Group items tagged

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.

"The idea here is to create a simple menu at the top of your Moodle course page that allows your learners to click and have only the relevant unit or cluster appear on the page. Essentially, this removes the 'scroll of death' issue if you find your learners are having to wade down through dozens of units to find something."

This is a great site to teach adult and high school learners more about how to use the web and sift false info from true. Something like a WebQuest, but with varied levels of understanding implicit in the lesson plans and activities.

Webinar with dozens of ideas for using online tools to teach young learners writing. Offered at the 2012 EVO. Shelly Terrell offers free webinars every Friday at 21:00 GMT. go to tinyurl.com/ELTLinks to see a list of recent offerings. Recordings are also available for this free online professional development series.

A video on how to use Keek to make and share short video messages. Although limited to only 36 secs, this might be a good application for beginning learners, or for a quick pronunciation quiz (you will see who is taking that quiz!) You can also embed a finished recording in your blog or wiki, as well as sending it by email. A good way to have students create a short, practiced conversation. Also has smartphone apps for mobile recordings, RSS feed to follow, and links to Facebook and Twitter.

"How- to... get the best shots, explore styles, pick the best camera, editing and photo manipulation, and whatever else I think will help you and I learn more about creating photography that speaks volumes!! " Great tips for the budding student artist. I would recommend this to any student who shows artistic promise with photography. Let the creative juices flow. You can send your direct learners directly to this page for a visual feast, plus good advice from professional photographers.

I have no idea why the name, but the site seems to include dozens of short cartoons and videos about Internet safety, targeted at a range of learners, from grade school through high school. Topics include cyber-bullying, recognizing opinion and fact, and computer security. There are cartoons, self-tests, and interviews with real teens and pre-teens.

"Create a newspaper, ninja text, a clapper board, wizard text, talking squirrels, talking flowers, a cigarette packet, talking tomatoes, talking cats, talking owls" - Fun projects for younger learners or teens, with fairly simple interface. The final project can be downloaded and images placed on your own website or blog.

This page contains the cognate highlighter, where you can paste in any English text to highlight. Good for English-speaking foreign-language learners also.

Interesting article arguing that collective corporate interests have co-opted social networks and detract from learner control and education use of Web 2.0.

documents containing a set of ideas for using a particular ICT in language teaching and learning, ranging from activities suitable for early language learners through to those at advanced level.

SimplyBox is a great way to add some Web 2.0 to your research. This would be esp. useful with group objects where students can then look at what each other group member has found. Use SimplyBox for Education, and get the free app (also has fee-based district or school-wide application that can be hosted and access controlled safely, and boxing from any application). The teacher could start the ball rolling, and have students join in, boxing their own sites and info. Esp. good for visual learners. This page has three good help videos: Overview, Sharing, and Twittering with SimplyBox. Fairly easy to use, once you get used to it.

"Many people don't realize that The New York Times can be quite accessible for English Language Learners. Due to its focus on current events and news, using The Times to learn vocabulary and practice reading can be much more inviting and rewarding than a textbook. And NYTimes.com has some extra tools and features that are particularly useful for language learning. Here are 10 ideas for using The Times to teach and learn the English language." Includes lookup dictionary, multimedia archive, K/W/L Chart, short activities, culture experiences, lesson plans, this day in history, etc.

A social blog oriented to middle-school learners. Teacher can set questions and request students to join. Free. Nice instructional video at the >Learn more about link. There are also many teacher/school district blogs to view as examples.

Songs/music videos with lyrics side-by-side. Should be great for teens and young adult learners. (Also great if you never could understand those words!) Have your students write their own lyrics to songs. Or write their own music as a project. If using clips in a project, be sure to respect copyright.

"What you see here are candid submissions from people who have engaged in a little exercise. Here's how it works. Think about the word Race. How would you distill your thoughts, experiences or observations about race into one sentence that only has six words?" This National Public Radio blog makes the perfect starting point for a multicultural lesson for ESL/EFL students. The entries are sheer poetry and give a great deal of content to think about the issue of race and one's place in society, for better or worse. Each 6-word "poem" makes us, as one contributor said, "Look past race to underlying humanity."

Lots of bookis read aloud. with text before your eyes. Being read to is a good way to get a sense of the language. Recommended by Russell Stannard at http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/10jan/index.html.

This is a totally cool way to look at Flashcards, and includes not only polls taken by Webheads, but some lesson plans for use with your students. (Note also the way the blog entry is organized.) Study and blog by Karenne Sylvester, Webhead.

Sponsored by the ISTE, PBL with Technology adds new links quarterly and has a nice back-log of projects on a variety of themes.