Mail VU -Connected Classroom

Greetings to all!

Have you heard the term of 'connected classroom'? I believed all of us know what is classroom, but connected classroom? Well, it actually a way of connecting or extending the activities in the classroom to the outside world by doing another tasks at home. One of a great tool for this purpose is MailVU, a video mail that others can view! It is a pretty simple tool to use, even people who are not familiar with technology can use this easily! What you need are a microphone and a webcam to record a video and send it as an email.

The video can be recorded for the maximum of 10 minutes and if you are not satisfied with the recording, you can always record again and again because it is free! There is no need for you to sign in for you to use this tool, which is absolutely great!

Teaching recommendations:

I will absolutely use this tool for my future teaching context if there are enough equipments at my schools. MailVU is good because it can help teachers to create a new speaking task and make it as a homework! Students may be asked to record their own video at home and send them to teachers for evaluation. In fact, teachers can reply those emails with the similar video which will make the feedback process is much exciting.

So, how does the connected classroom will work? I give an example where teachers can ask students to work in pairs in the classroom and conduct an interview about their family members. The questions can be about their parents' occupations, or the background of their siblings. As homework, they are required to record a video using MailVU and introduce their family members and tell a brief story about thier family (based on the interview in the classroom). Once finished, they should send the video to the teacher for evaluation and further feedback.

MailVU is very suitable to encourage students to practice their speaking fluency because the video is recorded without others are watching it live. It reduces students' affective filter and makes them confident to speak, especially for those who are quiet in the classroom. Teachers however should provide some key vocabulary or language structures in the classroom before students can do the recording at home.

Why I like this website:
1. It is a new tool that can be used to set up speaking activity as homework now! The form of homework is not only in the books or papers.

2. Very easy to use by all level of students. There is no need for you to sign in or register in order to use the tool. and It's free!

3. A great way to practice speaking and fluency. And it is a fun way to use the language!

4. The file can be sent and share with your friends via email.

Some considerations:
1. Teachers need to consider problems such as computers equipment and background noise if they want to do the recordings in the classroom because the quality of videos may be affected.

2. The videos that you have recorded cannot be downloaded into computers and can only be viewed online.

Hello Elllo English!

Olla Everyone!

Today's website for you guys is Elllo English. Elllo English is one of the largest source for teaching and learning materials on web. It is also known as English Listening Lesson Library Online, where you can learn English naturally! As mention by its name, library, it also means there are lots and lots of listening texts that available for teachers and students to learn the language genuinely. The main focus of this website is listening skill, and the activities include multimedia, free MP3 files, vocabulary tasks, language notes, print page, comprehension exercises and many more. There are a lot of interesting topics to be chosen and cover for different levels of students. What I like the most is that they allow video sharing, where people from all over the world can send their videos to be used as listening texts! This is great because you can listen to many accents of English and their speech rate in their uploaded videos. 

The topics introduced are very engaging and interesting, and since it has thousands of listening collections, I am sure it will be hard for you to decide which one for you to choose! The examples of topics are culture, environment, lifestyle, health and sports. The texts are divided into 5 main areas (depends on the text type) which are Views, Mixer, Game, News and Scenes. See the red circle in the image below.

Teaching suggestions:

As this website focuses on listening skill, it is obviously very useful for teachers in their listening lessons. I believed the content in this site is suitable for all levels of students, because the videos are rated to which level they are relevant for. Moreover, for every listening text, there is also audio files for vocabulary pronunciation which is great for students to practice it. It is not only that, the audio also tells the description and meaning of the chosen phrases from the text, and students get to listen to them as many times as they want. If there is no facilities (computers, internet, etc) at schools, teachers can download the listening texts (depend on the topic) and print out the handouts for their students. Some texts are accompanied by visual shows, and if teachers are brilliant they may manipulate them to explain the content of the text to their students.

Another suggestion for teachers is to encourage students to use this programme as an autonomous learning source. Since it gives direct feedbacks for the exercises given, and the vocabulary enrichment are easily to be understood with brief explanation, I feel that it is very beneficial for second language learners. Students can choose any texts that they like and suit their interest before practising their listening skill. They can also challenge themselves by choosing the questions slightly above their level or they can even reward themselves by answering easy questions!

