NAU CALL

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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!

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

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

"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 a list of hundreds of the most common mistakes that learners make when learning English that students could reference when they get feedback from their teachers. It is a little messy looking as a website so I wouldn't use it as a teacher or use it a lot but it is a good quick reference if students can't remember the difference say between explicitly and implicitly.

"These video chapters and web resources will assist students with their written and verbal communication skills. Content areas included are grammar, composition, and mechanics from Kindergarten to Grade 12." This site can also help supplement classroom material for students still in the k-12 grades who need to get better at their English language proficiency. This could especially be helpful for students who enter the American school system who speak a different L1 at home.

"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.

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.

This website has multiple things to hep both students and teachers. Students can work on different skills from grammar to pronunciation on this website and teachers can get ideas and connect with other teachers through forums. Also this site posts ESL jobs so if a teacher is looking for a job this website is a good resource.

Eview.net is a site for ESL teachers that could be helpful in a listening and speaking class. The site has stream-able mp3s of interviews with speakers who have various English accents. Each exercise comes with a gloss and comprehension questions as well. This might be a good way to emphasize English as a global language.

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.

While browsing the language learning resources from various universities, I came across these links for international broadcasts on Indiana University's website. There is also a link to SCOLA, a non-profit that provides authentic foreign language learning resources. You can get a SCOLA app or web subscription. In terms of evaluating foreign language news sites, I'd say to use similar criteria as you would in evaluating other classroom activities. Does the content relate to class material and/or student interests? Is the level appropriate (vocabulary, pace, etc)? Is the length appropriate, and can you justify using class time to watch or read this material?