About Us

langoLAB is a site that is designed to help people learn foreign languages. The site endeavors to expose learners to authentic cultural media from the internet in the foreign language they're learning, and it provides tools to allow them to comprehend the media as quickly as possible. langoLAB is constructed around the hypothesis that people will learn a foreign language more quickly when they're immersed in it through media and live interactions in which they can quickly perceive prelinguistic meaning and regularities. The site facilitates the social accumulation of knowledge about foreign language, grammar, and lessons in a novel way, using a rich client interface to map this knowledge to the foreign language media.

Meet the Staff

Adam

Adam Duston

Adam is a thoughtful and meticulous software craftsman and enjoys furiously creating useful software that is beautiful and well-organized. Adam studied Economics, Math, and Computer Science at the University of Chicago. Adam believes he could learn German much more quickly if he were restricted to watching this season of ABC's "Lost" in German, which is why he created langolab.com.

Shane

Shane Ermitano

Shane is the visual design ingredient to the langoLAB team. Upon earning his BFA with emphasis in Graphic Design, Shane moved to Chicago to pursue a career in the design field. Since his time there, he's been involved in projects for the Where I've Been company, made famous by their Facebook application, and LA Gear footwear. When he's not focused on langoLAB, Shane enjoys staying active and finding new food spots to later blog about on his food blog, Eat Feats @http://eatfeats.shaneermitano.com.

Jennifer

Jennifer Ede

Jennifer received her master's degree in Linguistics in 2008 from Belarusian State University. Her dissertation was written under world-renowned Cognitive Linguist, Svetlana Prokhorova, and provided 53 pages of detailed methodology as to how foreign language should be taught in the United States. Jennifer doesn't believe in the grammar-based approach to studying language. Instead, she's a firm believer in real-time, real-world exposure to language used by native speakers. For years Jennifer has dreamed of starting a foreign language school that uses an immersive approach, and now at langolab.com she's found her chance.

Our Advisors

Were very grateful to have found a couple of great advisors. Wed like to find more. If this is something you might be interested in, please let us know.

Casey Servais

Casey holds a Ph.D. in German Studies and has taught foreign languages at Cornell University and Michigan State. He believes that meaningful input in the target language is the key to successful language acquisition, and he sees langolab as a means of bringing such input to learners in a lively, interactive format. Casey has integrated langolab's text and video features into a variety of language courses, and his students have consistently given the site rave reviews.

Adam

Joyce Dittrich

Joyce Dittrich, a NBCT in World Languages, has taught Spanish for more than 30 years. A self-proclaimed advocate for 21st century educational reform, her interest in langolab.com has developed from her belief that all can learn another language when motivation is high. langolab capitalizes on this fact and gives learners/instructors the ability to pursue things of interest in a comprehensible way.