It’s unfortunate that, as far as I can see, they don’t show the words in the context of sentences, but it’s still one of the better vocabulary sites out there.

I’ve placed the link on my website under Vocabulary.

There’s a ton of different and engaging online activities there for Beginning through Intermediate English Language Learner students.

I’ve placed the link on my website under Vocabulary on my website, even though it also includes reading and listening exercises..

These kinds of games, which I’ve written a lot about and have posted on my website, are good, fun ways for Beginning English Language Learners to begin to build vocabulary.

I’ve posted the link on my website under Music and Art.

By the way, once you’ve found all the objects in this particular game, there are some other activities you can also do that might be worth exploring.

They just launched Word Ahead For Teachers. It has a number of features, including the ability to create personalized vocabulary lists.

I’ve found, though, that my English Language Learner students enjoy taking online quizzes that don’t fit into those above categories.  Many are just for fun, but include reading and vocabulary development opportunities.  Some, though, can offer useful information to students — for example, well-done career tests.

Here are my choices for The Best Online Personality, Career, & Just Plain Fun Quizzes (not in order of preference):

Career Path and Monster both have multiple job-related quizzes.

Queendom: The Land of Tests has a ton of quizzes on many different topics.

The BBC Human Body and Mind also has a number of different types of tests.

ABC in Australia has a fun little personality test.

The Central Intelligence Agency has a “tongue-in-cheek” CIA Personality Quiz.

Here’s a link to something called The Big Five Personality Test.

Channel One has a lot of online quizzes, including many personality ones.

Take a How Do You Learn? quiz to identify learning styles.

Proprofs Quiz School has several personality quizzes, and it’s an easy place for students to create their own, too.

The Pew Research Center Interactive has several very accessible political and community quizzes that would provide good grist for learning and discussion.

At 15 has a Pic-a-Pic personality quiz.

Similar Minds has a large collection of personality quizzes. Some of them are accessible to ELL’s.

The Constitution Center has a Which Founder Are You quiz. You answer a variety of personality-like questions, and then you’re told which of the “founding fathers” you are most like.

The Los Angeles Times uses technology from the company Visual DNA to have users take a News Match Quiz. It’s really pretty neat. You’re asked some simple questions and shown a variety of images you use to answer — What is your favorite kind of treat? What would spark a conversation with you?

Then, at the end, you’re given a report on your personality and a series of newspaper articles the program thinks you’d be interested in.

It’s useful for English Language Learners on a number of levels. I’ve seen the Visual DNA technology used in other sites, and have liked it, they those other sites have usually been dating-related or on other sites not appropriate for the classroom.

A somewhat similar quiz sit– though not nearly as good as Visual DNA’s application — is called ID Solution. It identifies your “cultural taste.” One thing I do like about it is that some the questions ask your preferences of various texts instead of images.

I’d certainly be interested in hearing other suggestions, so please feel free to leave them in the comments section.

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.

It’s a good second step after ELL students have learned the “outside” body parts (hands, arms, etc.).

I’ve placed the link on my website under Body.

I’ve placed the link on my website under Vocabulary.

(You first have to click any state on the map you see)

WordSift is a new visual tool to learn vocabulary.  Mary Ann Zehr has written an excellent post describing it and its benefits for English Language Learners who need to learn “academic English.”

WordSift is on The Best Websites For Developing Academic English Skills & Vocabulary.

It’s definitely worth a look throughout the site, though. I think it has the potential to become one of the best resources out there for ESL/EFL teachers.

I’ve placed the link on my website under Vocabulary.

When I’m teaching Beginning ELL’s, I tend to teach vocabulary prior to reading. With any class above that level, including native English speakers, I use a technique I learned from Kelly Young of Pebble Creek Labs, who has designed the extraordinary curriculum we use in our mainstream classes.

It’s called a Word Splash.

Prior to beginning a unit, I’ll write about twenty words on large sheet of paper that’s in front of the class. I’ll put it there a few days prior to starting that unit so students have been exposed to the words for awhile. Then, I have students copy the words down and write what they think it means — guesses are fine. Students then go into small groups and share their definitions. Next, we have a class discussion.

In that discussion, I don’t tell students if they’re correct or not.

The point is to help students become aware of the key words they’ll need to know to understand important parts of the unit. During subsequent lessons, I’ll ask students to highlight words from the Word Splash that they see in various texts. At some point I might ask them to revisit their definitions, or have each student take a word and draw and define it in a poster.

This process certainly helps students see how much they have learned from the beginning of the a unit to a later time.

Please share your throughts — either here or at Jason’s blog — about how and when you think vocabulary is best taught.