What I like about this website:
1. It has personalisation because students can choose any topic that is related to their interest and become even more motivated to learn the texts.

2. There are audio for each vocabulary item highlighted in the texts and it helps students to improve their pronunciation of words. It serves as a drilling activity if students listen to them for several times.

3. Lots and lots of different topics to be selected by students and teachers, thus provide varieties in the language lesson.

4. Users (teachers and students) are exposed to various accents of people who use English from all over the world.

5. There is a consistency in the arrangement of content, types of activities, audio and visual complimentary in this website.

6. FREE and no need to register!

Some considerations:
1. I feel that the layout of this website is too packed, full and there is not empty space can be seen. The page is full with words and advertisements sometimes can be very annoying as they may distract ones' focus in doing the activity.

2. Not all schools have enough facilities for all students and not all students have internet or even computers at home. For this, teachers can print out the text and exercises for students to do in the classroom and download the audio text for the listening activity.

3. Sometimes the website might not be functional if their serves are overloaded.

That's all for today. Let's learn English in a fun and easy way!

Click and Learn

Hello everyone!

For today's entry, I will introduce a language website that can be used in the classroom by English language teachers. It is Click and Learn! This website is developed by Spanish Government to support English language learners in their county. But since it is FREE and appears in English, so we still can use it as one of our teaching resources. There are a lot of language activities that can be found in this website, accompanied by visuals and audio texts. Teachers and students may find a series of activities for each given topic that can cater all different levels.

Once you enter the site, please choose English (see the above image) so that the main page will appear in English language. 

Teaching suggestions:
Since this website has various activities that suit all levels from beginner to advance students, teachers can use it as one of the sources for their lessons. It can be used to introduce new sets of vocabulary to beginners, teaching new structure of grammar, functions and even use the topic of culture and issues for class discussion.

Moreover, teachers may suggest their students to use this website at home as their homework. It encourages students to be autonomous because they can try any activity that suits their own level. It is also an advantage to use this programme because they can always try something which is below or above their level. In every activity for each topic, students will be introduced to a new set of vocabulary to help their understanding and familiarity with the topic. So, I believed it won't be a problem for students to handle the difficult terms or jargon while doing the activities.

What I like about this website:
1. It provides printed version of activities as their handouts for the lessons in classroom. This is great because even if there is no computers facilities at schools, teachers can use and adapt this materials for teaching purposes.

2. There are a lot of activities and games that available for all levels of students, suitable to be used in a mixed- ability classrooms.

3. The activities involve various language skills: reading, listening, spelling, writing, pronunciation. Good for all- rounded skills building.

4. It encourages autonomous learning as students can use it on their own since the website is user-friendly.

5. There are certain activities that are great for vocabulary drilling which is good for teaching beginner students.

6. The activities accompany by some interactive visuals and audio that can help students to keep focusing on the tasks given. And all these you can get for FREE!

Some considerations:
1. The teachers' and students' guide are in Spanish, hence it is difficult to be understood if you don't know the language!

2. Some activities do not have 'previous' and 'skip' button, so when students stuck and cannot do a task, they cannot do the following task sequence. It is lacked of control.

3. Some activities do not have clear instructions. (I even didn't understand what am I supposed to do when doing one of the activity in the website!)

Well, that's all about it. Just Click and Learn and give yourself a try now!

Concordance- Just the Word

Hello all.

As a second language user and learner in English, I always find difficulties in using the correct and suitable collocations for my writing and speaking. So, today I will introduce two websites that easily can help us especially second language learners to check the use of collocations and concordance. The first programme is the British National Corpus. BNC has 100 million word collection of samples of written and spoken language from a wide range of sources. It gives you the examples of concordance that can be used together with your target words from the real life.

Just enter your word in the look up box (as shown in the circle above) such as 'flower', and click 'go' for the results.

The results of your search will appear as in the image above. On the right, which is shown in the red circle, you will get the source of the sentence that appear on the screen and on the left which is in the blue circle, you can see the example of how your word is used in a sentence.

