Languitude 2017 by Language Learning Centre

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

February 2017

Languitude 2017

Te Reo Kōrero

NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE TE PŪTAHI REO

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

Contents / Ngā wehewehenga 4 In brief – A roundup of news snippets from the LLC.

Languages & Cultures study abroad modules.

8 LLC Twitter – Some selected tweets from the past year.

22 Academic English online writing resources

9 November earthquake & torrential rain 10 LLC survey 2016 – Some findings from the recent survey of around 600 Victoria language learners. 11 Readlang – New website for improving your reading skills in your chosen foreign language. 12 Ideas for speaking practice – Lots of ideas to improve your speaking abilities in your chosen target language. 14 Foreign language learning in New Zealand schools: Languishing or more of the same? 18 Make the most of your Library – Using PressReader to read foreign publications online and Kanopy for streaming foreign language films. 20 Resources for FHSS210/FHSS310 – Self-study resources for students taking these School of

26 ESL self-diagnostic tests at the LLC – Grammar and pronunciation resources to help English as a Second Language students hone in on what they don’t know. 29 Beginning Māori resources 32 Japanese conversation group 32 Chinese language week 33 SWEN work – VUW software engineering students help provide Pasifika language resources online. 33 Cook Islands Māori project - Va'a reka Kūki ‘Āirani 35 New resources at the LLC – Recently arrived items in the Self-access Library ordered alphabetically from A to Z.

Meet the LLC team / Tūtakia ki te tīma

Bálint Koller Senior Administrator / Kaiwhakahaere

Diego Navarro Language Technology Specialist / Mātanga Hangarau

Benjamin Swale Advisor / Kaiārahi Ako

Rory Mackenzie Assistant / Kaiāwhina

Khadij Gharibi Assistant / Kaiāwhina

Francesca Benocci Assistant / Kaiāwhina

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

A great place to be for language learners! Haere mai ki Te Pūtahi Reo o Te Whare Wānanga o te Ūpoko o te Ika a Māui! Te Pūtahi Reo or The Language Learning Centre (LLC) is unique in New Zealand as the country’s only language centre which concentrates on a range of different languages. Here at the LLC we offer resources for learning over 60 languages. We focus on promoting self-access language learning and work closely with the School of Languages & Cultures, the School of Linguistics & Applied Language Studies, Te Kawa a Māui and Va'aomanū Pasifika. This publication, Languitude, is for everyone interested in learning and teaching languages at Victoria University of Wellington. Our hope is that there is something here for everyone! Ngā mihi nui, The Language Learning Centre team

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

Babel no more

to specific languages and levels. Please contact us if you are interested in arranging one of these for your class.

New TV in Map Room The LLC focusses on Victoria’s taught languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Māori, New Zealand Sign Language, Samoan and Spanish. Additionally our Self-access Library holds resources for learning Ancient Greek and Latin which are also taught at Victoria. We also have smaller collections of resources for learning and practising over 60 other languages. These include the following: Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Bengali, Bulgarian, Burmese, Cambodian, Cantonese, Catalan, Cook Islands Māori, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Fijian, Finnish, French, German (Standard German as well as Swiss German), Greek (ancient and modern), Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Irish, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Latin, Lao, Malay, Mandarin Chinese, Māori, Mongolian, Melanesian Pidgin, Nepali, Niuean, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian and European), Romanian, Russian, Samoan, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Tamil, Thai, Tibetan, Tok Pisin, Tongan, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu and Vietnamese. If we don’t have physical resources for the language you require our staff will endeavour to recommend other options. Just come and ask!

The Map Room is now equipped with a 60 inch television for students to use for group work. The rooms are also now well suited for film showings. Course reserve DVDs can be requested from the LLC front counter and many more DVDs can be found in the Selfaccess Library. Both the Marianne Room (VZ006) as well as the Map Room (VZ010) now have large Internet enabled screens. We hope to offer students a third large PC connected screen television in the Kiwiana Room (VZ005) later in 2017. Many thanks to Roger Ward and Raymond Hutchison from AV Services for their help and enthusiasm for making this happen.

LB Programme

aims to pairs native speakers of two languages together. The programme accepts applications during the first three weeks of Trimesters 1 and 2 each year. A huge number of students applied for Language Buddy Programme in 2016, with over 240 participants paired together. This provided many opportunities for improving speaking and conversation skills, intercultural learning, making new friends and helping international students integrate into life in Wellington. We hope many more students will take advantage of this scheme in 2017. The programme has had the most participants in the Chinese-English and Japanese-English pairing combinations with smaller numbers of pairings involving German, French, Spanish and Italian. Many other languages combinations have been made in the last year including ones involving Arabic, Indonesian and Korean. So even if you think nobody is learning your language, it’s still worth applying - very often it turns out that there is! Conversation starters for Chinese-English, French-English and Japanese-English Language Buddy pairs are available here. Language Buddies can gain experiential points for both Victoria International Leadership Programme (VILP) and Victoria Plus. To do this language buddies should maintain a detailed record of meeting times and topics discussed. Bring this record to the LLC staff and we will provide you with an activity verification form to upload onto the VILP/Victoria Plus websites.

Website changes

Welcome tours/resource sessions We offer all Victoria language programmes LLC orientations as well as sessions in our teaching labs focused on both our physical resources as well as online resources tailored

The Language Buddy Programme has been run by LLC staff for a number of years and

The LLC website now has a trimmed down, uncluttered, ‘flatter’ structure which requires

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

fewer clicks to get the information you need. Have a look here.

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Assistant projects and achievements The tail end of 2016 proved to be an unusually busy time for assistants, and only in part due to student traffic at the LLC (although we did have a noticeable spike in occupancy of both labs and self-access areas due to the temporary unavailability of Library services in Rankine Brown).

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‘Deep cleaning’ of the LLC – think skirting boards, cable-tying, and hunting down dust bunnies in forgotten corners Language software usability testing – we would like to find out the appeal, navigability, and usefulness of LLC software programmes to current language students Transcribing focus group audio recording – a total of about 150 minutes Using Audacity to edit recordings made with members of the Hutt Valley Cook Islands community Researching newer editions of popular physical resources

While not all of the above projects were wildly exciting, some of them involved a degree of creativity and skills development. Assistants assigned to these projects did a great job and completed all of them by the end of the year! Ka pai he kaiāwhina ki Te Pūtahi Reo!

Sally Hill, Head of School for the School of Languages & Cultures, is currently responsible for overseeing the work of the Language Learning Centre.

Public users Members of the public may also use LLC resources by purchasing a public user card. This costs $30 for three months or $50 for six months. Public users have access to all of our huge collection of language learning resources for use within the LLC, as well as our computers and language learning software. Find out more here or just ask our staff for details.

What’s that?

Let LLC staff know if you would like to find out more about any of the above projects.

Our trio of regular assistants (Rory, Khadij, and Francesca) was boosted to a crew of five over the November-December period (enter Kaitlyn and Eleonora). Extra casual staff were recruited to take on special projects that had been awaiting attention for a while. In December, a volunteer, Nathan Ruthe, also joined the assistants’ ranks to immerse himself in LLC operations. The projects included: 

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Improving discoverability of LLC DVDs by enhancing (and sometimes correcting) catalogue metadata about language selection available for both audio track and subtitles LLC collection audit (a.k.a. ‘shelf-check’ in Library lingo) – thank you to the Library Technology Services team for generously lending us their wireless barcode scanner for this exercise

Thank you Sonia

In March 2016 Sonia Millett came to the end of her two year term as the LLC Coordinator. Sonia has been a tireless and ever supportive proponent of the Language Learning Centre during this time. The rest of the LLC team have also really enjoyed working with Sonia and have appreciated her passion and drive for all things LLC. Thank you so much Sonia for all your work!

In July 2016 the Self-access Centre became a venue for an item in the University art collection. Bushman's Hop is an early bronze casting sculpted by Paul Dibble, one of New Zealand's most famous sculptors. You may have seen some of his other works such as 'Fruits of the Garden' on the upper level of Frank Kitts Park, 'Under the Harbour' in Moore Wilson's foyer, 'Lady Down Under' on the roundabout outside Wellington Airport, numerous pieces in public spaces around Palmerston North as well as the New

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

Zealand War Memorial at Hyde Park Corner in London.

IT’S OFFICIAL!

New Zealand has three official languages: English, Māori and New Zealand Sign Language. Māori became an official language in 1987 and was followed by New Zealand Sign Language in 2006.

hope you can find us! Many thanks to Belinda.

If you are interested in finding out more about Victoria University’s art collection you should contact Sophie Thorn, Collection Manager at the Adam Art Gallery.

New kitchenette

All three languages are taught here at Victoria University. Te Reo Māori is taught by Victoria’s school of Māori Studies Te Kawa a Māui. English as a Second Language as well as New Zealand Sign Language are taught by the English Language Institute and Deaf Studies Research Unit respectively both of which are part of the School of Linguistics & Applied Language Studies. Tutorials for all three languages are conducted in the Language Learning Centre teaching labs. Click here to watch a YouTube clip which has all three of these nationally important languages.

Farewell VHS

The LLC kitchenette recently underwent a complete makeover. The old claustrophobic kitchen door was taken off its hinges and the walls removed on one side in order to open the area out. It is now much lighter and airier and more than one person can use it at one time! It is a great resource for all users of the LLC and features signage our official languages: Te Reo Māori, New Zealand Sign Language and English.

