Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

…For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

April 21, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Using The Telephone to Learn English

Though it’s obviously easier for my students here in the United States to find others with whom they can practice their English, I know it’s more challenging for ESL students in other countries to do the same.

On my Teacher’s Page, under the section called Telephone, I have a few examples of how English Language Learners in non-English-speaking countries might be able to get a little more practice.

One link is a tutorial from CMS Professional Learning for using Skype, an Internet-based system for making inexpensive phone calls (which I suspect many readers of this blog are familiar with). Another link is one I just learned from a post in Teacher Dude’s blog. It’s called Kan Talk, and it’s designed to help English Language Learners specifically connect via Skype with others who would like to talk with them.

Finally, there’s a link to Jajah. Jajah allows you to use the Internet to make phone calls, but you can do it while using your regular phone and only one person has to have access to the Web.

April 21, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
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“Creating” Online Videos with English Language Learners

I put quotation marks around “Creating” in the headline of this post because, even though my students use online videos to develop their language skills, it’s mainly through adapting other people’s creations. I know that there are certainly benefits to students making their own from scratch, but it requires equipment and technical know-how that I don’t have (and I don’t necessarily feel like I need to know). I think they can learn as much English by doing it this way, especially with the advent of the many online video sites that are linked to the Student Videos section of my Examples of Student Work page. These include:

BubblePLY allows students to create text “bubbles” on existing online videos. Cuts does the same, but goes one better — you can actually “cut” scenes from online videos and edit them, along with adding captions and sound effects.

Mojiti is one of the newest one of these online applications, and may be the best and easiest one, though I haven’t spent much time with it yet. Overstream is another one with similar features. Vuvox is yet one more. All these applications host your creation so they can be viewed on the web by others.

Softscrub-The Apprentice is one of the more bizarre video “creation” sites. You can create an ending to one of “The Apprentice” episodes from television.

I’ve only featured some of the sites I have linked to this section on the Student Work page. So, with all these choices, I think students can demonstrate their creativity, hone their technical computer skills, and develop their English without having their own camcorders or other personal recording devices.

April 19, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Amazing Animals

The BBC has a nice site called Amazing Animals. It has pictures and a few facts written in easy English about every animal imaginable. It’s navigation features are simple and attractive.

The link is located at the bottom of the Animals section of the English Themes For Beginners and Early Intermediate page.

April 18, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Create a Book Online

I just learned about CAST UDL Book Builder, which allows you (and your students) to create free and simple online “books.” Your completed books can even have little talking critters that prompt readers to use specific reading strategies when they’re reading. You need to register to use the site, but that can be done in a few seconds.

I heard about this online application from the Teaching Every Student blog. That blog entry has more specific information on the Book Builder.

I’ve placed the link on my Examples of Student Work page under the category Student Books. You can find it near the bottom.

April 17, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Hello World English

Hello World English is a site I highlighted in my last email newsletter, but I wanted to bring it to the attention of new readers of this blog. The site has an excellent series of audio and visual activities that is great for someone who is just beginning to learn English. In fact, I’d say that if you have a beginner student, you couldn’t find a better site to start him/her on than this one. It covers a lot of the “basics” in a fun way.

An added bonus is that it has the same kinds of exercises teaching several other languages.

I’ve put the link to the site under the Favorite Sites section of the English Themes for Beginners and Early Intermediate page. I list it as “Hello English.”

April 17, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Describing People

The City College in Manchester, England has a series of good exercises teaching Adjectives That Describe People. They first teach the word (cold, fat, famous, etc.) through the use of pictures, and then the student is given the adjective and has to pick which picture is appropriate.

There isn’t audio on the site, but it’s still very effective. I’ve placed it at the bottom of the Descriptions section of English Themes for Beginners and Early Intermediate.

April 16, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Write a Martha Stewart Story?

Never in a million years would I have ever predicted that I would somehow incorporate Martha Stewart into my teaching English Language Learners. However, she just unveiled her new website and she has several “Mad Lib”- like stories that students can complete, email, and then post the url to the story on a website, blog, or online journal. Of course, the stories are not your typical Mad Libs!

The game is called So Martha, and students have to write in nouns, adjectives, etc. — just like in a typical Mad Libs game. Students have a choice of a variety of stories, including ones on (of course!) weddings, food, and parties.

I’ve placed it on the Examples of Student Work page at the bottom, and it’s entitled Student “Martha Stewart” Stories.

