Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

 (Since I posted this, Sonja Phillips pointed out that being able to use multi-media is a two-edged sword — some images inappropriate for classroom use were on the site.)

Webware just posted about a new site called Polls Boutique that lets you create online polls for free. Yes, there are a zillion of these kinds of sites now, and you can find a lot of them on my website under Student Polls.

However, Webware says Polls Boutique is different because you supposedly can easily add other media to your poll.

I haven’t tried it yet, so can’t report how accessible it might be to English Language Learners. As I’ve written before, though, I think the creation of polls, responding to them, talking about them, and writing an analysis of their results is a great language development exercise for students.

I’ll eventually be putting together a “The Best…” list of online poll creation sites.

If you haven’t read the latest two Carnivals of Education, I’d encourage you to do so (as well as consider contributing a post to the next one). Check out Edition 168 and Edition 169.

While you’re at it, think about contributing to the next Day/Week In A Sentence.

And, finally, don’t forget to submit a blog post to the next ELL/ESL/EFL Carnival.

Kiz Club, which has great “talking stories” for beginning readers, was off-line for quite awhile. I had thought it was going to be permanent, but was pleasantly surprised to find that they’re back.

I’ve placed a link to it on my website under Favorite Sites.

Darce Osler was kind enough to let me know that the links to the Peace Corps training manuals I included in The Best Resource Sites For ESL/EFL Teachers weren’t working anymore.

One would figure that the Peace Corps to have a website that was working, but even their contact form is broken.

However, I was lucky enough to track down yet another site that has the manuals available.  Go there quickly and download them, in case those also disappear!

The two excellent manuals are:

TEFL/TESL: Teaching English As a Foreign or Second Language

Teaching English As A Foreign Language To Large, Multi-Level Classes

xTimeline has been a decent timeline-making web tool, though I don’t think it’s been the best or most accessible one for English Language Learners. However, they’ve just released a new version that might have fixed some of their shortcomings.

A post in the Mashable blog gives a pretty good summary of xTimeline’s changes.

You can find a link to xTimeline, and many other online timeline applications, on my website under Student Timelines.

(Note: The game’s host just changed the url for Word Morph after I wrote this.  This post now has the correct address.  Sorry.)

Word Morph is another one of those “Making Words” type of games. Players are shown a word, and you have to come up with other words that can be made from the same letters.

I’ve placed the link on my Intermediate English page under Word and Video Games. You’ll find several similar games in the same category. This one is a little more visually attractive than some of the others.

Even though I’ve placed it on my Intermediate page, it would be accessible to all levels of English Language Learners.

Lowes lets you create your own yard. Users develop and maintain their virtual backyard, and can add all sorts of stuff to it (coincidentally, Lowes sells all this “stuff.”).

It’s nice interactive that provides a number of opportunities to English Language Learners for vocabulary development. You can save your creation, but you don’t get a unique url address that you can post. Instead, you have to input your email address to access it. Of course, it would be pretty easy just to have students make one up and post the link to the Yard Creator along with the pseudo email address so others can access it. Students could then write about their yard, too.

You can read here about how I use viral marketing applications like this one to help teach English Language Learners.

I’ll be placing the link somewhere on my Examples of Student Work page.

(Note: The links have now changed to the Peace Corps Training Manuals I include on this list.  The correct ones are now included)

Here’s another “The Best…” list, and this time it’s one that is specifically targeting ELL/ESL/EFL teachers. 

And that’s why it’s called The Best Resource Sites For ESL/EFL Teachers.

Of course, strategies, resources and teaching tools that are effective with English Language Learners can be equally effective with native-English speakers.  In fact, I’ll soon be sharing an article that the principal of our school and I co-wrote detailing how we think implementing English Language Learner teaching strategies school-wide helped us get out of Fourth Year Program Improvement Status.

I’ve been going through a stretch of finding it very difficult to rank sites in the recent lists I’ve put together.  This one is no exception.  I think all of them are excellent, and they offer different resources.  Near the end of this post I share good sites that were recommended by other readers, too.