New signage The LLC team has been working with Belinda Marshall, Victoria’s Campus Design Manager Due to our combined efforts, we have lots of new signage making wayfinding easier around the von Zedlitz building, and specifically making the LLC easier to find. We

In February 2017 the LLC said goodbye to its last four VHS video players. We are now fully digital since all video tapes were replaced with DVDs a few years back. Many thanks to Amiel Ravla from ITS for helping us replace the three in the Computer Suite with PCs. These are much more adaptable and more suited for the students of 2017. The Computer Suite now has 24 computers and the LLC as a whole offers 72 student PCs. Another will be installed with a widescreen television in the Kiwiana Room (VZ005) later in 2017.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KÅ&#x152;RERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KĹ&#x152;RERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

LLC Twitter The LLC Twitter feed is a key place where we promote new ideas and advice for effective language learning. The tweets also feature news on the latest language learning websites and apps as well as physical resources which have just arrived at the LLC. We also sometimes promote opportunities for Victoria language learners, LLC news as well as some fun and interesting language facts. Here is a small selection of tweets from the past year. To find out more visit our Twitter feed by clicking on the link on our website or going directly to https://twitter.com/llc_vuw . If you have a great idea or resource for language learning, you could share it with others by tweeting it to @llc_vuw.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KĹ&#x152;RERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

November earthquake & torrential rain Nestled in the basement of the von Zedlitz building, the LLC withstood the 7.8 magnitude November 14th earthquake. For a moment the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attention was focussed on Wellington and the epicentre in Kaikoura. As a precaution students and staff were requested to stay at home the following day so that safety checks could be carried out around the University.

Having survived the earthquake, it was a surprise to find that the ensuing torrential rain flooded the area of the LLC at right. After drying out there remained an outstanding bump. Please be very careful when traversing our outstanding bump. Many people have already tripped up on it. We understand the bump will be fixed once more important earthquake related damage around the University has been resolved.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

LLC survey 2016 LLC staff are in the final stages of finishing an ambitious language learning survey project started in mid-2015. The survey, consisting of an online questionnaire completed by 592 language learners and three focus group session with 13 participants altogether, aimed to find out more about students’ language learning habits outside the classroom. How much time do students spend studying their language(s) outside the classroom? Where do they do their studying, and in what configuration? Do they study alone, in pairs, or groups? What resources do they use? How do they find them? What areas of the language (skills) do they find particularly difficult and why? What do they think would help them cope better with those difficult areas? The results are all in and LLC staff are preparing a final report for distributing amongst language stakeholders. In the meantime, we invite academic/teaching staff in particular languages to ‘mine’ the questionnaire data by filtering responses to particular areas or ‘facets’ of learning they are interested in: e.g. what online resources do students of German use? What skills do students of Samoan find the easiest/most difficult? To explore

possibilities for gleaning nuanced information about student language learning habits, contact Balint for a short demo session of filtering in Qualtrics!

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KĹ&#x152;RERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

Readlang Readlang is wonderful website for improving reading in a foreign language. There are a number of ways in which the website can be used. You can either use the existing material or you can upload text or video that interests you onto this platform. There is more material coming online all the time and 17 languages available with more at the beta stage. You can just click on a word and the translation will appear above the unknown word.

If you are interested in finding out more about the fantastic tool you could read this in depth review http://www.languagesurfer.com/2015/01/14/r eadlang-review-six-ways-to-get-the-mostout-of-this-awesome-tool/ or start experimenting with Readlang directly here: www.readlang.com

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

Ideas for speaking practice The Language Learning Survey 2016 conducted by the LLC showed that a huge number of Victoria language students want more speaking practice. We would therefore like to suggest a number of different resources and platforms for doing this. The ideas below are divided into two areas: controlled practice and free practice below.

Controlled practice Controlled practice is repetitive practice of language items in conditions where the possibility of making mistakes is minimized. Typically this takes the form of drilling. In the resources for controlled practice below the learner is always provided with a correct model answer. It is incredibly useful for improving accuracy in speaking and helping a language learner’s speech become automatic.

Earworms The LLC has 'Earworms Musical Brain Trainer' for Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish. There are two volumes for each language, though the language in each is of a similar level – beginner/elementary. Each CD has around an hour of audio and introduces ‘200+ essential phrases’ that are ideally suited to enabling the learner to get around in the country(s) where the language is spoken. The phrases are repetitive and set to music. The user should speak out loud and listen carefully to perfect his or her pronunciation. Good for those new to a particular language.

Michel Thomas The LLC has Michel Thomas courses for Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish. Each Michel Thomas course comprises 7+ audio disks and is thus more time consuming than Earworms, though not as much so as Glossika below. There are two levels 'Total' and 'Perfect'. The first, 'Total' could be used by someone with no background in the language concerned. These offer a great way to teach oneself a language as one starts speaking instantly. There are no books and no writing – the learner just follows the teacher and joins in with two other students on the CDs. These are great for helping students of European languages learning conjugations and how to manipulate the various types of pronouns, to help students of Chinese get to grips with 着, 了 and 过 for example and the various particles for those focusing on Japanese. The vocabulary taught is quite limited, but the listener will learn this vocabulary very well and be able to use it with correct grammar. Each track and each CD builds upon the previous one, and the learner will be very quickly surprised by the complex sentences they will be able to string together. For those learning European languages, for instance, it’s quite exciting and motivating to be able to use future and past tenses as well as conditionals and the subjunctive within the space of a few hours.

Glossika The LLC currently just has Glossika for French. However, we have ordered Chinese, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish (both Castilian and Mexican editions). It uses 3,000 English sentences which have been translated by native speakers into their mother tongue. The premise behind this resource is quite simple: learners hear an English sentence and then have to immediately reproduce the sentence in the target language. One can of course, replay each track and after a few times it becomes much easier to think of the correct translation. Glossika uses a Spaced Repetition System algorithm whereby the learner is asked to periodically repeat previously introduced sentences with increasing intervals just at the right time before they are forgotten. That is, it improves fluency by training the learner to be able to reproduce the sentences automatically. Glossika does not provide any explanations, nor does it teach any grammar. However, it does provide written transcripts in three books, each comprising 1,000 sentences. The focus is on practising what one has already learnt and developing fluency, rather than introducing new grammar etc. This resource would thus probably be most suitable for those studying at 200-level and above.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

Free practice As opposed to controlled practice, with free practice you are completely free to use the language in the way you want. You have the chance to completely personalize the language, you can experiment; you can try to include more complex structures by reusing previously learnt language. To offer opportunities for free practice we would like to present some ideas for finding face-toface interaction with native speakers below.

and so not ideal for listening carefully to an unfamiliar language, but it could offer a good way to find someone to meet with again later. There is a big social aspect to Mundo Lingo, and thus practising languages may be just one motivation for attendees.

Check out the Wellington Mundo Lingo Facebook page if you are interested in finding out more.

Italki below may offer a more reliable means to find someone in this case, though the person will almost certainly not live in Wellington.

Italki

Language Buddy Programme

This is a fantastic website for finding someone to practise languages with online.

After logging in, users can search by country and language etc. as well as by people who are currently online. There are literally thousands of people looking to practise languages on here from all over the world. It is also possible to search for a paid language tutor. Select 'Community' on the toolbar at top then click ‘Language Partners’. It is even

This programme has been run by LLC staff for a number of years and aims to pairs native speakers of two languages together. The programme accepts applications during the first three weeks of Trimester 1 and 2. Post a form at LLC to find a language partner independently Outside of the Language Buddy Programme sign up period students can fill out a form available on the LLC counter and post it on our ‘Find someone to practise speaking with’ board. Have a look through the ads already there as there may already be someone suitable who has already posted their advert. Don't forget to add the date at the bottom so we can ensure the ads are up to date.

Mundo Lingo This event takes place every Tuesday night from 7-9pm in a cafe in Wellington. It offers a way to try to find a native speaker to chat with and make friends with. It’s pretty noisy

Here’s an example of a few profiles:

possible to try searching by city. You never know, you may be able to find someone to practise with face to face right here in Wellington.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

Foreign language learning in New Zealand schools: Languishing or more of the same? Ten years ago, the Ministry of Education, in an effort to bolster the position of foreign language learning (FLL) across New Zealand schools, introduced ‘Learning Languages’ to its revised curriculum. As New Zealand society grew increasingly diverse (culturally and linguistically) and the world became more and more connected, proficiency in an additional language was viewed as an important skill. Unfortunately, the ministry’s attempt to help develop L2 capacity in school-aged children has not worked out as planned. In fact, 2015 saw the lowest percentage of students learning foreign language in over 80 years! A survey of research across Englishdominant countries, with a focus on New

Zealand, describes a variety of contributing factors for this decline. Some of the most significant reasons include: • The belief that ‘English is enough’ (a comment on the utility of learning a language – among other things). • A change in New Zealand’s school-aged population (as a reflection of the nation’s demographics); increasingly, students in New Zealand schools are from non-English speaking countries.

learning a language; students aiming to enter into higher education cannot – do not – fit them into their schedule; particularly problematic in Year 13). • Foreign language ability is not a prerequisite for higher education (including universities and vocational institutes).

• A lack of resources (e.g. not enough qualified language teachers).

• A dissatisfaction with classes (a comment connected to the idea that often students do not feel it is possible to learn an additional language – unrealistic expectations; as well, a critique regarding effectiveness of classroom instruction along with the little time schools allocate to L2-learning classes).

• Languages are not compulsory (some feel this is also a comment on the utility of

In addition, there remain a host of issues around formal foreign language learning in

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

New Zealand (again however, these issues are common across other English speaking contexts). Below are two common, and in many regards longest standing issues:

their promotion of FLL. In most cases, when the principals support the teaching and learning of an additional language, they find a way to make their programmes work.

• Foreign language learning remains gendered – with girls being more represented than boys.

