Tag Archives: website

5 Card Flickr – Storytelling….

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Yesterday on twitter, I was pinged and asked about “Storyboards”. I offered my own collected resources, including Story Dominoes. Both fine resources with photos which students can use to either tell or write a story. A wonderful activity (and always make sure to get students to share their stories, the final part of the learning process – or should be!).
I got to thinking some more on this type of resource and shared my Writing with Pictures resources but then was reminded of the fantastic 5 card flickr website.

It is simple to play and students can either tell a story based on the photos or even write / read a story on the website.  Here’s one I made and which you can use for telling in class.

Students simply select one of five photos offered. They continue to do this 5 times and will have 5 images. Then they can save the story and write it or tell it. So simple!  Make sure to click the random button to get a random story!

Need just one story?  We have the largest online library of stories for all levels. You’ll be amazed!

The #1 …. (voicethread of all time)

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Number One** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1.

Dr. Quinn’s Love Line

I can’t tell you how many tears of laughter I’ve shared with students while using Dr. Quinn as an example of Voicethread. He’s incredible and even after 5+ years, still brillant and new as the sun is each day.

I’m really proud of being one of Voicethread’s first supporters. I saw immediately the revolutionary thing they were and cheered it on as such. Really proud too of my own Voicethreads that have acted as models for many EFL teachers. But alas, I could never, ever beat, nor could anyone Dr. Quinn. It is so real, so genuine. A gem.

See my own tutorials for using/making your own Voicethreads – HERE.

EnglishCentral: What’s coming. Part II

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This continues the first post about forthcoming changes to EnglishCentral – the website that gets students motivated through authentic video and speaking.

EnglishCentral I must admit, is slowly becoming a powerful “video corpus”. Imagine taming the unruly thing that is youtube so that it might be easily used in class. Pull out any grammar term you are looking at in class and watch many examples of it. Or pull out a word and see it used in different contexts in different videos. Scour the billions of lines of speech in the corpus that is youtube and harness that for the betterment of your students (and also for some research – but students first!). I’m happy to admit, the changes in the next release of EnglishCentral bring us to the edge of this reality. Truly. (plus, unlike youtube – no ads!)

More of the changes coming very, very soon on EnglishCentral.

1. Search will become more powerful. Pull up a “video wordlist” and see words used in video context. So don’t just search for a topic or the word in a video but pull up that word (from the 70,000 + now in our video library, word list). Note how you get different video lists depending on the function of that word. You can show students examples in not only different contexts but also of different usage (noun, verb, modifier etc…). Another vocab. change – we now use a headword system. So a word on EnglishCentral is only what we’d call a “head” and the mother of other uses. Soon too, you’ll be able to pull up functions, grammar points, idioms and more….

Note how you get different video lists depending on the function of that word. You can show students examples in not only different contexts but also of different usage (noun, verb, modifier etc…).

Another vocab. change – we now use a headword system. So a word on EnglishCentral is only what we’d call a “head” and the mother of other uses. Soon too, you’ll be able to pull up functions, grammar points, idioms and more….

2. Favorite a video and bookmark it for later “eating”. A great tool. Just click the star on the video and it’ll be in your My English page library! Coming soon – teachers will get this ability – to add on the fly, videos to their classes video curriculum assignments.

3. Get access to all content, no matter your membership level. Yes, that’s right! We’ll always let you sample premium content and have an open ended sampling model. Try it out, get a limited amount and see if you’ll benefit from it!

We are working hard to make EnglishCentral into a place where technology meets practicality. Where video is harnessed and controlled for the benefit of language learners and especially teachers/researchers. This summer we are sweating away in order to make this a reality. We are truly in Star Trek country, the final frontier.

EnglishCentral – what’s coming

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As an “insider”, I’m privy to a little of what is going on at EnglishCentral.  The team has really been working overtime and coming up with some fantastic changes that will be in a new release.

Here’s my insider’s sneak preview!

I hope you like the new look and changes. Please comment and let us know your thoughts about this or other things you think EnglishCentral should do. This summer we are working overtime to prepare for September and the school year. Working overtime to get EnglishCentral teacher ready.

