Screenscot of Cell to Singularity, an immersive casual clicker game available on Steam.

Cell to Singularity : Casual Play for TL Immersion

April 12, 2026Leave a comment

Osmosis isn’t just for cells – it’s for language learners too! Soaking up target language simply by placing it in your everyday line of sight is one of the most effective strategies for fluency. From your instagram feed to cosy telly-watching, consolidation can be about throwing more of the things you love in your way.

Gaming is another entz stream that is really easy to target language-ify, since many titles have multiple language options. The Steam platform is a particular goldmine here – a huge multi-platform marketplace, with loads of free-to-play offerings. The trick is to find quite text-heavy games with dialogue and interactions, exposing you to as much content as possible in-play. There’s honestly something for everyone here, from word games to fully-fledged RPG.

This week, I chanced across a casual clicker on Steam that has been working its quiet way into the hearts of users since its inception in 2018. It’s Cell to Singularity, a game that simulates the blossoming of life on Earth, from eukaryotes, to jellyfish, to humans (and beyond). It’s the kind of game you can have running inconspicuously in the background while you work, slowly developing and growing like a bonsai that needs occasional tending. Very Zen.

As you can see from the screenshot, it’s also a great way to revise the building blocks of life. That’s the root educational application the game has been feted for, covering evolutionary biology in a fun, laddered way. Switching my interface to German gives me a ton of fun natural world vocab.

Beyond word level

But the game is also full of conversational exchanges you have with the ‘supercomputer’ running your life simulation, as well as Wikipedia-style descriptions of all your finds. In short, it supports word, sentence and text-level language skills in a rich, engaging environment. What more could you ask for?

The range of languages available right now is already impressive. Not only the ‘mainstream’ school ones, but also Korean, Japanese, Polish and Portuguese, amongst others.

Cell to Singularity currently has an 89% positive rating from thousands of Steam users. I wonder how many of them are playing to improve their target language? Hopefully I’ve enticed a few more of you to do just that!

Correcting Mistakes: Should Teachers Do It Immediately or Later?

March 15, 2026March 21, 2026Leave a comment

A small moment in a lesson recently got me thinking about the age-old question of correcting mistakes “live” in the classroom.

A student was responding to a question, and made a tiny vocab error – nothing dramatic, just the kind of slip that happens when you’re concentrating on your idea rather than the grammar. In other words, a big win for communicative flow, but at the expense of pronouncing a word completely correctly.

My instinct as a teacher was to jump in immediately and correct it.

But I stopped myself.

The student finished the thought. The rest of the class responded. And the conversation continued. I made a mental note of the slip, and later looped back briefly to the concept to model it correctly without calling anyone’s pronunciation out.

That said, I couldn’t help wondering afterwards: had that actually been the better choice?

Immediate versus Delayed Feedback

Language teachers have debated this question for decades. Should we correct errors immediately, as they happen? Or is it sometimes better to wait, allowing learners to finish speaking before stepping in?

Recent research has begun revisiting this question, and the answer appears to be – perhaps frustratingly – “it depends.” But the details are fascinating, and they tell us something important about how language learning actually works.

In second language acquisition research, this question is known as the timing of corrective feedback. It refers to when a teacher responds to a learner’s mistake – either instantly or after some delay.

Immediate feedback happens during the interaction itself:

Learner: Yesterday I go to the shop.

Teacher: Went — yesterday I went to the shop.

Delayed feedback happens after the task or conversation is complete:

“Earlier you said I go yesterday — remember we need went for past tense.”

It can be modelled without calling out the error, too:

Teacher: You said earlier that you went to the shop? Which shop?

The study by Li, Ou and Lee confirms earlier findings that both approaches have their place. Perhaps intuitively, results show that both immediate and delayed feedback improved motivation and learning outcomes compared to giving no feedback at all.

But where do their differences lie?

What each type seems to do best

Studies like this repeatedly suggest the two approaches may support different cognitive processes.

Immediate feedback

helps learners notice errors right away
supports rapid correction during conversation
often leads to faster improvements in accuracy

Delayed feedback

encourages reflection on language forms
allows learners to focus on meaning first
may trigger deeper discussion about grammar

Some studies even find that delayed feedback leads to more discussion about linguistic forms, while immediate feedback can produce greater improvements in accuracy over time.

