Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

…For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Monthly Archives: January 2009

January 18, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Voice Of America Multimedia

Voice of America’s Special English resources (which provide news, including audio support for the text, using simple English) is on a number of my “The Best…” lists, including The Best news/current events websites for English Language Learners 2007.

Voice of America’s regular site itself, though, has a number of excellent multimedia resources.  Even though they are not specifically designed for English Language Learners, many of their videos and slideshows can be accessible to Intermediate ELL’s.

I’m adding their 2008 Year In Review to The Best Year-End Collections Of Images — 2008.

I’m also adding their video series on the Inauguration to The Best Sites For Learning About The Presidential Inauguration.

Thanks to the US Citizenship Podcast blog (which, by the way, is on The Best Websites For Learning About Civic Participation & Citizenship list) for reminding me of this resource.

Share|

January 18, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

MinMu Is An Ideal Link-Shortening Tool For ELL’s

When I originally wrote The Best Ways To Shorten URL Addresses, the thought didn’t occur to me that someone could create a link-shortening tool that would be ideal for English Language Learners.   I was primarily looking at tools that worked well for anybody.

I was wrong.

The creators of MinMu have indeed developed a service that is great for ELL’s, and it also can have other uses.

All you do is paste the url addresses of as many webpages as you want into a box (no registration is required), and you are given one url address for all of them. Click on it, and you’re shown a screen that not only shows the links to all of the sites, but also thumbnail images of them. Students will find this kind of visual support very helpful.

I’m obviously adding MinMu to “The Best..” list on shortening url addresses.

Share|

January 17, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Sqworl Looks Good

Sqworl is an easy way for English Language Learner students to bookmark thumbnail images (and their related links) of sites they’re interested in.  I’m very impressed with it.

It’s very similar to Tizmos, another super-easy way for users to save thumbnail images (and links) of their favorite websites on one page. Twice a week I bring my Intermediate English class to the computer lab, and it would be an easy way for each student to identify their favorites from among the 8,000 links on my website. In addition, I can place a link to each student’s Tizmos page on my website so that the whole class can see each other’s choices.  Many students in our school who are writing their “Senior Projects” (a graduation requirement) are using Tizmos to store webpages they are using for their research.

Tizmos is extremely easy to set-up and use.  Sqworl appears even a bit easier.  It’s especially easy to create separate  “groups” of sites with tags, which could be handy for research and other tasks.  Since it also lets you grab images off the web, it’s possible for students to create categories, for example, of images around a unit of study and write descriptions.  I’m always looking for easy ways for students to use that kind of higher-order thinking skill.

I did find one problem with Sqworl, though.  While I was testing it out, I tried to save the url image of this blog.  It saved the url address, but the image it showed was the main Edublogs website.  I don’t know if similar glitches might show-up when attempting to save other sites.

I’m adding Sqworl to two “The Best…” lists:

The Best Social Bookmarking Applications For English Language Learners & Other Students

The Best Personal Home Page Creators

Share|

January 17, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Obama’s Train Tour

Here are even more additions — accessible coverage of the President-Elect’s “whistlestop tour” today — to The Best Sites For Learning About The Presidential Inauguration:

A Whistle-Stop Trip To Washington slideshow from The New York TImes.

Obama Kicks Off Whistle-Stop Tour slideshow from The Wall Street Journal.

Another similar slideshow from MSNBC.

CBS has yet an additional slideshow.

A video of his short speech in Baltimore on the trip from the Baltimore Sun. MSNBC has a video of the same speech.

Share|

January 16, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment

Charter Schools As Immigrant Havens

Immigrants See Charter Schools As Haven is the headline of a New York Times article that appeared last week. It talks about the creation of many charter schools in Minnesota that are primarily designed for immigrant students, and writes that one reason is that many immigrant parents want to be more closely involved in their child’s education. In addition, they don’t want their children losing sight of their own culture.

It’s unfortunate that the quoted parents and academics feel that it is an either/or issue.

At our high school, which is primarily Latino, African-American, and Asian (mostly Hmong), and which has a majority of students who are English Language Learners, we are very intentional about engaging parents (there’s a strong “Parent University” program and we have our Family Literacy Project, among other efforts); spreading ELL’s throughout classes so that they are connected to the wider-student body (see The Positive Impact Of English Language Learners At An Urban School); and encouraging student connection to their native heritage (we have “Spanish For Spanish Speakers” and Hmong language classes, as well as ethnic leadership classes).

