a whole new dianne

Just a few minutes ago my friend and colleague in the CFF World, Anne Van Meter (@whynot88), pointed me to the website readthewords.com. There, you can do the following:

“Upload a Word doc, pdf, html file (and several other formats) and it will “read” it to an MP3 file! Download the file, embed in website, subscribe to it! Saw it an hour ago and already showed it to French, Spanish, LS, and Geography teacher! ” (Anne’s words from her email to the coach listserv)

Very cool site, because you can pick Spanish and French speakers too, so multiple languages are supported. What a great tool for any discipline, but especially for World Language teachers!!

Here’s my first go at it, in French. Here’s the text I typed in:

Bonjour tout le monde! Je fais un test de voir comment marche ce nouveau site que j’ai trouvé. C’est très facile à utiliser! Tapez le texte, ou collez d’un autre document et voila! Ce site lit le texte pour vous. Et comme vous pouvez entendre, on peut choisir les voix et les langues. C’est fantastique, non?

Here’s “Juliette” reading it to you:

Powered By ReadTheWords.com

Check out this new language learning web 2.0 site called Babbel! Here, you can learn languages (French, German, Spanish, Italian, English), practice what you’ve learned, find people from around the world who speak the language you are learning (or your native language!). This seems to be a great tool for students AND teachers of world languages. Teachers can use the vocabulary lessons with students, refer students to this site for extra practice, or brush up on their own language with the upper-level activities and discussion forums.

Check it out!

http://www.babbel.com