In other words: one supports fluency and awareness, the other precision and correction. It’s all back to that communicative flow that I didn’t want to interrupt earlier.

Teacher Fading

This debate connects neatly to another concept that has recently attracted attention in language pedagogy: teacher fading.

Fading is the idea that teachers gradually withdraw support as learners become more capable, transferring responsibility for learning to the students themselves, a technique that is gaining traction as studies like this one explore how it affects the classroom dynamic.

In practice, teacher fading means:

correcting less frequently
letting learners negotiate meaning themselves
allowing conversations to run without interruption

In other words, teachers deliberately step back.

Seen through this lens, delayed feedback is not just a technique – it is part of a broader teaching philosophy. Instead of jumping in every time an error occurs, the teacher allows communication to unfold, intervening later only when it is useful.

The Balancing Act

The effect, I think, is a better balance between teacher guidance and student practice – taking down the guard rails just enough for them to try out their ‘talking hats’ without fear of being slapped down.

It’s this balancing act that’s always existed in language (and other) classrooms. If correcting language mistakes happens too frequently, it can impede communication and raise anxiety. If it doesn’t happen enough, learners may simply repeat the same errors.

Modern pedagogy increasingly suggests that the most effective classrooms combine:

moments of focused correction
periods of uninterrupted communication
gradual reduction of teacher intervention

In other words: a mixture of immediate feedback, delayed feedback, and teacher fading.

Putting it into practice

Mistakes do not need to be corrected instantly for us to learn from them. In fact, sometimes the best thing a teacher can do is let the conversation continue. Learning is not just about eliminating errors as quickly as possible. It is about building the ability to communicate – and that sometimes requires a little space for imperfect language to unfold.

And occasionally, the most effective teaching move is surprisingly simple. In the (doctored) words of Ronan Keating:

You say it best when you say nothing at all (at least for a little while!).

Where Have All the Language Learners Gone?

January 18, 2026January 18, 2026Leave a comment

You’ve probably already read the doom-mongering headlines: formal uptake of language learning is in sharp retreat in the UK. It’s an alarming trend, and it couldn’t come at a worse time for a UK (and world) that needs bridges building. As flag-fliers for languages, it’s something that should give all of us in the language community pause for thought.

A report published in 2025 by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) pulls no punches – modern and classical languages now account for under 3% of all A-level entries, while teacher recruitment for languages remains at just 43% of target. Undergraduate enrolments in modern languages have fallen by around 20% in five years, and many university language departments have quietly closed or contracted. Bear in mind that these trends were already being felt over 20 years ago when I did my teacher training, and you realise that it’s been a slow drip wreaking havoc in plain sight.

The narrative is sobering. Languages were once a staple of post-14 education – a language GCSE was still compulsory when I was taking mine in the early 90s. But thanks to multiple linguaphobic policy shifts, accountability pressures, and chronic underinvestment, they find themselves more and more on the back foot. The hammer blow came early, back in 2004, with the decision in England to make languages optional after age 14. That was a key structural turning point, and the long-term effects (surprise, surprise) are now clearly visible.

The institutional decline is real

There are obvious consequences to this trend. It raises serious questions about equity (access to language learning increasingly correlates with socio-economic background), national linguistic capacity, and the future of research and teacher supply. Organisations such as HEPI, the Russell Group and the Chartered Institute of Linguists have all warned that the decline represents not just a cultural loss, but a strategic one.

On paper, then, language learning appears to be in retreat.

But something else is happening alongside it

And yet, that story doesn’t quite match our lived experience. Spend any time online and you’ll see something different entirely: language-learning YouTube channels with millions of followers; Discord servers full of learners practising Korean at midnight; thriving subreddits, podcasts, apps, blogs, meetups, challenges, and communities devoted to the sheer pleasure of learning languages.

If formal pathways are shrinking, informal ones are flourishing.

More and more people seem to be learning languages not because they are required to for a qualification, but because they want to. Out of curiosity. Cultural interest. Identity. Joy. In other words, language learning is increasingly becoming a hobbyist, self-directed, or even lifestyle pursuit rather than an institutional one.