Here are my picks for The Best Resource Sites For ESL/EFL Teachers:

Even though it’s hard for me to rank the sites on this list, I have to say that one of my favorites is EFL Classroom 2.0. Begun by David Deubelbeiss, it’s an extraordinary collection of every imaginable ESL/EFL resource.  David also has some strong feelings about ESL/EFL Teacher Resource sites that I generally share.  I’d encourage you to read what he wrote.

I think the Peace Corps has developed some of the best materials on how to teach English Language Learners.  Unfortunately,  their website is usually not working so you can’t download them from there.  Fortunately, the manuals are available elsewhere. The two best ones are TEFL/TESL: Teaching English As a Foreign or Second Language and Teaching English As A Foreign Language To Large, Multi-Level Classes.

There are many places that have teaching materials you can print-out.  English Raven, though, I think offers particularly engaging materials and ideas about how to use them.   Using their site has made me a better teacher.

The Internet TESL Journal may be the “grand-daddy” of ESL/EFL resource sites.  It continues to provide a wealth of constantly updated materials.

Teaching English from the British Council is another “oldie” but “goodie” site (and it’s just been revamped).  The countless resources, ideas, materials, and interactive online content make it an easy choice for this list.

The Ideas Index at Dave’s ESL Cafe has been a source of numerous lesson plans for me.  They’re short, sweet, free and numerous!

All the sites on my list offer resources for free….except for one. Alta Books is THE place to find the publications and multimedia that are worth paying for.

These next two aren’t exactly websites.  In fact, they’re listservs.  I’ve learned a lot from them over the years, though probably haven’t contributed as much as I should have.  The two are Teachers Of English As A Second Language (TESL) and the National Institute For Literacy (NIFL).  Going to both of these links will offer you the chance to sign-up for their numerous “sub” lists.

Finally, I obviously think that the Web offers a lot of possibilities for English Language instruction and learning.  In one of my previous lists, The Best Places To Learn Web 2.0 Basics — 2007, I highlighted three sites as the best for helping both beginners and more advanced technology users learn how to use all the Web tools that are constantly evolving. One was Sue Waters’ Mobile Technology In TAFE Wiki.  Another was Vicki Davis’ Cool Cat Teacher Wiki.  And the third great site was Russell Stannard’s Teacher Training Videos.  Russell’s is particularly relevant to this list because he has a number of videos showing how these tools can be used in the ESL/EFL classroom.

Readers also had some other suggestions.

Chris Cotter suggested his own site, Heads Up English, as well as Breaking News English and ESL HQ.

Laura recommends One Stop English, Boggles World, and Nik Peachey’s fine blog. She also has nice words for this blog, too.

If you’re looking for more resources, you might want to look at the Teacher’s Page on my website.

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Frank, who also coordinates the Mexico English Teacher’s Alliance (both his blog and the META site are worth checking-out), has begun an ESL/EFL Crowd Status site for those who have Twitter accounts.

He writes that the idea “is that inside of twitter we can now monitor tweets from those that identify as ESL/EFL teachers and form a sense of twitter community and share and communicate with each other.”

I haven’t gotten involved in Twitter but, if I did, the first thing I’d do is join Frank’s group.

If you’d like to join, Frank writes, you must have a twitter account, be an ESL or EFL teacher and send him a DM (direct message) or @reply on twitter to his account at “metaweb20.”

I’ve recently added links to some new stories and songs that would be helpful to Beginning English Language Learners.  They all have text with audio support, and can be found on my English For Beginners page.

The two stories join the literally thousands of talking stories that are already there.  Katrina the Caterpillar and Julia and the Big Wave are from Reading Is Fundamental, are large literacy organization.  You can find links to many of their other stories in the same section.

Noodles on my Back is a short and fun little song that’s in the Music section.

I learned about all three from Kindersite, a quite impressive site with links to all sorts of activities for young children and beginning English Language Learners of all ages.