Finally, the majority of empirical work coming out of New Zealand on FLL has for years tended to be conducted at a school level, leading to a dearth of research on FLL at the tertiary level. To combat this, the Language Learning Centre, in collaboration with academics from the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, the School of Languages and Cultures, and the Faculty of Education has embarked on a large-scale empirical research project which hopes to explore motivating and inhibiting factors affecting student enrolment and retention in tertiary level language learning programmes. This project is also aligned with government policy as reflected in Stephen Joyce’s call last year that New Zealand must invest more in “preparing our young people to understand the language, culture and

• Foreign language learning remains an ‘elite’ subject. The picture we have of FLL in New Zealand is unfortunately not great – despite the rhetoric and the great efforts of many (in schools; at home; even in the government). It is important to keep in mind that while FLL in New Zealand shares many of the characteristics found in other Englishdominant nations, the case of New Zealand is additionally problematic due to its bicultural status as well as the fact that it carries three official languages. That said, there are numerous schools across the country which are being successful in

economies of the countries with which we engage.”

LANGUAGE LEARNING IN NZ Our Language Technology Specialist, Diego Navarro, has been researching the state of language learning in New Zealand as part of a wider VUW project. If you would like to find out more you are welcome to email Diego by email Diego.Navarro@vuw.ac.nz

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KÅ&#x152;RERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KĹ&#x152;RERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

Make the most of your Library We would like to share two resources we all have access to through the University Library, but which not so many people seem to have yet discovered. They don't have to be used for language learning actually, but they are excellent sources for finding authentic native material for doing so.

Film streaming The first is a video resource. All Victoria students and staff have access to Kanopyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s website through which you can stream foreign language films and programmes in many languages. To access it search for 'Kanopy' in Te Waharoa, then click on 'Kanopy Streaming Videos' as shown at right.

If you search for films in Japanese for example these are just a few of the films which come up (see below). These can all be streamed for free online. Though foreign films only have English subtitles, they do widen the range of films intermediate and above learners have access to.

The Cuban film Secundaria above is an example of a Spanish language film that can be streamed online. It can be enlarged to full screen view.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KĹ&#x152;RERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

Foreign language magazines and newspapers online The second resource is for reading. PressReader allows you to access magazines and newspapers from all over the world in dozens of languages. To access PressReader from the Library homepage, click on the 'Research and Study Help' tab on the left of the page, then select 'Databases A-Z'. Then enter PressReader in the search bar shown at right. Whether it's getting the lowdown (in Spanish of course) on the competitors to Tinder from Cosmopolitan Mexico or even catching up on 'Dan Carter - un black chez les Catalans' and a French perspective on rugby in 'Tampon!' magazine (tamponner = to stamp), youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll find something to suit your interests in your chosen language.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KĹ&#x152;RERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

Resources for FHSS210/FHSS310 In addition to the resources the LLC holds in all of Victoria's taught languages, we have been giving a boost to other important / popular world languages such as Arabic, Indonesian, Korean, Portuguese and Russian. Many of these of these have already arrived and many more are on their way. The School of Languages and Cultures offers two courses FHSS210 Language Study Abroad and FHSS310 Study Abroad for Language Students whereby students can gain credit for overseas study of languages in the language of their choice.

To help prepare for this stint abroad we welcome you to come and check out these new self-study resources.

FHSS310 Study Abroad for Language Students This course involves language study at an approved overseas institution and is available to students who have completed 40 points of relevant language acquisition courses at Victoria. 100% internal assessment based on a portfolio completed abroad and an essay and presentation upon return to NZ.

FHSS210 Language Study Abroad This course involves language study at an approved overseas institution and is available to students who have completed 40 100-level points at Victoria. The course is available both to students who have studied the language before and to students with no previous knowledge of the language. 100% internal assessment based on a portfolio completed abroad and an essay and presentation upon return to NZ.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KÅ&#x152;RERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KĹ&#x152;RERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

Academic English online writing resources The LLC has a large collection of books to help students improve their writing both in terms of grammar as well as structuring essays, academic style, referencing etc. We would also like to recommend some online options which are useful for improving the grammar and punctuation of your writing in English. As the highlighted words in the sample student written text at right illustrate, Word only picks up a small number of writing problems. There are however, a number of other options to help improve your writing.

Marking Mate is a great website for those who want to get feedback on their academic writing. We do emphasize academic writing here as many of the issues it focusses on are fine in informal writing e.g. use of personal pronouns 'We could stop global warming...', preference for formal versus informal vocabulary etc. The interface is a bit oldfashioned, but the job it does is very useful. To use it paste your text into Marking Mate here and then click on 'Check your paper with Marking Mate!'

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KÅ&#x152;RERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

You will then receive feedback like this shown below:

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KĹ&#x152;RERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

Load your essay or some text into Grammarly and it will give you immediate feedback on grammar problems. Though its proofreading might not be perfect, it will definitely help draw your attention to a number of issues in your writing.

If you click on the specific issue, Grammarly will display an explanation such as the one at right.

As the example below shows, Grammarly doesn't always get its suggestions right. Thus it should be remembered that no automatic grammar checker is a substitute for the careful consideration of a real person! It does however quickly draw the user's attention to possible issues.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KÅ&#x152;RERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

Another website which is great for getting feedback on your writing in English, as well as many others is Lang-8. This website works on the premise that you help others by checking their writing too. You can watch a short video explaining how Lang-8 works here.

At right is an example of a text written by an English learner.

Other users who are native speakers will then comment on the composition as shown in the example below.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

ESL self-diagnostic tests at the LLC The LLC has a number of books with tests in order to evaluate your English grammar and pronunciation. After doing one of these tests, you can check the correct answer to each question. Most importantly, these books will tell you which exercises to do in order to improve areas you had difficulty with.

The answer page at the back of the book shows that the correct answer is B. If you did not select B, you may need to try doing some exercises focused on this grammar point. To do so you should go to chapter 7 (see the number 7 at right).

Below are the books with self-diagnostic tests for grammar and pronunciation. You will find these books in the LLC’s Self-access Library in the ‘Speaking & Pronunciation’ and ‘Grammar’ sections.

(This comes from English Grammar in Use, Third Edition by Raymond Murphy)

Here is an example question:

Grammar

Intermediate level grammar This is the newer edition of the book above. The tests are similar however, so you can use whichever one you find on the shelf. Test is on page 326, answers page 372.

Advanced level grammar Test is on page 240, answers page 281

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

You can narrow down the number of sound pairs to focus on by first reading the ‘Guide for speakers of specific languages’ on page 141.

Intermediate level pronunciation similar to the one above (an older edition). Grammar test divided into Basic, Intermediate and Advanced points. Test is on page 3, answers page 11

Elementary level pronunciation Test on sound pairs (useful if you have problems in hearing the difference between individual sounds) on page 113, answers page 158. You can narrow down the number of sound pairs to focus on by first reading the ‘Guide for speakers of specific languages’ on page 111.

Test on sound pairs (useful if you have problems in hearing the difference between individual sounds) on page 144, answers page 195. You can narrow down the number of sound pairs to focus on by first reading the ‘Guide for speakers of specific languages’ on page 141.

Intermediate level grammar Test is on page 263, answers page 270 Intermediate level pronunciation

Pronunciation

Intermediate level pronunciation

For the pronunciation tests you will need to use the CD which accompanies each book. If you want to do this at home please ask an LLC staff member to lend you an external CD/DVD drive.

Test on sound pairs (useful if you have problems in hearing the difference between individual sounds) on page 144, answers page 195.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KÅ&#x152;RERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

Beginning Māori resources Te Reo Māori courses are proving to be ever popular at Victoria. We would like to share a few resources which could be useful to those beginning their journey with Te Reo Māori. Some of these are available in the Māori section of our Self-access Library whilst others are available freely online.

Te Hikuwai and its sequel Te Wahapū form a decent self-study resource for teaching yourself extra reo or for use as a standalone self-study resource. Each book includes an audio CD and full answers to exercises.

Ngata dictionary (Website & LLC book) Another great online dictionary. If you need a dictionary for an exam, the hard copy of this dictionary is also good as it includes example sentences. You can find this in the Self-access Library.

Tōku Reo (Website + LLC books) Good textbook series, its key strength being the many podcasts plus videos (~25 mins each) which can be freely downloaded. The first textbook is called Te Kākano (the seed) and can be found in the Self-access Library. A super listening resource. The Rays of Sound / Nga Parangeki Ihiihi project is a LLC initiative aimed at making 1980s and 1990s readers for learners of Māori available for a new generation. We highly recommend these simplified Māori stories as a listening and reading resource. The hard copies of these audio stories are available to be borrowed from the Self-access Library. A Modern Māori Picture Dictionary is an incredibly detailed book with dozens of pictures which will helps you learn categories of words or find a particular one you are looking for. Located in the LLC Self-access Library.

Te Aka dictionary (Website) – An excellent online dictionary which includes example sentences for each word.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

A good pronunciation resource is Pronounce Māori with Confidence that comes with an audio CD. Located in the LLC Self-access Library.

various grammatical constructions.

Borrow a board game and play it with a group of your classmates in one of our bookable group study rooms. You can book by clicking here. Te Reo Māori at Victoria Booklet – This is a great reference resource for university life and official correspondence. Learn the names of departments at Victoria, compose mihi for emails, put together a bilingual business card etc. You can use the website Māori story book to create your own story. It is a simple way of learning vocabulary and basic sentence structures as it is quite repetitive.

Kei a wai? (LLC board games) offers an alternative resource for speaking practice. It's so important to repeat new grammar and vocabulary to help make it become automatic when you need it. These games are a good way of doing this. We have two of these: one on positions/situations & one on colours/shapes. Good for groups of two to six players. You could borrow one and play it in a LLC group study room.