Important Changes

1. The player will give students “fluency” feedback as well as that on pronunciation. Meaning, your students will also get scored at their ability to match the length of utterance and pause of the original video. If they don’t say the word(s) at the correct time, a pause icon will show and indicate this.  This is one step towards building a complete prosodic model by which to assess student speech. (forthcoming – tone/pitch/stress/power).

2. A simplified interface. Take a look – every page is less busy and easier to use and find what you need. In WATCH, simply click the sidebar and go any category. Drop down menus take you to the videos you want, instantly.

3. Unified Difficulty Level. Meaning, you’ll self select your level based on internationally recognized standards or the EC levels. When you use EnglishCentral, you’ll only get videos and vocabulary at your preselected levels. We’ll track your progress as you climb through the levels. Level 7 is the vocabulary beyond 8,000+ words and represents an addition 25,000 words of study!


Tomorrow, I’ll detail some more delicious changes you’ll love!

Note one thing. The teacher tools will remain the same BUT they will get an overhaul later this summer. They’ll be sleak, easy and work like a charm. We are working overtime on them!

The Proust Questionnaire in the EFL Classroom

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ProustLast week, I made a simple flash presentation for teachers that list all the questions used in Vanity Fair’s Proust Questionnaire. Also, listed the resources I’ve made for pairs to use the questionnaire (it is a kind of “reading role play” where one person is a celebrity and the other interviews).  Further for fun, got the chatbot answering Proust questions!

It is mainly for advanced students (as an authentic material) but is an excellent activity. I came up with the idea years ago while teaching LINC (Language Instructions for Newcomers to Canada). I was a Vanity Fair fan (hated the ads but loved the quality of writing) and read the Proust Questionnaire monthly. So I went to the library and “borrowed” the back pages of the interviews for my students (yes, “stealing” is something good teachers do – see my 7 deadly sins of great teachers post!). I made two copies. On had the questions erased, the other had the answers erased. In pairs students role played the interview. Then, I would have one pair role play for the whole class and the class had to guess who the famous person might be.

Nowadays, there are some nice online resources for using the Proust Questionnaire.

The interactive questionnaire.

Write out your answers and share the questionnaire response.

A comprehensive databank and list of all the interviews

[you might also use the Ten Questions database from TIME magazine ]

I’m writing this post not just to share these resources and this great idea. I was also prompted by @proustdotcom on twitter who sent me these tweets.

prousttwitter

proustlogoProust.com can be used in a variety of ways. Check it out and in particular the list of questions which students can respond to in writing. They can ask each other through social media and it would make for fantastic writing practice! You might even just use their cool Kinetic Typography intro (and I’m into this stuff!).

So to briefly respond to their request for ideas! (check is in the mail!)

> Make the responses audio or video based and teachers able to create a classroom for the response forum. Or even a Voicethread style site for collective responses.

> Writing. Teachers can make a Wallwisher type area where the notes are title questions. Click on a post it and you get to respond to that question in detail or read from others.

> An interview yourself community like WhoHub

> A board game for learning English/speaking English. Flash online version too! Also just a deck of flashcards (I made two sets in our Quizlet Flashcards!)

What other ideas can you add? Let’s help out Proust.com!

If you liked this post – you might like Sharing Yourself Online

The #1 …. site for debate materials

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Number One** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1.

True Tube

truetube

I’ve been on TrueTube since the beginning and watched it flourish as a go to site for great, critical content for educational use. In the beginning, a one woman show, now a big production. A real educational success story.

The materials are A+ and all the categories revolve around an issue. For example (because it is in the news), The Royal Family . Along with materials that you can directly use in class. Many, many categories/debates. I particularly recommend and have used – Beauty vs Intelligence and Degree vs Training

As they say on the site:

TrueTube is a FREE teaching resource offering:

High-quality youth-led videos on social issues to inspire classroom debate
Free resources and film-making tools to help bring your teaching to life!

A plethora of authentic material with a youth flavor for your classroom.

Find other debate material on EFL Classroom 2.0. Lots of instructional materials for EFL / ESL on how to hold a debate, topics, organizers, powerpoints and more…

Embedding and Hidden Challenge on EnglishCentral

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bubblesEnglishCentral, a site where student can practice “speaking” English using authentic videos and “hip” content – just got better.

