Using Declan FlashCards Channels to share lesson content with students

Declan FlashCards has introduced a new feature called Channels – the idea is to provide a platform that lets foreign language teachers, schools and faculties share course material with students via their mobile devices in a streamlined and secure way.

For students it’s a fun and effective tool to supplement their class work that allows them engage with the course material anywhere anytime using their omnipresent mobile phones and tablets.

How does it work?

Students access the course material on the Declan FlashCards app via ‘channels’. Each course that your school/faculty offers can have its own channel containing the course material, organised into lessons, chapters or topics. Each topic contains words and phrases, their meanings and audio pronunciations.

Declan FlashCards is able to handle any language pair, in either direction.

Students accesses their specific course channel using a code provided to them by the school. These channel codes can be specific to each student, can be single-use, can limit the number of devices the channel can be installed on per code, and can also be set to expire. The student enters the channel code into Declan FlashCards and the channel is loaded into the app. The app then functions as a flashcards tool, allowing the student to review vocabulary and phrases, and reinforce their learning by testing themselves with exercises. It’s a great way to help students prepare for class, and to help them retain the vocabulary and phrases used in class.

How does it work for schools?

There is zero cost for schools to offer Declan FlashCards channels to students. Schools work with the Declan Software team to set up channels.

The Declan Team takes the course content provided by the school/faculty (word lists and audio recordings), and compiles these into a Declan FlashCards Channel. If required, we can assist with putting together wordlists, as well as help with producing the corresponding audio recordings using professional native-speaker voice artists.

All word lists and audio provided by the school remain copyrighted to the school, with Declan Software having only distribution rights. Moreover, the channel materials are delivered to the app in an encrypted format to ensure intellectual rights are protected. And as outlined above, channel codes can be configured to prevent unwanted sharing and copying of the course material. Additionally, offering this material via an app rather than a website further guards against copying.

What are the costs?

The only cost is an app subscription paid by the app user – the student. There is no charge to the school for the work we do compiling channels, or for hosting them on our servers. If assistance is required to record audio, these costs would be covered by the school.

Want to know more?

Please download Declan FlashCards for free – for iPhone/iPad from the Apple AppStore:

https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1530034734

or for Android from the Google Play AppStore:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.declansoftware.declanflashcards

Once you have installed the app, tap the yellow “Add Channel” button at the bottom of the page with flags and enter the code:

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for a demonstration of how Declan FlashCards Channels work.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at my private email: contact@declansoftware.com. If you’d like to discuss how Declan Channels could work for your institution, we are very happy to organise a call.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Introducing Declan Channels

Declan FlashCards now includes Declan Channels.

Declan Channels allow teachers, schools, universities or a book authors or publishers to offer students/readers vocabulary lists that contain the words and phrases and pronunciations used in the language lessons or language textbooks . These channels can be download and the words can learned using the Declan FlashCards app.

Access to a channel is as simple as providing students with a Channel Code, which is entered into the ‘Add a Channel‘ page:

The channel details will then appear.

Tap the ‘Install Channel‘ button to load the channel. Once downloaded and installed you will see the Channel’s icon at the top of the ‘Select a channel:’ page. Tap the icon to start learning.

If you are a teacher, school, university or book author or publisher and you’d like to offer your students or readers a Declan Channel featuring your vocabulary lists, then please contact us at: contact@declansoftware.com

Bald and Bankrupt – Russian Language Learning

bald and bankrupt Russian language

One of our all-time favourite YouTubers is the travelling Englishman, Bald and Bankrupt. He is based in Belarus and travels widely in Russia and the ex-Soviet republics. His avoidance of tourist traps and his openness to local people and unpredictability is what is particularly endearing about his videos.

Also his ability to speak fluent Russian and some Hindi is also impressive. Indeed, around two years ago he made a video talking about how he mastered Russian – which incidentally is a really difficult language for English speakers to learn.

Here is the episode:

In his own words:

“You might not believe me but I am testament to the fact that if you want to learn Russian, throw away the grammar books and you’ll make massive progress very quickly. Grammar holds you back in the beginning of your language journey so hold off until you are much further down the road”.

And instead of getting bogged down in the grammar, what he does recommend is learning vocabulary. And then getting out there and using the language by just stringing words together, grammatical mistakes be dammed. The most important thing was to not be afraid to make mistakes but just use the language as much as possible and knowing lots of words facilitates this. He argues that the grammar will come as you listen to what people are saying back to you. In fact native-speakers tend to instinctively correct learners of their language – appreciating the effort and trying to be helpful. I think that that is something we instinctively do with children when they are learning to talk.

I think this is a very interesting and while of course knowing as many words in the language you are learning is helpful, this approach will only work if you are in a position to get out there and use the language functionally very frequently. Not all people are in this position and text-book learning including studying grammar might be the only way forward.

Ready to learn Russian Grammar step-by-step?



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