Help:Editing guidelines
From Wikibabel
Here are some guidelines about creating and editing lessons. This page does not cover the usage of the editor, but rather focuses on how to write a good lesson.
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[edit] Guiding principles
[edit] Don't be too long
Try to target about 20-25 minutes maximum. This seems to be commonly accepted as sort of a maximum concentration time for a normal brain. Anything longer will probably discourage your listener.
At the moment, the only solution to determine the length of a podcast is to edit and save it, and then download the result. We're working on a better solution for that.
[edit] Write a short dialogue
Don't overload your listener with 50 different new words and sentences, it's simply too much. Try to focus on, say, 5 to 10 new words, depending on how difficult you think they are.
It's probably a good idea to start the lesson with a short dialogue in the language you're teaching, that reflects a real world situation, like booking a table in a restaurant, buying a bus ticket or whatever...
[edit] Rehearse the new stuff
Once you've introduced your new material, go through it bit by bit. Explain each new word, either by translating it for lower levels, or by putting it in an explanatory context at more advanced levels.
[edit] Don't explain too much grammar
A good way to get the learner to understand the grammar of your language is to have them infer it, instead of explicitly explain it.
For instance, teaching Italian, you could introduce the difference between masculine and feminine by making the listener repeat "il ragazzo e bello" and "la ragazza e bella" together.
Inferring a rule is a powerful way to remember it. And if you feel like teaching a specific grammar point, it may be wise to write a specific podcast just for that!
[edit] Ask the listener to build new sentences
Ask the learner to say something new, that you haven't pronounced before in the lesson. This helps remembering new material by actively using it. For instance, if your dialogue contains sentences like: "I love my teacher" and "my friend works as a doctor", ask the learner to say something like "I love my doctor" or later "my friend loves her teacher" (if you've given enough words before to actually make this sentence, of course!).
[edit] What the wikicast generator will do with your input
When you input a comment, the lesson podcast will simply play that comment with no special treatment.
If you input a sentence (by clicking the little bubble icon in the editor), the first bit (usually a question) will be played once, and the second one will then be played as many times as you've defined in the repeat value. Before each playback, the generator inserts sufficient blank for the listener to answer the question.
This is better than merely repeating, because the learner takes an active role in learning, rather than passively repeating what is heard.