I would have hoped that the parents and academics quoted in the article — instead of supporting many schools avoiding these kinds of efforts through either not knowing how to effectively respond or not wanting to –  would instead organize to hold our institutions accountable.  And it would be good if our schools were pro-active, as well.

Perhaps many of these charters were created after parents ran into a “brickwall” of resistance from school districts to respond to their concerns, and the charters were their last resort.  I can certainly understand if that was the history.  The article, however, did not give any indication that this was the case.

What do others think?

Share|

January 16, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Perhaps The Final Additions To The Inauguration List

I expect that the following resources might be the last additions — prior to the Inauguration — to The Best Sites For Learning About The Presidential Inauguration. (However, I will add a few accessible reports about the Inauguration after it occurs).

Here they are:

The New York Times has a very intriguing interactive called I Hope So Too. They interviewed 200 people to find out what they hoped Mr. Obama would accomplish as President. In a slick graphic, you can see the primary hopes they said, hear their words, and then vote on which ones you think are most important.

The Wall Street Journal has a new slideshow on Inaugural Oddities.

The Washington Post has a good video that’s ideal for English Language Learners. It shows a bunch of people trying to define the word “Change.”

Share|

January 16, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment

Great Inauguration Resource

The New York City Department of Education has put together Inauguration Day 2009: Activities and Resources. It’s an eighteen-page downloadable document that has many surprisingly-good lesson ideas and resources.

I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About The Presidential Inauguration.

I learned about this resource from a blog that’s new to me — The innovative Educator. It looks pretty impressive, and I’ve subscribed to it.

Thanks to Free Technology For Teachers for posting about the resources available from that blog.

Share|

January 16, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments

Bonzo Box

Bonzo Box is a new visual social bookmarking application. Users can save thumbnail images of url addresses they want to save, as well as categorize and tag them.

You can read how I use these types of web tools with my students at The Best Social Bookmarking Applications For English Language Learners & Other Students .

Bonzo Box does have a nice-looking interface, and you can save websites with or without adding their browser button.  However, even though I’d say it’s worth a look, I think other tools I have on that list are more accessible to English Language Learners.

Share|

January 16, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments

The Best Basic Sites For K-12 Beginning English Language Learners

I’ve created a ton of “The Best…” lists so far — nearly 170 over the past thirteen months, in fact. Based on a number of requests I’ve received from teachers, I’ve decided to review all of them and come-up with a new series of lists including “The Best Sites For K-12 Beginning English Language Learners”; “The Best Sites For K-12 Intermediate English Language Learners”; “The Best Sites For Older Beginning & Early Intermediate English Language Learners”; and “The Best Sites For Older Intermediate English Language Learners.”

I thought that lists like these might make it a little easier for teachers, particularly newer ones — newer to teaching or newer to using technology in their teaching. Then, at their leisure, they can explore all the other more specialized lists, including the ones on Web 2.0 applications.

Of course, links to all the sites on these lists can also be found on my website, along with thousands of others.

I’m starting off with one focusing on K-12 English Language Learners. In compiling this list, I tried to really focus on highlighting sites that would be easy-to-use and engaging to both a younger Beginning English Language Learner and to someone who was new to computers.  They all have audio support for text and, with only one exception, they also have visual support.  Only a couple require registration (though the top-ranked site lets you do so if you  want to keep track of what exercises you’ve done (and registration takes seconds).  Of course, they all are free-of-charge.

Here are my ranked picks for The Best Sites For K-12 Beginning English Language Learners:

Number fourteen is from Houghton-Mifflin and is called WordBuilder. It has a zillion vocabulary exercises and helps students learn both spelling and pronunciation simply in context.

Number thirteen is BBC Bitesize Literacy.  It has a number of great activities and games related to basic literacy.

Number twelve is Spoken Skills.  It provides good, clear, listening practice, and also provides users the ability to easily record what they hear and play it back for comparison.

The original number eleven site has gone out of business.

Number ten is WordBuilder from I Know That.  I think it’s the best site out there for phonics practice. And, yes, it has the same name as another “WordBuilder” site on this list. Like with all I Know That activities, when you click on it, an annoying pop-up asking you to register shows-up. Just click on “Maybe Later” and you’ll automatically proceed to the exercise.  I’m also including the Social Studies page at I Know That. It has tons of different kinds of map games that are informative and fun.

