Items of Interest

Fall 2025 SDLC 105 Syllabus

Fall 2025 SDLC 105 Calendar of Activities, Assignments, and Deadlines

Fall 2025 SDLC 110, 111, 112, 113 General Syllabus

Weekly log for language partners

Global Studio Catalog of Learning Materials and Resources

 

Self-Directed Language Acquisition Program

Sept. 3- Recorded Presentation by Derek Miller, UR Bonner Center for Civic Engagement, Guidelines and Resources for Community-Based Language Learning

Sept. 3- Bonner Guidelines for Community-Based Language Learning, PPT.

 

Benny Lewis: TEDx Talk on Rapid Language Hacking

https://youtu.be/HZqUeWshwMs

 

ACTFL Inverted Pyramid Proficiency Scale

 

New Electronic Catalog of Global Studio Language-Learning Materials

Over the last few weeks, our fantastic team of Global Studio Fellows have been creating an electronic catalog of language learning materials on reserve in INTC 226. There are interesting resources for Korean, Turkish, Hindi, Hebrew, and Portuguese See the ongoing collection, here. Use the tag list to focus your search.

 

Vocaroo for sharing audio files with language partners

Vocaroo is a great free tool to share audio recording files with your language partners. Check it out! https://vocaroo.com/

 

Open-Source Repository of Grammar Reference Textbooks

In internet searches, I came across an open-source repository of grammar reference books pertaining to a wide variety of different languages. Feel free to peruse the collection, here

 

Lang-8 and HiNative Communities for Native Speaker Feedback

This is a great free resource to get free feedback from native speakers of your target language. On the site, you can receive commentary on submit writing samples, or address questions of grammar and usage to an active online community. You can access the site, here. **Note: Lang-8 stopped accepting new members, but you can still access similar networking resources for writing feedback on their new site, HiNative

 

WikiTongues

Library of recordings from endangered languages.

https://www.youtube.com/user/WikiTongues

https://wikitongues.org/

 

International News Resources

Check out this curated list on interesting foreign-language news resources!

 

World Atlas of Language Structures

http://wals.info/

 

Endangered Languages Project

http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/

 

Which languages are the hardest to learn?

Here's a chart! What is difficult about the language you're learning?

 

Try Mango Languages 

Just starting a language?  The University now provides Mango Languages, which offers beginning or 'survival' language lessons in many languages.  To try Mango, go the Boatwright Library web, click Research Databases > M, and look for Mango Languages.  Once you have created an account through the Library site, you can download the Mango Languages app and use it on your mobile device.

 

Infographic on word etymologies and historical trade routes

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapping-words-along-trade-routes/?fbclid=IwAR2IQRiSW3KqaFGi_kjkrSbkjXUri_PZI7tAMEB4iKH5W0DPrp_yQj1OzuE

 

 

Articulatory Phonetics Memes

https://goo.gl/bzVfCL

 

Preserving Regional German Dialects

This article from Deutsche Welle discusses what is lost when regional variants of a language are lost. It also discusses the difference between a language and a dialect and why 'dialects' are losing ground in Germany.

 

Radio Segment on North Koreans on South Korean TV

On Sunday, January 31, 2016, NPR had a radio feature on the appearance of North Koreans on South Korean reality TV.  You can listen to the segment here: http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/01/31/464798910/south-koreas-newest-tv-stars-are-north-korean-defectors .

 

An Interview with Linguist K. David Harrison on When Languages Die

 

 

Slate article:  Photos of Women Who Could Go to Prison for Singing for Men


A series of photographs and a very brief discussion of things women in Iran are forbidden to do, including singing for me and studying English literature.

 

The 'Halal Internet'


A Deutsche Welle article about the 'Halal Internet' coming to Iran has been posted as a discussion item in the Persian group.  Join the discussion!

 

The Free Dictionaries Project


Looking for a free dictionary?  Check out the Free Dictionaries Project!  Especially interesting are the picture dictionaries.

  

Alphabet Blocks for Hebrew, Korean, and Arabic

The Global Studio now has alphabet blocks for Hebrew, Korean, and Arabic.  (The Arabic may be useful for the Persian learners.)  There are also magnetic letters for Hebrew.

What can you do with alphabet blocks and magnetic letters?  Quiz yourself on the letters, put them together to form words, and learn the names of the animals pictured on one side of the blocks.  The Korean blocks seem to have a puzzle, too.  Want to try?  Ask at the Global Studio desk!

 

Visit the Conflict Kitchen, a take-out restaurant that serves food from countries with which the US is in conflict.

