Platform: Web, mobile
  • Description: Students use these tools to check their pronunciation. If they pronounce words clearly, the resulting text will be what they intended. With mobile assistants like Siri, they will also get the intended response. Keep in mind that the tools are not perfect, though! Hilarity may result instead.
• Text to speech
  • Vocalware
  • Acapela
  • Sitepal (requires Flash)
  • Cost: Free
  • Platform: Web (including mobile)
  • Description: These sites read text in a variety of languages, including Japanese. The voices are robotic, but not bad. Students can use this to check their pronunciation. It can also serve as a confirmation that they have written what they intended.
• Language exchange
  • Open Language Exchange
  • My Language Exchange
  • Shared Talk
  • The Mixxer
  • Cost: Free
  • Platform: Web
  • Description: Students can use any of these sites to find a language exchange partner. Keep in mind that this is an exchange, so they would need to speak English for half of the exchange time and Japanese for the other half. The Mixxer has tools for teachers to teachers to collaborate with and tools for students to request confirmation that they participated in an exchange.
  • More: Book chapter about The Mixxer

List of free web resources for language learning and teaching

List of free mobile apps for language learning and teaching

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