Group items tagged

History, culture, bits and bobs.

Tricky listening s but they do have transcripts s ... @icpjones @balfepaula @sghani how about this http://t.co/enLioSj95m Tricky listening s but they do have transcripts so can be quite good - Rachel Smith (lancslassrach) http://twitter.com/lancslassrach/status/321932756676390912

The annoncement of this site created quite a stir in EU among educators. It was meant to open today, March 6, 09, but for the time being it says: "Face à la trop forte affluence, le site faismesdevoirs.com réouvrira lundi matin pour le plus grand bonheur de tous. Tous les devoirs qui nous ont été envoyés seront corrigés."

Orson Welles had quite a career in radio, from his days as The Shadow and his Mercury Theatre On The Air, to the radio version of his Third Man character from the movie, and beyond. This podcast will replay his radio performances from his various series and guest appearances.

A different way to search the web-seems quite user-friendly

lots of resources but quite advanced/ grammar-based

"A strategy to support pupils improve their spelling strategies, by circling words which they think require attention. The Standards & Testing Agency have in some ways made the marking of spellings more problematic than it's ever been. They state quite clearly, that individual spellings should no longer be pointed out to children if you wish to mark it as an independent piece. This, coupled with Ofsted's move away from heavy amounts of marking needing to be seen in books, could make the marking of spelling seem tricky."

Advice for language learners General warning: what follows may or may not apply to you. It's based on what linguistics knows about people in general (but any general advice will be ludicrously inappropriate for some people) and on my own experience (but you're not the same as me). If you have another way of learning that works, more power to you. Given the discussion so far, the prospects for language learning may seem pretty bleak. It seems that you'll only learn a language if you really need to; but the fact that you haven't done so already is a pretty good indication that you don't really need to. How to break out of this paradox? At the least, try to make the facts of language learning work for you, not against you. Exposure to the language, for instance, works in your favor. So create exposure. * Read books in the target language. * Better yet, read comics and magazines. (They're easier, more colloquial, and easier to incorporate into your weekly routine.) * Buy music that's sung in it; play it while you're doing other things. * Read websites and participate in newsgroups that use it. * Play language tapes in your car. If you have none, make some for yourself. * Hang out in the neighborhood where they speak it. * Try it out with anyone you know who speaks it. If necessary, go make new friends. * Seek out opportunities to work using the language. * Babysit a child, or hire a sitter, who speaks the language. * Take notes in your classes or at meetings in the language. * Marry a speaker of the language. (Warning: marry someone patient: some people want you to know their language-- they don't want to teach it. Also, this strategy is tricky for multiple languages.) Taking a class can be effective, partly for the instruction, but also because you can meet others who are learning the language, and because, psychologically, classes may be needed to make us give the subject matter time and attention. Self-study is too eas

Video Mail in a Blink! It's fun, it's easy and there's nothing to install Flash-based so no download and for Mac and PC. Free account allows for one-minute messages. Message receivers don't have to sign up to watch the message it seems. That's good. Teachers can send message to students and encourage them to continue and reply. This is especially nice for online learners and teachers. Students can send each other messages to practise speaking and listening. Speaking for a minute is probably not that scary :)

I agree and have used eyejot quite a bit. They've made it more friendly in the past year. But the friendliest way to encourage students is to use Bubblejoy. http://www.bubblejoy.com/intro.php Pick an interesting ecard/frame your students will love! David http://eflclassroom.com

Thanks for this, David! It never hurts to have options.