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!