Having carefully outlined the kind of posts that I planned to make over the next period of time, I will now be true to form and write about something completely different!
While out for a walk with my father, I was laughing about my rather ambitious aim of writing a blog aimed at non-English speakers without access to internet technology who may quite possibly be illiterate. We began to discuss text to voice technology and it became immediately obvious that the solution to reaching illiterates was possible and that the technology already existed.
A very quick search was enough to realise that we weren’t the first to have this idea. The OLPC (one laptop per child) already has a text to speech engine on its OS called ESpeak, my understanding is that the languages other English part of the project still needs a lot of work, but the basic functionality is already in place.
Aside from the OLCP project I found an interesting research discussion called Exploring a basic illiterate Web access system: Discussion and demonstration of technical concepts, and pointers to future research. The discussion centres on some of the difficulties that would be encountered if trying to develop actual browsers for the illiterate and suggests the different approach of using what they term as a “literacy server”. In other words a server that would act as a proxy between the user and the content they were accessing. Translating the text to the user’s language and then converting the text to speech.
So what about the hardware? I’m starting to think that mobile phones with web capabilities may be the answer here. I’m aware that mobile phone use in the third world has been spreading. Presumably we will see a similar growth in the use of smart phones and mobile internet within the next decade or so. Is anyone working on a project for distribution of second hand GPRS capable phones? I guess some more research is in order.
As outlined in my previous posts, English Uncensored - a new direction and part 2 of the same, I hope to address topics of interest to people who fall into one or some of the following categories:
- People trying to learn English using internet technology (for free or as cheaply as possible).
- People who want to learn about using internet technology, people who (like me) want to know more about the open source movement
- People who find that their access to information is restricted through governmental censorship.
So what can you expect from me in the next few weeks?
I am not an expert on any of the topics I plan to cover, so instead of writing from an expert’s point of view, I plan to write about my thoughts and theories, and ask questions in ways that are enticing enough to get the experts to come to my blog and help me out!
Some topics that I would like to address in no particular order are:
- Internet censorship - Where is it happening? Who does it affect? Why should we ‘ban’ it? And until such a time as that it no longer exist, how can we help people to break through it?
- The ‘open source’ movement - What is it? How is it useful? How can it be used in language learning?
- The ideal computer system for a language learner. What is it? How can it be modified for those who can’t afford it?
- Differences in language learners. Why are some people better at learning a new language than others? How can those who are not so good at language learning benefit from observation of those who appear to be ‘gifted’ in their language learning abilities.
- Copyright laws - what do they mean in the 21st century? Who benefits from them? Who suffers under them?
- Using the technology and information available to us for learning. How can we sort and filter the torrents of information that we have at our fingertips in the most beneficial way for our personal learning goals?
- Being autodidactic. What does it mean to be autodidactic? Are we all autodidactic? How can we become autodidactic?
That should keep me busy! If you are reading this post and I haven’t yet covered one of these topics, please feel free to post a comment telling me to hurry up. Knowing that I have someone waiting for my posts is bound to get me motivated.
Yesterday I foolishly promised to answer two questions about my decision to take my blog in a new direction. I’m not one to break promises, so here is my response. Well, at least here is the beginning or a response.
Why this direction?
Why this tagline?
Answering the first question logically requires that I answer the second question first. I wish I’d thought of that yesterday!
English uncensored is something that I’ve been thinking about for some time now. It’s meant to represent two different kinds of censorship. The first is national, or to be more precise, governmental. I have been working with students online from all over the world for several years now, but the frustration of finding that some of my students are unable to easily participate in activities because their government has blocked them from viewing sites such as You Tube has not decreased. I would like to address this problem through my blog and I hope that if I start to provide content that is good enough other blogs might help me by doing mirror posts around the globe to keep the censors at bay. I know little about how this kind of thing works, so I will be learning and posting about it as I go along.
The second kind of censorship which I would like to address is the kind which hides itself under the ‘polite’ mask of political correctness. Any ESL teacher reading this will know that their are certain ’sensibilities’ that we, as teachers are supposed to have. For example, we need to show respect and tolerance for other cultures and for religious beliefs. While I am generally open to showing respect and tolerance toward people and ideas/beliefs, I don’t like the idea of being gagged by this requirement. I would prefer to aim for respect where respect is due, and tolerance when it does no harm. There are certain beliefs which I cannot respect, and certain ways of behaving that I will not tolerate. I’ll be blogging about some of these as I go along, so I hope that this blog will also be a place where I can criticise and be criticised and in the process generate some interesting dialog for both native and non-native speakers of English.
That pretty much covers the “English Uncensored” tagline, but it doesn’t quite explain the direction that I plan to move in. This could be difficult as I’m really not so sure myself yet. I am aware that there is currently a huge percentage of the population gaining access to technology and that a knowledge of English really helps people to break through the digital divide. In the process of writing this blog I would like to explore ways that people who can’t afford to pay for an education can learn, not just English, but about technology and about what the rest of the world is getting up to. So in that respect I am interested in blogging about open source learning, software and hardware.
I have set myself quite a challenge really. I’m reaching out to a target audience that doesn’t speak my language and often doesn’t have access to internet technology. It will be interesting to find out what happens.
I have decided to take a new tack with my blog. Although I don’t expect that anyone will actually realise this for a while, I make this post for reasons of posterity. For historical purposes, this will be the reference point, a marker to designate the day that I decided to embark on my new idea for a blog with the tagline of English Uncensored.
Why this direction?
Why this tagline?
Well keen readers who don’t yet exist! You shall just have to wait and see. I’m sure the suspense is killing you.
P.S. Here’s a photo of something that made me laugh yesterday when I was walking down the street. It might give a hint about why I chose “English Uncensored” for my tagline.
Listen to the following sample question and follow the instructions. You will find the reading passage below.
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Reading Passage
Much of the economic success that the southern United States experienced before the American Civil War was due to slavery. By forcing black people to work without pay, white landowners avoided labor costs, which allowed them to make a bigger profit on the cotton and tobacco they grew and sold. All this ended, though, when Abraham Lincoln became president. He did not support slavery, and therefore, started the American Civil War in 1865 to give black people the same rights as white people. Perhaps one of his administration’s greatest achievements was the “Emancipation Proclamation,” which is the document that officially freed the slaves.
Thanks to Jon Hodges from http://strictlyenglishusa.com for allowing me to use his materials.
Today we are going to play a game called “strange but true” based on a game played in the popular Australian television program, “Good News Week”. Watch the video below to get an idea of what is involved in the game.
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Watch the video and follow the instructions. Click on this link to find out more about TOEFL iBT speaking question five.
Toefl iBT speaking question five - Lost notes
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Watch the video and follow the instructions. Click on this link to find out more about TOEFL iBT speaking question five.
Toefl iBT speaking question five - Difficult Accent
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Watch the video and follow the instructions. Click on this link to find out more about TOEFL iBT speaking question three.
Toefl iBT speaking question three - Internet Filter
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Hi Toefl takers. A quick warning about this sample question before you listen to it. It contains references to abortion that some people may find offensive. Please remember that while it is created in a similar format to TOEFL speaking question 5, the real TOEFL iBT questions will always be much more ‘moderate’ in their content. One of the reasons that I chose to create this question is because ‘moderate’ problems can be very bland and boring. But …
If you find the idea of abortion offensive then please do not listen to this sample question!
Thanks for coming to my blog. I hope you find the content useful.
Toefl Speaking Question 5 - Sample Question
Unwanted Pregnancy
Listen to the lecture and follow the instructions. If you are unsure about how to answer this question then listen to my lecture about completing TOEFL speaking question five.
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