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This looks like a really interesting new blog from NPR which examines the intersection between language, culture, and identity in everyday life (topics that often arise in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology). This could be an excellent source of authentic reading material for L2 learners, a source of culture learning, and also a model source of the blog genre.

English Daily is an interesting site for English learners because of its vast array of resources. For learners who have an interest in learning about English idioms, learners can discover the definitions of idioms and read examples of them in context. To learn about English language culture or for practicing reading fluency aloud, the Movie Lines section of the site contains portions of dialogue from popular movies. To practice comprehension questions, the comprehension section allows learners to read a passage and to answer questions about it. While the website has many advantages and may appeal to younger learners and business professionals alike, the presentation of the content is not very aesthetically pleasing, and the site is full of advertisements that may distract learners from the content they are attempting to learn. Additionally, the site is not very interactive beyond the news section that allows learner to listen to a news story and to complete cloze exercises. Furthermore, the answers to exercises are presented on the same page as the exercises themselves, so clearly a learner would need to be rather autonomous to use the site effectively. To fully incorporate the site into a classroom, a teacher would benefit from creating supplemental materials such as a learning log in order to track student learning.

ESL Video is a website that pairs authentic videos with comprehension questions. The user selects a video at a particular level and about a particular topic, views the video, and answers questions about what was said in the video. While such a resource could be used in a listening and speaking class, some, or at least one, of the videos could be used in a class focused on reading. To explain, the video only had music for the soundtrack while simple text appeared on the screen for the viewer to read. Of note is that many of the videos feature popular culture, so conceivably these videos would contribute both to language learning and to learning about the culture of English speaking countries. One interesting video features Jimmy Fallon, the Roots, and Carly Rae Jepson playing "Call Me Maybe," and the related quiz asks learners to fill in the blanks in lines of lyrics. Also, teachers are able to create their own quizzes for the website.

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This website is neat as it has a updating blog and a culture section for language learning.

I love this site. Like the Moth, it is a resource for stories from every day people all over the country. It's great for cultural topics, too. The stories are much shorter, usually 1-3 minutes, and are generally appropriate for students (though some aren't).

I'm not sure if anyone has posted this already (so forgive me if this is a repeat!), but basically Tumblr is like a blog hybrid that allows you post just about anything (as the site states: "Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos from your browser, phone, desktop, email or wherever you happen to be. You can customize everything, from colors to your theme's HTML."). The site is very creativity-oriented, and seems like a potentially very useful online resource for students to express themselves creatively, to write and publish for a real audience, to gain exposure to cultural dimensions of the target speech community, and to enhance their digital literacy.

It is a website mainly for British English, but students can develop their listening skills as they navigate through the website. They have options of discovering more about cultural landmarks, etiquette for boys, and pretend lectures. This is a nice website for students that wish to improve their listening skills and desire to learn more about British culture.

The Moth is a storytelling program that broadcasts weekly stories told by anyone - famous people or every day folks. It's a great listening resource, especially for getting a glimpse of American life, but would require you to pre-screen the stories (some are not appropriate for students at all). It is also probably best suited for adult advanced learners.

This website provides digital books, activities, bulletin board ideas, cultural activities and more. Many of them are free and there are some that are paid.

My blurb: I checked out this site based on Heidi Wright's recommendation. You do have to pay for a subscription, unfortunately, but the newspaper is very readable, the layout is nice, and it comes with teacher resources and activities. Heidi's blurb: I have just finished a research project on a ESOL suitable newspaper called Newsademic. I send my PPT to the company and they sent me a free subscription. They also sent me a link to pass on to friends so they can get a free two month subscription. For those of you beginning to teach or those going overseas, it is cool. The newspaper, which is written for 9-16 year old native English speakers, works with intermediate level and above (we have used articles in level 4 at PIE ) and covers lots of current international topics. No pop culture and intentionally balanced opinions. British or American edition available for spelling. The newspaper comes with two sets of exercises and is delivered every two weeks. The Flesch-Kincaid level runs from 6-11 with an average of 8.3 and the Lexile level runs from 860 to 1150 with an average of about 950-1020. You can make as many copies for your school as you want. To buy a year subscription is $32. Their blurb: Newsademic - a Children's newspaper used for educational resources, home schooling and English study

"LyricsTraining is an easy and fun method to learn and improve your foreign languages skills, through the music videos and lyrics of your favorite songs." This is another site that is based of the students repeating what was said, but this one uses lyrics of the most popular songs. You can pick between beginner, intermediate, and advance for the settings. It's a nice way to introduce culture as well as language skills. BUT, this is really hard! Thankfully, the music stops if you haven't filled in the blanks. However, this takes away the authenticity. Having taught high school, I'm certain this would be something that age group would be interested in. Something to consider.

PBS Learning Media Home Page. An ENORMOUS resource for authentic materials for all age groups.