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"The principal aim of the WELL Project was to promote wider awareness and more effective use of the World Wide Web for Modern Languages teaching... It aimed to provide a starting point for academics who wished to discover what the Web and associated new technologies could offer, and also to act as a forum for the exchange of good practice amongst more advanced practitioners." Site provides link to software version of WELL publication Web Skills for Language Learners. Professional online journal focused on integration of technology, including the WWW, into foreign language instruction. Although aimed at teachers, this site can also be very useful to adult learners. A basic introduction to the "why" and "how" of using the Internet for language learning. By James J. O'Donnell, University of Pennsylvania. Something of a "how to primer for instructors," this website includes a "lessons learned" introduction followed by sections titled: Better Communication with Students; Even Better Communication; Information from/on the Net; The Library News groups: Sometimes a Swamp is a Wetland; Gopher: tools to navigate texts; The World-Wide Web: texts, images, hypertexts; MOO: the virtual classroom; Over the horizon; What it's like in practice; What does it all cost? Where will I find the time? What if I need more help with the basics? Excellent!! "Teaching with the Web is a compilation of ideas for using WWW resources as a language teaching tool. It also offers links to sites that have pedagogical information." Site advertises itself as: "The Foreign Language Font Archive for Windows. Your One-Stop Cyber-Resource for Foreign Language Typefaces and Keyboard Utilities. A cookie-free, banner-free, pop-up ads free website!" In fact, it's an excellent site! From the Yamada Language Center, University of Oregon, "non-English Font Archive is designed to assist users who wish to display or type non-English fonts on their computers. Language Guides: Each language has its own guide that contain links to useful information and resources. Font Help Pages - Having problems downloading or installing fonts? Please read our font help pages before emailing us with questions or requests. Other Font Collections - If we don't have what you need, please try this list of alternate Internet font collections". Links Internet language identifier sites. From Steve Huffman, the author: "This page will attempt to identify the language of a sample of text by comparing the n-gram statistics in the sample to the n-gram statistics of a number of reference texts in different languages. It was developed from my dissertation at Georgetown University (The Genetic Classification of Languages by n-Gram Analysis: A Computational Technique, 1998), which was itself based on an algorithm known as Acquaintance, developed by Dr. Marc Damashek." Note: You can type in the unknown text, or copy and paste it from a document on the Internet Non-Latin alphabets lead to font problems when pasting. From the Xerox Corporation. "Currently guessing among the following 47 languages: (Some characters may not appear clearly. It depends on the browser and the fonts you use for Unicode):" Albanian, Arabic, Basque, Breton, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovakian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Welsh. Although not intended as a language identification source -- World Languages.com calls itself "the ultimate language store" -- this site is very useful because it offers not only a history of many languages, but also examples of the script and sample audio texts. The Modern Language Association of America is the umbrella organization in the U.S. for teachers and students of modern languages. The MLA "Allied and Affiliate Organizations" link takes you to dozens of language/interest-specific professional organizations, from the American Association of Italian Studies to the Women's Caucus for the Modern Languages. In order to improve the nation's capacity for teaching and learning foreign languages, the United States Department of Education provides Title VI grants under the Language Resource Centers Program for the establishment and operation of national language resource centers (NLRCs) for teacher training, research, materials development, and dissemination projects. There are currently 9 NLRCs:
A research institute of the University of Maryland, the NFLC "is dedicated to promoting a language-competent America by developing and disseminating information that informs policy makers." Among its many undertakings, the NFLC is engaged in the following projects and initiatives: Advanced Learners of Japanese, The Chinese Language Field Initiative (CLFI), Heritage Language Initiative (HLI), and LangNet -- a WWW-based system designed to enable language learners to receive programming customized to their language needs and goals. Based at the University of Arizona, NASILP "is North America's only professional organization specifically established for the fostering of self-managed academic programs in the less-commonly taught languages (LCTLs)." Languages taught include: Arabic, Hindi, Mandarin (Chinese), Swahili, Hungarian, Persian, Tagalog, Kazakh, Russian, Urdu, French, Korean, Serbo-Croatian, and Vietnamese, just to name a few. From About: "The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages is the only national organization dedicated to the improvement and expansion of the teaching and learning of all languages at all levels of instruction." "We are the teachers of Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Russian, Swahili, Tagalog, and many other