MERLOT World Languages Learning Materials

We welcome you to the World Languages collection of learning materials. This page gives you some helpful information on how MERLOT World Languages learning materials are arranged and some pointers on how you can help us build the collection.

Categorization Scheme

In MERLOT World Languages, learning materials are organized first by a particular language and then by one or more of the following sub-categories: Language, Teacher Resources, Culture (big C), and culture (small c). There is an additional major category, called Multilingual Resources, which features learning materials that are useful to faculty and learners of all languages.

"Big C" culture items are usually literary or artistic web sites and collections. Examples would be the Versailles or the Pablo Neruda site."Little c" materials deal with culture and civilization on a practical everyday life basis. Some examples would be German Video Resources or the REALIA project.

It is possible for a single item to have more than one sub-category, such as Language and Teacher Resource or Language and Culture. Likewise, a single item may be classified under several different languages, like the Internet Picture Dictionary or the multi-lingual LangMedia.

As all members can contribute materials to MERLOT, it is important for all to follow the above described scheme and to categorize items accordingly. In that way, it becomes quicker and easier for everyone to find materials when browsing the World Languages collection.

Browsing MERLOT World Languages

To review the procedure for Browsing Materials, simply click the third tab in the gray navigation bar on the MERLOT home page. Click on the triangle in front of Humanities and then the triangle in front of World Languages. You will then see links for all languages and the sub-categories mentioned above.

In addition to Browsing, you can access World Languages by clicking the Communities link on the MERLOT home page. Once on the Communities page, you can click on World Languages to find our collections.

Tips on Submitting MERLOT World Language Learning Materials

All MERLOT members can submit learning materials to the collection by clicking on Contribute Materials. Here is a tip that pertains particularly to language materials. It is important to remember that if you use diacritical marks in your title when you submit, the user who searches by title will have to use the same spelling and accent marks that you did to have a successful search by title.