Once you type in a query, search results are show with good size images of the actual websites. It reminds me of the old Page Bull visual search engine, which I rated highly two years ago but then went out of business.

It doesn’t have any of the “bells and whistles” of my other highly-rated search engines, but I’m still adding it to The Best Search Engines For ESL/EFL Learners — 2009.

You might also be interested in these lists:

The Best Search Engines For ESL/EFL Learners — 2008

The Best Search Engines For ESL/EFL Learners — 2007

Not “The Best…,” But “A List” Of Search Engines For Social Media

Obviously, from the title of the list you can determine that the prime criteria I use is the search engine’s accessibility to English Language Learners. I believe this kind of accessibility also makes these applications very useful for students of all ages and language proficiencies.

Many of the sites in the top half of the list also appeared in last year’s ranking, and they all have made improvements over the past year. Several new web tools have joined for the first time.

Here are my choices for The Best Search Engines For ESL/EFL Learners — 2009:

Number eight is EyePlorer. It’s a new visual search engine that formerly focused only Wikipedia content, but is now a search engine for the entire Web. You enter a query and then see categories in a round visual display. By clicking on the categories you see excerpts from webpages, which you can “drag-and-drop” onto a clipboard. There is, however, a lot more to it that that. It’s pretty neat, and accessible to English Language Learners — once, I think, it’s explained. It can look a little complicated at first.

Number seven is Study Search, an Australian search engine specifically designed for students. Here’s how it describes itself:

“studysearch.com.au is a customised Google search engine developed for Australian Primary and Secondary school students.

studysearch.com.au uses the power of Google’s search engine combined with a growing database of educational websites. When a search is done Google checks our database and gives those sites priority in the search results. The student is still doing a full Google search but the results are tuned to display sites that are more relevant.”

It has sections for both primary and secondary school students. It doesn’t have visual screenshots, but I have to say I was impressed with the accessibility of the sites that came up in my searches.

Number six is the Carrot search engine. It returns search results divided into themes. For example, I typed in “Roman Gladiator” and, in addition to getting a list of typical results from a search engine, I saw a listed of thematic categories. These included “Ancient Rome,” “Movie Gladiator,” and “Collectible Swords.” These themes, I think, will be helpful to English Language Learners as they try to get through all the “clutter” of search engine results.

Number five is Quintura. It provides search results in a visual “cloud.” I’d characterize it as similar to the present version of Kartoo, the well-known search engine, but much less confusing.

Number four is is Boolify, a search engine designed for elementary and middle school students that is accessible to English Language Learners. I think there are others that are more accessible, but this is a good one to help teach basic search strategies.

Number three is Viewzi, a visual search engine. In other words, it shows search results in images instead of just text. This feature is obviously beneficial to English Language Learners. But Viewzi does much more than this — in fact, there are so many choices of how you want your search results displayed that it could be confusing to students, and there’s certainly not enough space to explain it all here. It’s worth a look, though, and definitely deserves a spot on this list.

Number two is Mel Zoo. After you type in your query at Mel Zoo, you see what appears to be — more or less — the typical kind of text results you’d find in other search engines. The key advantage the engine has — for both ELL’s and others — is that as you move the cursor down the text listing on the left side, the website itself is shown on the right side. This capability makes it very accessible to English Language Learners.

The Number one – rated search engine for English Language Learners is Middlespot. It’s sort of a combination Search Engine and a little bit of a social bookmarking application. After you enter your search term and click “enter,” your search results appear both as images and short text blurbs. Obviously, showing these screenshots benefit English Language Learners, and several other search engines I’ve listed here and on my website under Search Engines have this feature. The unique tool offered by Middlespot is called a “workpad.” You can drag-and-drop the webpages you want onto your workpad, give it a title, and then Middlespot will give your workpad its own url that you can post on a blog or online journal, embed, or email to someone else — all without registration.

I’ve written in The Best Social Bookmarking Applications For English Language Learners & Other Students about how useful an application like this can be in generating higher-order thinking among students. You might want to check out those ideas, and check out Middlespot.

Here’s a new addition to this list: The Mugurdy Search Engine is a simple visual search engine that is very accessible to English Language Learners. Once you type in a query, search results are show with good size images of the actual websites. It reminds me of the old Page Bull visual search engine, which I rated highly two years ago but then went out of business.

Feedback, as always, is welcome.

You might also want to check-out the other 350 “The Best…” lists and consider subscribing to this blog for free.

They just announced improvements in their site (you can see a video about them here), and I’ve got to say I’m quite impressed.

It’s so easy to save the pages, images, etc. that you’re looking for; you can easily write tags for each of them, and the best feature is that you can email or embed your work — all without registration. I’ve written in those “The Best…” lists, particularly the one on social bookmarking, on how useful an application like this can be in generating higher-order thinking among students. You might want to check out those ideas, and check out Middlespot.

It certainly has the strangest name of the applications on that list.

You can read more about it at Read Write Web.

I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Panoramas.

Thanks to Alt Search Engines blog for the tip.

I’ve shared my concerns about leveling books, but I tend to think that this kind of system might be useful to English Language Learners who are trying to find information quickly. It could save a lot of time and frustration.

I’m adding it to my website under Search Engines. I’m not quite convinced, though, that it will deserve a spot on my next “The Best” list on search engines.

I learned about it from Jen Farr, and she has an excellent post describing Oamos and how she’d use in class. Check it out.

I just learned from Alt Search Engines that they put it back online again — or at least, a limited version of it. It’s called KarTOO Cartographies.

When you submit a query, you get text results back, but also a neat-looking visual map of search categories.

In addition — and this is a feature I really like — it will show you results in related categories at the same time.

Both of these elements make it very useful to English Language Learners.

The only negative is that they also have an obnoxiously large advertisement on their main page.

I’m adding it to Search Engines on my website.

Thanks to Alt Search Engines for the tip.

That kind of visual support can be helpful to English Language Learners, and I’m adding it to my website under the Search Engines section.

It can apparently do a bunch of other stuff that I can’t quite figure out. And it does describe itself in a pretty weird way:

“Just as the flow of volcanic lava cannot be controlled or stopped, Lavva is not owned or controlled by anyone.”

But it is worth a look.

You might also want to check-out The Best Search Engines For ESL/EFL Learners — 2008.