clubEFL has fantastic resources for EFL/ESL students and teachers, including:

* A Picture Dictionary and a Talking Dictionary. These stand out particularly for all the additional interactive reinforcement activities they include. I’m adding them to The Best Beginner, Intermediate & Advanced English Language Learner Sites.

Several other parts of their site are equally as good, but I’m not adding it to that list because they include YouTube videos. I only include sites that most students can use on their own in that “The Best…” list and, since YouTube is blocked by most schools for student use, I can’t include them in that list. However, it has prompted me to think about creating a comparable “all-time” list for useful teacher sites. In our district, teachers can access YouTube, so these following pages are excellent to use in a whole class lesson using a computer projector. They have short video clips along with lots of interactive reinforcement exercises (students could use them at home, too):

Gogo’s Adventure with English, which I’m adding to The Best YouTube Channels For Learning English (even though it’s not quite a “channel.”

Learn English Through Movies, which I’m adding to The Best Popular Movies/TV Shows For ESL/EFL.

They have another site, also called a Picture Dictionary, that has mostly YouTube music videos and interactive exercises. I’m adding it to The Best Music Websites For Learning English.

They have two other features that I think are good, just not quite as useful as the ones I’ve mentioned already. They are:

Aesop’s Fables in English for language learners, which I’m adding to The Best Sites For Using Aesop’s Fables In The Classroom.

Very Short Stories and Verses For Children, which I’m adding to The Best Websites To Help Beginning Readers.

As regular readers know, ever since I discovered them, I’ve believed Henny Jellema’s online TPR Exercises to be not only the best listening exercises for English Language Learners on the Web, but the best ELL activity — period.

Well, I don’t know how I missed it before, but has a number of other similar activities that are just as good:

Stepping Stones Basic

Stepping Stones VBO

Four Stories

I’m adding them to both The Best Beginner, Intermediate & Advanced English Language Learner Sites and to The Best Listening Sites For English Language Learners.

I’ve just made a number of additions and revisions to The Best Listening Sites For English Language Learners.

Feel free to make more suggestions….

Lyrics Gaps lets you choose a song and the language you want it sung in and then gives you the option of seeing/hearing it in different modes — karaoke, beginner, intermediate, expert. Apart from karaoke mode, you’re then shown a YouTube video of the singer, along with the lyrics on the side including blanks (fill-in-the-gap).

I especially like the beginner mode, which provides several options to chose to complete the sentences. The higher levels don’t give any hints.

I’m adding it to The Best — And Easiest — Ways To Use YouTube If, Like Us, Only Teachers Have Access To It.

Dictogloss is primarily a listening and writing activity used with English Language Learners. It can certainly be done a number of different ways but, very simply-put, the teacher reads a short text, often one students are familiar with. Then, after the first time of just listening, the teacher reads it again and students write down notes of what they have heard. Next, the teacher reads it a third time and, again, the student writes down additional notes. The student then compares his/her notes with another student’s notes and they work together to develop an accurate reconstruction of the text — one that is not necessarily the exact wording, but that demonstrates its meaning accurately. Finally, the teacher reads it again and students judge how well they did.

Again, there are many variations on how to implement this engaging instructional strategy.

Here are few of the best resources that I’ve found on using the dictogloss strategy. They include reproducibles, research on its effectiveness, and examples of how its used in different classrooms:

The Dictogloss: Intensive listening for integrated language development from Jason Renshaw.

The Listening “Dictogloss” is a more extensive piece by Jason.

Dictogloss Procedure is by Diane Tedick.

Dictogloss is by by Willy C. Cardoso and includes a video of it in action.

Our first time with dictogloss is by David Dodgson.

Doing Dictogloss with E1s (elementary) is from Magpie Moments.

Feedback is welcome.

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.

Quizlet has been on The Best Tools To Make Online Flashcards for awhile. In addition to letting you create and study flashcards, it also lets you study the words in “game” forms.

They’ve recently added audio to the flashcards you make. A fairly human-sounding computer-generated voice provides the sound at a click of the audio button. It’s definitely a nice addition.

Thanks to David Deubelbeiss for the tip.

I’ve posted about the Minnesota Basic Education Site before, but it’s been quite a quite awhile.

I was recently pleased to see that they had completely redesigned it, and it looks great!

It will certainly make one or more of my year-end “The Best..” lists.

Thanks to Ed Tech Essentials for prompting me to take a look.

Thanks to Michelle Henry’s fabulous website, I’ve learned about three good listening exercises for July 4th:

Kyle: Independence Day

Frank: Independence Day

Cortney: Independence Day

I’m adding them to The Best Websites For Learning About The Fourth Of July.

I’m also adding two resources from the Orange County Register:

A graphic titled Staying Safe On July 4th

How Fireworks Get Their Colors

MovieClips, the incredibly useful site with thousands of short movie clips classified in great ways (I’d encourage you to read “Movieclips” Is A Real Find!), has just gotten even better.

You can now create your own “mashups” of their clips. In other words, you can search for a certain them — let’s say, cooking — and put the clips related to cooking together and save them. Instead of searching for the ones you want on the site, you have them all set-up in a row.

Even better, it appears they plan on providing the ability to “trim” the clips just to the portions you want. It says “trim” right now, but it doesn’t appear to work (at least for me). Their search system for the Mashups appears to have a few kinks in it, too, because everytime I searched for something I got the message “Sorry, No results.” Then, when I clicked “Search again with less restrictions” all the results I wanted showed-up.

I’m sure these are just the typical problems of new service. But the usefulness of these mashups are worth the temporary inconvenience.

You might want to read the TechCrunch post that shares more information about future site plans.

Top 10 Websites to Convert Text to Speech Online for Free shares some good web applications.

I’m not sure if any of them are better than the ones I have listed in The Best Reference Websites For English Language Learners, but they’re certainly worth a look. That post includes one or two that I have already included in mine.

Let me know if you think any of them are stand-outs that I should add to that “The Best…” list.