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Hi NAU CALL, I just came upon this interesting corpus-based descriptive vocabulary resource for teachers who use the CEFR. Here's the site's promo: The English Vocabulary Profile offers reliable information about which words (and importantly, which meanings of those words) and phrases are known and used by learners at each level of the Common European Framework (CEF). Cambridge University Press is making the A1-C2 English Vocabulary Profile available free of charge to teachers and educationalists around the world for the time being.

A collection of resources related to vocabulary learning and teaching, some of which are annotated.

Free Rice is an online educational game. It can be used for many different subjects, including vocabulary and grammar. It's a fun way for students to practice their skills. To add a motivational twist, Free Rice donates a certain amount of rice for each correct answer. Because the vocabulary words and grammar structures are selected at random by the program, it wouldn't be a very effective learning tool. However, If the students worked in groups, they could learn new vocabulary together as they played, but I don't think this format would be possible with grammar. I think it would serve most useful as a fun way for more advanced students to review material.

The MYWordBook app is a product of the British Council and Cambridge University Press. The app functions as a vocabulary notebook, allowing you to input words, translations, pictures, notes, definitions and example sentences. The app is available for use with Iphone, iPad, Android, and Blackberry. While the app is free, you must pay for the word packs that come with it. A problem with these word sets is that they don't seem to be in any order of frequency or word list. There is the option to create your own word list however.

The quizzes on this site make use of concordance lines to help learners practice vocabulary in the K1 & K2 frequency bands.

Wordle isn't necessarily ESL focused, but it does do fun things with language. Teachers can use this application to create vocabulary word splashes that are visually appealing to students, or teachers can let students play with their own words. For example, students can input an essay and world will pick out the most frequent words and put them into a cool design. It's a simple and easy way to manipulate language.

Jena, I'm glad you posted this. I think that this has some great potential for introducing vocabulary in the pre- or -post phases of a lesson for different skills or content classes. I like that you can choose different fonts, # of words that can be displayed and the direction of displayed words. You can also embed this into blogs and wikis. For a good blog post on using word clouds in the classroom, you might want to check out Nic Peachey's post on this subject: http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/09/using-word-clouds-in-efl-esl.html As an aside, in my opinion this guy is perhaps one of the most active technology/CALL ESL people on the web. I get a lot of great ideas from reading his blog posts and other resources.

This is very interesting.. It can be used by teachers of vocabulary and writing.. I like the fact that it can be used ina number of ways. Thanks Jena

Teaching spelling and vocabulary is easy with VocabularySpellingCity! Students can study and learn their word lists using vocabulary and spelling learning activities and games. Students can take final or practice spelling and vocabulary tests right on this engaging site. Premium games and automated student record keeping are available to Premium Members.

This website has many games for grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary, as well as games that teachers can use to get all classmates involved at once (e.g., Jeopardy). The games are meant to be supplementary. Some disadvantages to the website are that the pronunciation exercises require that students be familiar with the IPA, that the exercises are largely drills, and that there are many ads on the website that could be distracting. However, if students need additional practice with a specific grammatical, vocabulary, or pronunciation item, then this website could be useful.

I stumbled upon this resource while researching the tools and techniques used by a school that I'm applying to teach for.The Reading Assistant is based on speech recognition technology that helps students practice reading aloud (pronunciation) and answer comprehension questions (reading and critical thinking skills). From what I can tell, this paid software is available online, for maximum student convenience. After students complete assignments, teachers receive reports on students' performances. The program claims to have 300 graded readers that align with  US Common Core standards from elementary to high school. To me, the capability of this program to "listen" to students' pronunciation and provide help and individualized feedback is its greatest advantage. The inclusion of a variety of resources for developing vocabulary and work knowledge are also important points for me. Overall, this looks like a useful resource for K-12 schools that want to supplement classroom reading instruction.

English-Guide.org is an incredible website, albeit it looks like it is designed for children. That said, if you're teaching children English learners, great; you're all set to go. If you're teaching adults, this site could be used as a respite from the intensity of intensive English programs. While many of the resources on the site are language learning games that take the form of drill-and-kill exercises, not all of the material is so rudimentary. For instance, the Career/Business section under Listening links to many listening passages at elllo.org (another useful site for listening and speaking teachers). On elllo, learners can listen to business passages, such as one on personality traits and answer comprehension questions. It would be tempting to let a class full of learners loose on this site to see what resources they would gravitate toward. The major categories of resources Vocabulary, Listening, Grammar, and Others, and within these categories, like I mentioned, there are both games and more sophisticated exercises at the learners' fingertips.

Words With Friends is a game that is an online (unofficial) version of Scrabble. Players create words using the tiles they have, and the goal is to play words with high point values strategically in order to obtain more points than the opponent. In a language classroom setting, this game seems most appropriate for high-intermediate to advanced learners, as it definitely helps if players have strong vocabularies. With that in mind, the game can be useful as a vocabulary builder, though it can take some patience on the part of the student because there is no built in dictionary. Another limitation is that the game is currently limited to smart phones and Facebook, so some students may need to sign up for the latter or work in pairs in order for any Words With Friends activity to work.