With Waiata Māori songs you can listen to a large collection of beautiful waiata and haka as well as view their transcripts and translations. Listening to songs provides a good way of assimilating vocabulary and

Another valuable speaking resource is He Papa - Whakataetae mō Ngā Wāhi Māori (Aotearoa Road Trip), a game that can be used to practise New Zealand place names in Māori. This is available from the LLC counter – just ask one of our staff members if you would like to borrow it.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KÅ&#x152;RERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

Japanese Conversation Group Throughout 2016, the Victoria University Japanese Conversation Club met every Thursday afternoon in one of the Language Learning Centre’s teaching labs. These sessions are always extremely popular, with good attendance even during term breaks. Besides providing a regular opportunity for language and cultural exchange, the Club has also been an important venue for Kiwi students of Japanese to mingle and socialize with Japanese students of English. The Japanese Conversation Club will again be meeting regularly in the LLC during 2017. All are welcome to come along – check out the noticeboard at the LLC for details.

Chinese Language Week

In September the LLC joined with others from around the University to celebrate Chinese Language Week. The celebrations included a choir singing Chinese songs, dance and kungfu performances, opportunities to talk with the School of Languages & Cultures Chinese programme staff, the LLC's cha and chat station as well as opportunities for anyone interested to come a learn about the resources on offer at the LLC for Chinese.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

SWEN work In Trimester 2 of 2016, the LLC was lucky to be selected as one of the internal project sponsors for the SWEN302 Agile Methods course, offered by the School of Engineering and Computer Science. The team of enthusiastic students (pictured, from left to right: Zach Macfarlane, Josh van Vliet, Josh Gomez, Jashon Brown, Mansour Javaher) who chose the Rays of Sound project did a fantastic job of finding out about the LLC’s vision and needs and offering a user-friendly platform for easier maintenance and expansion of the website in future. Matt

Cook Islands Māori project - Va'a reka Kūki ‘Āirani

As an extension of the Rays of Sound project, reported in the previous issue of Languitude, LLC staff have been working on collecting and creating additional material to join the Māori and Sāmoan content already available on the website. The plan is to add a third Pacific language to the line-up: Cook Islands Māori, otherwise known as Rarotongan. Thanks to a chance encounter on Waitangi Day 2016, the LLC has forged a relationship with a community organization called the Hutt Valley Cook Islands Association, members of which have been exceptionally helpful and open to sharing their reo,

wisdom, ‘imene (songs), and life stories for the benefit of their mokopuna and the wider public. From the 37 recordings, LLC staff are initially aiming to prepare at least six tracks for uploading onto the Rays of Sound website – among these are a children’s story, a traditional Rarotongan hymn, basics of the Cook Islands Māori language, the Lord’s Prayer, some proverbs, and short autobiographical reminiscences of local Māmā and their journey of coming to and establishing themselves in Aotearoa.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KÅ&#x152;RERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

New resources at the LLC ALBANIAN

speakers, the audio material features the dialogues and texts from the book and will help develop your listening and pronunciation skills.

BULGARIAN

BENGALI

Colloquial Bulgarian Colloquial Albanian The Albanian language is spoken by over six million people in the southwestern Balkans, primarily in the Republic of Albania and in the neighbouring countries which once formed part of the Yugoslav federation (Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia). Albanian is a language of the extensive Indo-European family and is thus related to a certain degree to almost all other languages of Europe. At the same time, Albanian shows no particularly close historical affinity to any other language or language group within the Indo-European family, i.e. it forms a language group of its own. Combining a clear, practical and accessible style with a methodical and thorough treatment of the language, Colloquial Albanian equips learners with the essential skills needed to communicate confidently and effectively in Albanian in a broad range of situations. No prior knowledge of the language is required. Each unit presents a wealth of grammatical points that are reinforced with a wide range of exercises for regular practice. A full answer key, a grammar summary, bilingual glossaries and English translations of dialogues can be found at the back as well as useful vocabulary lists throughout. Audio material to accompany the course is available to download freely in MP3 format from www.routledge.com/cw/colloquials . Recorded by native

Colloquial Bengali Bengali is the seventh most spoken native language in the world with 210 million native speakers centered in Bangladesh and a number of Indian states notably West Bengal. Colloquial Bengali is an indispensable resource for independent learners of this lesser studied language. Audio material to accompany the course is available to download freely in MP3 format from www.routledge.com/cw/colloquials . Recorded by native speakers, the audio material features the dialogues and texts from the book and will help develop your listening and pronunciation skills.

There are around 10 million people who speak Bulgarian. As well as it being the official language of Bulgaria, it is also spoken in Greece, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Albania and Kosovo. Bulgaria itself has a thriving tourism industry, probably to do with the fact that not only are there coastal resorts, but there are also snow resorts with a variety of sports on offer. Colloquial Bulgarian: The Complete Course for Beginners has been carefully developed by an experienced teacher to provide a step-by-step course to Bulgarian as it is written and spoken today. Key features include: • A clear, user-friendly format designed to help learners progressively build up their speaking, listening, reading and writing skills • Jargon-free, succinct and clearly structured explanations of grammar • An extensive range of focused and dynamic supportive exercises • Realistic and entertaining dialogues covering a broad variety of narrative situations • Helpful cultural points explaining the customs and features of life in Bulgaria

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

• An overview of the sounds and alphabet of Bulgarian Balanced, comprehensive and rewarding, Colloquial Bulgarian is an indispensable resource both for independent learners and students taking courses in Bulgarian.

texts from the book and will help develop your listening and pronunciation skills.

CHINESE

Audio material to accompany the course is available to download freely in MP3 format from www.routledge.com/cw/colloquials . Recorded by native speakers, the audio material features the dialogues and texts from the book and will help develop your listening and pronunciation skills.

interesting to read for pleasure, without having to constantly reference a dictionary. Mandarin Companion’s Level 1 books assume a foundation of only 300 Chinese characters, and it’s 300 characters you will know if you’ve studied virtually any standard course. The Level 2 books which have only just been published are based on 450 characters. The LLC has all titles published in the series so far: The Country of the Blind (Level 1), Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Curly Haired Company (Level 1), The Secret Garden (Level 1), The Monkey's Paw (Level 1), The Sixty Year Dream (Level 1), Great Expectations part 1 (Level 2) and Great Expectations part 2 (Level 2).

CATALAN

For an in depth review on the Level 1 books from this series try clicking on this link.

Colloquial Catalan Catalan is probably one of the biggest European languages without its own sovereign state. It’s spoken by around 9 million speakers and understood by a couple million more. Catalan is closely related to other Romance languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, Occitan and Italian and will seem somewhat familiar to speakers of these languages. It is spoken in the northeastern Spanish area of Catalonia, of which Barcelona is the capital city, plus parts of Aragon and Valencia (where it is called Valencian). It is also spoken over the border in the French province of Roussillon, in the Balearic Islands, and is also an official language in the mountainous principality of Andorra as well as the Sardinian city of Alghero (part of Italy). To discover more about this fascinating language come and try ‘Colloquial Catalan’. Audio material to accompany this course is available to download freely in MP3 format from www.routledge.com/cw/colloquials . Recorded by native speakers, the audio material features the dialogues and

白日焰火 Black Coal, Thin Ice DVD A Chinese crime thriller following former detective Zhang Zili (Fan Liao) as he teams up with his ex-partner in an attempt to solve the case that put an end to their careers. When murders begin to take place similar to those the detectives were investigating several years previously they discover that Wu Zhizhen (Lun-Mei Gwei), a drycleaner’s assistant, is the prime suspect as the men she has been romantically involved with have been killed. Despite knowing that Wu poses a threat, Zhang finds himself drawn to her and he too becomes involved with the potential killer. Will he be able to solve the case?

Mandarin Companion graded readers Mandarin Companion graded readers are for learners with 1-2 years of formal study under their belts (or the equivalent), looking for something longer and more

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

Beijing student is sent to live among the nomadic herdsmen of Inner Mongolia. Caught between the advance of civilization from the south and the nomads’ traditional enemies – the marauding wolves – to the north, humans and animals, residents and invaders alike, struggle to find their true place in the world.

Beginners’ graded readers Panda Jack’s family is feeling the economic crunch, but he’s an enterprising sort…can he manage to trade the family cow for something that will keep them fed for years to come? This twisted version of a familiar fairy tale is written in simple Chinese, suitable for beginning readers learning Chinese as a second or foreign language (130 unique characters).

Get Started in Mandarin Chinese If you are an absolute beginner or simply looking for a solid foundation to your language studies for school, work or travel, this engaging course will help get you on your way to speaking, reading and understanding Mandarin Chinese in no time. Through an engaging story line, clear language presentations, and extensive practice and review, you will pick up the Mandarin Chinese you need to communicate naturally in everyday situations - from shopping and travelling to food and daily life.

狼圖騰 Wolf Totem DVD In acclaimed director Jean-Jacques Annaud's film adaptation of Jiang Rong's best-selling novel, a young

Chinese Calligraphy Written Chinese can call upon about 40,000 characters, many of which originated some 6,000 years ago as little pictures of everyday objects used by the ancients to communicate with one another. To convey more abstract ideas or concepts, the Chinese stylized and combined their pictographs. This book, modeled after a classic compilation of the Chinese language done in the 18th century, introduces readers to the 214 root pictographs or symbols upon which this writing system, whose rich complexities hold a wealth of cultural meaning, is based. These key characters, called radicals, are all delightfully presented in this volume, with their graphic development traced stage-by-stage to the present representation, where even now (in many of them) one can easily make out what was originally pictured—with the author’s guidance. Centuries ago, when the Japanese took up writing, they also adopted these symbols, though they gave them different names in their own spoken language. Each of the 214 classic radicals is charmingly explored by the author, both for its etymology and for what it reveals about Chinese history and culture. Chinese characters are marvels of graphic design, and this book even shows the proper way to write each radical, stroke by stroke. Finally, there are also samples of each radical combined with other radicals and character elements to demonstrate how new characters are formed—some 8,000 have been added to the language since the eighteenth century. With all its expertly executed calligraphic illustrations and fascinating commentary, this book serves as an excellent introduction to Chinese writing and its milieu.