I’ve posted before about online sites that allow you to decide where you want to go, search for things that you would do and see there, and then easily “drag and drop” an itinerary that can be posted on a website or blog.

Some of these travel sites are very accessible to English Language Learners and are great tools to use in Geography classes.

Mashable posted today about a new site that might be the most accessible of all of them (though I still have to check it out a little more carefully). It’s called Nile Guide.

I’ve placed the link under Student Trips on my website.

Even though I posted earlier about waiting until next year to try-out students commenting on a blog in my mainstream ninth-grade English class, I decided to give it shot now.

We’re just beginning, but if you’d like to take a look you can check it out at Academic Reading and Writing. Some students have just begun responding to the first post.

We’re just beginning a unit on Mount Everest.

I’ve accumulated a number of new sites to write another part in my series about the Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly.

Just to review, in order to make it on this list a site needs to be:

* accessible to English Language Learners.

* free

* available to use without having to register.

* provide an opportunity to create engaging online content that is hosted by the site indefinitely.

* easy to post on an online blog or journal.

This list is the latest in my “The Best…” posts, which now number nearly sixty.

Here, now, are new additions to The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly (by the way, I’m particularly excited about Nota, the last site on this list):

CREATE A QUIZ, SURVEY, OR POLL: I’ve listed a couple of similar online applications in previous posts in this survey, but I think Go To Quiz might be the best one of the bunch. It

MAKE A WEBNOTE: Webnotes lets you make…notes and organize them into multi-colored boxes that you can move around. They’re super-easy to create. One potential problem is that anyone with the url address can edit it. That issue is somewhat mitigated by the fact that you can easily access different versions of your page by the date it was created.

CUSTOMIZE YOUR FACE (OR SOMEONE ELSE’S): You can upload your own photo or choose from a variety on PhotoFace. Then, you can “age” it, make the person heavier or lighter, and make a number of other edits. Once you’re done you can email the link to a friend or teacher for inclusion in an online journal or blog.

SEND A MEMORIAL DAY E-CARD: With Memorial Day coming up next month in the United States, students can write and send a Memorial Day E-Card for posting on a blog or online journal. Here are some direct links to good Memorial Day E-Card sites: American Greetings, Blue Mountain, and egreetings.

PREDICT THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: As part of a discussion on the U.S. Presidential elections, students can use this map to predict which states will vote Democratic or Republican and either link or embed their predictions.

DESIGN YOUR OWN WEBSITE: Regular readers of this blog know how positive I feel about the online tool Jottit. It’s made a number of my “The Best…” lists and my students use it to create a website where they can display their online projects. I’ve got to play around with it a little more, but it’s possible that Nota might displace Jottit as my website-creator of choice. Nota is also extremely easy to use, but looks more attractive to Jottit. I’d encourage you to explore it and let me know what you think.

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National Geographic has an interactive exercise where the “player” operates a robot to remotely Explore A Pyramid.

I’ve placed the link on my World History page under The First Civilized People.

Since I’m teaching a Government class this semester for Intermediate English Language Learners, I thought it would be helpful to identify accessible websites that might help students learn about the U.S. Presidential elections and the candidates. And, so, another “The Best…” list is born!

Here are the best ones I’ve found and used:

There’s no question in my mind that the National Mock Election Game is the best site for English Language Learners. It has a fair amount of audio support for text. Intermediate ELL’s should be able to play it.

There are a number of short online “quizzes” that users can complete to identify which candidate or political party is the best fit for them. The ones related to the candidates also includes ones that have dropped-out, but I still think the exercise is an educational one. The most accessible ones are the Political Party Predictor from Channel One and USA Today’s Candidate Match Game.

Here are a couple of sites that help you determine what kind of President you would be: PBS’ President For A Day and Are You Presidential Material? from Channel One.

All About Electing A President Of The United States is a very simple guide to the presidential election process. Ben’s Guide To The Election Of The President provides the same type of information, as does a summary from Enchanted Learning. Channel One’s Election Playbook provides a more detailed explanation accessible to Intermediate English Language Learners.

