The 5-Week Linguist Show: Seasons 1, 2 and 3

The 5-Week Linguist Show: Seasons 1, 2 and 3
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  • LANGUAGE LEARNING
The 5-Week Linguist Show: Seasons 1, 2 and 3

Do you love languages? Do you teach languages? Do you love to learn languages? Would you like to learn another language and want to find out how to do it without spending a ton of money or time you don’t have? If so, then the 5-Week Linguist Show is for you. Every week, there'll be a new audio or video, talking all about tips, shortcuts, and the research on how to learn any language you want from anywhere in the world, with time you already have. Learn how to turn every 5-week interval into progress towards fluency in a language. My name is Janina Klimas. I've been teaching languages for more than two decades. I have a BA in Theater Arts and Foreign Languages, and an MA in the teaching of languages. I speak six languages to varying levels of fluency. I've lived on three continents as a language teacher. I've been an English instructor at Sejong University, director of their language immersion program, and taught languages to people ranging from preschool, K-12, university and language for specific purposes. I've taught Spanish and English for many years. I've continued to learn and study additional languages on my own with new activities every 5 weeks. I’ve discovered a lot of resources over the years that I share with you here. I am so excited for you to be joining me each week here!

  1. 06/03/2024

    Summer professional development for language teachers

    Summer professional development for language teachers. Welcome to the 5-Week Linguist Show. I wanted to dedicate this episode to my language teacher, colleagues. And I wanted to tell you how very much I admire you. I’m astounded by teachers. I think teachers are amazing. And obviously I’m biased. I’m one of you, but I wanted to honor language teachers because I know how hard you work. I know there’s very little time that we get to have as downtime. We’re constantly working to give our kids input in a way that they can understand to make it comprehensible and to make this journey of learning a language enjoyable and pleasurable, even if you’re not naturally gravitating towards it. And it can be really hard work. You got to deal with the rough bits. You’ve got to deal with people’s insecurities of not being successful at something right away and how difficult that can be on people. And I wanted to share with you specifically some ways that I’ve spent my five weeks over the summer as a teacher and why, and I hope that you get some takeaways from this that are really useful for you. So my very first summer tip is to fill your cup. I can’t tell you how important I think that is. As I said, I think teachers are amazing. And in my many years, it was the early nineties when I started teaching. And I never imagined that I’d still be doing it now. And it’s been a journey. It’s one foot in front of the other. It’s a few things improving every year. And the summers have been really instrumental to that. When I first started teaching, I’ve done a master’s during the summer. I worked during the summer things that I felt that I had to do, other commitments. Summer professional development for language teachers: being a student. And I still looked forward to the first summer that I didn’t have to do either of those things. And that was a great fill my cup summer. I read for pleasure for weeks. And then I actually went to Spain and did Spanish language study, and I felt so ready to go back to school. And that was my first real fill your cup summer. And I realized that we oftentimes don’t have choices in what we do during the summer. A lot of times, that was sort of a dream summer that I just described to you, but it’s not my typical summer, not by a long shot, but whatever it means to fill your cup, I think you need to do it. Summer professional development for language teachers: fill your cup. And I think people often think teachers have the summer off and we really don’t, oftentimes we’re considered unemployed or we don’t earn enough money so we need to go do another job. It’s not free time. It’s actually getting eight hours of sleep. Teachers during the school year, we spend so much time in meetings, reading emails and as language teachers, we’re constantly trying to make this thing that’s really difficult in many ways, for people really seamless and fun and accessible and easy, but challenging and rigorous at the same time. Right? Really bringing people from not speaking a language to being able to communicate with people all over the world. And there’s no really easy way to do it in the school environment. We got to just every day do comprehensible input in the target language and give them opportunities to communicate and make our room a safe place to make errors and mistakes. So filling your cup, whatever that looks like to you, doing fun things, having your dream summer, which probably doesn’t happen for many of us every time.

    14 min

  2. 07/11/2022

    Tips for Learning a Language: Things we Don’t Love

    Welcome to the 5-Week Linguist Show. Today, we are in the fifth week of five weeks of pleasurable language learning week, and we’re going to talk all about things we don’t love. (0:35) Checklist of the things you don’t love. (01:13) Love for the language (01:38) Combining your chores with languages (02:05) Learning a new language should be fun. (02:41) Find a favorable thing to do while learning a new language. (03:40) Chat with different people in the world. (04:15) According to research, learning languages appear to reduce the onset of dementia. (05:06) Commute (06:08) Audiobooks on the phone 25 Ways to Learn Every Day https://real-life-language.ck.page/82ccd204c8

    7 min

  3. 07/04/2022

    Netflix and Binge watching for Language Learning

    Welcome to the 5-Week Linguist Show. Today, we are in the fourth week of five weeks of pleasurable language learning week, and we are going to talk more about binge-watching. (0:44) – Access from different contents (0:52) – Janina’s previous way of learning a new language before online content exists. (01:20) – Binge-watching is a technique to learn a new language. (01:44) – Contents in Yabla (03:15) – Language learning using Netflix (04:07) – YouTube as a tool to learn a new language. (05:19) – Video ELE is a great platform to learn comprehensive Spanish (05:46) – Amazon Prime (06:39) – Exercise Videos (07:21) – City Walks (08:13) – Home Walking 25 Ways to Learn Every Day https://real-life-language.ck.page/82ccd204c8