The rise of hobby learning and polyglot culture

The growth of the so-called “polyglot community” is part of this shift. This isn’t a formally organised movement, but rather a loose ecosystem of learners who share strategies, resources, encouragement, and enthusiasm. Some are very advanced, others are beginners; some focus deeply on one language, others enjoy exploring several. What they tend to share is intrinsic motivation, and a love of signposting cheap (and frequently free!) resources for learners.

This aligns closely with what we already know from decades of research on learner autonomy and motivation: sustained engagement is far more likely when learners feel ownership, agency, and personal meaning in what they are doing. Many hobbyist learners aren’t working towards a certificate; they’re simply working towards connection, enjoyment, identity, or intellectual stimulation.

There isn’t yet a large academic literature specifically on “polyglot culture”, but there is plenty of research on self-directed learning, intrinsic motivation, multi-competence, and identity in language learning that helps explain why these communities can be so powerful.

Loss and possibility, side by side

None of this negates the seriousness of the institutional decline. Formal education provides structure, support, progression, and access. And when those pathways disappear, it is disproportionately students from less advantaged backgrounds who lose out. That matters.

But it also seems clear that the desire to learn languages hasn’t gone away. It has simply shifted location. People are still learning – just not always through schools, universities, or qualifications. They’re learning on buses, in lunch breaks, late at night, through friendships, fandoms, travel, heritage, curiosity.

So perhaps the better question isn’t “Why is language learning dying?”, but rather: why has it migrated?

Because language learners are still very much here. They’re just not always where the education system expects them to be.

ALL Language World 2025

March 16, 2025March 16, 2025

I was out waving the yellow flag for Linguascope, working the stands at the ALL Language World conference this weekend. Now, it’s not often I’ll rave about attending conferences. After all, they can be pretty dry affairs, especially as an exhibitor, where your main job is to smile and hand out goodie bags.

But there was something so positive about the vibe with this one. Perhaps it was the smaller scale and more intimate setting in rural Warwickshire. Maybe it was professional solidarity, after some tough years for secondary language pedagogy. Whatever the reason, it was a lovely opportunity to mix with other language professionals, faces both familiar and new.

One of the highlights was the keynote speech by Darren Paffey MP. Darren is one of the new 2024 intake of British MPs (and, we are told, one of only three Darrens to be elected to parliament!). Before being swiped by politics, Darren was a professor of sociolinguistics at the University of Southampton, and a long-time language learning enthusiast. The ideal guest, then, to reassure an anxious crowd, worn down by years of official neglect of languages on the curriculum, that he will be fighting our corner in the new government.

It’s not often we get one on the inside!

Darren Paffey MP with Didi, the Linguascope Dog at ALL Language World 2025.

Perhaps it was the encouraging tone of that keynote that helped buoy the mood. In any case, it was one of the nicest events, in terms of camaraderie, mutual support and optimism that I’ve attended in recent years. Props to the ALL for organising it, and for bagging such a thoroughly decent keynote speaker.

A robot reading a script. The text-to-speech voices at ElevenLabs certainly sound intelligent as well as natural!

ElevenLabs : 5-Star Tool for Language Work and Study

February 2, 2025

If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know how impressed I’ve been at ElevenLabs, the text-to-speech creator that stunned the industry when its super-realistic voices were unleashed on the world. Since then, it’s made itself irreplaceable in both my work and study, and it bears spreading the word again: ElevenLabs is a blow-your-socks-off kind of tool for creating spoken audio content.

Professional Projects

In my work developing language learning materials for schools, arranging quality narration used to involve coordinating with agencies and studios — a process that was both time-consuming and costly. We’ve had issues with errors, too, which cost a project time with re-recordings. And that’s not to mention the hassle keeping sections up-to-date. Removing ‘stereo’ from an old vocab section (who has those now?) would usually trigger a complete re-record.

With ElevenLabs, I can now produce new sections promptly, utilising its impressive array of voices across multiple languages. The authenticity and clarity of these voices are fantastic – I really can’t understate it – and it’s made maintaining the biggest language learning site for schools so much easier.