I use this learners' dictionary frequently when I am trying to come up with a simplified definition for a new vocabulary word for my students. This website's definitions are almost always better and simpler than anything I can come up with. And quicker. It also includes daily words, quizzes, and activities for students.

This is avery interesting website, it may make the life of the vocabulary teacher easier!

Memrise is a site similar to Quizlet. For language learning, you can build vocabulary decks and then the site gives you a variety of quiz-type activities to review them. There is some multimedia support (pictures, and sound, if I remember right). It uses a metaphorical "garden" for you to track your progress with each item. An instructor (or individual) can compose a custom deck and share it with students. Also, students (or any other learner) can add information to the vocab item- more definitions, mnenomics, example sentences, etc. I haven't had the chance to use it with a class, but I've played with it for my own language learning. Like most flash card type schemes, if you can make it a habit, it seems to be effective.

This is a great site for borrowing ideas that could help develop and supplement lessons. From the site: "These lessons are designed for adult ESL students at the intermediate and advanced levels. Students learn new vocabulary, and practice using it by looking at and describing portraits, landscapes, and narrative works of art."

This is an intersting website as it offfers Ss opportunities to learn new vocabulary using their L1

I opened the Pizza Restaurant "Community" topic. Part 1 is a Listening (using an optional audio segment), and read along section. I didn't see an option for speed and I found the reading to be fast for a language learner, but they can repeat it for multiple readings. Part II is a discussion with a couple of questions, "What kind of pizza do you like and what toppings do you like on it? And "Are there any unique toppings that people put on pizza in your country that reflect your local foods?" Part III is an online investigation with a link to a practice. From their Website: "One of the best ways to improve communication skills is to become familiar with the language by reading, building vocabulary, and discussing what you study in daily conversations. Too often, ESL/EFL students spend time reading about topics that they normally wouldn't use in daily conversation. This site presents short conversation starters or readings that you can study and then try to apply in everyday situations Before anything else, be sure to read the page, Using This Site, to understand the purpose of these materials and how to best use them. The table below outlines current and future topics. Those with links are now available. Write me if you have an idea for a new reading topic."

"Memorize anything with AnkiDroid! HELP FOR UPGRADING FROM 1.x: https://code.google.com/p/ankidroid/wiki/Upgrading AnkiDroid lets you learn flashcards very efficiently by showing them just before you will forget. It is fully compatible with the spaced repetition software Anki (including synchronization), which is available for Windows, Linux and MacOS. Study all sorts of things wherever and whenever you want." Many of you may have seen an Anki icon on your desktop in the PIE or another place on campus, but it's definitely worth noting that there's a mobile app that works very well. I'm an Android user so I've posted a direct link to the app there, but it is also on iOS. What's really nice about AnkiDroid is that you can create decks of flashcards (with some nice bells and whistles, including sound, if you choose) on your desktop/laptop, which is a little more convenient, and then download the deck on your mobile device. An instructor can make a deck for a class (or an institution) and any student with the mobile app and the name of the deck can find it and download it. I've personally used AnkiDroid for learning Korean, independently as well as creating decks to supplement a class I was taking. I feel like the mobile app works better for reviewing cards than the desktop program, because reviewing flashcards fits in those perfect little chunks of free time when you're riding the bus/subway or waiting for class to start, and these days you (or students) will always have your phone with you, but probably won't always have your desktop with you at those times.

My English Lab by Pearson is a supplemental site to the North Star Listening and Speaking and Reading and Writing textbooks. With an access code provided in textbooks, students can access a class website. Similar to BlackBoard Learn, My English Lab provides students with a calendar for assignments and enables teachers to upload content. More than that, My English Lab has many related and supplemental resources pertaining to each unit in the corresponding textbooks. For example, when covering unit one in NorthStar 3 about Advertising on the Air, My English Lab gives students access to all of the recordings from the unit that a teacher might use in class. It also gives students flash card decks with the vocabulary for the unit and sometimes has extra exercises for the students to complete. Depending on the exercises, My English Lab will score these exercises to give students grades. The disadvantages of the site primarily relate to logistics. When students by used copies of their textbooks, the books might be missing the access code. Also, students must have access to computers to make use of the site outside of class time.

BarryFunEnglish is a site aimed at ESL/EFL for younger learners. It has a good number of boardgame style games that can be quickly set up and customized- this is the chief advantage for using the site over a traditional version of Monopoly or Battleship. Coupled with a large display (i.e. projector, large TV), classes of up to ~12 students can be included in playing the game without too much downtime for any one student or team. You can set up custom vocab lists, but it's limited to the vocab items in the site's database, so you're mostly limited to beginner level English. Having used this at my past job teaching young EFL learners, I will say that it can be tempting to use it as a crutch- don't just play a game for the sake of playing a game, or killing time. I'd also recommend varying the games you use and definitely make use of the customizable vocab lists. Still, a huge part of being a child is playing games with other children, and linguistically, that means game playing can help develop a lot of the meta-language that children use for games.