Group items tagged

"English Attack! is the first English-language learning service specifically designed for the digital generation. Our approach features a worldwide community of learners of English; and uses short-session online entertainment to encourage frequent digital immersion in real everyday English, with fresh content published daily." An interesting approach particularly suited for extra, differentiated practice with young adults.

This site is going EFL/ESL in a big way, using video: "We recently found out that 22frames.com is becoming a popular site for learning English as a second language (ESL). It turns out that watching captioned videos provides a way to not only learn formal English but also idioms and other cultural concepts. To find videos, you can browse through categories or make caption-only video searches on your interests. Even more, we have been devoting significant time and resources to developing ESL-specific features that are motivated by our users' feedback." "Recently, we found out that many of our users are using the site to supplement their English learning (see: http://www.22frames.com/esl.aspx ). They also began to pitch ideas we could implement to make the site even more useful for this activity. With so many requests, we decided to seriously consider these ideas and devote significant time and resources into realizing them. Now, we are turning our site into a substantial and FREE English learning resource. We are aware of a couple sites out there that are also focused on using captioned videos for English learning, so we've been focusing on the unique user-motivated features. Therefore, my goal here is to let you know about our free resource and that we are opening the door to requests for anyone who might desire features that have not been implemented elsewhere. Perhaps, you can share this with your colleagues/readers/etc as it will help us better gauge which features to prioritize and to increase the rate with which we will release new features. Please note that we are really serious about considering whatever feedback we get. I'm also pleased to announce our first feature, which we expect will help in learning/teaching popular English idioms. Idioms are a big deal in learning English, and it is clear that watching them used in real situations will increase the rate with which they are learned. We therefore processed a large group of YouTube videos in o

Publishes weekly articles on practical approaches and lesson plans for teaching EFL online. Here at the ELT Newsletter teachers of English can * read weekly articles on topics of interest to ELT professionals - updated every Friday * gather teaching tips from the weekly articles * find links to other sites of interest to English teachers (and learners) Every week we publish a new article on ELT. We cover a wide variety of topics - young learners, adults, general English, business English, exam classes, modern concepts and ideas such as Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Multiple Intelligences, and more. If it's of interest to English teachers, it's of interest to us! --EHS

"Most teachers are overwhelmed by the endless amount of websites they can find online to teach English. I would like to share the best websites according to my students to learn English. One key ingredient in these websites is that students have fun while learning English."

"Rewordify.com is powerful, free, online reading comprehension and vocabulary development software. It helps people understand difficult English faster, helps them learn words in new ways, and helps teachers create high-interest learning materials from any English text passage. "Just paste in a difficult English sentence, paragraph, or more, or enter a web page URL and click the button. You'll instantly see an easier version, for fast understanding now. No dictionary needed! Plus, the easier version is specially highlighted to help build vocabulary." I don't know about the claims for learning English faster, but it seems like a great, free tool to help faster reading of web pages that are not designed for non-native speakers.

The Open English series. Lessons in teaching English explained through short videos. Excellent ideas that can be adapted to many different levels of student.

"Improve your English vocabulary with GCFLearnFree Reading program! Fun activities and videos will help you master 1,000 common English words. Reading and listening to texts will improve your ability to speak, read, and understand English." Has interfaces in a dozen or so languages so that learners in a mixed language classroom could learn through their native language. So far it's free (sponsored by Goodwill).

f you want to know how to learn English verbs with an iPod, you are in the right place. Rory Ryder has published a book called "101 English Verbs for your iPod", and it is FANTASTIC!

Teacher training website with links to video content from a US Department of State funded project with the University of Oregon. All content is freely available.

"Shaping the Way We Teach English is a video-based training product for English language educators. It has 14 modules (topics). The videos showcase classroom scenes from around the world and have an accompanying training manual plus additional readings. "The University of Oregon developed and produced the materials through funding from the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Office of English Language Programs ©2007. All materials are free of charge and copyable for non-commercial educational use."

"Webinars for English language teachers - Whether you are a relatively experienced English language teacher or very new to the game, log in for these FREE monthly webinars on a range of subjects. You can access the archive of past recordings, too." Although many of the courses are for pay, there are a number free Webinars for English language teachers as well (see right-side link).

Guess the most common words in English. Nice little activity that might work with groups or a class Interactive Whiteboard. Also shows you the order of frequency. Based on Oxford English Dictionary. Rec. by Russell Stannard.

"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."

News In Review sites that would specifically be accessible to English Language Learners would make a good companion to The Best news/current events websites for English Language Learners and to The Best Visually Engaging News Sites. Most of the sites on this list are similar to each other in format - they show slideshows of key images from the previous week and have short captions. I have noted, though, a couple of exceptions that provide audio or video.

"The idea of "portfolio" implies that the sum of the parts is greater than its individual parts, that there is some benefit to seeing the whole work longitudinally or from start to finish. A portfolio, here, is a collection of written work, related or not, presented as well as it can be, by a student for the purposes of showing, well, the best that the student can do at a given time. Traditional portfolios were glossy notebooks full of typed papers, some with cover pages, that people would thumb through at our end-of-term exhibits; they would then often go home with the student, to be buried at the bottom of some drawer somewhere, having very little practical influence in terms of what the papers said, or in terms of their influence on the presumed audience of English speakers in the community."

low tech use of multimedia

Thousands of online exercises and activities for all the language skills, constantly revised, improved, and added to by the geniuses, Charles & Lawrence Kelly.

This web site is for people studying English as a Second Language (ESL) or English as a Foreign Language (EFL). There are quizzes, word games, word puzzles, proverbs, slang expressions, anagrams, a random-sentence generator and other computer assisted language learning activities.

Playlist for the Shaping the Way We Teach English videos, the basis for the U.S. Dept of State/Univ of Oregon MOOC, Shaping the Way we Teach English.

"Relevant real-world content Each lesson is based in authentic content-the world-class news and information on CNN-and organized in sections that match the needs and interests of learners. This makes the learning experience personalized and relevant. No nonsensical sentences or made-up stories. New lessons every day Today's news becomes today's lessons on en.news, with new lessons published on a daily basis. That's like giving the world a new English textbook every day. For free. Unlimited learning for free Learning a language is a lifelong journey and on en.news, learners can return as often as they want to take as many lessons as they want. There's no "end of a book" or "end of a course" which means the learning never ends. Part of a daily routine en.news combines the habit of consuming news, checking sports scores and staying on top of the world of entertainment with the utility of learning English."

"UsingEnglish.com provides a large collection of English as a Second Language (ESL) tools & resources for students, teachers, learners and academics. Browse our grammar glossary and references of irregular verbs, phrasal verbs and idioms, ESL forums, articles, teacher handouts and printables, and find useful links and information on English. Topics cover the spectrum of ESL, EFL, ESOL, and EAP subject areas."

"Learn English online with the help of this free website from the British Council with games, stories, listening activities and grammar exercises. You can search for your favourites, or have a look at the site map to find out where everything is. This is a BETA site and you will find lots of new listening activities and video content in Listen & Watch. We also have a new Grammar section and new IELTS exam practice materials. Click here to return to the 'old' LearnEnglish website. Double-click any word to see a dictionary definition. You can contact us if you have a question or want to report any problems. Become a member and you can add comments to the site and ask questions to get help with your English." This site has thematic/situationally based videos.