1. WISER: Learning a Modern Language Lucile Deslignères Librarian, Language Centre librarian@lang.ox.ac.uk

2. “The 3 Cs: commitment, continuity and communication” Commitment requires dedication and focus Continuity incremental process over time Communication use and employ the language meaningfully and in real contexts, so you can see the immediate usefulness of it. From Dante Cerulo, Italian Tutor at the Language Centre

3. Aims Find valuable resources for learning modern languages Use resources offered by Oxford and from other referential sites Make use of the language you are learning in your searches Find tools for non-latin writing systems Search non-English search engines

4. SOLO Searching: Simple and Advanced search Browsing: put language in subject box + Language Centre Library/library of choice Video guide to searching at http://languagelibraryatoxford.blogspot.com

5. OXLIP+ For advanced levels. Which database?Which database? Browse by subject Search if you know the name, cross-search (as a starter) Use the "i" button for information about database coverage For Dictionaries Oxford Reference Online or CREDO

6. OXLIP+ News NexisUK for Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish. Search by keyword in the languageNexisUK Factiva browse the news from Bulgarian to Turkish, some audio facilitiesFactiva News in Chinese? Japanese? Russian? Browse by subject in OxLIP+ and get help from Subject ConsultantsSubject Consultants

7. e-books Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg has audio books in Chinese, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Russian, Spanish and many many more! Google books The online Books PageThe online Books Page mostly English but quality links for Foreign Languages in the Archives E-booksE-books Kindle et al.

8. Non-Latin writing systems Chinese, Japanese, Russian: how do I type? How do I learn how to type? Options on PC/MAC computers for installing Cyrillic, Chinese, Greek, Japanese Options on web: James Naughton Allan Wood (including Georgian, Mongolian)James NaughtonAllan Wood Options on smartphones

9. Searching the web Blind Search Blind Search compares between Google, Yahoo and Bing GoogleGoogle but which one? Be cautious with the Language Search facilities. Best is to go to Google.fr for French searches, Google.ru for Russian searches etc… Google.frGoogle.ru Advanced searches: exact title search, search within a site, use the language script (paste or type) Phil Bradley’s Phil Bradley’s list of search engines by countries

10. Browsing the web GATEWAYS: BUBLBUBL SITES: As starters Omniglot and WikipediaOmniglotWikipedia For learning at beginner’s level BBCBBC for “less commonly taught languages” UCLAUCLA Browsing/searching Delicious pagesDelicious pages

11. Language Centres AULC Cambridge Language Centre, King’s College London, SOAS… and many others…AULC Oxford University Language Centre Language links: multilingual, individual Library blog, Language Exchange Programmes, WebLearn

12. Start-up page & blogs Start-up page: audio and video material http://www.netvibes.com/languagelibrary Blogs (great for learning how to type) Top 100 language blogs from Lexiophiles Start-up page: audio and video material http://www.netvibes.com/languagelibrary Blogs (great for learning how to type) Top 100 language blogs from Lexiophiles

13. Other ways… MIT open course: Chinese, German, Japanese, French, SpanishMIT open course Mobile phone “apps” Facebook: French, German, Georgian societiesFacebook Online radio Skype Twitter Youtube

14. Conclusion Going back to Dante’s words: commitment, continuity, communication What is your aim? Travelling? Research? Don’t spend too much time searching websites or apps Not much between beginners and advanced level (A1, C2 CEFR) Work on what you are NOT good at!

15. Where to go from here? Other WISER sessionsWISER Finding Stuff series: books etc. on SOLO, articles, conferences. Finding quality information on the internet Session organised by your Language Subject Consultant: Arabic, French, Russian etc… Getting information come to you E-books

16. Reference Bradley, Phil, Internet Q&A in Library & Information Update, p.22, Sept 09 for http://blindsearch.fejus.com http://blindsearch.fejus.com http://socialoxfordlibs.wikispaces.com/ http://socialoxfordlibs.wikispaces.com/ for everything related to web 2.0 technologies done by Oxford Librarians (flickr, facebook, netvibes, twitter, wiki etc…) WISER presentation archives http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/services/training/wiser http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/services/training/wiser CEFR Common European Framework of Reference for Languages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages Thank you to Hitomi Hall and Minh Chung, for their advice on writing tools for, respectively, Japanese and Chinese. And thank you to Andrea Stich for giving me the German example for the news databases ©Oxford University Language Centre, for Bodleian Libraries