    10 min

  4. 06/27/2022

    How to Make Learning a Language Fun with Reading

    Welcome to the 5-Week Linguist Show. Today, we are in the third week of five weeks of pleasurable language learning week, and we will talk more about reading. [01:07] Krashen Research on Pleasure Reading [01:14] Two hyperpolyglots [01:28] The Linguist website [02:30] Tim Ferriss [02:49] Four-hour workweek [03:17] Mini-retirement [03:59] An exchange student in Japan [04:18] Reading for pleasure is one of the most effective ways to learn a language. [06:22] Reading magazines. [06:48] A lot of information on various topics that are relevant to your diverse interests [08:01] Realia [08:33] A fantastic way to learn about a culture [09:11] Judith Meyer, a script hacker. [09:58] We don’t want you to get frustrated while looking for your materials; we want you to be able to learn. 25 Ways to Learn Every Day https://real-life-language.ck.page/82ccd204c8

    15 min

  5. 06/20/2022

    Fun Language Learning Activities

    Welcome to the 5-Week Linguist Show. Today, we are in the second week of five weeks of pleasurable language learning week. Join Janina for insights, tools, and guidance on making meaningful language learning happen anywhere, anytime. In this episode, we will talk about binge-watching. [01:11] Stephen Krashen, Ph.D. [01:26] Website of “The Linguist” by Steve Kaufman [03:17] The Short-Term Retirement [04:18] One of the most effective ways to learn a language is to read for pleasure. [04:39] Language acquisition through graphic novels [06:04] Find out what’s going on in society right now and what people are talking about. It’s a legitimate method of learning a language. [07:23] Personality Tests [08:00] Realia [08:20] All of the photos can assist you in learning to read a language written in a different script, significantly since all of the images can help you understand what you’re reading. It’s also an excellent method to learn about the culture. [09:10] A Script Hacker, Judith Myer [09:47] Make reading easier to understand. 25 Ways to Learn Every Day https://real-life-language.ck.page/82ccd204c8

    11 min

  6. 06/13/2022

    Language Learning Techniques

    Welcome to the 5-Week Linguist Show. Today, we are in the first week of five weeks of pleasurable language learning week, and we’ll talk about research in learning new languages and effective techniques. [01:01] Dr. Stephen Krashen. [01:13] He has dedicated his life to assisting people in learning languages and has shared much of his research with language teachers worldwide. [02:15] The theory of second language acquisition and its five central hypotheses [03:04] The hypothesis of the monitor [03:40] Nature’s Order [04:16] Grammar does not have to be learned in a specific order. [05:09] Adjective gender blunders [05:34] The hypothesis of the input [05:42] Comprehensible input [06:09] An effective filter can significantly impact how quickly you learn a language. [06:45] Perfectionists [07:14] The combination of learning and acquisition is ideal. [08:05] Cultures: As viewed through the eyes of the perspectives, people, and products of a target language or culture. [08:48] How to learn languages through reading 25 Ways to Learn Every Day https://real-life-language.ck.page/82ccd204c8

    10 min

  7. 05/24/2022

    Five MORE Weeks of Fun: Low and No Prep Activities

    Welcome to the Five-Week Linguist Show. We will talk about some low and no prep activities that you can add to your language teaching repertoire. (02:00) About Janina’s Life (05:12) Flyswatter Activity (07:51) Subtitle Activity (09:45) Drama Activity (12:12) Screenplay Activity (13:19) Input Activity (17:43) Review Activity (22:07) “Things I love” Activity (26:05) Deep reading comprehension (27:30) My Fridge Activity (28:33) Lyrics Training Activity (30:25) Bingo Game for Language (31:36) Group Team activity (34:00) Coffee talk (36:05) Nature Walk Activity (36:05) Nature Walk Activity (39:12) Wrap up If you are listening to this episode, don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a rating.

    41 min

  8. 05/10/2022

    Activities to Teach Greetings

    Welcome to the 5-Week Linguist Show. We will talk about five activities to practice meeting and greeting in other languages. (0:02) – Five activities from improvisation to practice meeting and greeting. (0:46) – All About Alliteration (01:01) – Whatever your name is, you’d have to introduce yourself with an adjective of the same letter. (01:57) – It entails introducing each other and repeating what the previous person said. (02:56) – If you’re doing basic adjectives, do the alliteration with the adjectives, and make sure they agree on gender. Start giving examples in introducing names in a different language. (03:52) – Learning how to greet famous people with various emotions. They are presented with a series of scenarios with an instruction to change their greetings at their signal. (04:54) – Another activity is called Fingers. Everyone gathers in a circle. They raise their fingers, and each student prepares a set number of questions that can be answered with a yes or no answer. As they are being eliminated, people will put their fingers down. (06:07) – The Name Ball is a basic and fun activity. You’re just meeting and greeting people, but you’ve added a ball to the mix. You introduce yourself to someone else, and we just keep passing the ball around. (06:39) – My Name is Circle is an activity to make eye contact with the other person before taking their place. If you listen to this episode, don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a rating.

    8 min
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About

Do you love languages? Do you teach languages? Do you love to learn languages? Would you like to learn another language and want to find out how to do it without spending a ton of money or time you don’t have? If so, then the 5-Week Linguist Show is for you. Every week, there'll be a new audio or video, talking all about tips, shortcuts, and the research on how to learn any language you want from anywhere in the world, with time you already have. Learn how to turn every 5-week interval into progress towards fluency in a language. My name is Janina Klimas. I've been teaching languages for more than two decades. I have a BA in Theater Arts and Foreign Languages, and an MA in the teaching of languages. I speak six languages to varying levels of fluency. I've lived on three continents as a language teacher. I've been an English instructor at Sejong University, director of their language immersion program, and taught languages to people ranging from preschool, K-12, university and language for specific purposes. I've taught Spanish and English for many years. I've continued to learn and study additional languages on my own with new activities every 5 weeks. I’ve discovered a lot of resources over the years that I share with you here. I am so excited for you to be joining me each week here!

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