China

Ken Carroll: How to learn Chinese using Web 2.0

The Internet - and Web 2.0 tools in particular - are extremely well suited to language teaching, explains Ken Carroll, co-founder of Chinesepod.com in this video.

Carroll’s Shanghai-based company (which I use to learn Mandarin) employs Web 2.0 methods to teach Chinese and a growing range of other languages.

To see why Carroll thinks Web 2.0 works so well, you need to see the process of a typical student: me!

I usually begin a new topic listening to a radio show-style hosted podcast in which two presenters introduce a dialogue. I then listen to another podcast that reviews vocabulary before I get to a third podcast in which I can listen to the dialogue alone several times. (I do all this while at the gym or going to the office)

After listening to the podcast, you can go on the Chinesepod website and play a variety of games with the vocabulary from that lesson.

In terms of which lesson you choose, there is no order. I usually just start with the most recent lesson. Some lessons make reference to recent events, while other lessons are less time sensitive.

To Carroll, that is the key insight of using the Internet for language teaching: Students have a framework in which to explore topics that are of interest to them.

“You have a personalized studying framework, but the student is free to explore any topic or information that interests them,” Carroll said. “Language takes on an exploratory approach.”

To Carroll, this fits with the way children learn language - based on the child’s experience and interests.

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