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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.

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

Free site that matches you with a penpal from one of 133 countries. Could be used to help students find someone to practice their language skills with.

Dipity is a tool for creating timelines. Students could create timelines and view each other's timelines, as well as practice citing sources with this software. Photos can also be view as a flipbook, list or map (if geography is important in your class). I think this tool would be great for teaching history in CBI, or for having students tell their personal story. Students could create a timeline for a loved one, or maybe follow their favorite celebrity. A word of caution: many of the users on this site have created timelines that are NOT classroom-appropriate.

My blurb: If you find yourself in the position of teaching basic computer skills, this site is an excellent resource. They have instructional videos on computer basics, like operating a mouse or using a keyboard. The videos can be played with or without subtitles, and include games to practice your newly learned skills. There are four courses: the Webwise Online course, Internet Basics, Computer Basics, and Social Media Basics. There is also a glossary of common computer terms. This is really a very practical website! Their blurb: Online courses on computer basics, internet basics and the 10 hour WebWise Online Course

Jennifer ESL could be used in the classroom or for self-study. I really like her videos because she goes into detail about pronunciation. I think she gives explanations that are thorough, but comprehensible for beginning students. I would suggest that students use this resource outside of class for additional practice.

This website gives learners an interactive way to work on noticing and correcting spelling errors and other types of errors. For one activity I tried(there are three different types ), a sample writing is provided that learners must try and correct using editing symbols. This could be a good way to have learners develop their editing skills outside of class on their own. There are also different types of activities, including spelling and reading, spelling and writing and spelling and thinking. So it seems there is some integration of different skills into the interactive activities. Learners can also choose their level, so with some experimenting teachers could recommend an appropriate level based on learners' proficiency level.

I like this. It can be used to train students on how to comment on their peers' papers. Very interesting

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.

This site, though the interface is about as awesome as Compleat Lexical Tutor, provides a simple self-study tool for academically-oriented students. This resource is appropriate for TOEFL and IELTS preparation, as well as advanced IEP courses. The benefits of this website are the inclusion of a pronunciation and definition for each word, as well as gap-fill exercises to practice using each word in context. The major limitation of this site is that the exercises are only gap-fill.

iTunes has a plethora of podcasts available for free, many of which are for language purposes. Podcasts are audio shows, so to speak, which are uploaded in an episodic fashion. I browsed through some of the language podcasts, including ElementalEnglish.com's "English Pronunciation and Language Lessons," the VOA's "American Stories--Voice of America," and BBC World Service's "English at Work." In the podcast descriptions, the authors usually list language level, and the speakers tend to modify their input so listeners can understand. These types of podcasts are useful for listening practice and for supplementary material in the classroom. There are other podcasts available as well, ranging from Mugglenet's MuggleCast (a Harry Potter themed podcast) to podcasts dedicated to comedians. These podcasts can be useful in the language classroom, as they present more authentic listening material, especially for more advanced learners. Podcasts are a great way for students to engage in their interests while practicing listening, with just one potential set-back: the set up. To access the podcasts, students must download iTunes (if they do not already have it) or it needs to be downloaded onto school computers. From there, one can access the Apple Store (though podcasts are mostly free), and then they can browse the selection. It can be tricky at times to find a good one, but once you do, the podcast can be downloaded onto mp3 players, so students can listen to them on the go, if they want. Note: Because the iTunes store is accessed through iTunes, I could not put a URL. The one above does, however, provide more information on what goes into making a podcast.

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.

Live Mocha is an online multi-language community that can be used in a number of ways: Members can write and/or video chat to speakers of their target language, complete practice exercises in all skill areas, and record themselves speaking so other members can review submissions and offer suggestions (if they do not want to do a live video chat). As a teacher, I believe this website is a great resource, especially to supplement in-class materials. Students can sign up (membership is free) and communicate regularly with native speakers of their target language. For a reading and writing class, this website would be a fairly easy one to use in order to set up pen pals. For a listening and speaking class, the role plays and video dialogues could be useful.

Livemocha is a site I personally use to improve my L2. You can learn for free through an exchange program of helping others and in return they help you. On the other hand you can sign up for a personal tutor for a fee.

