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.