The LLC has four other titles like this one. They are based around stories Western people know and so learners can just focus on the language. They are also quite quirky / amusing as well as appealing to adults. They come with a glossary at the back, though there will probably not be more than a handful of words that are not covered by the end of the first trimester of Chinese. They are written at a basic level, but they would be really helpful for improving reading speed and comprehension for those completely new to Chinese. Easily accessible but out-of-sight overleaf Pinyin support and word spacing make the text more accessible to new readers of Chinese, whether in a class setting, as free reading or for self-study.

The Chairman’s Bao The LLC has an institutional subscription to this amazing website for learners of Chinese. Everyday learners can read new articles graded from HSK1-6 on stories from around China. Each story comes with audio as well as vocabulary and grammar lists. Users can click on a word to see its translation and/or add it to their own personalised vocabulary list. Ask at the LLC to obtain a username and password.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

Making Connections 4

推拿 Blind Massage DVD Based on the multi award-winning novel by Bi Feiyu, Lou Ye's Blind Massage has won numerous awards, taking the Silver Bear at the 2014 Berlin International Film Festival as well as Best Film at the 2014 Golden Horse Awards and the 2015 Asian Film Awards. Blind Massage offers a tender and realistic look at the lives of a group of blind masseurs/masseuses. Operated by the reserved Zhang Zongqi (Wang Zhihua) and the extroverted Sha Fuming (Qin Hao, Mystery), the Sha Zongqi Massage Center in Nanjing is home to a diverse group of blind and partially blind masseurs and masseuses. There's Xiao Ma (Huang Xuan), a young man driven by his raging hormones who lost his sight in a car accident during his childhood. There's Du Hong (Mei Ting), a proud woman who's annoyed by clients who praise her for her physical beauty. There's also Sha's old friend Dr. Wang (Guo Xiaodong) and his girlfriend Xiao Kong (Zhang Lei), who face familial opposition and problems with unsavory figures. Together, this makeshift community must navigate through life while contending with each member's unique difficulties.

Critical Reading Critical Reading goes beyond the standard "reading comprehension plus vocabulary" approach and provides students with systematic introduction to the process of analyzing and evaluating a written text. Each chapter introduces a fundamental skill for developing critical awareness, including: considering place and date of publication; identifying author bias and purpose; distinguishing between fact and opinion; gauging scope of research; evaluating evidence; comparing the author's argument to other points of view; and ultimately, evaluating the strength and validity of an argument with the goal of writing a critical review of the article. The LLC holds four copies of this item.

Academic writing We have a large number of new books recently arrived and suitable for ESL students. Most are in the Selfaccess Library and all can be borrowed by both staff and students. We welcome inspections - come and review the fantastic range of materials we have on offer! If there is a particular resource you would like us to order please come and have a chat with an LLC staff member.

The LLC now has five copies of the fourth and highest level book in this series which is already very popular with ESL students. It aims to help students develop key reading skills and strategies such as recognizing patterns of textual organization, understanding how writers create connections within and across sentences, and learning how to process academic language and vocabulary. It features topics including: technology, biomedical science, business and engineering.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KĹ&#x152;RERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

A Question of Scruples A Question of Scruples is a card game based on ethical dilemmas and has been recently purchased on recommendation of EPP teacher Joanne Tham. Lots of ESL students have already played it, and it provides many opportunities for extemporaneous speaking. The best bit is that players need to explain why they would or wouldn't do something.

Graded readers The LLC continues to widen its collection of English graded readers. These new graded readers range in levels from 200 to 3,000 headwords. All come with an accompanying CD and can be borrowed for two weeks. Recently arrived titles include the following (note some may belong in more than one category):

Players are given five yellow cards with a moral dilemma such as "You accidentally damage a car in a parking lot. Do you leave a note with your name and phone number?" The player also has one red card, with either YES, NO, or DEPENDS written on it. The player must ask the question to the person whom they most think will reply with the answer on the red card. If the answer matches the red card, the player asking the question gets rid of their yellow card and red card, and picks up a new red card. In this way, the game tests how well players know the other players. The game is over when someone gets rid of all five cards.

Adventure: Skyjack!, Last Chance, A Dangerous Sky Biographies: Leonardo da Vinci, Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali, Malala, Bob Marley, The Cellist of Sarajevo, Agatha Christie - Woman of Mystery, Henry VIII and his Six Wives Classics: Les MisĂŠrables, The Swiss Family Robinson, Tales from Shakespeare, The Wizard of Oz, Gulliver's Travels, Matilda, The Moonstone, Vanity Fair Detective: A Scandal in Bohemia, Death on the Nile, The President's Murderer, The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Murder on the Orient Express Non-fiction: Amazing Thinkers & Humanitarians, Story of the Internet, New York, Inventions That Changed the World, Australia, Japan, Dinosaurs, Chocolate, Amazing Scientists NZ content: The New Zealand File, A New Zealand Adventure, The Doll's House, The Garden Party and Other Stories Romance: Girl Meets Boy, The Love of a King Film: Braveheart, Forrest Gump, Twelve Years A Slave

English for special purposes The LLC continues to increase its offerings in the area of English for Special Purposes. The latest tiles to arrive cover the following fields: accountancy, banking, electrical engineering, ICT studies, management studies, nursing, tourism & hospitality.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

FRENCH

Si le vent soulève les sables DVD Si le vent soulève les sables (literally "if the wind raises the sands") is a drama directed by Marion Hänsel about a family in the Horn of Africa making a trek to find sufficient water during a drought. The film is a BelgiumFrance coproduction based on the novel Chamelle by Marc Durin-Valois.

IELTS resources The LLC has a comprehensive and up to date selection of IELTS preparation workbooks as well as mock tests. We routinely receive new items as part of this collection such as those pictured above. If you would like to borrow any of these resources please come and point out which ones you would like to LLC staff (they are located to the left of the LLC counter).

French classics Now that all taught languages in the Self-access Library have been divided into sections, we can clearly see which books are graded readers specifically targeted at language learners as well as which are ungraded readers (essentially novels etc. designed for native speakers of that language). It was noticed that there were relatively few graded readers representing French literature that were well suited to FREN students. We have thus improved our range to include: Jules Verne’s Le tour du monde en 80 jours (A1), Guy de Maupassant’s Bel-Ami (A2) and Emile Zola’s Germinal (B1). Voltaire’s Candide (A2) and Gaston Leroux’s Le Fantôme de l'Opéra (B1) are on their way.

Éric a disparu Where’s Éric? He hasn’t come home from school. Has he run away? Has he been kidnapped? Éric’s parents are very worried, but the Police Commissioner is able to solve the mystery in his own unique way.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

As the International New York Times observes, "He is one of the few contemporary musicians to so directly evoke Europe's ambient moroseness, and he does so with an eclecticism that has earned him critical praise." Stromae has already collaborated in various ways with artists such as Kanye West, Major Lazer, the Black Eyed Peas and DJ Snake.

character: "war weapons collector, spends his holidays in Kazakhstan, likes movies about gladiators". Then each other player must select three cards from his hand and convince the main player that she (or he) is his best match. The main player then selects the turn's winner. Speed Dating feels like a minimalistic and hilarious roleplaying game, or like an adult version of Once upon a Time, or a more involved version of The Big Idea.

Rien à declarer (Nothing to declare) DVD January 1, 1993, Europe opens its borders. In this hilarious comedy two customs officers, one Belgian, the other French, learn of the imminent disappearance of their border crossing situated in Courquain (France) and Koorkin (Belgium). The overly zealous Belgian customs officer Ruben Vandevoorde is forced to inaugurate the first French-Belgian mobile brigade. His French colleague, Mathias Ducatel, considered by Ruben as his sworn enemy, is secretly in love with Ruben's sister. He surprises everyone by accepting to become Vandevoorde's team-mate and to patrol the country roads along the border with him in a small, but powerful international customs vehicle.

Le Point subscription The LLC has a subscription to Le Point, a French magazine dealing with news and current affairs, but also covering economics, technology, health, culture, and trends, as well as opinion columns and articles on matters of public interest. Issued weekly, Le Point was initially modelled on Time and Newsweek magazines and still hits hard on the news and current affairs topics in France and abroad, offering an alternative to L’Express.

Latest album by Stromae

Speed dating – Séduis-moi si tu peux!

This is a 2014 release from Belgian Electronic Pop artist Paul Van Haver, known to the world as Stromae. Racine Caree has already sold 1.5 million copies in France alone. Stromae has become an important artist in equal measures for his musicality, his imagery and his voice.

In Speed Dating, each player has twelve cards in hand: six with female characteristics, and six with male characteristics. The main player for the turn selects three cards from his hand and lays them down, describing his character – for example, for a male

Entre les murs (The class) DVD The Class (2008 Academy Award Nominee, Best Foreign Language Film) follows the year in the life of a French schoolteacher working at a high school in a tough neighborhood of Paris. Cultures and attitudes often clash in the classroom. As amusing and inspiring as the teenage students can be, their difficult behavior can still jeopardize any teacher's enthusiasm for the low-paying job. Insisting on an atmosphere of respect and diligence that's neither stuffy nor severe, his frankness often takes the students by surprise. But his classroom ethics are put to the test when his students begin to challenge his methods.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

Le Petit Nicolas series Many thanks to the Victoria University French Society for donating six titles in the classic French children’s series ‘Le Petit Nicolas’. Le petit Nicolas (Little Nicholas) was created by René Goscinny and illustrated by JeanJacques Sempé and was first published on March 29, 1959. The books depict an idealized version of childhood in 1950s France. The books are told from the point of view of Nicolas himself, which gives the book a distinct and personal sense of humor. The narration is a pastiche of childish storytelling, with run-on sentences and schoolyard slang used in abundance, and much of the humour derives from Nicolas' misunderstanding of adults' behavior. At the same time, adults are as much a target of the book's satire as children, as the straightforward and uncomplicated worldview of the child narrator exposes the flaws of adult perception. This subversive element in Le petit Nicolas made it an early example of modern children's literature that is centered on the experience of the child's interpretation of the world, rather than an adult's.