Time For Kids has a freely available Brainpop movie about Presidential elections.

English Page has some interactive vocabulary lessons related to presidential elections that would be helpful to English Language Learners.

After students develop some background knowledge about how the Presidential elections work, it might be useful to spend a little time on the electoral college. 270 To Win has a lot of information displayed graphically about previous Presidential elections and what polls are saying now about the upcoming election. In addition, The Washington Post has an Electoral College Prediction Map where users can predict what the 2008 results will look like and save their predictions for posting on a blog or online journal.

Lastly, I should at least mention an excellent online game developed by Cable In The Classroom called eElections. However, it’s probably only accessible to very advanced English Language Learners.

Please feel free to suggest additional sites.

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Refusing To Give A Standardized Test is a new piece I’ve written for our group blog, In Practice.

It’s a short commentary on the recent actions of a teacher in Washington State who refused to give standardized tests to his students. It also reflects on a thought-provoking post by one of my favorite bloggers, Bill Ferriter.

Sue Waters has done it again and written an excellent post on her First Five Tips For Writing Better Blog Posts.

If you have a blog, or are thinking of starting one, I’d strongly encourage you to read, and implement, her suggestions.  She asks some good questions in her, post, too, so you might want to respond in her comment section.

I was trying to find some sites about The Black Death that would be accessible to English Language Learners.  We’re covering that topic in our World History class.

Here is what I’ve found and added to my World History page:

The Bubonic Plague from Mr. Dowling.

The Plague from the History Channel.

The Black Death from Awesome Stories.  By the way, if you haven’t signed-up (it’s free) yet for Awesome Stories, it’s a great site.  You can read more about it here.

I thought I’d share what my upcoming “The Best…” lists will be and invite readers to submit their own recommendations for any of them. As I always do, even if your suggestion doesn’t actually make “my” list, I’ll still include it in the post with credit to you.

Of course, one key criteria to make most, if not all, of the lists is that the site has to be accessible to English Language Learners.

Feel free to offer suggestions for other topics for “The Best…” lists, too.

Here are some I’m planning over the next few months (though not necessarily in this order):

The Best Resource Sites For ESL/EFL Teachers

The Best Sites To Create Online Quizzes

The Best Websites To Teach And Learn About The Environment

The Best Sites To Learn About Natural Disasters

The Best World History Websites

The Best United States History Websites

The Best Sites To Learn About Money & Life Skills

The Best Online English-Language Learning Games

The Best Sites To Teach And Learn About Space & The Planets

The Best Math Games On The Internet

The Best Sites To Learn About California

The Best Bilingual Sites For Learning English

The Best Sites For Making Online Slideshows

The Best Sites For Students To Use For Researching Demographics

The Best Sites For Students To Make Online Videos

Part Two Of The Best Websites For Creating Online Learning Games (this list will include sites that let you create good games, but don’t have the variety that the sites which made my first list, The Best Websites For Creating Online Learning Games, have.

I’ll also be posting new editions of my series on The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly.

I’m looking forward to hearing recommendations!

Movies and television shows can be an effective tool for teaching and learning English (or, for that matter, any academic subject) if used strategically and not as a “babysitting” device.

I thought it might be useful to prepare a “The Best…” list sharing resources that teachers might find useful related to using video in the ESL/EFL classroom. I’ve appreciated the suggestions that readers have offered and, even if they didn’t make my list, I’ve shared the titles that they have recommended near the end of this post.

Before I list specific movies or shows, I’ll begin by sharing some ideas, and sites, where you can get more recommendations on how to use video in the classroom.

I’ve hardly ever shown a video clip for more than ten minutes during one class period. There are many ways to use them, but I’ve primarily done so in two ways. One is just to show a clip connected to the theme we might be studying at the time, and then have students write what happened chronologically.