Supporting Individual Learning

As a language learner, ElevenLabs is more than worth its salt, too. It’s particularly good for assembling short listening passages – about a minute long – to practise ‘conversation islands’—a well-regarded polyglot technique for achieving conversational fluency.

Beyond language learning, the tool can be a great support to other academic projects. I’ve created concise narrations of complex topics, converting excerpts from scholarly papers into audio format. Listening to these clips in spare moments (or even in the background while washing up) has helped cement some key concepts, and prime my mind for conventional close study.

Flexible and Affordable Plans

ElevenLabs offers a range of pricing options to suit different needs:

• Free Plan: Ideal for those starting out, this plan provides 10,000 characters per month, roughly equating to 10 minutes of audio.

• Starter Plan: At £5 per month, you receive 30,000 characters (about 30 minutes of audio), along with features like voice cloning and commercial use rights.

• Creator Plan: For £22 per month, this plan offers 100,000 characters (around 100 minutes of audio), plus professional voice cloning and higher-quality outputs.

For messing around, that free plan is not too stingy at all – you can really get a feel for the tool from it. Personally, I’ve not needed to move beyond the starter plan yet, which is pretty much a bargain at around a fiver a month.

Introducing ElevenReader

And there’s more! Complementing the TTS service, ElevenLabs has introduced ElevenReader, a free tool that narrates PDFs, ePubs, articles, and newsletters in realistic AI voices. Available on both iOS and Android platforms, the app doesn’t even consume credits from your ElevenLabs subscription plan.

Seriously, I can’t even believe this is still free – go and try it!

Final Thoughts

ElevenLabs has truly transformed the way I create and consume spoken content. It truly is my star tool from the current crop of AI-powered utilities.

The ElevenLabs free tier is enough for most casual users to have a dabble – go and try it today!

A robot playwright - now even more up-to-date with SearchGPT.

Topical Dialogues with SearchGPT

November 3, 2024

As if recent voice improvements weren’t enough of a treat, OpenAI has just introduced another killer feature to ChatGPT, one that can likewise beef up your custom language learning resources. SearchGPT enhances the LLM’s ability to access and incorporate bang up-to-date information from the web.

It’s a development that is particularly beneficial for language learners seeking to create study materials that reflect current events and colloquial language use. With few exceptions until now, LLMs like ChatGPT have had a ‘data cutoff’, thanks to mass text training having an end-point (albeit a relatively recent one). Some LLMs, like Microsoft’s Copilot, have introduced search capabilities, but their ability to retrieve truly current data could be hit and miss.

With SearchGPT, OpenAI appear to have cracked search accuracy a level to rival AI search tool Perplexity – right in the ChatGPT app. And it’s as simple as highlighting the little world icon that you might already have noticed under the prompt field.

The new SearchGPT icon in the ChatGPT prompt bar.

Infusing Prompts with SearchGPT

Switching this on alongside tried-and-tested language learning prompt techniques yields some fun – and pedagogically useful – results. For instance, you can prompt ChatGPT to generate dialogues or reading passages based on the latest news from your target language country/ies. Take this example:

A language learning dialogue on current affairs in German, beefed up by OpenAI’s SearchGPT

SearchGPT enables content that mirrors real-life discussion with contemporary vocabulary and expressions (already something it was great at). But it also incorporates accurate, up-to-the-minute, and even cross-referenced information. That’s a big up for transparency.

Unsure where that info came from? Just click the in-text links!

Enhancing Speaking Practice with Authentic Contexts

Beyond reading, these AI-generated dialogues serve as excellent scripts for speaking practice. Learners can role-play conversations, solo or group-wise, to improve pronunciation, intonation, and conversational flow. This method bridges the gap between passive understanding and active usage, a crucial step in achieving fluency.

Incorporating SearchGPT into your language learning content creation toolbox reconnects your fluency journey with the real, evolving world. Have you used it yet?