Grammaire contrastive

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky DVD

A new contrastive grammar designed for students at level A1 and A2 which has been written with special emphasis on problems faced by English speakers learning French.

Paris 1913. At the Theatre Des Champs-Elysées, Igor Stravinsky premieres ‘The Rite of Spring’. Coco Chanel is mesmerized…But the revolutionary work is too modern: the enraged audience boos. A near riot ensues. Seven years later, Coco Chanel meets Stravinsky again - a penniless refugee living in exile after the Russian Revolution. The attraction between them is immediate and electric. Coco offers Stravinsky and his family the use of her villa in Garches so that he will be able to continue his work. And so a passionate, intense love affair between two fascinating creative giants begins…

Grammar rules are presented simply and in English and exercises are designed to show the differences and similarities between French and English. For format of the book is 80 thematic grammar sheets by order of difficulty, with 450+ exercises (with answers in the separate Answer Key/Transcripts booklet included), 2 evaluation tests and audio CD with 100 comprehension passages.

Oss 117: Lost in Rio DVD The pride of French intelligence, Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath - code named OSS 117 - has a new mission that takes him to the Bossa Nova Brazil of the 1960s. Teaming up with a sexy Mossad agent he has to capture a Nazi blackmailer with an embarrassingly long list of World War II French collaborators. With a jubilantly retro score and production design along with flair for 1960s era cinematic vocabulary, the filmmakers again have the perfect man to show Western arrogance, French chauvinism and bigotry in general with biting satire and scathing wit.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

GERMAN

Das finstere Tal (The Dark Valley) DVD Through a hidden path a lone rider reaches a little town high up in the Alps. Nobody knows where the stranger comes from, nor what he wants there. But everyone knows that they don't want him to stay.

Graded German classics These new graded reader series makes some classic German stories as well as modern ones available to learners. These are all at the A1 and A2 level. Titles include Die Zauberflöte, Wilhelm Tell, Baron von Münchhausen, Das altägyptische Souvenir and Frau Holle und andere Märchen by the Brothers Grimm.

Das geheimnisvolle Foto This is a new graded reader at the A1 level. Valentina is a kind and intelligent girl, but not your typical teenager. She doesn't care about clothes and magazines: her passion is photography. She often sits in her favorite cafe and photographs passersby: men and women, children, and tourists. For the best photos Valentina then imagines stories and updates her blog. One day, however, she photographs a mysterious man, and from that moment her life will be in danger.

German Grammar in a Nutshell German Grammar concepts explained in English in simple terms with entertaining, often amusing, examples of usage. Simple mnemonics aid understanding and retention. Unique to "kurz und schmerzlos" is the presentation of grammar in a communicative progression rather than the traditional paradigm-oriented approach. Grammar is taught as the learner is likely to need it either in a classroom setting or in an immersion situation, not simply to complete a grammatical model. Exercises and illustrations complete the learning experience. Excellent grammar companion to any basic text series.

Der Fluch der Mumie This is a new graded reader at the A1 level. Here is a brief synopsis: Jan is fifteen and lives in Berlin. She is interested in Egyptology and has just learnt that the Egyptian Museum in Berlin has just bought the mummy of the ancient general Thoukanis. So she goes straight to see it with her friend Stefan. The two friends see

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

some strange hieroglyphics on the sarcophagus. From that moment strange and unexplainable things start happening… Jan and Stefan start investigating and make some disturbing discoveries.

When she falls in love with Matze she has to run away to seek help as her family want her to have a Turkish husband.

Sushi in Suhl DVD

Das ewige Leben DVD

Based on a true story, Sushi in Suhl tells the story of a chef, who against all political and social opposition realized his dream of opening a Japanese restaurant in the GDR. His culinary reputation spread as far away as Japan.

Former cop Brenner has to return to his home town where he gets involved in a tragic story between his old friends.

cottage in the woods. One afternoon their parents let them ride their bikes to the fair in the town, close to where they live. They have fun and Sibille goes to a fortune teller while the brothers wait. Later, they meet one of Sibille's schoolmates, Michael. They go on the ghost train together. But on the way back through the forest, something really weird happens. They are being followed. The brothers run to the house, but Sibille is brave. She and Michael want to face their fears and look danger in the eye. But who is behind them?

Türkisch für Anfänger (Turkish for beginners) DVD Lena Schneider (Josefine Preuss), the sensible but slightly neurotic daughter of Doria (Anna Stieblich), is a free-thinking psychiatrist with hippie tendencies. When Doria decides to send Lena on holiday to Thailand things start badly when she’s seated next to Cem Öztürk (Elyas M'Barek), a young Turkish-German man with raging hormones. Things get worse, much worse when an emergency landing leaves Lena stranded on a desert isle with Cem, his deeply religious sister, Yagmur (Pegah Ferydoni), and a stuttering Greek named Costa (Arnel Taci). But could there be a bright light at the end of this tricky cross-cultural tunnel? Meanwhile back in Germany Doria and Cem’s father, Metin (Adnan Maral), come into contact in the search for their missing children.

Kopftuch

Keine Angst? graded reader

15 year old Turkish girl Sibel lives a double life wearing modern outfits at school and traditional dress at home.

Sibille and her two younger brothers, Torsten and Andreas, are on holiday with their parents. They live in a

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KĹ&#x152;RERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

GREEK

Athenaze Book 1 & 2 Athenaze provides a unique course of instruction that trains students to read Ancient Greek. Carefully designed to hold students' interest, the course begins in Book I with a fictional narrative about an Attic farmer's family placed in a precise historical context (432-431 B.C.). This narrative, interwoven with tales from mythology and the Persian Wars, gradually gives way in Book II to adapted passages from Thucydides, Plato, and Herodotus and ultimately to excerpts of the original Greek of Bacchylides, Thucydides, and Aristophanes' Acharnians. Essays on relevant aspects of ancient Greek culture and history are also incorporated throughout the story.

HUNGARIAN

Each passage is accompanied by graded exercises to encourage the development of the four skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening. A list of frequently used words accompanies each passage, and a comprehensive Indonesian-English glossary is included.

White God DVD Thirteen-year-old Lili fights to protect her dog Hagen. She is devastated when her father eventually sets Hagen Let's Speak Indonesian 1 free on the streets. Still innocently believing love can conquer any difficulty, Lili sets out to find her dog and Ayo Berbahasa Indonesia (Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Speak Indonesian) save him. provides beginning and intermediate learners with an introduction to conversational Indonesian. Using a INDONESIAN relaxed variety of standard Indonesian spoken among educated native speakers, it offers fifteen thematicallybased chapters in two volumes that are rich with photographs, illustrations, and cultural explanations. The volumes take the novice learner to the intermediate-high level while following a set of fictional students through their university studies. Each lesson presents four to six language functions (e.g. how to greet a stranger, introduce oneself, ask for directions, apologize, offer a suggestion) in socially appropriate contexts. Students begin with the language functions needed to communicate about self, family, and the immediate environment; later lessons expand to topics about the community and broader social issues. Each lesson offers the following: a list of language functions in Indonesian and English, a dialogue (and online recording) exemplifying the language functions taught in the lesson, structured activities to develop accuracy using the language functions, open-ended tasks to develop fluency in communicative events, a vocabulary list with English definitions, and cultural notes. Each volume concludes with a glossary of vocabulary items introduced in the text.

Graded Passages in Indonesian Mari Membaca Bahasa Indonesia is a collection of graded reading passages for students of Indonesian. The passages introduce students to family, school and community life in Indonesia today.

Audio files for this volume may be downloaded in MP3 format at www.indonesiantextbooks.wisc.edu

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

Eliana, Eliana DVD Eliana, a small-town girl from West Sumatra, now thrives in the busy hustle bustle of Jakarta. One day, after she is fired by her callous boss, she returns home to find her roommate missing and her mother waiting for her. In the long night that follows, her mother tries to talk her daughter into returning home, while Eliana searches the streets and cafes of free-wheeling Jakarta for her roommate. Set against a pulsating backdrop of modern-day Indonesia, this electrifying award-winning drama tells the story of a woman pulled between the old and the new, between tradition and rejuvenation.

ITALIAN

Arisan! (The Gathering) DVD

La festa dell'uva

A satirical comedy set in Jakarta about friendship, homosexuality, adultery and the shallowness of the nouveau riche. Arisan! caused quite a stir in Indonesia when it presented the first gay kiss between two male leads. Sakti is a handsome young architect living in Jakarta with his nagging mother. He is so deep in the closet that even he has not figured out he likes men. But those around him begin to suspect something is up when Sakti meets Nino, a good looking TV producer. Set around the traditional Arisan (gatherings) where women get together and gossip the afternoon away, this film is a wonderful look at Indonesian society and people's ability to accept each other no matter what the circumstances.

IN this A1 graded reader violent events shock Bologna's peaceful provinces when one mayor is assassinated and another is threatened...

Vogliamo anche le rose (We Want Roses Too) DVD Anita, Teresa and Valentina, who originate from different parts of Italy and a range of social classes, find it difficult to empower themselves in a patriarchal, male chauvinist society. Through their private diaries, we trace each of their individual journeys over a twenty year period (from the mid-60s through to the early 80s).

