Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

"Penpal Amis is the free penpal language exchange that is designed to help students find pen pals and pen friends who are native speakers of the languages that they are studying. "

R. Stannard's ideads for using IWBs with language learners. He notes several areas where teachers can create games and activities to produce content for language learning.

"Swift Playground is an iPad app to learn Apple's Swift coding language which underpins apps on iOS. The app has engaging lessons and different levels to play." I think learning an app language is appropriate for many levels of students. It gives them control over the games and processes as they think about how the app should go and what it should do.

"Despite our best efforts as teachers, there simply is not enough class time for working adults to learn English as a second language in the classroom at the speed that many of them need to meet their personal language learning goals. " Article by Alexandra Lowe on learning outside the classroom.

" The printables encourage writing and thinking in a quick and fun way. A student's efforts to complete the printable can then become the first step in writing longer essays, poems or stories on the same subject. The printables also can be used with students enrolled in literacy and English-As-Second Language (ESL, ESOL) programs and provide an educational resource for teaching Language arts." Over 250 printables that can be used for writing prompts.

Has a very limited list of links to software, but there are reviews. Includes a number of languages.

"This website has been created for use by English language teachers and institutions internationally. It is based on what is current as of March, 2009. Given the volatility of software, availability of all packages should be checked before purchase." A good place to start if you are setting up a language lab in your school.

Some ideas and resources. Literature is a good way to engage ELLs, even if at first the language seems hard. His language is so much a part of the English-speaking world's culture that Shakespeare has to be included. And it's required, usually in high school. Learning short passages and performing them is a great activity and will help with pronunciation, too.

Claims to have over 1 million member from 133 countries, practicing 115 languages. Find a partner for penpals/e-pals, use text or voice chat, and use lesson plans with your students. Also includes group homestay exchanges.

A place for students to connect with each other and practice language--free! One of the finest uses of social networking I can imagine. This is a site similar to Babbel which I used to brush up my Spanish before it became for pay. Let's hope this stays free!

"The Mixxer - a free educational website for language exchanges via Skype" Looks like it might replace Babbel, which went commercial.

"The CALL Interest Section of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL) offers Language teachers world-wide the opportunity to participate in the Electronic Village Online (EVO), a professional development project and virtual extension of the TESOL 2011 Convention in New Orleans, LA, USA. The intended audience for this project includes both TESOL convention-goers and those who can participate only virtually. Interest Sections, Affiliates, E-groups, and other member groups of TESOL in particular are invited to sponsor sessions related to the convention. "

This is an excellent example of how a teacher can use blogs and podcasting to create interesting and exciting activities for language learners, in this case in tandem with learners in other countries, while practicing all the language skills.

A writing correction site, with members from 180 countries. You can keep track of what you learn from native speakers, who help you with your written efforts--all-volunteer, all non-professional, with very little advertising. An instructional video is availalbe and there are dozens of native languages to practice.

Video clips are sorted by level (primary or secondary) and subject, and include Chinese and some European languages, as well as science, maths, biology, etc. Clips can are all very short and can be sorted additionally by topics. Could be useful for content-based learning as well as language study.

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."

"In compiling this list, I tried to really focus on highlighting sites that would be easy-to-use and engaging to both a younger Beginning English Language Learner and to someone who was new to computers. They all have audio support for text and, with only one exception, they also have visual support. Only a couple require registration (though the top-ranked site lets you do so if you want to keep track of what exercises you've done (and registration takes seconds). Of course, they all are free-of-charge."

Many art museum websites offer users the ability to choose favorites from their online exhibitions and create an online exhibition. The best also let you write captions and describe these individualized collections, and then allow you to post the link on a website or blog. This kind of activity provides lots of language-development opportunities for all levels of English language Learners. so I thought it would be a good topic for a "The Best…" list. You can find links to all the sites on this list, and other "art collection" sites that didn't quite make the grade, on my website under Student Art Collections. Of course, students can also create collections of art work they've have created online. You can find those sites at The Best Art Websites For Learning English.

The Reading Matrix: An International Online Journal is a peer-reviewed professional journal with an editorial board of scholars in the fields of second language acquisition and applied linguistics. The journal seeks to disseminate research to educators around the world. It is interested in exploring issues related to L2 reading, L2 literacy in a broader sense, and other issues related to second language learning and teaching.

"Roughly 4.6 million English language learners attended U.S. public schools in 2014-15 and, while many of these students have the English skills needed for everyday life, some lack the language proficiency to get into college. Or they may have misconceptions about college so aren't even thinking about going. But many of these students have the drive and ability to do well in higher education - they just need the right information, support, and tools to get there. ESL/ELL students can find those resources in this guide. Read on to learn more."