LangoLAB
1. What is LangoLAB?
LangoLAB is a website that is designed in order to help people who want to learn a foreign language. The utmost aim of this website is to expose learners of a foreign language to the authentic cultural media from the internet in the language that they are learning. The tools are intended to help the learners understand as quickly as possible. It works like YouTube, by sharing videos with social networking and adding tools that will help students to create their own flash cards, transcription and share their comments on the videos and transcriptions.
2. How does it work?
In order to use LangoLAB you have to sign up. It is free to use LangoLAB; there is no charge to pay. It does not require any download, either. First go to website www.langolab.com you will see the screen above. Before signing up you can not do anything on the website so in order to see what is happening inside you need to sign up. As I said it is free to sign up. On the first page, the one above, you will see the button SIGN UP. Click there and you will see a screen like the one below:
You will fill in the blanks according to what is wanted. On the first part you will write your email, password etc. On the second part you will write the language you are speaking and the one you want to learn and you are writing your level in each language. After you have done all the requirements, just click on sign up. One thing that is really good about this site is not only for English; you can find videos, transcriptions and descriptions in other languages such as Spanish, French and so on. So it makes LangoLAB a multicultural website and a lot of people from different countries and from different language background can use this website and it forms a diverse community in itself.
When you click on the sign up button you will see a page like this. You need to put a photo of yourself. You can upload a photo or you can take photo with webcam. Also you can indicate your location on the map.
After you have uploaded your photo you need to click on DONE EDITING. That you are a member of the website you can use it as much as you want. When you are done with editing you will see the same screen when you first open the website but this time you will be able to reach the navigation part like videos, texts, games. For the videos you need to click on the button videos and you will see this page:
Here you can choose the languages of videos and their difficulty level like beginner, intermediate etc. On the right of the page you can choose the categories you want such as education, politics, people blogs so on. When you click on one of the videos it opens and you see a page like the one below:
When we click on the video, a page like this will be seen. In the info part there is the name of the video and description of it; the topic of the video, maybe the time it is recorded etc. If there is a word you do not understand just click on the word and the dictionary will show the definitions.
Just below the definitions button there is a button called as add to flash cards. With this button you can create your own flash cards and add the word or the expressions you do not know.
You can create your own flash cards and add extra notes for yourself. This will help you remember and revise the words. You can also add notes for yourself and for the others to see. You can also ask question for the parts you do not understand to the other users.
For example here I add the word KING to my flash cards so I can see it on my profile and I can reach it easily from my profile. In your user profile you can see all of your flashcards, videos uploaded by you, and your questions.
You can add you comments on the video or the text, too. The page below shows the transcription of the video. When you choose a part of it definition will come. Again you can add the word you do not know to the flash cards or you can add notes for them. With the transcription the students will be able to both listen and watch the video and they will be also looking at the transcription of the video.
Besides video, LangoLAB has two other parts. First one is the text part. Like videos you can add text on any language and you can find text uploaded by others. You can choose the difficulty level and the language of the texts. It works in the same way as the video works.
There is also a game part of the website which is also related to the language learning. The game is like that; you have a partner who speaks the language you are trying to learn. Both of you are describing the same picture. After the time is finished, 5 minutes for instance, your partner will correct your mistakes. You can also correct the things someone else wrote.
All in all I think LangoLAB is a great website for the people learning a foreign language. It uses authentic material in order to help people learn English. It will be useful for the people who want to develop their listening skill and their vocabulary. Also they can learn the pronunciation of the words while listening to the videos. Moreover the game is wonderful I think, it is also authentic and it gives the opportunity of developing your writing skills in the language you are learning.
Actually LangoLAB includes three of the skills that you need while learning a language: Listening, writing and reading; however the speaking part is missing so if there was a speaking related activity on the website, it would be perfect. So the first thing they lack is the speaking-oriented activity. They can add a video conferencing session for the students and they can talk to the native speaker of the language they are learning. Also the website lacks a crowded community. I see that there are limited users and limited videos and texts. If the number of the members of the website could be increased I think it will be much better for everyone. They will have different kind of people and different kind of topics from different languages. The number of languages could be increased, too. As far as I see there are only 6 or 7 languages on the website. If more languages are added there will be much more people trying to learn languages and trying to use the website.
If they can enhance the number of the languages and the videos and the texts, LangoLAB would be a perfect website for the language learners.
