NAU CALL

Bek sent out this link that explains why Ells should use learner dictionaries rather than dictionaries written for native speakers. The presentation could be incorporated into a high-intermediate listening and speaking class.

This site provides lessons for differing level of English speakers (as well as some other languages) They are free and happen at the same times every week. The downside is that there are not very many different lessons and they work through Second Life which is a free virtual world. You have to make an avatar and then go to the virtual site of the lesson in order to participate. This could be very fun for some learners because it is kind of like playing a video game that also has language lessons.

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

This is a resourcefull website! Lesson plans, topics, quizzes, activities, forums... Enjoy!!

Do you teach listening and speaking and you are short on appropriate videos that you can play for your class? This website provides a number of videos accompanied with questions that you may give to your students... Enjoy!

Found this interesting blog post about how you can pretty easily use corpora to validate claims about idiom frequency. I think this could be a useful technique for evaluating certain kinds of textbooks as well as selecting fixed expressions for your own teaching content/materials.

This is a very intersting website. It is very interactive. Students can be asked/ encouraged to visit this website to gain more practice with the Eng;sih grammar. It can also help teachers with ideas on how to design effective grammar activities

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."

When I opened a lesson on grammar, it had a lesson with a Q & A section below it where students can check their own answers. A daily vocab word is also on the page. Lessons include grammar, reading, vocab, listening, pronunciation, slang/idioms. From the Website: "Learning English as a second language (ESL) is not always easy, but it should be fun. 5 Minute English has been designed to give you short and easy explanations and exercises. You can also find answers to questions that other students have had about confusing things in English. This is under the Question and Answer section. Take your time and come back to 5 Minute English often. You'll be surprised at how much English you can learn with a little dedication."

This is a quirky website that I used in my high school creative writing class. I think that ESLers could use this page to talk about syllables, pronunciation, and of course rhyming. Through a simple search, students could discover a very wide variety of new words from the suggested rhymes on this site. The attention to phoneme-grapheme association (spelling vs. pronunciation) will reinforce emerging literacy skills. Overall, I just find this to be a fun site for generating ideas and word knowledge.

There are lots of videos on youtube that have specific parts that seem suited for the classroom. However many of them have commercials and take time to set up for use in the classroom. Tubechop allows you to decide how much of a youtube video you want to use, then you can edit out the parts you don't want and save the clipped video for use in the classroom. It is a simple website, but could be valuable for creating listening videos for classroom use and assessments, especially for listening.

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 don't think this resource has been posted yet. It's a website with simple news stories for English language learners. Each news story has a recorded version that learners can listen to and a transcript for them to read. The transcripts have glosses for difficult words as well. Overall, it looks like a good resource for in or out of class reading or listening activities.

I like stories that come with transcripts. Because it will help students listen and read at the same time. I think that having students with different learning styles, this would be extremely beneficial. Thanks Alan

You can find all the course presentations on my Slideshare account. I'll try to post them on BB Learn as well.

Something a little different to talk about in your listening and speaking classes, an App for Dance free at iTunes (Clips at YouTube). Volume 1: http://bit.ly/fcvYmV (Carmen DeLavallade, Deborah Jowitt, Regina Larkin, Christine Redpath and Megan Williams) Volume 2: http://bit.ly/ygu9R9 (Molissa Fenley, Margie Gillis, Miki Orihara & Stephen Pier, Risa Steinberg and Christine Wright) Volume 3: http://bit.ly/NdZiVA (David Leventhal, Jason McDole, Barbara Mahler and Christine Wright) From their site: "Dances for an iPhone is an App that features short dance movies by Richard Daniels for a stellar roster of dance artists… The Baryshnikov Arts Center named Mr. Daniels an artist in residence in 2009 (and 2011) in order to create these pieces… For more on Richard Daniels: http://www.DancesforaniPhone.com/… All are short, 3-5 minutes in length."

"Learn English online and prepare for IELTS with Languagelab. Practise with a qualified English speaking teacher, students from more than 70 countries, and learn English online." This is the selling pitch for Languagelab.com. It is a good resource for learners who aren't able to get to a classroom or have very limited availability because they have classes 24 hours. The courses are all online, but they do cost money, although not as much as a university class would cost.