languages which are important in this world but which are relatively unfamiliar to most Americans. We have designed the coincident website for anyone who is curious about the languages of this world, who is now studying or just might want to learn a fascinating language, and for those who teach languages." This British portal offers a comprehensive listing of website links for most of the world's languages from African Languages to Welsh. Highly recommended! (Preset language-specific hyperlinks to this site are included throughout the AREA1300 webliographies.) Excellent resource portal for just about everything a linguist needs: search engines, dictionaries, language learning resources, etc. From the Language Learning Center, University of Washington, links to World news and media, Language-related sites, National foreign language resource centers, Other university language centers, Pedagogical sites . "The definitive guide to language resources on the World Wide Web. In the Guides, you will find pointers to: The Yamada Font Archive. Links to our annotated list of language-related news groups. Links to language-related mailing lists. The guides contain information on over 140 languages. There are 112 fonts in our archives, for 40 languages." (Preset language-specific hyperlinks to this site are included throughout the AREA1300 webliographies.) "Ethnologue.com is a place where you can conveniently find many resources to help you with your research of the world's languages. Ethnologue.com is owned by SIL International, a service organization that works with people who speak the world's lesser-known languages." From About: "The ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics is operated by the Center for Applied Linguistics, a private non profit organization. ERIC/CLL provides a wide range of services and materials for language educators, most of them free of charge. Products and services include the following: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions; Resource Guides Online with links to Web sites, publications, and other sources of information; An online newsletter, ERIC/CLL Language Link; Information digests." . Basic online language courses, including Spanish, Italian, German, French, and others. This Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center site in Monterey, CA, offers excellent resources for both learners and teachers and links for many of the world's languages. Teaching resources for less commonly taught languages. (Preset language-specific hyperlinks to this site are included throughout the AREA1300 webliographies.) Large portal offering links to resources in many languages. From the Linguistics Department at Rice University, links to corpora, newspapers, news sites, Chinese to Turkish. From the National Endowment for the Humanities, online educational language resources and teaching materials for K-12 classes. Most of the world's countries are represented. Audio and song words, some with English translations. Online, CD-ROM and textbook grammars and language courses for over 100 languages, from Ainu to Wolof. (Preset language-specific hyperlinks to this site are included throughout the AREA1300 webliographies.) The premiere site for online language dictionaries, from Abenaki to Zulu. Highly recommended! (Preset language-specific hyperlinks to this site are included throughout the AREA1300 webliographies.) Excellent collection of online dictionaries of most of the world's languages. Very user-friendly. By Language Automation, very solid collection of online dictionaries. List of English to Other Languages & and Vice Versa. Includes some very rare languages like American native languages and Indigenous Languages of Australia. "Use this global dictionary to search in 275 dictionaries on the Internet. Translate from 69 source languages into 73 target languages - 400 language combinations." Site sometimes has technical problems. Huge online dictionary portal from the Michigan Library System. Begins with digitized English dictionaries, both general and highly specialized and follows with a solid list of online foreign language dictionaries. A massive educational resource! Region Studies links include: African (see below), Asian (see below), Latin American (see below), etc. Education link which lists linguistics, languages, etc. (Preset language-specific hyperlinks to this site are included throughout the AREA1300 webliographies.) Hit the "Search" button, type in the name of a country, and you get short, informative papers on history, politics, economic, culture, etc. Very handy. (Preset country-specific hyperlinks to this site are included throughout the AREA1300 webliographies.) Background Notes are updated/revised as they are received from regional bureaus and are added to the database of the Department of State web site. Categories include: Geography, People, History, Government, Political Conditions, Economy, Defense, Foreign Relations, U.S. Relations, and Travel/Business. (Preset country-specific hyperlinks to this site are included throughout the AREA1300 webliographies.) Good resource site for information on Geography, People, Government, Economy, Communications, Transportation, Military, and Transnational Issues. (Preset country-specific hyperlinks to this site are included throughout the AREA1300 webliographies.) Full profiles provide an instant guide to history, politics and economic background of countries; also biographic sketches of leaders, essay on media, and historic timelines. They also include audio and video clips from the BBC archives. (Preset country-specific hyperlinks to this site are included throughout