Hide this Italian book It's not the Italian you find in a textbook. Learn the lingo on love, sex, extreme sports, fashion, gossip, partying and much more. Also exposed in 'Hide this Italian book' are hilarious mishaps, social trends and cool cultural features. Thermometers indicate how ‘hot’ language is, so you know whether an expression is totally offensive, completely inappropriate or downright nasty! Hear the foreign language online, or download the audio to your iPod or MP3 player.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KĹ&#x152;RERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

Il drappo scomparso

Il Federale (The Fascist) DVD Dedicated fascist Ugo Tognazzi is sent to capture antiMussolini professor Georges Wilson. He accomplishes his mission, but both captor and captive have a hard time getting home. After numerous comic misadventures in Tognazzi's motorcycle, the two men are caught in an air raid, the result being that both lose their clothing. Arriving in Rome, Tognazzi discovers that the city has fallen to the Allies and now it is he, the fascist, who is in danger of capture and incarceration. Professor Wilson, who has grown fond of the essentially decent Tognazzi, rescues his ex-captor from an angry mob.

Ti ho sposato per allegria This graded reader introduces us to the small world of ordinary people: the young Guiliana, who came to Rome to become an actress, meets Pietro, a young and wealthy lawyer. They quickly get married, but Guiliana is not completely happy. She wants to rebel against the traditions of the middle class, but she is too comfortable.

In this A1 graded reader Captain Rossetti is in Siena visiting a friend during the Palio horse race, when the winner's prize, a silken banner, vanishes. As the investigation unfolds, tensions rise between rival quarters of the city and the presence of a group of animal-rights activists, capable of anything, opens up a number of possible leads.

The author Natalia Ginzburg (1916-1991) was an Italian author whose work explored family relationships, politics during and after the Fascist years and World War II, and philosophy. She wrote novels, short stories and essays, for which she received the Strega Prize and Bagutta Prize. Most of her works were also translated into English and published in the United Kingdom and United States. An activist, for a time in the 1930s she belonged to the Italian Communist Party. In 1983 she was elected to Parliament from Rome as an Independent.

Palio DVD Twice a year, the Italian city of Siena goes crazy for the oldest horse race in the world: the Palio, where strategy, bribery and corruption play as much a part as the skill of the riders. In the eye of the storm stand the jockeys. Loved and loathed by the districts they represent, they forge alliances and make deals, promising large cash sums to try to get the best start. Legendary rider Gigi

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Bruschelli has won thirteen Palios in sixteen years and is accused by his critics of monopolizing the race. But one jockey stands in his way: Giovanni Atzeni, his former trainee, a handsome young Sardinian who is quietly determined to challenge his old mentor. Less interested in bribes and collusion, he rides for the love of the race.

JAPANESE

From the producer of ‘Senna’ and ‘Amy,’ ‘Palio’ is the riveting story of a young 'outsider' keen to break into the dangerous, but worthwhile race and the corrupt 'insider' who has manipulated the city of Siena for years. Their passionate and dramatic battle is an epic and cinematic tale of Italian life.

grammar summary. The set comprises a Guide to reading and writing Korean, plus three course book at beginner, intermediate and advanced levels. There are 9 audio CDs teaching vocabulary, dialogues, audio exercises, and more— you can listen while using the books or use for review on the go.

MĀORI

This DVD comes packed with special features, including heart-stopping deleted scenes, never-before-seen additional interviews and filmmaker commentary.

舞妓はレディ (Maiko wa redî Lady Maiko) DVD Country bumpkin Haruko only ever wanted to become a geisha, like her now-deceased mother. Initially rebuffed for lack of references, Haruko's strong accent intrigues a linguistics professor, who undertakes to coach her.

KOREAN

Māori Made Easy Fun, user-friendly and relevant to modern readers, Scotty Morrison's Māori Made Easy is the one-stop resource for anyone wanting to learn the basics of the Māori language.

Letture Italiano Facile

While dictionaries list words and their definitions, and other language guides offer common phrases, Māori Made Easy connects the dots, allowing the reader to take control of their learning in an empowering way. By committing just 30 minutes a day for 30 weeks, learners will adopt the language easily and as best suits their busy lives.

In this collection of A1 Italian graded readers choose from intriguing adventures, romantic tales and mysterious detective stories. Expand your vocabulary, improve comprehension and consolidate grammar with helpful footnotes and a variety of exercises, or listen to the reading by professional actors - enriched with music and sound effects - to perfect intonation and pronunciation and enjoy developing your communication skills.

Written by popular TV personality and Te Reo Māori advocate Scotty Morrison, author of The Raupo Phrasebook of Modern Māori, this book proves that learning the language can be fun, effective — and easy!

All titles come with an audio dramatization of the text downloadable in MP3 format. We have the titles Dolomiti, Dov'è Yukio? and Amore e cappuccino.

Living Language Korean Living Language Korean, Complete Edition takes you from a beginner to an advanced level in one convenient package. With 4 books and a total of 46 lessons, additional review exercises, culture notes, and a

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The game is played like dominoes where the end of one card is matched up to the end of another. Lots of thinking and lots of laughs!

MULTI-LANGUAGE

Glossika Manu Korihi Manu Korihi is a collection of tuhinga mihi to commemorate the centenary of World War I. This is a collection of Māori language writings by children from Years 1-8. In this book students honour those who took part in the war through a wide variety of literary forms greetings, letters, poetry and informative writings. All of the writing acknowledges those who lost their lives, or those who were alive, during the war. Most of the pieces in the collection are expressions of gratitude and acknowledgment. You will see that these young authors have used language features such as proverbs, rhetorical questions, triplication of phrase and metaphor to enrich their writing.

He huanga A great game for fun reinforcement of vocabulary, spelling and phonics of Māori words and objects, as well as a real booster for thinking skills. Students (and adults!) have to think creatively and critically to analyze objects for similarities.

Te Wahapū Te Wahapū (the river mouth) is the second book in this comprehensive, enjoyable and easily understandable self-tuition course for Māori language. The Te Rere o te Reo series offers an up-to-date bilingual approach to learning Te Reo Māori. As notable Māori language advocate Piripi Walker says in his foreword: Te Wahapū, like Te Hikuwai (the headwaters) before it, provides all the steps you need for mastery of the first stages of speaking and writing idiomatic Māori. It has been located within real-life scenarios which imagine you using Māori in modern settings. The books offer a reference text, workbook and audio resource all in one. They are structured in units, each opening with a dialogue and followed by explanations of words, expressions and language patterns. Exercises and activities reinforce key points of learning at every step. Te Wahapū along with Te Hikuwai (also in our Selfaccess Library) form at least two-thirds of a three-year basic course, but is particularly well suited as a self-study resource too. With accompanying audio CD. Highly recommended.

Glossika Mass Sentences for French and German have arrived at the LLC, with Chinese, Italian, Japanese and Spanish (both Castilian and Mexican) editions all on the way. There are three levels for each language each with 1,000 English sentences which have been translated by native speakers into their mother tongue. The premise behind this resource is quite simple: learners hear an English sentence and then have to reproduce the sentence in the target language. The learner can of course, replay each track and so after a few times it becomes much easier to think of the correct translation. Glossika uses a Spaced Repetition System algorithm whereby the learner is asked to periodically repeat previously introduced sentences with increasing intervals just at the right time before they are forgotten. That is, it improves fluency by training the learner to be able to reproduce the sentences automatically. Glossika does not provide any explanations, nor does it teach any grammar. However, it does provide written transcripts in the three books, each comprising 1,000 sentences. The focus is on practising what one has already learnt and developing fluency, rather than introducing new grammar etc. Each book comes with a CD which contains all course audio and PDFs of the books. This resource would probably be most suitable for those studying at 200-level and above and can be found in our Self-access Library. Alternatively, the authors provide a detailed schedule for learning a language using only this resource.

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Guess Who? board game Michel Thomas Michel Thomas audiolingual courses have just arrived at the Language Learning Centre and are waiting to be borrowed. These offer a great way to teach yourself a language as you will start speaking instantly. There are no books and no writing – you just follow the teacher and join in with two other students on the CDs. We have these courses for each of the School of Languages & Culture’s taught languages: French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. Our Michel Thomas courses come in two levels: ‘Total’ and ‘Perfect’ and include a vocabulary builder for many of these languages. One of our LLC staff members recently trialed Michel Thomas to start a new language – Italian - from scratch. He found Michel Thomas provided a great introduction to the language and would rank amongst the best methods for anybody beginning to study a language independently. It would also give a valuable headstart to those who plan to gain a deeper understanding of a European or Asian language through a degree level course at Victoria University. The first level ‘Total’ comprises seven CDs. These are ideal to listen to when commuting to university or when exercising. They are not effortless, and do require concentration and speaking out loud, but, they are extremely effective. If you have ever struggled with conjugations or juggling pronouns in a European language then Michel Thomas will come as a revelation. The vocabulary you will learn is limited, but you will learn it very well and be able to use it with correct grammar. Each track and each CD builds upon the previous one, and you will be very quickly surprised by the complex sentences you will be able to string together. Although the Total Italian only introduces the first person singular and plural io and noi (I and we), second person polite Lei (you), and third person singular lui and lei (he and she), for the language learner it’s pretty exciting and motivating to be able to use future and past tenses as well as conditionals and the subjunctive with these within the space of a few hours. The others such as loro (they) come in the second ‘Perfect’ course. Please feel free to drop by the LLC to borrow them! Each course can be borrowed for three days at a time.