April 16, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Modern Music Clozes

I have links to literally thousands of songs in the Music category of my English For Beginners and Early Intermediate page. Most of the songs are very simple and designed in their presentation for English Language Learners. And, though my students enjoy them, most are geared towards younger students. There just aren’t many sites designed for English Language Learners that have more modern music available.

There are a few, though, and I’ve just put the link to one at the bottom of the Music section and entitled it Modern Music Clozes.

The City College in Manchester, England, has put about twelve songs from various recording artists, including John Lennon and Bob Marley, on this site, along with making the lyrics into clozes (“fill-in-the-gaps”). Students type in the missing words as they listen to the music.

April 15, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Write a Collaborative Story

There are various simple ways you can have students create a Collaborative Story online, and I have several new tools and examples listed on my Examples of Student Work page.

In the stories you see on my site, I just have students go to the Google Docs program, and each one writes one line of the story. They then go to ArtPad, a delightful little online painting application, and illustrate their sentence. I then just copy and paste the story and the url’s to their paintings onto my website.

However, there are so many different applications out there right now (and brand new links to many of them — Skrbl, WriteWith, Zoho, Writeboard and YourDraft – are listed in the Collaborative Story category) you can do this kind of project a number of ways.

I just put these last five collaborative writing tools on my site, and you can be sure that many more will be coming down the pike.

April 15, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
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More Vocabulary Games

If you and your English Language Learner students liked the Huntsville vocabulary game I highlighted yesterday, you’ll enjoy three similar ones I just found on the Learn4Good website: Hide and Seek, Titanic and Prime Suspects. All follow a similar “I-Spy” like strategy.

I’ve placed them all near the bottom of the Vocabulary section on the English For Beginners page.

April 15, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Vocabulary Game

Huntsville is an “I-Spy”-like game where you have to find various objects in a crowded room and then click on them. I learned about it from the Game-EFL blog.

I have several other “genuine” online I-Spy games on my English for Beginners page under Reading. These are a little better for English Language Learners than Huntsville, since these I-Spy games have audio as well as text. But Huntsville can still be played and enjoyed by beginning English Language Learners.

I’ve placed Huntsville on the same page, but in a different section — at the bottom of Vocabulary.

April 14, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Create An Online Talking Book

AuthorStream is a new online application that allows you to easily upload PowerPoint presentations to its site. Your PowerPoint can then be accessed online. It’s somewhat similar to the the Scribd site that I’ve raved about this month. Scribd, though, is very accessible to even very Begining English Language Learners. AuthorStream would be the next “step up.”

With AuthorStream you can make a PowerPoint presentation on your computer and then easily upload it to their site. So, first, students need to learn how to use PowerPoint. AuthorStream will also allow you to upload audio with the PowerPoint, so you need to know how to add audio to your PowerPoint, too. You can get instructions on how students can do that by going to various links on my Teacher’s Page under Creating Online Talking Books. Under their F.A.Q.’s AuthorStream says they give instructions on how to do this, but the answer is “under construction” (it’s a very new site).

The great thing about this site is that they will host the PowerPoint, which eliminates that teacher responsibility.

I’ve placed the link on the Examples of Student Work page and entitled it Student Talking Books.

Of course, you can also eliminate using the audio option and have students make interesting and attractive books that are not “talking.”

April 14, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Great Activities! (When the Website is Working!)

(Hours after I wrote this post, HRW’s Social Studies website stopped working again. I’ve removed their links from my pages. You might want to check on their site now and then to see if you can access it. )

Of all the textbook publishers, I believe Holt, Rhinehart and Winston has online social studies activities that are the most accessible to English Language Learners. However, a big problem is that their social studies site isn’t working a lot of the time. One would think a company the size of HRW would be able to maintain their online presence a little better.

It’s finally working again. For now, I’ve just posted three separate links to parts of their site. In the past, I’ve had many more, but then I’ve had to take them all down after the HRW site has stopped working for months at a time (this has happened three (and now four) times).

The three links I’ve placed on my website are:

* HRW United States History, which is on my Geography and United States History page under the Sites That Cover Many Periods section. You can access summaries of each chapter in many different languages, which is great to incorporate in a “Preview, View, and Review” teaching methodology in an ESL classroom.

* HRW World History, which is on my World History page under Sites That Cover Many Periods of World History. This is set-up the same way as the U.S. History site is, with summary translations in multiple languages.