The second website which is similar to BNC is Just The Word. The function of this programme is just like BNC, as it searches for you the combination of your chosen words from different sources. The most interesting part of this website is that it helps you to find the function of your chosen words in different word class. It is not only that, JTW also provides the examples of the use of your chosen words.

Once you enter your words or phrases in the search box, the result will appear as in the image above. In the right-hand frame (orange circle) you will find the part(s) of speech and the types of relation that the word is found in. For instance, if you want to find the word in the adjective class, just click on the Adj link and it will bring you to the related clusters on the right of the page. The green bar indicates the frequency of the word use in the given combination.

If you want to look how the combination is used in a sentence, you can just click on one of the combination result and it will appear as above. You will get to see a few sentences that show how your chosen word can go together with the suggested result. Amazing isn't it?

Teaching suggestion:
Both suggested websites BNC and JTW are very useful for students' vocabulary enrichment. I would say they are suitable to be used in both primary and secondary school students (if teachers plan to use) and it is a great source for second language learners.

What I like about these websites:
1. Helps users and students to identify the correct use of words' combination and the results come from different written and spoken resources.


2. The examples come from the real source and authentic, which means they are frequently use in the world.


3. JTW also provides the examples of common errors made by second language learners and it is very beneficial for their language performance.


4. JTW gives the structure of the word combination and how they can function in different parts of speech.


5. Both are suitable resources for autonomous learning because learners can look for word concordance on their own and improve their writing skill.


6. They are FREE to use and FREE is good for me!

Thing to consider:
1. You really need internet connection and computer facilities to get into these websites. Or if students are not available for them, teachers can just print them out and make them as handouts in the classroom.

Let's Play with Words!

Ciao everyone!
In this entry, I will introduce to you two different websites that are related to vocabulary! The first website is Wordsift. As clearly mention in the name of this application, it helps anyone sifts through texts, any text that you want, you can just copy and paste and it will sort the text for you! The program helps to quickly identify important words that appear in the text and it has ability to mark and sort different list of words important to educators. It is not only that, this programme is also integrated with visualisation of word thesaurus relationships and Google searches of images and videos.
Check this out!

The first step you need to do is to copy and paste any text you want into the empty box provided in the homepage of the programme (as shown by the red arrow in the picture). Then, you can click on the 'sift' button (shown by the yellow arrow) and it will directed to the next page such as below:

On the top of the page you will get to see the important words that are used in the chosen text, and you can sort them alphabetically or from common to rare word and vice versa. If you scroll down the page, there will be two boxes that show the thesaurus and image that related to the words in the text from Google as seen in the image below.

You can choose any word from the box appeared on the top of the result page to view it in the visual thesaurus. Meanwhile, you will also get the examples of the word used in the sentence from the text at the bottom of the search result. It is easy for just one click, you get everything on the same result page!

Teaching Suggestion:

1. Teachers can use Wordsift to review assigned text to identify challenging words or concepts prior to a lesson or even to look for suitable images and videos that can be helpful as teaching aids. 

2. This programme is useful as a source of previewing text activity. Teachers can help students who sometimes struggle to get the idea of a text by using Wordsift. The word cloud contains the key vocabulary from the text and example of sentences can be used for students to get the gist of it.

Another website which is similar to this one is Wordle. This is another brilliant website which I find very interesting and useful for teachers and students! What is Wordle then? Well, it is a toy that helps to generate word clouds from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. What is cool about this programme is that you can edit and choose different layouts, fonts and colour schemes for your own cloud. It's not only that, users of this website can save them in the wordle gallery to share with your friends or you can even print them out! SO, let's have a try now!

I copy and paste a text in the box provided (see the circle above) or you can just copy the url of your text in the space given. Once you're done with that, just click 'go' (orange arrow) and it will transform your text into this:

It becomes a very exciting cloud and I love it so much! If you don't like the original cloud that is given to you, you can always change the font, layout or even the scheme colour on the top of the box. (see the red circle)

Once you're happy with your word cloud, you can either print it or save to the public Gallery. Awesome right?

What I like about Wordsift and Wordle?