I’ve been working closely with the EnglishCentral team and you can expect more developments along the lines of sharing and social media. Also, being able to search and use this powerful “video corpus”. You’ll be able to search for “idioms” or any other language term and pull up loads of video examples. It’s powerful and exciting.

The two recent changes that I think will really help teachers are:

1. You can now embed their videos and use them on your school page / site!

2. The Hidden Challenge. Take away words and use as a listening cloze.

See a couple screenshots of each below. Also, note that you can easily just copy any transcript to the right of the video and then paste into a word document for printing and use in class! And of course, EnglishCentral continues to build up their teacher tools into a regular LMS (learning management system).

Enjoy using EnglishCentral with your students. A site with a perfect balance of CI (comprehensible input) and CO (comprehensible output).

ec hidden challenge

ec embed

CDLP – a wonderful adult listening site

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CDLP – The California Distance Learning Project, is one of the many governmental sites leading the way towards free online learning resources.

It doesn’t have a lot of “flash” but it has an abundance of semi authentic materials with audio and extra vocabulary study. Excellent stuff that will interest students. Just choose a category and find audio / video and text. Students can return there after class for more practice. While the vocabulary study is just a mish mash of stuff, it does help. Note – this site is designed for adult learners.

I can see teachers copying the script and using this in class to design materials along with the great audio that supports it. You could even have students present an article every day and then design discussion activities for each.

A wonderful resource and along with USA Learns, the other American resource site for adult learners – makes me want to sing, “God Bless America”!

Abracadabra – Self Directed Learning

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One thing that I’m very convinced of, is the notion that us teachers are “motivators”. It is our job to motivate our students, to lead our students towards becoming self directed learners, learning for themselves, intrinsically.

Oh sure, we have to do all the regular classroom stuff but at the end of the day – with language, there aren’t enough class hours. That’s why it is imperative to give students the chance/opportunity to learn online. Further, to actually make this part of your curriculum. Use online materials in class and then have students practice them online at home, the library or the coffee shop. So teachers, get making a wiki (see this one as an example – I recommend Pbworks )and put up your links for students to practice! You’ll find lots of great links here and none better than Abracadabra.

I’m back in Canada and was reminded of this great Canadian literacy site made by Concordia University. It has everything, including assessment tools. Though a “reading” site and not specifically a second language site, it is terribly appropriate for ELLs! Teachers, read all about the framework for the site HERE. However note, it is directed towards young learners.

Other self directed learning sites teachers can post on their school / class wiki:

Language Lab here on EFL Classroom 2.0 – make one log in and all your students use the same one!

Quizlet – see all our flashcards or make your own. Students then learn the vocabulary by playing flashcard games online.

Mingoville – like Abracadabra, a learning environment for YLs that has characters and a lot of free content.

Click and Learn- a Spanish site with loads of activities for students to practice/study English.

English Central- nothing more cutting edge! Watch videos and practice the dialogue. Teachers sign up and track students!

Take a look at my voicethread and find more great sites! Make a comment on those you like. (click the site name below the photo – to visit the site itself)

Get your students being self directed learners!


Sen Teacher – using materials for the disabled.

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Sen Teacher is the bomb! The last few years I’ve been acquainting myself with special education and also finding that so many special ed. techniques/tools/methods really work well with language learning. Same with websites, they offer a plethora of resources for use in our classroom. Sen Teacher does too!

(Tar Heel Reader and Reading Resource are just two sites specific to special education that have great cross over to EFL/ELT. See this blog post for more info on this subject. Also see our Picture Sets, used by the learning and physically disabled but which are perfect for teaching English!)

Go here for lots of printables. Just print and go but you can also change the information and then print. Make sure to see the dice and the link cards. Also, the certificate maker and bubbles….many other things, including lots of free software. Make sure to share what you find here! Happy hunting, Sen Teacher is amazing!

Using free “subway” newspapers in our classes

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Today, I’m in Vancouver and gorging on newspapers and English reading. One thing I read was the Metro newspaper and I got to thinking of times I’ve used it in my own teaching.