 

__________________________________________________________________

 

Finding Books in Your Language


A number of people have asked about finding children's books, 'easy readers', and popular fiction in the SDLAP languages.  The Global Studio has children's books in Swahili and Turkish (thanks to Professor Grove), and I'm willing to buy more.  However, I prefer to buy books that are culturally authentic, i.e., not translated from English.

 

I have found the following online bookstores that seem to have a good selection.  Please send me (Prof. Scinicariello) a list of things you…

Read more…

What is Social Bookmarking? (That's Diigo)

Wikipedia: A Short Explanation

YouTube: Social Bookmarking in Plain English--This is about Delicious, but the theory is the same.

YouTube: Diigo V.3--This video has information about Diigo groups.

Latest Activity

Jeremy Um posted a status
SDLC 111 - Cultural Post #2

For my second cultural post, I will be discussing the Korean eyewear brand ‘Gentle Monster’, specifically what has contributed to its rapid global success.
First and foremost what is a Gentle Monster? Gentle Monster is a Korean luxury eyewear brand that is known for its innovative “avant garde” style glasses and modern trendy designs. The brand has a current estimated valuation of 2.5 billion and has similar sister brands that share innovative characteristics such…
Monday
Ariana Kamiya posted a discussion
What interests me about Korean culture is the films. A lot of Korean films, like 기생충 (Parasite), 소원 (Hope), and 도가니 (Silenced), expose the societal issues in Korea, which does not happen in every country's film industry. By watching these films, I can learn more about the social and cultural aspects of Korea, which will help me better understand the language and how it is used in different contexts and have cultural sensitivity to what might be considered controversial and challenging topics in…
Oct 10
Elizabeth Jonas posted a discussion
Figuring Foreigners Out details Individualist vs. Collectivist societies. This means societies where the focus is put on personal gain and growth vs. doing things at the benefit of your entire community. It also then goes on to talk about Non-Verbal communication--the unspoken body language. It also talks about Monochronic vs. Polychronic cultures, which is essentially how cultures treat time. (Is it limitless or do we have strict constraints?)The Hofstede Dimensions of culture include four…
Oct 6
Kevin Retana posted a discussion
After looking at the many different language families there are out there I have found what family my target language belongs to. Korean belongs to the Koreanic language family and is considered a language isolate even though it shares some historical influences with neighboring languages such as Japanese, Chinese, and Mongolian. However, throughout its history, Korea’s cultural contact with China deeply shaped its language. For centuries, educated Koreans used Classical Chinese in writing…
Oct 5
Elizabeth Jonas posted a discussion
My learning plan consists of starting by listening. (I understand this is late, I apologize, but part of this was listening to the podcast you sent me). Listening even to Portuguese or Brazilian radio through RadioGarden to familarize myself with sounds, etc. is definitely where I am starting.The next part is comparing my known Spanish with Portuguese. I know they are similar languages, so comparing vocabulary, basic terms/items, to see what I can grasp easily seems smart. I feel like I have a…
Sep 30
Ariana Kamiya posted a discussion
The difference between sound and spelling is that sound is an airstream, something that relies on your voice and different parts of your mouth, to form words. Spelling is the visual representation of the words using different letters. This distinction would be significant for my language learning efforts because in Korean, many words, especially when connected to certain words, are pronounced differently than what they seemed to be spelled as. In Korean, there are 7 vowels and 19…
Sep 29
Ariana Kamiya posted a discussion
Last week, I met with my language partner, Jason, for our first meeting. We introduced ourselves and shared about our backgrounds, majors, and interests. He asked me what types of media I have previously learned Korean from, what I would prefer going to the future, and we decided that songs, videos, shows were all good materials. I told Jason that my goal was to start speaking in Korean and have conversations with friends/roommates. Although I already knew a little bit of Korean, I still felt a…
Sep 28
Jeremy Um posted a status
SDLC 111 - Learning Journal #1

As I embark on my second semester of self-directed learning in Korean, I am excited to progress in my ability to master Korean proficiency.
During this past week, I had the opportunity to meet up with my language partner and discuss learning goals for this semester as well as setting course expectations. Prior to meeting with my language partner, I had created a list of goals that I had set for myself which I had shared with her. Some of these goals include,…
Sep 28
More…

A network of participants in and friends of Richmond's Self-Directed Language Acquisition Program.

Diigo: Modern Hebrew

Diigo: Persian Learners

Diigo: Turkish Learners

Diigo: Asian Language Learners