* HRW Geography, which is on my Geography page under Sites That Cover Many Areas. On this link, just click on any of the books, then the chapters in the books, and then their “Interactive Features.” The summaries are “only” in English and Spanish, but a lot of these Interactive Features are excellent.

Check out these sites as soon as you can, since there is no guarantee they’ll stay up. If they actually do remain up and running, I’ll set-up direct links to many of the interactive activities under the appropriate categories on my site. I just don’t want to go through all that work again until I know HRW has figured out a way to keep their site online.

April 14, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Videos for ESL Beginners

I’ve added a new section on my Teacher’s Page called Videos For ESL Beginners. It contains a short list of videos that I’ve found very useful when I teach Beginner classes. They grab the attention of students (of all ages, including adults); there is minimal if any dialogue, so students can understand what’s going on; and they are only a few minutes long, or at least can be divided into short segments easily. In addition, there are quite a variety of them, so I can easily fit the videos into whatever theme I’m teaching at the time.

I show these clips and then have students write a sentence about what happened, either individually or in pairs. We then share the sentences and I write them on the overhead. Students copy them down, and then we use them in other activities during the week, including for clozes (also know as “fill-the-gaps”).

I was inspired to create this category after having recently read a post in the Teaching Generation Z blog about a delightful show I had never heard of before called “Shaun the Sheep.” In addition to “Shaun,” I include “Mr. Bean,” “Brum,” “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” and “The Bear.”

Of course, clips and episodes from many of these shows can also be found on YouTube. However, I suspect they’re copywrite protected and won’t be there for long.

April 13, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Kids Know It

I recently discovered a site called KidsKnowIt, a network that has several other sites connected to it, including ones for spelling, math, biology, and geography. Each subject area has games, pictures, and simple text.

It’s well done, and I have linked several of their sections to parts of my website. Their Kidsspell page has a link at the bottom of the Spelling category of the English for Intermediate and Advanced page (there is no audio, though high-beginners would be able access the text, too). One neat feature is that teachers and students can create their own spelling lists which will be saved to the site. Then, students can play spelling games using those unique lists.

I also have linked their excellent Latitude and Longitude Game to the Introduction to Maps section of my Geography page. I’ve placed it at the bottom of that category. Remember that you can find most new links at the bottom of each category list.

Finally, I’ve linked their Animal Site to the Animals category on the English Themes for Beginners and Early Intermediate page.

They will have a History site in May, 2007, and I will also be linking their math activities to the newly revised math page I am creating for our school’s Math Lab.

April 11, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Creating Animations Online

AniBoom Shapeshifter is a new site where you can make animations online, email the url, and have it posted on a website, online student journal or blog. People can comment on the animation, either on the student’s blog/journal or directly on the Shapeshifter website.

Obviously, the making of the animation doesn’t contribute much to English language development. However, having the student describe what they’ve created and then make comments on the creations made by other students could be a good exercise for English Language Learners.

I’ve placed it in the Student Animations section of the Examples of Student Work page.

Some of the animations found on this site might be inappropriate for students, just as some of the other cartoons found on Toon Doo (an online comic-strip maker I posted about a couple of days ago) might be off-color. However, in my experience, students are pretty focused on making their own creation and looking at those made by their friends in class. They don’t seem to have much interest in exploring other parts of the sites. Teachers probably want to carefully “monitor the monitors,” just in case.

I learned about this site from the Webware blog, which is an excellent place to learn about new Web 2.0 applications.

April 11, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Forty Stories

Eslfast has created a site that has forty simple short stories where the text will also be read to you. I’ve titled the link Forty Stories, and you can find it near the bottom of the Stories section of my English for Beginners page.

April 10, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Gardens

Create A Soil Environment is a new link I’ve placed at the bottom of the Garden category of the English Themes For Beginners and Early Intermediate. I’ve entitled it “How Does Your Garden Grow?” It shows, both in audio, text, and animation, the steps and tools required to maintain a health and successful garden.

The ESL classes at my school are preparing to plant the garden we do every year, so the new link is timely.

This link is one of many excellent activities developed by Learn Alberta in Canada.

April 10, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Another Way to Make Online Comics

I posted about various ways to make comic strips online a few days ago, and inadvertently forgot to highlight another site that I think is exceptional. It’s called MakesBeliefsComix, and it’s very simple to use. English Language Learners find it easy to navigate through the process of make an attractive comic strip.

It’s one of the links on my Example of Student Work page under the Student Comic Strips section.

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