1. Both programmes are absolutely FREE! 

2. Wordsift  and Wordle help you to identify important words in the text, good for teachers' teaching preparation and serves one of the best source for previewing texts.

3. The visual thesaurus in Wordsift makes users easy to identify words that are related to their texts, and their definitions as well.

4. Wordle can be used for all texts in any languages, which is double awesome!!

5. You can change the layouts of your Wordle according to your preferences. And you can even print it out.

6. There is a Quick Video Tour for those who want to learn to use this website.

Points to consider:

1.The Google images in Wordsift sometimes are not related to the words in the texts. There is also a possibility that the images are not suitable for students at the young age.

2. I find that the graphic that shows the relationship between related words in the visual thesaurus is too small for users and the colours use are not very clear. Students and teachers need to look carefully to understand it.

Well, that's all for this entry. Just go to these two amazing websites and experience them by yourself!

Adios.

My Brainshark!

Hello guys!

I was introduced to a new, cool and brilliant website by my lecturer that allows us to have our own voice in the power point presentation. It is MyBrainshark! What is it actually? Well, it is a software for creating, sharing and tracking online and mobile video presentation. This is a good news for teachers because you can transform a static content such as a power point document into voice-enriched presentations that can be accessed any time.

And how this software can benefit both teachers and students? I should say that this is a new way for teachers to present their lesson if they were away and they can use this as a speaking activity. For example, students can be asked to make a power point document about their personal life, or even about a topic such as pollution and so on. After that, teachers can show them how to upload their presentation into MyBrainshark and add narration into their slides. It is like they are recording their presentation for others to listen to. Once they are happy and satisfy with their recordings, students can send them to teachers for assessment.

The descriptions below are some guidance on how to use this software. First of all, students need to register as users for FREE so that they can benefit the content. Just click on the 'Sign up for FREE' button to register.

Once you have registered, you can now upload your file by clicking on 'Upload Content' and it will appear as below:

Starting from this page onwards, there are clear instructions on how to narrate the presentation and I believe it is user-friendly. Students can record their voice for each slide and even re-record it if they don't like it. For more helps regarding this software, please have a look at these two videos:

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/brain/index.html

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/brain2/index.html

There are a few advantages of this website, which are:

1. It is good for students to practice speaking skill. Their anxiety level can be reduced because there are no one watching them speaking and from my experience recording my own presentation, I didn't feel nervous!

2. The videos can be shared publicly or users can make the videos private. If it is available to public, then students get chance to be commented by people who view their presentation. It is a good way of improving their way of presentation and speaking skill.

3. It can become a communicative activity since students are required to narrate their presentation.

4. It is FREE!

The downsides of MyBrainshark are:

1. Users need to have sufficient equipment such as computers and microphone to record their presentation. It won't work out if users do not have any equipment at all!

2. We cannot download the file once we complete the narration, and it can only be seen online. It will become a problem if there is no internet connection at schools or even at home if teachers make it as a homework.

3. The speaking activity may not authentic since students can prepare their own script before hand and just read  and record the video.

Well, II guess that's all for the time being. Here is my short presentation about myself, as a prove that i had used this software. Enjoy!

PIM PAM PUM BUBLR!

Today's lesson is to deal with a website that can help teacher making their teaching more exciting. We always love to see pictures, to describe our memories or to share with people about our dreams. Pim Pam Pum Bookr (such a catchy name!) allows you to publish a lot of pictures in a digital book and the interesting part of this page is it functions as a search engine to find your preferable pictures on the web.

In the example above, I wanted to find images of scone, thus I type the word 'scone' in the tag box as seen in the picture. And the results can be seen next to the box. Once you decides what you want to share in the book, you can key in the title for it and even write your name as in the example below.

In the picture above, I decide to use My favourite Cakes as the title for my photobook and my name as the author. The background picture will appear when you click on one of the picture selection.

Once you are done with the front page, you can start creating your own story about your chosen topic (my favourite cake in this example!) by searching for the best picture that you like. Just click on the preferable photo and you can put a description under the photo box (as shown by the arrows). There is no page limit for your photobook and it means you can share with everyone anything that you like!