1. What is LangoLAB?
LangoLAB is a website that is designed in order to help people who want to learn a foreign language. The utmost aim of this website is to expose learners of a foreign language to the authentic cultural media from the internet in the language that they are learning. The tools are intended to help the learners understand as quickly as possible. It works like YouTube, by sharing videos with social networking and adding tools that will help students to create their own flash cards, transcription and share their comments on the videos and transcriptions.
2. How does it work?
In order to use LangoLAB you have to sign up. It is free to use LangoLAB; there is no charge to pay. It does not require any download, either. First go to website www.langolab.com you will see the screen above. Before signing up you can not do anything on the website so in order to see what is happening inside you need to sign up. As I said it is free to sign up. On the first page, the one above, you will see the button SIGN UP. Click there and you will see a screen like the one below:
You will fill in the blanks according to what is wanted. On the first part you will write your email, password etc. On the second part you will write the language you are speaking and the one you want to learn and you are writing your level in each language. After you have done all the requirements, just click on sign up. One thing that is really good about this site is not only for English; you can find videos, transcriptions and descriptions in other languages such as Spanish, French and so on. So it makes LangoLAB a multicultural website and a lot of people from different countries and from different language background can use this website and it forms a diverse community in itself.
When you click on the sign up button you will see a page like this. You need to put a photo of yourself. You can upload a photo or you can take photo with webcam. Also you can indicate your location on the map.
After you have uploaded your photo you need to click on DONE EDITING. That you are a member of the website you can use it as much as you want. When you are done with editing you will see the same screen when you first open the website but this time you will be able to reach the navigation part like videos, texts, games. For the videos you need to click on the button videos and you will see this page:
Here you can choose the languages of videos and their difficulty level like beginner, intermediate etc. On the right of the page you can choose the categories you want such as education, politics, people blogs so on. When you click on one of the videos it opens and you see a page like the one below:
When we click on the video, a page like this will be seen. In the info part there is the name of the video and description of it; the topic of the video, maybe the time it is recorded etc. If there is a word you do not understand just click on the word and the dictionary will show the definitions.
Just below the definitions button there is a button called as add to flash cards. With this button you can create your own flash cards and add the word or the expressions you do not know.
You can create your own flash cards and add extra notes for yourself. This will help you remember and revise the words. You can also add notes for yourself and for the others to see. You can also ask question for the parts you do not understand to the other users.
For example here I add the word KING to my flash cards so I can see it on my profile and I can reach it easily from my profile. In your user profile you can see all of your flashcards, videos uploaded by you, and your questions.
You can add you comments on the video or the text, too. The page below shows the transcription of the video. When you choose a part of it definition will come. Again you can add the word you do not know to the flash cards or you can add notes for them. With the transcription the students will be able to both listen and watch the video and they will be also looking at the transcription of the video.
Besides video, LangoLAB has two other parts. First one is the text part. Like videos you can add text on any language and you can find text uploaded by others. You can choose the difficulty level and the language of the texts. It works in the same way as the video works.
There is also a game part of the website which is also related to the language learning. The game is like that; you have a partner who speaks the language you are trying to learn. Both of you are describing the same picture. After the time is finished, 5 minutes for instance, your partner will correct your mistakes. You can also correct the things someone else wrote.
All in all I think LangoLAB is a great website for the people learning a foreign language. It uses authentic material in order to help people learn English. It will be useful for the people who want to develop their listening skill and their vocabulary. Also they can learn the pronunciation of the words while listening to the videos. Moreover the game is wonderful I think, it is also authentic and it gives the opportunity of developing your writing skills in the language you are learning.
Actually LangoLAB includes three of the skills that you need while learning a language: Listening, writing and reading; however the speaking part is missing so if there was a speaking related activity on the website, it would be perfect. So the first thing they lack is the speaking-oriented activity. They can add a video conferencing session for the students and they can talk to the native speaker of the language they are learning. Also the website lacks a crowded community. I see that there are limited users and limited videos and texts. If the number of the members of the website could be increased I think it will be much better for everyone. They will have different kind of people and different kind of topics from different languages. The number of languages could be increased, too. As far as I see there are only 6 or 7 languages on the website. If more languages are added there will be much more people trying to learn languages and trying to use the website.
If they can enhance the number of the languages and the videos and the texts, LangoLAB would be a perfect website for the language learners.
1 comment:
Hi, Thanks very much for writing about langolab! I wanted to mention that we changed the look of our site pretty significantly since the time you wrote this post. If you ever want to talk about ideas you have for langolab, please feel free to send me an email.
Adam, langolab founder
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