9.1 proposal: Language learning on the XO.

[Chris Ball]

Hi,

I'm learning Spanish at the moment, and I wish the XO made it easier
for me.  I don't have any knowledge of what the right way to do either
conventional or constructionist language learning on computers is; if
anyone has much experience with either, I'd love to hear about it.

I have some obvious candidates for software that could be produced in
mind:

   * A method -- similar to Scott's recent GtkLabel overlay for allowing
     strings inside Sugar and activities to be translated -- that does a
     dictionary lookup of a word on the screen and overlays the
     translation of that word into a local language.  This should be
     activity-agnostic, if possible.  For bonus points, translate
     phrases instead of just words.
     
   * Perhaps some kind of Pronunciation Activity that gives you words
     in the target language, speaks them to you, explains what they
     mean in your local language, and asks you to speak them back,
     perhaps grading your response?  (All but the last part is already
     possible to do manually in the Words activity, but not in a
     structured way.)

   * Is there any free content that matches iconic images to words,
     so that language vocabulary could be taught even without textual
     translation to a local language?

Feel free to come up with questions/ideas around language learning on
the XO in general in this thread, and they'll make it into the
conference talk.

Thanks,

- Chris.
-- 
Chris Ball   <cjb at laptop.org>