The other is a technique called “Back To The Screen” that I adapted from Zero Prep: Ready To Go Activities For The Language Classroom by Laurel Pollard and Natalie Hess. I pick a clip from a movie (the highway chase scene from one of the Matrix movies, for example. I then divide the class into pairs with one group facing the TV and the other with their back to it. Then, after turning off the sound, I begin playing the movie. The person who can see the screen tells the other person what is happening. Then, after awhile, I switch the groups around. Afterwards, the pairs need to write a chronological sequence of what happened, which we share in class. Finally, everyone watches the clip, with sound, together. Students really enjoy this activity.

Two excellent sites that offer countless other ideas about how to use videos in teaching and learning English are Ressources pour le College and The English Learner Movie Guide. The resources they offer are just too numerous to list here. In addition to teaching activities, you can get suggestions for which movies might work best for specific purposes.

I’ve also found
Download a great place to find movies. It’s the only site I’ve found that allows you to search for movies by subject.

Now I’ll list what I believe to be The Best Popular Movies/TV Shows For ESL/EFL (by the way, links usually are connected to Amazon). I’m doing this ranking a bit differently from my past lists. All the ones I list I think are comparable in terms of usefulness in the classroom. However, there are two that I think are stand-outs. I’ll save them for the end.

Here are my picks:

I like Brum , a little talking car that has all sorts of adventures. Younger and older students find it entertaining.

Animated Tales Of The World from HBO is an excellent series of folktales from throughout the world. I’ve used them to teach geography, history, and writing.

The Pink Panther series of movies have been great, specifically the parts where Peter Sellers fights his man-servant Cato. These hilarious slapstick scenes are wonderful times to teach vocabulary related to home. However, I offer this recommendation with some hesitancy, since some could view it as perpetuating stereotypes and find it offensive. I’d be interested in hearing opinions on this issue. Certainly, none of my students, who are mostly Asian, have felt that way. I’ve engaged students in this kind of discussion everytime I’ve shown the movies.

Father Of The Bride with Steve Martin (and its sequel) provides some hilarious and teachable scenes about family, food, and home.

David Deubelbeiss, from EFL Classroom 2.0, and I agree that the movie Big is a great one. In fact, David is going to upload a bunch of classroom activities related to the movie on his site. (Since I originally posted this list, David has shared more ideas and resources here.)

The Bear provides a lot of opportunities to discuss serious topics. It doesn’t have a whole lot of dialogue, so it’s very accessible to Beginning English Language Learners.

Globe Trekker has a ton of excellent travel videos. I’ve used them in all of my English, Geography, and History classes, and they’re very accessible.

I’m ranking two collections of TV shows as the Top Two videos for teaching and learning ESL/EFL.

Number two is America’s Funniest Home Videos. It has so many editions — family, pets, sports, animals — that you can find something to teach just about anything. They’re already divided into short clips. My only caveat, though, is that a few of them seem cruel and/or disgusting to me. So I screen them before I use a clip in class.

My absolute favorite show to use is Mr. Bean — The Whole Bean. Mr. Bean is very accessible to even Beginning English Language Learners, and he is involved in so many situations that you can find a clip that will support whatever unit you’re teaching. And he’s so funny!

Readers made a number of other suggestions. I didn’t include some of them in my list just because I haven’t seen the shows.

Sebastian recommends Seinfield and Joey, specifically the episode called Joey and the ESL. I definitely want to see that — how often is an ESL class shown in a TV situation comedy?

EFL Geek recommends several movies, including An Inconvenient Truth, Almost Famous, and Stand By Me. For TV, he likes Lost, Corner Gas, Prison Break and Smallville. I did a quick and informal poll of my students, and they agreed that Smallville helped them with their English a lot.

This doesn’t exactly fit into the title of this list, but this summer I’m going to try using Connect With English, a video series that’s designed to help students learn English and be engaging. It seems to be one of the better ones of its type out there. I’ll report back during the summer how it goes.

Feel free to offer reactions and other suggestions in the comments sections.

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