The Metro newspaper is a real newspaper, an authentic material (and read my comprehensive post on authentic materials in the EFL Classroom for more ideas) that teachers all over the world can use in their teaching. It is now available in a nice PDF version. Use the US. or Canadian versions for English.  Just open the issuu flash ebook and select “download pdf” . You can even select specific pages and not the whole paper (in most cases).   Here’s an example from today’s Toronto paper. metronewsexample
The Metro is a subway/transit magazine. As such, it is written in very simple English. Newspapers traditionally have been very hard to use in the English as a second language classroom. Too idiomatic, too filled with colloquialisms and local language and flavor. The Metro is different and very useable in our classrooms!
In my own teaching, I’d always bring in a stack for the classroom each day. Mostly because I really believe it our duty and not just the duty of a social science teacher – to involve our students in the world around us (see this presentation – The Top 10 Reasons to use Current Events in the Classroom as my argument). It is important to get students aware of the world outside their own social circle. My students always used these newspapers informally and now teachers all over the world can use the Metro in their own classrooms.
Here is today’s PDF version for Toronto as an example. (just click the issue and then the download icon at the top)  Lots of ways you might use it. Here are some:
1. D.E.A.R. – Drop Everything And Read sessions. Print and give articles/pages to student to read for 5 minutes of self sustained reading.
2. Read and Tell: Students read one article and then jigsaw into groups and share what they read.
3. 5 Ws. Students read an article and find the 5 Ws of it. Then share their reporting with the class.
4. As a daily start to the day/lesson. What’s the top story? Read together.
5. Horoscopes/ads/Advice/Recipes: use these as the basis of lessons in your class or activities.
So much more! Now, what was once only available to ESL teachers, is now available to EFL teachers – all due to the power of technology and all free!

Quiz Break – easy Jeopardy style review game maker

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Teachers use and love Jeopardy. I know, I’ve made hundreds and got a lot of great feedback about all the different games. Find them in our Jeopardy power point games area

Now, you even have more options than the traditional power point or high skilled flash builders – we now have Quiz Break! See an example of what you can make HERE.
I’ve long championed a lot of the simple applications developed by CLEAR (Center for Language Education and Research). I used their audio drop box for a number of years. They’ve developed Quiz Break and it really is an easy way to make a jeopardy quiz game.

All you have to do is click each title or category and then input what you want. You’ll need to do a short registration, that’s all. It will store your game afterwards and provide you with a link/url to use.

What’s cool about Quiz Break is that you can record audio with your microphone or even a video! Really simple. Of course, also upload a photo too, either by url or from your computer.

All in all, a great tool. Make sure to share your games here on EFL Classroom 2.0 too! Hat tip to Larry Ferlazzo for making me aware of this.

Top 60 Websites for teaching/learning English

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This presentation is often visited and I’m proud I took the time to distill and filter and come up with what I think are “winners”. Takes teachers so much time to find “gold” and this will help. Not a full answer but ……

Sit back and enjoy a cool CC tune from CCmixter!

Get the ebook version with direct clickable links below. Enjoy and please tell us which ones you use a lot, what gold YOU”VE bought.

Woices – travel, record, listen …

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Woices is Wonderful! It is a fairly new site which enables teachers or students to roam and listen to authentic audio about different places. Even download it for classroom use!

Basically, you browse a google map, find a region of the world you want to know about and then listen/search the audio that has been recorded there. If you sign up, you can even make your own recording and share your travels! Here’s an example I made – also see below, a more detailed screencast explaining many of the wonderful features of Woices in more detail. It is quite new but I’m sure as the audio library grows, it will become even more outstanding…. Get traveling, get recording!

The #1 …(way to do a Needs Analysis)

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Number One** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1.

Wall Wisher

Wallwisher is a place where students can go and put up “post it notes” about a topic. I can think of many ways to use Wallwisher with students but none better than getting students to reply about what they want to learn in the course or what they liked best about a course. It is a tremendously powerful tool for soliciting student feedback.

Needs surveys are important and can be pre, during and post course. They allow the teacher to alter the curriculum and tailor it to the student’s learning style, levels, beliefs and motivation. HERE is a nice presentation I use with my graduate students about Needs Analysis.

Teachers can simply post up a simple question and let students reply in short post its. Example questions might be – “What do you like best / hate about the textbook units?” “How do you learn best?” “What should we do more of in class?” “What is your favorite topic?” etc….