the AREA1300 webliographies.) Listings of political sites available on the Internet sorted by country, with links to Parties, Organizations, Governments, Media and more from all around the world. (Preset country-specific hyperlinks to this site are included throughout the AREA1300 webliographies.) Links to electronic resources selected by Library of Congress subject experts. Site is very conservative and somewhat disappointing in its offerings. (Preset country-specific hyperlinks to this site are included throughout the AREA1300 webliographies.) Excellent Yahoo search engine links for countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. (Preset country-specific hyperlinks to this site are included throughout the AREA1300 webliographies.) "CountryWatch is a world leader in providing country specific geopolitical intelligence on each of the 192 countries of the world." Basic information is free; deeper resources require subscription. (Preset country-specific hyperlinks to this site are included throughout the AREA1300 webliographies.) The people at the offbeat Lonely Planet website are not your typical travel guides -- they're very bright and know what they're talking about. Their goal is not to "sell the country" to travelers. Instead, they tell it how it is. Typical headings include: "Warnings" (in case travel is not recommended - the "why's"); Facts for the Traveler, When to Go, Events, Money and Costs, Attractions, Off the Beaten Track, Activities, History, Culture, Environment, Getting There and Away, Getting Around, and Further Reading and Related Weblinks. (Preset country-specific hyperlinks to this site are included throughout the AREA1300 webliographies.) Mission of ALTA: "To develop a field of African Language Teachers where members can share common interests and concerns having to do with the study of African languages; to identify for each African language, with priority given to those most commonly studied, sets of learning materials for beginning, intermediate and advanced study; to establish needs and priorities for new learning materials and resources, both generic and for specific languages, and then to develop new learning materials for these languages; to provide training on pedagogy, computer use, and language program design to its members; to link efforts of teachers and researchers in Africa with those outside of Africa." From About: "Columbia University's collection of African Studies Internet Resources is an ongoing compilation of electronic bibliographic resources and research materials on Africa available on the global Internet, created under the purview of the African Studies Department of Columbia University Libraries. Electronic resources from Africa are organized by region and country. All materials are arranged to encourage an awareness of authorship, type of information, and subject. The scope of the collection is research-oriented, but it also provides access to other web sites with different or broader missions." (Preset language-specific hyperlinks to this site are included elsewhere in the AREA1300 webliographies.) The AU "has played a determining and invaluable role in the liberation of the continent, the affirmation of a common identity and the process of attainment of the unity of our continent and has provided a unique framework for our collective action in Africa and in our relations with the rest of the world.Wide variety of resources for countries and languages." With links to all Union nations. Wide variety of resources for countries and languages. The African languages listed are those which are taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and include links to resources in Arabic, Hausa, Kongo, Shona, Swahili, Yoruba and Zulu. From Columbia University with links to cultural and language resources Produced by the Australian National University, "A global collaborative project which provides access in bibliographic and in hypertext terms to networked scholarly documents, resources and information systems concerned with or relevant to Asian Studies." Includes following area links: Central Asia (to include Kazakhstan, Iran, etc.), South Asia (India, Pakistan, Tibet, etc.) Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Philippines, etc.), South China Sea, East Asia (Russian Far East, Siberia, Turkistan, China, North and South Korea, Japan, etc.), and Asian Continent as a Whole. Indiana University's IAUNRC website offers information and resource links for Asian countries, including Turkey, Tibet, Mongolia, Iran and Afghanistan, and the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Uighurs. From About: "AATSEEL, founded in 1941, exists to advance the study and promote the teaching of Slavic and East European languages, literatures, and cultures on all educational levels, elementary through graduate school. While the largest proportion of its activities and members concentrate in the area of Russian, AATSEEL has from the beginning stressed that it embraces all Slavic and East European languages, literatures, linguistics and cultures." Massive information portal at University of Texas, Austin, with links for Balkan, Baltic, Caucasus, Central Asian, Central European and East European countries. REESWEB comes from the University of Pittsburgh Indiana University's IAUNRC website offers information and resource links for Central and East European countries. List of resources organized by countries from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London. Produced by the Australian National University, "A global collaborative project which provides access in bibliographic and in hypertext terms to networked