A huge list of materials online related to listening, speaking, reading, writing, grammar, and general study skills. Teachers need to review and select from sites to use them effectively in an academic program. Prepared by Christine Bauer-Ramazani for her Academic Skills courses.
This is a set of online tutorials and exercises for academic writing students. They explain the nature of the academic paragraph, including the importance of the topic sentence, how to order a paragraph, and typical transition words and signals within the paragraph. Written by Elizabeth Hanson-Smith.
This discussion of a very important aspect of academic writing is one of the most explanatory I've seen. Please refer also to the tutorial and exercise, "Constructing the Paragraph" .
This resource from the University of Victoria offers a set of advisory files primarily on writing about literature. It has basic information about types of essays, essay organization, basic steps in writing process, types and function of paragraphs. The website also offers guidelines on writing clear sentences, and introduces rhetorical and literary terms. -- From Lena Shvidko
Very, very complete OWL.
This web resource is for teachers of high beginning and intermediate writing courses and intermediate ESL learners. The resource provides 8 units that 1) teach about paragraph structure and paragraph elements: topic sentence, supporting sentences, and concluding sentence 2) introduce transition words and coherence in a paragraph 3) provide the opportunity to learn about and practice basic writing skills such as making an outline and staying on topic. Clear explanations are supported by examples; therefore, teacher can use this resource for class preparation, and ESL learners can use it as additional material to learn about paragraph writing. Practice activities provided by the website are not interactive; however, most of the assessment tasks have answer keys. In addition, each unit provides lesson in a PDF format that can be used by a teacher as a handout. -- From Lena Shvidko
For ESL K-12 learners, but would be useful for adults as well. Focuses on the paragraph, rather than the essay, so makes a good beginning set of lessons.
This site combines the best of a thesaurus and a concordancer. A word search produces loads of combinations in actual usage, with a red or green bar to indicate good and bad connotations. An alternatives link shows other words that can be substituted. Should be a nice accessory to non-native more advanced writers. Also connects to Wordle, so that students can see visually what kinds of usage are most likely.
This remarkable concordancer has many quick and easy features, such as seeing visually with a graph the frequency of occurrences of a word, quick links to the word embedded in a concordance, a thesaurus of alternative vocabulary, and indications of "good" and "bad" uses of a word. Stannard doesn't talk much about the pedagogy of the tool, but it is well worth exploring, esp. with your more advanced students.
Spanish students hone their foreign language skills with frequent webcam chats with their English-learning counterparts in South
America.
Students who go above and beyond mandatory assignments will be more likely to
remember class material and apply it when they get out into the working world.
Mobile Phones
take a snapshot of the blackboard for later studying.
the number of cell-phone related infractions is “minuscule
Students were provided with an iPod touch, given instructional materials, and
told they had to make a few academic-related tweets a day. Soon, a thriving
community grew, complete with @replies and hashtags
Describes ways to use images, video, music, voice, and text in teaching literature with advanced level students to improve writing and pronunciation skills. Students engaged in online discussion through commenting and VoiceThread. By Jane Petring.
A fabulous tool for socio-cultural studies of any country. Click on a country to look at a wide variety of factors: population, social indicators, economy, technical networks, environment, and millenium goals. Fascinating place for students to do comparisons and get info for reports. Or for teachers to learn more about their country of residence.