Assimil We have recently acquired both Assimil French and Spanish with Ease. The courses by this French publisher are hugely popular with polyglots and language enthusiasts around the world. The French and Spanish versions include 4 audio CDs (3h 10m) and around 600 page course books. These packs aim to take users from scratch to having a solid base in French or Spanish within six months, and to feel comfortable with the language in as little as three months. In only half an hour a day users will move ahead naturally until they are at ease with all the basic structures needed for communication and will become familiar with the basic vocabulary and grammar of French or Spanish. The method comprises two phases: the passive phase, in which users simply repeat what they hear and read, and the active phase, in which users begin to create sentences and imagine themselves in a variety of everyday situations.

This classic 1980s mystery face game is back and great played in any language. There's a mystery person on your opponent's card. Can you find the matching face in the crowd? Start with your game full of silly-looking characters. Then ask the right questions to eliminate the wrong faces! Does your person have blue eyes? Is your person wearing a hat? Once you're down to a face or two - solve the mystery by guessing who! If you're the first to identify your opponent's mystery person, you win.

NEPALI

The LLC also has Assimil Arabic, Chinese, German, Italian, Japanese and Russian on the way. The advanced level course Assimil Using French is also in the Selfaccess Library. Here is an online review of Assimil by someone who has been using it to learn Croatian (this comes in French as being a French company they offer many more languages in French, but all our LLC Assimil titles will be English medium). And another more critical review.

Complete Nepali This course is produced as part of the Teach Yourself series. It is structured in thematic units and the emphasis is placed on communication, so that you progress from introducing yourself and dealing with everyday situations, to using the phone and talking about work. According to their marketing blurb you will be at Level B2 of the Common European Framework for Languages (can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party) by the end. Though this seems highly unlikely if this

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

course is all you do, if combined with a very large amount of listening and conversation practice the vocabulary and grammar structures it introduces may go a long way to reaching B2. This pack includes a book and one MP3 CD of audio material.

RUSSIAN

Tautua fa'amaoni e taofi mau measina This new Samoan textbook contains sections on a variety of topics relating to Samoan and Samoan culture. The LLC has five copies of this text.

NIUEAN

Ночной дозор（Night Watch） DVD First Niuean book This book isn’t at all new, but this reader was rediscovered a few months ago, wrongly catalogued amongst the Samoan language resources, by Va'aomanu Pasifika’s Samoan Studies lecturer Niusila Faamanatu-Eteuati. It just so happened that our first Niuean book happened to be discovered during Niuean Language Week!

In modern day Moscow, supernatural armies of Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, gear up to do battle. Set Mua Ō! on the gritty streets and subways, and harkening back to This resource has been designed and developed to bloody medieval days, blood-suckers, changelings, and urban heroes are locked together in the ultimate battle. support the teaching and learning of Gagana Sāmoa (Sāmoan language) as an additional language in New Zealand schools. It can be used by teachers, including The LLC also has the second film ‘Day Watch’ in this teachers who do not speak Gagana Sāmoa or know how famous Russian horror series. to teach languages. Mua Ō! includes:

SAMOAN



twenty units, of three lessons each



a range of language suitable for years 7–10 at levels 1 and 2 of the curriculum



video and audio support to engage learners and demonstrate how fluent speakers use the language



lesson plans that could be linked to opportunities for learners to enjoy reading Gagana Sāmoa texts.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KĹ&#x152;RERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

business or leisure, this introduction to key vocabulary covers a range of subjects from food and drink to sports and leisure. With scenes and items from everyday life clearly labelled, making it easy to find the words you want in this dictionary that shows you what others only tell you.

SPANISH

Puntoycoma subscription Punto y Coma magazine continues to arrive at the LLC every second month. Punto y Coma not only helps you improve your fluency, it also helps you understand the diverse cultures of the Spanish-speaking world. Each issue includes an accompanying audio CD. This glossy magazine is packed full of lively and up-tothe minute articles about Spain and Latin American countries and their cultures. There are regular features on a range of topics including travel, business, the arts, cinema, politics, sport, cuisine, popular culture, plus profiles on leading personalities and issues making the news. Alongside each article in Spanish, key words and phrases are glossed into English. Every feature is carefully chosen and graded for difficulty so you can assess your progress. Each article will keep you up to date with idiomatic expressions as well as practical information about contemporary life in Spain and Latin American countries. And as a further benefit, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll find at the end of the main feature articles an extensive series of exercises designed to reinforce comprehension and grammar.

Spanish Affair (Ocho apellidos vascos) DVD A comedy about a rich kid from Andalusia who passes himself off as Basque in order to win the heart of the only woman who ever resisted his charms. Rafa (Dani Rovira) has to travel to the north of Spain to follow Amaia (Clara Lago), a Basque girl he met in Seville, despite the advice of his friends, who think he will fail in his attempt to seduce Amaia. The movie has been compared with the 2008 French comedy "Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis", about a southern Frenchman who travels up north and has to deal with confusing language-related confusions.

Spanish-English Bilingual Visual Dictionary Look and learn - the quick and intuitive way to learn and recall everyday vocabulary in Spanish. Whether for

El estudiante DVD After retiring to the beautiful Mexican town of Guanajuato, a 70 year old decides to follow his dreams and enrol at the university where he stumbles upon a new generation and they are bound together by the novel Don Quijote de la Mancha.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

Hide this Spanish Book

Famous people graded readers

It's not the Spanish you'll find in your textbook! Learn the lingo on: love, sex, fashion, the body and bodily functions, Facebook, text messaging, gossip, partying and more.

Three new graded readers on famous figures from the Spanish speaking world at the A2 level. These are Gabriel García Márquez, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí. These join the B1 graded reader we already have on Che Guevara and will suit those looking for a change from reading fiction in Spanish whilst finding out about characters which have helped shape our modern world. All come either with an audio CD or a URL from which to download accompanying MP3s.

Also exposed in Hide This Spanish Book are hilarious language mishaps, social trends and cultural idiosyncrasies. Icons indicate how X-rated language is, so you know when an expression is totally offensive, completely inappropriate, but really worth knowing! Listen to the foreign language online, or download the audio to your IPod or MP3 player. Entertaining as well as enlightening, this is one Spanish book users will want to read from cover to cover!

La voz dormida DVD

Pelo Malo DVD Junior is nine years old, growing up on a housing project in Venezuela with his recently widowed mother, Marta, and his baby brother. Searching for an identity without a father-figure, Junior feels marginalised by his mother’s preoccupation with his younger brother. When school term approaches and Junior’s yearbook photo is to be taken, he decides to straighten his stubbornly curly hair. Sharing a love of music and singing, Junior’s grandmother introduces him to her favourite sixties crooner, Henry Stephen (My Lemon, My Lemon Tree), and suggests he might like to imitate the look for the school photo. As Junior’s fixation with his appearance grows it soon puts him at odds with his mother. Overwhelmed with searching for a job to provide for her family, she finds it increasingly difficult to tolerate Junior’s personality and tries to induce him into macho ways, convinced his obsessions are in fact signs of his undefined sexuality...

Pepita, a young woman from rural Cordoba, travels to Madrid in the postwar period to be near her sister Hortensia, who is pregnant and in prison. Pepita meets Paulino, who comes from a bourgeois family from Valencia, who is fighting alongside his brother in the mountains of Madrid. Despite the difficulty in their relationship, they fall in love passionately. Hortensia is sentenced to death. The execution will not be carried out until after delivery. Every day Pepita goes to the prison in order to try to collect Hortensia’s future son, pleading that he not be given up for adoption or left in an orphanage...

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KĹ&#x152;RERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

Festival, Buddhism in Thailand, forest preservation, traditional Thai massage and the Boxing Day tsunami.

TIBETAN

TOK PISIN

Tesis sobre un homicidio DVD Roberto Bermudez, a specialist in criminal law, is convinced that one of his students committed a brutal murder. It leads him to start an investigation that becomes his obsession.

THAI

The Cup DVD Tok Pisin â&#x20AC;&#x201C; English Dictionary Tok Pisin is the official name for the largest lingua franca of Papua New Guinea, a country with more than 800 spoken languages. In a population of more than 5 million, over half are conversant with Tok Pisin. The language has developed naturally over the last 150 years, as the means of communicating among different language groups. This bilingual dictionary of Tok Pisin and English will be of benefit to people who speak Tok Pisin and want to improve their English, as well as English speakers who are interested in Tok Pisin and want to learn to speak and write it well. Useful example sentences give guidance on usage.

Essays on Thailand parallel text A parallel text in Thai and English on over 70 different topics related to Thailand. These include Songkran

While the soccer World Cup is being played in France, two young Tibetan refugees arrive at a monastery/boarding school in exile in India. Its atmosphere of serene contemplation is somewhat disrupted by soccer fever, the chief instigator being a young student, the soccer enthusiast Orgyen. Prevented by various circumstances from seeing the Cup finals on television in a nearby village, Orgyen sets out to organize the rental of a TV set for the monastery. The enterprise becomes a test of solidarity, resourcefulness and friendship for the students, while the Lama, head of the monastery, contemplates the challenges of teaching the word of Buddha in a rapidly changing world.

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KÅ&#x152;RERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

ZULU

Ifindo LikaNdlulamithi One morning, a long time ago, Giraffe woke up with a knot in her neck! What should she do? All the animals had suggestions. Cut her up and untangle the pieces! Stuff her and mount her in a museum! Oh no! Poor Giraffe! There must be a way to help her. A cute story for children or those interested in seeing what Zulu looks like!

LANGUITUDE | TE REO KŌRERO NEWS FROM THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTRE 2017

Language Learning Centre All students and staff of Victoria University of Wellington are welcome at the Language Learning Centre. We are located on the Level 0 of the von Zedlitz Building which is also home to the School of Languages & Cultures and the School of Linguistics & Applied Language Studies. Our opening hours are as follows: Mondays to Fridays - 8.45am-5pm, weekends – closed Phone 04 463 5315 Email llc@vuw.ac.nz www.victoria.ac.nz/llc