February 11, 2008
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’ve placed a link I call More Sentence Scrambles on my English For Beginners page under Sentences.
It’s a series of well-designed exercises by Josefina Herrara Cides using Hot Potatoes software. Students have to put the words in order to compose correct sentences.
You can see quite a few other kinds of activities she has created using Hot Potatoes just by clicking “Index” on the Sentence Scrambles page.
December 11, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Say What? Grammar Quizzes are, if you want some simple interactive exercises to reinforce some grammar rules, fairly engaging.
I personally think there are a lot better ways to teach grammar than through these kinds of activities, but I also know that sometimes students want grammar practice. In those situations, you could do a lot worse than these activities.
I’ve placed the link on my English For Beginners page at the bottom of the Grammar section.
October 14, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
What Is A Sentence? is another game/activity created by the BBC. In the game, which provides audio and text support, students identify mistakes in sentences shown on the screen. As far as learning grammar goes, it’s one of the less painful ways to do so.
I’ve placed it on the Grammar category of my English For Beginners page.
October 5, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Road To Grammar and its companion site, Road to Grammar Jr. , are good places for students who want some reinforcement on English skills. I never use “drill and kill” in class, and have serious reservations about spending much classtime doing explicit grammar instruction, but some students seem to like doing this kind of work on the computer.
The best part of the site, in my opinion, is a section called Rhyming Words. It’s a game using audio and text where students have to pick the words that rhyme with a central word.
I’ve placed Road to Grammar on the bottom of the Grammar section on the Intermediate English page. I’ve placed a direct link to Rhyming Words on the Grammar section of my English For Beginners page.
July 9, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’ve been asked to write a guest “post” each month on the Learning With Computers blog about the topic of the month. Learning with Computers is a group of ESL teachers who are experimenting with the use of technology in the classroom.
Last month the focus was on grammar, and I thought I’d share what I wrote there with readers of this blog.
There are a ton of sites that focus on grammar. Many of them are mind-numbing lists of exercises and are almost as bad as the useless grammar worksheets that many textbook publishers put out.
Today I’d like to highlight two sites that I think are the best, especially for beginner English Language Learners. They stand-out for both providing text with audio support, and also provide a variety of different activities. My high school students here in Sacramento, California, seem to like them, too.
One is Grammarman Comics, which teaches grammar through the use of attractive online………comics.
The other is Grammar Gold, which provides a series of fun exercises that teach and provide opportunities to practice English grammar.
For more grammar sites accessible to Beginner students, you can go to the Grammar section on my website’s Beginner’s page.
For grammar sites appropriate for Intermediate or Advanced English Language Learners, check-out the Intermediate Grammar category on my webpage.
I hope these are helpful links.
June 7, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
English Exercises was developed by an EFL teacher in France, and has a long list of…… exercises. I particularly like the “Story Building” ones near the bottom of his site, where students have to “build” a story by choosing from a variety of sentences.
I’ve placed it on the English For Intermediate and Advanced page at the bottom of the Other category (there are such a variety of activities I couldn’t think of a better place to put it). However, many of the exercises would also be accessible to High Beginners.
April 5, 2007
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Faculty at Vancouver Community College have put together a series of excellent exercises for Beginner and Intermediate English Language Learners. These include ones for vocabulary, grammar, and sentence “scrambles.”
Some include audio, and many have images.
I’ve placed the link under the Favorite Sites section of the English Themes for Intermediate and Advanced. It’s called “VCC Exercises.”