scholarly documents, resources and information systems concerned with or relevant to Asian Studies." Includes following area links: Caucasus, Central Asia (to include Kazakhstan), East Asia (Russian Far East, Siberia, Turkistan), About: "The Council of Europe is an intergovernmental organisation which aims: - to protect human rights, pluralist democracy and the rule of law; - to promote awareness and encourage the development of Europe's cultural identity and diversity; - to seek solutions to problems facing European society (discrimination against minorities, xenophobia, intolerance, environmental protection, human cloning, Aids, drugs, organised crime, etc.); - to help consolidate democratic stability in Europe by backing political, legislative and constitutional reform. The Council of Europe should not be confused with the European Union. The two organisations are quite distinct. The 15 European Union states, however, are all members of the Council of Europe." WWW Virtual Library -- Latin America Basic information links for Balkan, Baltic, Caucasus, Central Asian, Central European and East European countries. From Georgetown University: "The Political Database of the Americas is a non-governmental Internet-based project that provides reference materials, primary documents, comparative studies and statistical data for countries in the Western Hemisphere.... The information is provided free of charge and has been organized under the following themes: Constitutions and Constitutional Studies Electoral Systems and Election Data Decentralization Political Parties Executive Institutions Legislative Institutions Judicial Institutions Civil Society." By Rita Wilson, an extensive subject guide to Latin American information: book stores, libraries and research centers, government resources, languages and literature, embassies, online news sources, etc. From New Mexico State University Library, provides links to Major Databases for Latin American & Border Research; General Databases with Latin American Content; U.S.-Mexico Border Resources; Latin American Countries; Latin American Libraries & Archives; Mexico Gateways. Produced by the Australian National University, "A global collaborative project which provides access in bibliographic and in hypertext terms to networked scholarly documents, resources and information systems concerned with or relevant to Asian Studies." Includes area links to individual Arab countries, and to Israel). Encyclopedia of the Orient Excellent resource for Islamic countries of North Africa and Middle East. Produced by the Australian National University, "A global collaborative project which provides access in bibliographic and in hypertext terms to networked scholarly documents, resources and information systems concerned with or relevant to Asian Studies." Includes following area links to (Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia. Basic information links for Balkan, Baltic, Caucasus, Central Asian, Central European and East European countries. EUROPA "provides up-to-date coverage of European Union affairs and essential information on European integration. Users can also consult all legislation currently in force or under discussion, access the websites of each of the EU institutions and find out about the policies administered by the European Union under the powers devolved to it by the Treaties." About: "The Council of Europe is an intergovernmental organisation which aims: - to protect human rights, pluralist democracy and the rule of law; - to promote awareness and encourage the development of Europe's cultural identity and diversity; - to seek solutions to problems facing European society (discrimination against minorities, xenophobia, intolerance, environmental protection, human cloning, Aids, drugs, organised crime, etc.); - to help consolidate democratic stability in Europe by backing political, legislative and constitutional reform. The Council of Europe should not be confused with the European Union. The two organisations are quite distinct. The 15 European Union states, however, are all members of the Council of Europe." . Includes links to UN NewsCenter, which includes headlines in latest developments in Peace and Security, Economic Development, Humanitarian Aid/Refugees, Environment/Shelter, Human Rights, Women/Children/Population, Health/Poverty/Food Security, Culture/Education. About: "The IMF is an international organization of 184 member countries. It was established to promote international monetary cooperation, exchange stability, and orderly exchange arrangements; to foster economic growth and high levels of employment; and to provide temporary financial assistance to countries to help ease balance of payments adjustment." Includes links to individual Country Information, which includes headlines in latest developments in Peace and Security, Economic Development, Humanitarian Aid/Refugees, Environment/Shelter, Human Rights, Women/Children/Population, Health/Poverty/Food Security, Culture/Education. This site is undergoing construction problems (2Jan03.) Check later. Includes links to Countries. . "The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the world's trading nations and ratified in their parliaments. The goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business." Includes detailed information on Members and Observers. About WHO" "The World Health Organization, the United Nations specialized agency for health, was established on 7 April 1948. WHO's objective, as set out in its Constitution, is the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health. Health is defined in WHO's Constitution