Number nine is Kiz Club, a Korean site that has a ton of talking stories on a wide variety of topics.

Number eight is Literactive.  It has hundreds of talking stories and other interactive activities.  It’s free, though you have to register (it only takes a minute to do so).  My students really enjoy this site.

Number seven is a text-to-speech tool, which my students have found very helpful in learning pronunciation.  There are a bunch out there, though I personally prefer AT&T Labs.

Number six is an easy translation site.  There are many on the Web. These translating tools all work in a similar way – they let you copy and paste words or sentences, and then pick the language you want it translated into.   The translation then appears on the screen.   Some also let you translate entire webpages. Jeffrey Hill at the English Blog rates Google’s tool as the best among the ones he has tried- by far. I trust his judgment, which is why I’m choosing Google Language Tools.

Number five is The Language Guide, clearly the best dictionary on the web for Beginning ELL’s. It’s easy to navigate, and has excellent images, audio, and text.

Number four is Mingoville. It’s an exceptional site from Denmark designed to teach Beginning English Language Learners. There are many interactive exercises and games, it’s very colorful, and there are both listening and speaking activities, including a voice recording feature. You can experiment with it as a guest for a few minutes, but then you have to register. It’s completely free, and registration takes about twenty seconds.

Number three is is Starfall, the established site that is rivaled by no other in providing accessible literacy activities to Beginning English Language Learners.

Number two is Henny Jellema’s Online TPR Exercises. You’ve got to see this site to believe it. I can’t imagine the amount of work that went into creating the exercises. However, as he cautions, it’s critical to combine using his online activities with real-life Total Physical Response lessons.

And now, for my choice as the number one pick for K-12 Beginning English Language Learners is…U.S.A Learns. It’s an incredible website to help users learn English.  Even though it’s primarily designed for older learners, it seems very accessible to all but the very youngest ELL’s.  It’s free to use. Students can register if they want to save their work and evaluate their progress.  It’s a joint effort of the Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE), Internet and Media Services Department and the Project IDEAL Support Center at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research.  I know they’ve been working on this for quite awhile, and it shows.

Here are some new sites for this list:

Strivney is a free new site for beginning readers (it has a special section for English Language Learners) with 1,000 interactive exercises and games. You need to register for most beyond the sample exercises, but it’s super easy to do so. The site also has printables you can use to reinforce the online activities.

ESOL Courses has a good, basic introduction to English.

Brainpop ESL has some decent activities. I wouldn’t included it on this list if you had to pay for it but, for now at least, it’s free.

English Central, of course, is an incredible place to practice reading, speaking, and listening.

I know others might feel differently about the sites I’ve placed on this list, and their ranking.  Feel free to offer feedback and make other suggestions.  I’m all ears!

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

Share|

January 16, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment

New Vocabulary Site

Thanks to the excellent iLearnTechnology blog, I learned about a decent vocabulary-building site today. It’s called Wordly Wise.

The free site has word lists that have supposedly been designed for grades two-to-twelve. It has audio and image support for the text — in fact, it would be pretty difficult to come-up with a “definition” design that’s more accessible to English Language Learners.

Unfortunately, though, the word lists themselves do not appear thematically designed. In fact, for the ones I looked-at (and I only spent a little time at the site) I couldn’t discern what logic they used to devise the lists (obviously, they must have used some kind of system, but it certainly wasn’t designed for English Language Learners).  The associated games didn’t appear particularly impressive, either.

That being said, it’s still definitely worth a visit. The word definitions, as I said, are extremely accessible. I’ve placed the link on my website under Vocabulary.

Share|

January 15, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Inauguration Sites Keep Coming

Here are the latest additions to The Best Sites For Learning About The Presidential Inauguration:

USA Today has a nice multimedia piece on modern Inaugural Speeches.  There are a bunch of other sites that provide something similar, but the great thing about USA Today’s interactive is that it just provides a short clip of the most well-known parts of the speeches.

USA Today also has a slideshow on the inaugural preparations.

Agence France Presse has a very nice interactive reviewing the events of the next four days.

You can see photos and a diagram of the new limousine created for Obama, and it’s pretty impressive, indeed.

Share|