Apples and oranges, generated by Google's new image algorithm Imagén 3

Google’s Imagén 3 : More Reliable Text for Visual Resources

October 13, 2024October 13, 2024Leave a comment

If you use AI imaging for visual teaching resources, but decry its poor text handling, then Google might have cracked it. Their new algorithm for image generation, Imagén 3, is much more reliable at including short texts without errors.

What’s more, the algorithm is included in the free tier of Google’s LLM, Gemini. Ideal for flashcards and classroom posters, you now get quite reliable results when prompting for Latin-alphabet texts on the platform. Image quality seems to have improved too, with a near-photographic finish possible:

A flashcard produced with Google Gemini and Imagén 3.

The new setup seems marginally better at consistency of style, too. Here’s a second flashcard, prompting for the same style. Not quite the same font, but close (although in a different colour).

A flashcard created with Google Gemini and Imagén 3.

It’s also better at real-world details like flags. Prompting in another engine for ‘Greek flag’, for example, usually results in some terrible approximation. Not in Imagén 3 – here are our apples and oranges on a convincing Greek flag background:

Apples and oranges on a square Greek flag, generated by Google’s Imagén 3

It’s not perfect, yet. For one thing, it performed terribly with non-Latin alphabets, producing nonsense each time I tested it. And while it’s great with shorter texts, it does tend to break down and produce the tell-tall typos with anything longer than a single, short sentence. Also, if you’re on the free tier, it won’t allow you to create images of human beings just yet.

That said, it’s a big improvement on the free competition like Bing’s Image Creator. Well worth checking out if you have a bunch of flashcards to prepare for a lesson or learning resource!

French Coffee Breaks

August 11, 2024Leave a comment

If you know me, you’ll know that French was long my ‘also ran’ language – solid but under-used and under-practised. But that’s been changing more and more in recent years, as the language has been unexpectedly useful for a whole range of reasons. So this week, here’s a wee heads-up from me about a book I’ve been finding super useful for brushing up my French: 50 French Coffee Breaks.

I’ve been aware of the Coffee Breaks Languages brand for a while, thanks to their series of podcasts. They’re not actually a resource I’d used much in the past, as I had the impression the level was a bit basic. Wrong false impressions – I was pepped up by their Swedish ‘holiday soap opera’ lately, which was far from beginners-only, and really helped prepare for a trip to Malmö.

Anyway, roll on to now, and me, searching for something to improve my French. I’m a repeat false beginner – I did French at school, but ditched it for German and Spanish early on. Since then, though, it’s become incredibly useful (and attractive) as the language of a wonderful country that is very close to my own, and so very easy to visit! Cue lots of ‘improve my French’ blitz sessions over the years.

French Coffee Breaks

For that French blitz, there are a couple of good, systematic improve-your-French books about, including the excellent Teach Yourself French Tutor, which I’ve used for grammar training. And it’s Teach Yourself that are behind the 50 Coffee Break books too, so there’s heritage and form backing the format.

The approach couldn’t be better for a busy linguist fitting in an extra maintenance language amidst everything else. The chapters offer 5, 10 and 15-minute practice sessions, across a range of useful (very travel-friendly) topics. In fact, they generally took me less time, depending on the level, but in every case they either strengthened something I’d half-forgotten, or taught me something new.

It’s definitely the kind of book you’ll want to write on and deface with a pen – anathema I know (books are my temple too!) but I made an exception with this one. There’s something very satisfying about filling it with scribble, and the pocket paperback format is perfect for it (I’d never sully my Teach Yourself Tutor books this way, mind!).

Overall, a fab purchase that has confirmed how useful the Coffee Break Languages materials are after all. I was thrilled to see that a Swedish version was released only last year too, something that had escaped my attention. Needless to say, I’ve got that one on my shelf now too…

Robots exchanging gifts. We can exchange - and adapt - digital resources now, with Claude's shareable Artifacts.

Sharing Your Language Learning Games with Claude Artifacts

July 14, 2024Leave a comment

If Claude’s recent improvements weren’t already impressive enough, Anthropic has only gone and done it again – this time, by making Artifacts shareable.

Artifacts are working versions of the programs and content you, the user, prompt for in Claude. For example, they pop up when you ask the AI to write a language practice game in HTML, running the code it writes as a playable activity. Instant language learning games – no coding required.