as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." (Preset country-specific hyperlinks to this site are included throughout the AREA1300 webliographies.) The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is the world's largest humanitarian organisation, with 178 member National Societies. (Preset country-specific hyperlinks to this site are included throughout the AREA1300 webliographies.) Amnesty International is a champion defender of human rights worldwide. Familiarity with a given country's human rights issues can provide a unique insight into many other aspects of its culture and politics. (Preset country-specific hyperlinks to this site are included throughout the AREA1300 webliographies.) Human Rights Watch is dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around the world. The "Info by Countries" link on the homepage provides index to individual countries where the organization finds abuses. (Preset country-specific hyperlinks to this site are included throughout the AREA1300 webliographies.) "The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights is a self-governing group of non-governmental, not-for-profit organizations that act to protect human rights throughout Europe, North America, and the Central Asian republics formed from the territories of the former Soviet Union. A primary specific goal is to monitor compliance with the human rights provisions of the Helsinki Final Act and its Follow-up Documents." The NATO homepage is an excellent resource for information on member and affiliate nations and their policies and activities in the world at large. Of particular interest to linguists is the "Other Languages" section which provides links to NATO documents and reports translated into some 25 languages. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) "is an international Organization of eleven developing countries which are heavily reliant on oil revenues as their main source of income. Membership is open to any country which is a substantial net exporter of oil and which shares the ideals of the Organization. The current Members are Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela." Site includes links to information on individual Member Countries. A daily digest of latest late-breaking news in Englsih taken from various news agencies. In English. From About: "CountryWatch.com is an information provider for schools, universities, libraries and individuals who need up-to-date information and news on the countries of the world and for the public and private sector organizations with global operations and interests. The management of CountryWatch.com has extensive international business and academic experience and, using this experience, has created, in a concise and useful form, a key set of political, economic, and business information, daily news and data for its clients in the form of Country ReviewsTM, the Country WireTM and CountryWatch Data." Requires email registration. Media-Link Megasite connect you with radio and television stations, newspapers and magazines throughout the world. (Preset language-specific hyperlinks to this site are included throughout the AREA1300 webliographies.) Formerly "The MIT List of Radios on the Internet," this site describes itself as "the most comprehensive radio station search engine on the Internet We have links to over 10,000 radio station web pages and over 2500 audio streams from radio stations in the U.S. and around the world." Thousands of online newspapers in most of the world's languages. SCOLA is a non-profit educational organization transmitting international television programs for educational use via satellite. SCOLA digitally transmits three channels: Channel One: News; Channel Two: Documentaries & Entertainment; and Channel Three: Chinese (PRC) Programming. Channels One & Two include programs from over 60 countries. All programs are shown unedited and in the original language. Daily broadcasts in languages from Afan Oromo to Vietnamese. Broadcasts in French, Spanish, Russian, Ukrainian, Chinese, and Arabic. The corresponding text for news broadcasts is also available. The British Broadcasting Corporation provides news services in numerous target languages as well as in English. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Broadcasts and other news services in most languages of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, as well as in Persian, Arabic, and other Middle Eastern languages. About: "TvRadioWorld is an informational directory dealing with radio and television broadcasters worldwide." Site allows you to bookmark favorite radio stations for listening. About: "World Radio Network is a leading broadcast and transmission company providing its world-wide clients with high quality, innovative and cutting edge solutions for their broadcasting and telecommunications needs." Online "freeware" tutorials for MS Office, Excel, PPT, FrontPage, Hot Potatoes and other interactive exercise makers, PDF, IC Technology for Language Teachers, HTML, Javascript, WWW, Concordances and Corpora. Want to learn how to produce web-based materials? George Mitrevski, a Slavic Languages professor at Auburn University, teaches you all you need to know to get started! Outstanding! Excellent links to resources for Tags, Graphics and Colors, Forms, Scripts, Web Documentation, Design and Style. Professor Godwin-Jones teaches German at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. He is also a web design specialist and the Director of the Instructional Development Center at VCU. Included are links to his many papers and presentations which are filled with helpful information. |