--- Forwarded message from Timothy M Cook --- >From: Timothy M Cook <[log in to unmask]> >To: Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum <[log in to unmask]> >Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2011 11:42:13 -0600 >Subject: Skype with Japan Greetings, colleagues, I've been trying to work with English instructors in Japan to have our respective students talk to each other by Skype on a regular basis, but the biggest problem has been the mismatch in our academic calendars. After you account for that, finals, studying for finals, and time at the beginning of the semester to settle in, less than half of our respective semesters is available at the same time. Since Skype is so easy and the opportunity so great, I'd like to make a twice-weekly conversation with someone in Japan a requirement, once in Japanese and once in English. I'd like to give the Japanese side a little script and visual materials to have something to talk about for at least part of the Japanese portion. Has anyone done this outside of class-to-class arrangements? Or are there classes that would roughly share an American university's calendar? There are way more than enough committed English learners in Japan to make this work so that academic calendars are irrelevant, but I don't know how to find them, or have students find them, short of going to language exchange websites and just picking someone cold. I'm not very comfortable having students do that, let alone requiring them to do so. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Tim Cook, PhD Japanese Instructor 407B Humanities Bldg., 900 13th Street, South University of Alabama at Birmingham Mailing Address: HB 407 1530 3rd Ave S Birmingham, AL 35294-1260 Cell $B7HBS(B: (205) 790-2794 http://homepage.uab.edu/timcook/nihongocast *********************************************** LLTI is a service of IALLT, the International Association for Language Learning Technology (http://iallt.org/), and The Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning (http://www.languageconsortium.org/). Join IALLT at http://iallt.org. Subscribe, unsubscribe, search the archives at http://listserv.dartmouth.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A0=LLTI Anthony Helm, LLTI-Editor ([log in to unmask]) ***********************************************