Language is a Human Right

Language is a human right Fluenz.org learn english immigrants refugees

El Book is a free primer for Spanish speakers on the bare essentials of English. It was designed for people with no certain address, little access to advanced technology, and not a lot of formal education.

El Book is made up of a few simple black and white pages. It can easily be printed at home, stapled, and distributed. El Book can work on its own or accompanied by an audio track that may be downloaded and burned to a CD. At this point, CD players are both very inexpensive and widely available.

El Book takes advantage of the next-generation language learning approach developed by Fluenz for its commercial programs.

You need to install Adobe Flash to listen to El Book.

Language human right learn english immigrants refugees

You can get involved right now by printing a copy of El Book and downloading and burning the audio companion CD. Give this tool to someone in need, or to those who might know someone through their association with churches, shelters, refugee centers, or other types of organizations.

Maybe you don't know anyone in need, but you might know someone who does.

Is this your first time downloading a file or burning a CD? Click here for help.

We create free language learning solutions that address refugees and disadvantaged immigrants in host countries whose language they can’t speak or understand. Our solutions are freely available on the web so that people like you, NGOs, and government agencies can download and distribute them wherever they can make a difference.

Fluenz.org is made possible by the resources of Fluenz, the time and inspiration of its employees, and a core of Harvard, Bard, and Brown students who started the non-profit project at the Fluenz Lab in the summer of 2008.

Someone who speaks Spanish, speaks no English whatsoever, and could use the bare rudiments of the language to improve their daily life. Mindful of the time and location constraints of refugees, agricultural laborers in guest worker programs, and other disadvantaged immigrants, El Book has been designed to expand the learner's range of communication with the fewest amount of words and grammatical structures. To allow for the fastest learning experience, everything is explained in friendly Spanish and in a very graphic environment.

Although El Book works by itself, there is an audio track that expands the learning potential of the printed guide. Narrated in friendly and motivational Spanish by Latin American soap opera star Daniela Alvarado and Fluenz co-founder Sonia Gil, the audio track guides learners through every single chapter with explanations and strategies to facilitate and accelerate their fluency in English.

Following the language learning methodology developed by Fluenz ( Fluenz Linguistics ), El Book carves a path through English that helps Spanish speakers learn vocabulary and grammar that's relevant for real communication. By systematically comparing the workings of Spanish and English verbs and nouns, learners reach an intuitive understanding of the new language. And by concentrating on expanding the learner's range of communication above all else, this common sense approach accomplishes real results in the shortest possible time.

Much of the hard work to get Fluenz.org off the ground was done by Harvard University students Amy Diaz and Lubomir Malo, and later by Bard College student Jose Carlos Muci and Brown University student Vikram Natu. From the very beginning we felt that colleges and college students would form the perfect launching ground to distribute El Book and its audio track all throughout North America. If you are interested in getting involved please send us an email.

eric@fluenz.com

El Book and its audio track are ready for you to use wherever you feel they can make a difference. We've included PDF versions of El Book that can be printed at home or in print shops, as well as MP3 files that can generate as many CDs as needed. We welcome all your feedback to make this a better product (and will eventually release version 2.0 based on feedback), but must acknowledge that at this point we are not staffed or funded to provided on-going support to institutional users.

No one can make a bigger difference spreading this idea than the millions of blogs on the web. Write about El Book, or simply place a link to this page (email us and we'll reciprocate in our blogroll).

We also have a number of banners you are free to use, and you can contact us anytime at eric@fluenz.com.

Language human right learn english immigrants refugees

Before you start, make sure the computer you're using has a drive that can burn CDs.

Go to a local computer store and purchase as many ‘CD-R’ as you want to burn. Get either a 650 MB (megabyte) CD for 74 minutes, or a 700 MB CD for 80 minutes of playback time.
First, click here to download the audio tracks.
A window will pop up asking you to either 'open' or 'save.'
Click the save option. Another window will pop up asking where to save the file. Choose your desktop and it will begin downloading.
If you have a 28.8k dial-up connection, this download will take approximately two and a half hours. If you have a cable or DSL connection, this download will take approximately five minutes.
Once it is done downloading, the file will appear on your desktop.
Windows users should right-click the file and choose "Extract All." The "Extraction Wizard" will then open. Click the "Next" button three times and then "Finish."
Mac users should double click on the downloaded file. The extraction process will automatically begin.
You will now see a folder called "El Book Audio" on your desktop. Inside that folder are the audio files. You are ready to burn them on to a CD.

Don't worry if you have no idea how to burn a CD. There are several ways to do it and they’re easy. Here are the instructions for iTunes:

Open iTunes and drag the folder with the tracks on your desktop into your library.
Click on ‘file’ and click on ‘new playlist.’
Drag the tracks from your library into that playlist.
Make sure they are in the correct order (you can move the tracks by dragging them up or down the list)
Insert the ‘CD-R’ and click on 'Burn Disc' in iTunes. When it is done, make sure you click the 'finalize' option.

If you have Windows Media Player the process is also simple:

Click on the 'Library' tab and click on 'Create Playlist.'
Drag the files from your desktop into that playlist.
Order the tracks in the playlist by dragging them up or down the list.
Click on the 'Burn' tab. From the left of the screen, drag the playlist to where it says 'Drag items here.'
Click on 'Start burn.' When it's done, make sure you click the 'finalize' option.

If you don’t have iTunes or Windows Media Player, here are several links to other free, downloadable programs that can burn CD’s. When using any of them, be sure to select the burn 'audio CD' option before initiating the burning process.

Windows:

http://www.download.com/Burn4Free-CD-and-DVD/3000-2646_4-10217894.html?tag=mncol&cdlPid=10855423

http://www.download.com/Free-Easy-CD-DVD-Burner/3000-2646_4-10627009.html?tag=mncol&cdlPid=10833594

http://www.download.com/DeepBurner-Free/3000-2646_4-10250994.html?tag=mncol&cdlPid=10527371

http://www.download.com/Snap-n-Burn-Free/3000-2646_4-10505593.html?tag=mncol&cdlPid=10515036

Mac:

http://www.download.com/iTunes-Classic-/3000-2199_4-10053490.html?tag=mncol&cdlPid=9429701

http://www.download.com/Laze-E/3000-2182_4-10229320.html?tag=mncol&cdlPid=10229319

http://www.download.com/K-Kitchen/3000-2182_4-10720673.html?tag=mncol&cdlPid=10831646

http://www.download.com/DiscBlaze/3000-2198_4-10211667.html?tag=mncol&cdlPid=10413488

Help spread the message of the Language is a Human Right Campaign by wearing the official t-shirt. Fluenz.org does not receive any money from the sale of this shirt. We only hope to spread awareness by having people like you wear it.

Click here to get the t-shirt!