Think about using Wallwisher with your students and giving them some input about the course, the textbook or the teaching/learning! See my complete tutorial and guide on ELT and TECH. Download this nice “How to use Wallwisher” guide and also see my recent Website of the Day post. Go HERE to find some more amazing ways to use Wallwisher!

Here’s one example!

Quizlet now has voice recognition for student practice!

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I’ve started up our long dormant Quizlet flashcard group. Even make your own flashcards and share them (use our ID/PW – eflclassroom/eflclassroom

However even better, is to get your students playing the games online. Yes, you can print and cut out all the flashcards (this is superb!!!) but now with their new “speaking” component, there are more reasons for your students to practice online. Students can “speak” the flashcard word or sentence and try to make it disappear. Really works!

Watch the tutorial I unprofessionally made – it does the job of introducing you to it. Then send your students to Quizlet for practice. This is cool — your voice has magic and what you say can make things happen!


The #1 (website for YLs vocabulary)

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Number One** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1.

KinderSay

There are so many great websites for teaching young learners. See a list of my own below (culled from my big list, also attached). However, after our own resources here (always got to toot our own horn!). KinderSay is next in line.

It has wonderfully colorful images and rich, clear audio. It works fluidly and you can easily click “slideshow” and get a presentation for whichever content you want to display. What’s even better – students can visit it outside of class without registration and practice safe and soundly. A great site and big help to teachers!

Recommended Websites for Young Learners Recommended Websites for Teaching English

eHow – “How to” video for the classroom

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eHow is a video site with rich, user created video about “How to ” do things. It also has lists and writing about “How to” but I find the videos most useful in class. It has grown after absorbing the site I loved and wrote about previously - Expert Village.

Some topics that have sterling video here are: arts and crafts (paper folding/origami for example), dances, recipes and writing. Just type in a topic and see what comes up. (but be sure to select “video” from the search bar.

“How to” videos can be taught in simple steps.

Here’s one way of teaching with an eHow video.

1. Previewing. Ask the students about the topic.

2. Ordering. Ask the students to try and put the “how to” into steps. Use sequencial transitions: First / Next / Then / After that / Finally
3. Watch the video. Pause if needed to check understanding.
4. Jigsaw. Give students the steps but “cut up” and out of order. Watch again and as students watch, they put them in order. (you can just copy and paste the “instructions” below each video, maybe changing some words)
5. Presenting/Produce. Mix up again and one student “teaches” the others by doing actions and saying the steps – like the video!
6. Extension: Write up on large poster paper the steps with pictures.
Remember: most of these videos can also be found on youtube. Find them there and download using http://keepvid.com That way, you have a reliable copy for use off line.
Here’s a standard that’s in many curriculum – How to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Google has Flipped Out! A lonely EFL Teachers lifeline…

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I remember “years” ago when I got out of teacher’s college and first began teaching overseas in the Czech Rep. There was no internet back then (92) nor satellite TV or even English TV. And only once a week did one copy of the European (do you remember that wonderful creation of the eccentric Robert Maxwell? I adored it.) arrive at the downtown “tabac”. If I was one minute late, I’d be out a whole weeks worth of delicious reading! Never mind the weeks when it didn’t arrive or something happened! As one of the few English souls in that city, that newspaper was my lifeline to the rest of the world and a means of keeping sane.

I still maintain the newspaper habit and the news habit. I’m like Hegel saying “I can’t wait to get up and read what’s new in the world each day!” However, despite my technological prowess I can’t can’t can’t stand reading online. Until now!!!!!

Google released yesterday FAST FLIP. And I’m flipping out with gladness. All other teachers living in lonely corners of the world, should also see flipping out merrily. It is incredible and finally a company “gets it” . They’ve in many ways recreated the magazine flipping reading experience. You can easily flip through major magazines. They’ve kept it very simple – no zooming or hyper linking. Just the facts mam, like the paper version. Read a full review here.

It’s marvelous and give it a go! I also recommend WATCHING AMERICA for translated articles from other foreign news agencies. Unique viewpoints.