I suggest teachers to use this application as one of writing and reading activity. Teachers can ask students to create a story, or even to share their experience in life since it has caption box under each photo box. It is suitable for students in the secondary schools to do this activity because they can be encouraged to use various structure of language to describe pictures. There are a few reasons I recommend language teachers to use this website as their teaching source:

1. It is a fun and attractive way to present a variety of topics to your students. Images sometimes can be helpful to convey meanings and attract your students' attention in your lesson.

2. I would say this webpage encourages students to be creative. Thus, it is a also a good source for writing activity. Students can create a story by writing sentences in the caption box given.

3. Once teachers delegate the task to students, they can do on their own. Teachers even can make it as students' homework and they can send them via email. Moreover, it creates personalisation as students are given chances to create their own story base on their own preference and interest.

4. When it is FREE, that is good for us teachers!

Yet, there are also the downsides of this application:

1. The aims of the lesson may be diverted as students may search for inappropriate images. Students who are easily get bored may search for pictures which are entirely not related to their chosen topic. Just in case it happens, teachers before hand are suggested to give a topic for each student or specify what are they supposed to write in their photobook.

2. If this application is used in the classroom during a lesson, there is a possibility for students to be carried away and not completing their tasks. It is because some of students may have difficulties in finding words to describe the image or even to creatively writing their stories. It is not only that, some gifted and talented student may have endless pages which obviously will take 'forever' for the book to be completed. Thus, to prevent this from happening, teachers can set the number of page they need to produce and limit the number of words in the caption box, depending on their level.

3. The search engine in this website may have enormous results, which sometimes could be more than hundreds of images. Hence, it will distract students' attention to look for the best picture that they want, and make the whole activity consumes more time in the lesson.

Well, I guess this is all about bookr that I can share. Below is my friends' opinion and ideas about what they think of bookr and bubblr!

Last but not least, please have a look and enjoy my product of bookr!

Dvolver: Students' Movie Maker

This is a short video created using dvolver moviemaker. It allows you to choose your characters, your own background musics and dialogues for your own movies. This application is attractive for young learners to experience with technology as well as learn to use the language.This website is suitable for secondary school students in the age between 13-15 years old. Language teachers can use it as one of the effective language activities in your classroom. Click HERE to get into the website.

Why I like this webpage?

1. Students get to use and practice their language as they create their own dialogues.

2. Allows students to be creative in making their own interesting movies.

3. It is fun for students especially in the language classroom.

4. Exposes students to the use of technology.

5. It is accessible and easy for beginner language students to use this application as the instruction is simple to understand.

6. It provides a variety for teachers to make this webpage as their source of activities in their language lesson. They will not be restricted to only one kind of source which is from printed materials.

7. It can be one of the source for students' autonomous learning, and as an evidence for teachers, students can email their videos to them so that teachers can check on their language use.

Why I think it should be considered before using it?

1. There is a possibility that students may use appropriate language in their movies. Thus, teachers need to monitor them during the process of creating the movies.

2. It is time consuming since some students may take more times to complete their movies during the lesson. As an option, teachers can do the activities in a double period lesson or in the extra class in the evening.

3. It may not suitable for advance students and for upper secondary school students because as I said before that the instruction and the activity itself probably is too simple for them. However, teachers may use this activity as an option for students to have fun in the lesson.

4. Some students may not have access to computers and internet at home. But teachers can do this activity in the computer labs at schools so that students get opportunity to have fun with this application.

Listen and Write

Hello and welcome again!

Internet has always served me a great source of language activity for students. For this time, I will suggest a webpage for listening and writing activity. This website acquire us to dictate the listening text into words. It uses the news format and the topics are fresh and coming from all over the world. It is suitable for lower and secondary school students, depending on the texts.

There are a lot of topics and recent news for us to choose, depending on your interest. After you choose the topic, you need to decide which mode do you want to try before listening to the text. There are three modes available which are; full, quick and blank mode. I believe it would be better for teachers to show to the students on how to do this task since it can be confusing for some of them especially for beginners.

Students get to listen to the text and need to dictate the words for a sentence in the box provided. The sentence will be repeated for several times and it helps them to listen carefully before writing it down.