Now, you can share your working, fully playable creations, with a simple link.

Instant Spanish Quiz with Claude

Take this simple Spanish quiz (very topical given the forthcoming Euros 2024 final!). I prompted for it as follows:

Create an original, self-contained quiz in Spanish for upper beginner / lower intermediate students of the language, on the topic “Spain in the European Football Championships”. It should be completely self-contained in an HTML page. The quiz should be multiple choice, with ten questions each having four alternative answer buttons – only one is right, and there is always one ‘funny’ alternative answer in the mix too.
Every time the quiz is played, the questions and the answers are in a random order. The student can keep trying answers until they get the right one (obviously after clicking an answer button, it should be disabled). Incorrect buttons turn red – correct ones green. Keep score of the player’s accuracy as they work through the questions (number of correct clicks / total clicks).
Make sure it looks attractive, slick and smart too, with CSS styling included in the HTML page.

If you have Artifacts turned on (see here for more). you should see your working game appear in a new pane. But now, you’ll also see a little Publish link in the bottom-right corner. Click this, and you can choose to make your creation public with an access link.

Publishing your working language activities using a share link with Claude Artifacts

Remixing Artifacts

But wait – there’s more. When colleagues access your Artifact, they will see a Remix button in that bottom-right corner.

Remixing Artifacts in Claude

By hitting that, they can pick up where you left off and tweak your materials with further prompting. For instance, to keep the quiz format but change the language and topic, they could simply ask:

Now create a version of this quiz for French learners on the topic “France at the Olympic Games”.

It makes for an incredibly powerful way to network your learning resources. It’s also perfectly possible to take advantage of all this using only Claude’s free tier, which gives you 10 or so messages every few hours.

More than enough to knock up some learning games.

Have you created anything for colleagues to adapt and share on in Claude? Let us know in the comments!

ChatGPT, Your Way : Custom GPTs In The Wild!

November 12, 20231 Comment

This week saw one of the biggest recent developments in consumer AI. ChatGPT released GPTs – customisable AI bots – into the wild for Plus members, and the community has gone wild.

In a nutshell, GPTs are AI bots with custom behaviour that you define. And you define that behaviour using natural language, just like how you talk to regular ChatGPT.

Crucially, GPTs are shareable. So you can come up with a killer app idea, set it up in seconds, then share your creation with the world. Already, linguists and language lovers are sharing their creations on the socials.

ChatGPT for Worksheet Creation

Obviously, I couldn’t wait to get playing when the GPT creation tool went live this week. I’ve long been a cheerleader for topic-based units for independent study, especially when preparing for spoken lessons. So the first thing I coded up was a foreign language worksheet creator!

It’s the kind of thing I’ve been writing and sharing prompts about for a while, now. The big game-changer, of course, is that now, all that functionality is packaged up into a single, one-click module. Open it, tell it your language, topic and level, and watch it go. This will produce a range of resources and activities for independent learning, including a vocabulary list, reading comprehensions, and cloze quizzes.

Genuinely useful for self-study!

Foreign Language Worksheet Creator GPT in ChatGPT

It’s already been a learning experience, for all of us tinkerers. For one thing, I found out not to overload it by trying to do too much at once, or turning on all its capabilities (browsing, code interpretation and image creation). I ended up with a uselessly slow initial version that I can no longer even reopen to edit.

Ah well – these things make us!

Old English Monkeys

When you do get a working version, however, you can boggle at the versatility of it. That’s thanks to the billions of training points backing up the platform. I asked it to create an Old English worksheet on the topic “Monkeys”, in the style of a Modern Languages worksheet, as a cheeky wee test. Admittedly, ChatGPT did say that it would be a challenging task. After all, just how many Old English documents do researchers train their LLMs on? But the results were really not bad at all…

An Old English worksheet in ChatGPT

I expect many of us are playing these games, pushing the new tech to see how far it can go. At the very least, we can all revisit those isolated prompt ideas we’ve been collecting over the past months, and turn them into shareable GPTs – for work and for fun.

Have you had chance to play yet? Share your proud creations with us in the comments!

Polyglossic

Love Learning Languages

Tag: MFL