Also, any lonely English teacher working abroad should get LIVE STATION. It is a great TV server that is free with many news channels. It really is a god send for me. Just a quick sign up and download and you’ll have lots of news viewing to help you keep intouch with the wider world!

English Central – Bringing “voice” and output to learning English.

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english central

English Central is a new video site bringing “Voice” to learners. I’ve long written and promoted the use of both speech recognition and text to speech for language learners. English Central is at the forefront of this movement harnessing the power of new technology to facilitate language acquisition. It takes video language learning sites like Yappr or English Star, one step further and into a very powerful realm of “CO” or comprehensible output (as so well articulated by my fellow Canadian Merrill Swain)

What does English Central do?

Well, first, watch their demo here and speak like Obama. It really is complete and walks the user through everything. Free, a short sign up is necessary. You’ll need a headset / microphone, that’s all.

On English Central you can choose a nice video (one of 3 levels) and then listen to the lines of dialogue in the clip. Text / subtitle support is provided or it can be hidden. Next, record your voice, “speaking” the same line(s) that you listened to. Get feedback instantly as to how well you pronounced / intoned / stressed / spoke the lines. Are you a budding Marlon Brando? English Central will give you a grade and enter it on their scoreboard. You’ll even get feedback on your total clip progress and a score for the complete video. It works reliably and I found that the feedback was incredibly useful. I don’t know how they do it (technologically speaking) but it works! Listen to yourself afterward. Your voice is recorded instantly and the whole process is very seamless – something I find very appealing about EC. English Central is not a creaky jalopy but a Ferrari.

It gets even better. Several other things that I find makes English Central sparkle;

1. Click on any word and get a definition and instantly hear how it is pronounced in isolation. Wow! Teachers might even use this in classroom instruction.

2. Quiz mode. You can turn off verbs or nouns and these will be hidden in the subtitles. This makes a sparkling listening activity / exercise! Even fine tune it and tell it “how many” to turn off.

3. A library of your work. You can easily go back and work on the video clips you’ve been using to practice. Try to improve your score.

4. Keyboard shortcuts. Many might not use these but they are very useful once you start using English Central a lot.

5. “Hear this line again”. Easily repeat the line and listen to it again. Works flawlessly and really helps the user. Also, I love the “hear this line slowed down” feature.

6. Recommend a video. You can recommend a video to be put on their site for study. I like that English Central “controls” the inputting of videos and their selection is excellent. I hope they remain in control of the library of clips – they are the experts as to which videos would work well for language acquisition.

7. Great interface / design and so well thought out from the users “functional” perspective.

______________________________________________________

What could be better or I hope will be forthcoming?

1. I’d love to be able to playback the whole video of myself speaking the lines without stopping for each line.

2. Wouldn’t it be great if like green screen technology allows for video (where you can “stand in” or appear in a video clip), you could record your voice and replace one person in the clip. So for example, you could be pretend to be a famous person being interviewed or Forrest Gump and read their lines in the video. This would be great and even take this tool out of the realm of “education” and into “entertainment”.

3. Music. Despite their being great karaoke sites / communities out there. (like SingSnap) — there really is a need for a video karaoke application. So with English Central you could record the lines of your favorite song! So far no music videos are offered and I can understand how hard this might be given the “nazi ” approach to copyright the music biz has. But I can wish!

4. I’d love to be able to have community there. Embed your video clips, share, distribute. There needs to be more commenting and sharing on English Central. Hopefully this is forthcoming. Also, why not have a place where teachers can register students? A kind of group. There, the teacher can see all their student’s progress and view what they’ve done. This could be a nice add on and for a low fee I’m sure many teachers would sign up.

5. Why not take speech recognition one step further? I’d love to see developed (and in particular, for students both L1 and L2 – to learn to read) the ability to speak our own words and see the words appear on the screen. Capture them and have playback. So a student learning to read could “speak” their own words which they understand – SEE the words appear and thus, quickly acquire phonemic awareness. I know this is far beyond English Central’s focus but it really is something we have to see in the future. It would make learning to read a snap and not the very time consuming and frustrating process it is for both teachers and students alike.

All in all, though still in Beta — English Central rulz! and is a ***** site for self learning/study. It even has some possibilities for classroom instruction. Check it out and more importantly, get your students using it!