Teaching suggestion:

Teachers can use this in the listening lesson to give opportunity for students to try new way of improving listening skill. It is suggested for teachers to divide the students into pairs if they want to do this task in the classroom. It is because students can work together and figure out the answers with peers' help. If teachers find out that this task take 'forever' for students to accomplish during the lesson, it is better for them to make it as homework, and leads to autonomous learning.

I found that this website is quite useful and practical for language teachers and learners in improving their listening skill. This is because:

1. Students have opportunity to practice listening skill (as mentioned above) since the text is repeated for several times.

2. It helps to develop students' vocabulary on their own. They may be exposed for words that are rarely can be found in a normal text and that is I believe an advantage to use current news because fresh vocabulary can be introduced to them!

3. This is NOT only a good listening practice, but it is also a spelling task for all.

4. Students from all level of competency can try this out because there are variety of levels that can be chosen!

5. It encourages students to work independently at home and not depending on teachers' homework.

6. It is free for all and fun for learning!

Nevertheless, there are several disadvantages of this application:

1. Some of the news' source may not reliable and students may have false judgement over certain issues. Thus, teachers should choose and decide for them if they plan to do this task in the classroom. They should also suggest the topics that can be picked by students to be done at home.

2. Speaking about autonomous learning, it is strongly related to the availability of facilities. It may become a problem for students because some of them may not have access to internet and computers and home. What is the best that can be done for teachers is by manipulating the IT rooms at school and book a session for the students after school time. This will at least provide opportunity for all students to try this task on their own.

That's all from me. Happy learning!

Learn Through Lyrics

During my age of learning language in schools, I always thought that songs' lyrics did help me in improving my English competence. As a second language learner, I always wanted to find interactive and fun way to learn, something which won't give me so much pressure in acquiring the language. And now, there is a website that I found and it is useful for students to learn through lyrics! Lyrics Training is very interesting since it allows us (even teachers!) to have fun while learning English.

It has the most up-to-date songs for us to choose and challenge ourself by filling in the blanks while the song is being played. I believe it is not an easy task for certain people especially for those who rarely listen to English songs and have problem with spelling. BUT, as it is FUN and ENTERTAINING, it is worth to try for your own good. So, in this website, we can choose various songs in the search box.

There are three different difficulties that we can opt for, depending on our ability. For beginner level, 10% of the lyrics is missing and need to filled in. It may easy for expert learners, thus the expert level challenge them to fill in all the lyrics on their own. It means all the words are missing and the song won't continue until the correct word is being filled in!

This is for beginner where only a few words are missing from the lyrics!

Try yourself for the expert level and see how far you can go! Your time is being recorded (in the left circle) and it gives pressure for you to do the best. Moreover, you can put yourself in a rank (see circle on the right) for every level by getting as the highest mark as you can.

Teaching suggestion:

English teachers can use this source for lower and upper secondary school students. It is practical and applicable for students to do this activity on their own, and encourage autonomous learning.

There are several reasons why I believe this website will help language learners:

1. It is a good source for listening and spelling activity in a very entertaining way! Students can listen to a very catchy song/ lyrics and spell out words, instead listening to a boring flat tone typical texts.

2. Students have opportunity to practice and learn new vocabulary. Some of words in the lyrics are frequently used in daily conversation, but maybe new for certain students.

3. If such activity is conducted in the classroom, it allows students to participate and engage with the activity very much. Once the students try, I am confident that they won't stop because it is FUN! Well I think it is important for your students to have fun while learning (in a good way) to encourage them using the language.

However, there are also some points that teachers should consider, such as:

1. If this activity is held the classroom during the lesson, teachers should set a time limit so that students know when they need to stop. We don't want our students to be carried away and our lesson planning is distracted. Thus, it can be an option for teachers to encourage students to do this activity at home, as their source of independent learning and report it to the teachers.

2. There is a possibility for students to look up the whole lyrics in the internet without even trying (which is so frustrating for teachers!).

But, in overall, I think, it is WORTH for us to try this out, because this website is FREE!! So, feel free to learn language in a very FUN way.