Brainstorming is an important part of the writing process. Bubbl allows students to draw mind maps on the computer. In class we talked about creating mind maps in Google Draw, but Bubbl might be easier to use in the sense that you don't have to create the structure for the mind map itself. By simply clicking the tab key, you can add another idea bubble. By clicking enter, you can add a new "level" of ideas. You can also click on the line connecting idea bubbles and hit delete if you would like to separate the ideas. These mind maps can be saved, printed, or exported. I have used mind maps in my writing classes before (with paper and pencil), but sometimes they can get a bit messy and hard to read. One benefit to using this website is that students can edit their maps and keep them fairly organized and easy to read. My students also appreciate opportunities to practice typing in English, so they may be more motivated to type up their idea maps. However, brainstorming activities in class are often fairly short. Sometimes it is a quick 10-minute activity at the beginning of class to get ideas flowing. Using the computer to create mind maps may not be ideal for these quick warm-up activities since time will have to be spent familiarizing students with the website itself.

This is Berkeley's youtube channel. It has a ton of videos of lectures from various disciplines. It would be a great resource for advanced listening comprehension/extensive listening practice, and EAP listening.

Here's my blurb: This website, hosted by the University of Houston, explores the educational uses of digital storytelling. The site contains practical information regarding different digital storytelling programs, and provides "how to" activities for writing scripts, designing storyboards, and recording audio. There is also lesson planning information, copyright information, and a discussion of rubrics for assessment and evaluation. Here's there blurb: About this Site The Goals of this Website The primary goal of the Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling website is to serve as a useful resource for educators and students who are interested in how digital storytelling can be integrated into a variety of educational activities.

If you do a digital storytelling project with your students, the Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling site linked to a contest for K-12 students to submit their stories and win cool awards such as iPods and has contests for the best stories, and your students could potentially win awards, such as iPod Minis and iPod Nanos, and scholarships up to $8000. Pretty cool motivator, don't you think? Here's the link: http://www.distco.org/

This site is a good resource for listening practice. The site offers a proficiency test so that students can figure out what level of listenings they should start with. Then they have a page full of different recordings from English speakers all over the world so that students can get more familiar with different accents. Finally the students can take a test that will tell them whether or not they understood the passage.

"Learn English with our free tools for ESL students, including English language references, activities including tests and polls, and articles on English usage. Our ESL forum is the perfect place get help learning English, where people are online to answer your questions 24 hours a day." This site can be very useful for students who need to practice English for Specific Purposes because it has like a Business English section and common idioms section. I don't feel that this site would replace a classroom very well but could easily be used as supplementary to a classroom and a place where students can ask questions if they don't want to bother their teachers.

"Quizzes, tests, exercises and puzzles to help you learn English as a Second Language (ESL). This project of The Internet TESL Journal (iteslj.org) has thousands of contributions by many teachers." This site offers quizzes and crosswords for students learning English as well as bilinbual quizzes that take the students first language into account. It has a pretty large bilingual quiz base that uses many of the worlds languages from Zulu to Spanish to Arabic. It seems to be a little childish looking and there aren't a ton of quizzes to choose from but it could definitely be a good resource for extra practice for students.

This site has ideas, printable materials, discussion forums, and employment opportunities. It shows how to teach Film and Video, teach with the Internet, and using songs and music. You can sign up for free and download a limited amount of worksheets per month from www.education.com/worksheets. You can select by Grade or Subject. These are mostly useful for homeschoolers or in regular children's classrooms. It offers content-based ideas with integrated skills including conversation, listening, speaking, reading, writing, and Vocabulary. The Grammar is practiced in communicative settings. ESL PartyLand is a nice home base for Internet tools including up-to-date addresses for Dave's ESL Café, EF Englishtown, Kent's ESL Wonderland, On-line TOEFL Materials, and Randall's CyberListening Lab. It funnels all these sites into one page for easy reference. Other sites it observes as interesting include The All Music Guide, The Discovery Channel on-line, Earth Alert, and Lonely Planet On-line.

"ESL, English as a second language, teaching materials and resources for speaking, study and learning. TESOL teachers, schools, and programs." This source is useful for both students and teachers. Students can practice their skills. They can do anything from talking to someone in English or studying for the TEFOL exam. For teachers, this site is an excellent resource. Teachers can find anything from sample lessons to specific textbooks to use in the classroom. I used this site last semester for my practicum, and it almost always had something useful or lead me in the right direction. It's truly a great resource to take advantage of!