Here are some of the links reviewed by teachers at the February
and April workshops. You can also see more links and comments from
teachers about diversity from the April 14th workshop. If you
have others you'd like to add, please email Deborah Healey,
deborah.healey@orst.edu
with your link and your comments.
This website provides the Bilingual Research Journal articles on-line.
Topics addressed in this research journal range from the training of bilingual
teachers, to language policy, to research into effective practices for
English Language Learners.
Fun site! Good for beginners- intermediate. 2nd - 8th graders would enjoy
this site. We checked out three of the many games (Cookie Dough 2-3 grade,
Math baseball 3-5 grade, and Shape Surveyor 5-8 grade).
(another comment)"The internet's #1 site for K-8 teachers and kids." This
is truly a great and fun site. After playing a few games and cruising the
site, we found a lot of entertaining games that are helpful in enhancing
kids skills in all subject areas.
My Apartment - The Game (Jim Duber) - This game uses advanced technology
to let you enter and search for something in Jim Duber's room. Just follow
the directions, listen carefully and happy hunting!This game requires Quicktime
4.
Level of interaction is for intermediate. Age group ranges from 9-14 years.
Summary: Offers a math problem where students need to use addition, subtraction
and multiplication. The site is good for teaching problem solving formulas.
This site offers information on everything for teachers of German. Topics
include grammar, listening, help for teachers - you name it and you can
find it here. Teachers could design their own exercises to be used with
these online resources. There are some pre-made exercises, and many links
to others.
This site offers everything to teachers of German dealing with the German
culture. Topics deal with politics, geography, holidays and much more.
There is even an on line store where one can order videos and other products
from Germany. there are links to practically everything dealing with German
culture. Teachers could create their own exercises and have students surf
this site for answers. Great place for students to research papers on cultural
topics.
If you need to find anything related to teaching German you will likely
find it here. Mr. Shea is a computer expert. there are great links to how
to use the computer in your classroom along with links to a vast variety
of web based creation tools that any idiot can use. I recommend this site
very highly.
This is an on line radio play for students of German. It is designed for
students at the intermediate level. The site is just getting started, so
there is only one chapter on line at the moment, but there is more to come
very soon. The play deals with the Familie Mustermann (if you want to call
them a family) and a trip that they have won through the German speaking
countries. The series promises to teach students a great deal of vocabulary,
and a great deal about German geography and culture. the site has manuscripts
of the text, and students can listen to the story on real audio while they
read it. there will be vocabulary lists and exercises (some exist already).
there is even an opportunity to win prizes by submitting your own responses
to the on line exercises.
Romea und Julian Radio Play for Students of German, www.ur.se/romjul/
Like Reisefieber, this is an on line radio play for students of German.
It deals with a member of a rap group that lands on top of a young lady
after having parachuted from an airplane. He develops amnesia and the story
takes off from there. Each episode is on real audio and students can read
a manuscript as they listen. There are exercises for each episode and a
vocabulary list in all Scandinavian languages and English. There are also
pre-made exercises available at the Jugendliteratur
Page (another great site for teachers of German - see below)
This site has vocabulary lists, pre-made exercises and other information
on a variety of books and radio plays for teachers and students of German.
i have contributed to building this site, so I can say from personal experience
that it is very useful. Here you will find materials for Besuch der Altern
Dame, Keine Panik, Romea und Julian, Gitterschokolade, Kein Schnaps fuer
Tamera, and many, many more.
Provides an Internet environment where young people can learn about health,
science, and technology while having fun. Children listen to a short fun
movie and then can take a quiz. Beneficial for children who are visual
and auditory learners and English language learners. Children can also
participate in hands on experiments. The site is geared towards upper elementary
grades.
This site is geared towards high school students. It is a Learning Resources
site that offers web-delivered instruction using current and past CNN San
Francisco bureau news stories. Each module includes the full text of each
story and interactive activities to test comprehension. The learner can
choose to read the text, listen to the text, and view a short video clip
of the story. Each module is designed for ease of use so the learner can
use it independently. The instructor can also incorporate any story into
class activities and lesson plans.
Great Internet site to relive important events in history by listening
to famous speeches. Students can read the background information given
to help them understand the speech before listening to it. Geared towards
upper grade levels.
Radio Plays and more in several languages, www.ur.se/
This is the home site of the creators of Romea
und Julian and Reisefieber.
There are links to other radio plays in various languages. The language
of this site is Swedish. That may cause a problem surfing through it. Teachers
of Italian, etc. may find it useful.
This is a great resource for educators wishing to incorporate listening
exercises into their classroom. It includes sections, each broken into
categories of easy, medium, difficult, and very difficult, that include
general listening quizzes with real audio, listening quizzes for academic
or specific purposes, long conversation with real video, and short listening
exercises. Subjects covered are things from answering machines to pronunciation,
and American slang to the Japanese economy and guidelines on investing.
Other information includes tips for teachers, multi-media tutorials, and
downloads for Divace players.
This page has links for teacher of German, French, Spanish and Japanese.
The pages by German teacher Brian Zahn are fantastic. It has links devoted
to each German speaking country, and a special link for teacher bases exercises
and projects that have been tried and proven effective. They were contributed
by other teachers of German. I highly recommend this site to any language
teacher.
This page will help you find places on the Internet to interact with other
people for the purpose of language learning. There are several types of
interaction possible on the Internet.
Radio Plays and more in several languages, www.ur.se/
This is the home site of the creators of Romea und Julian and Reisefieber.
There are links to other radio plays in various languages. The language
of this site is Swedish. That may cause a problem surfing through it. Teachers
of Italian, etc. may find it useful.
This link can be used by anyone. A list of languages appears, you can click
on the language of your choice and download the specific characters. This
is great for writers of other languages, and includes tips for hard to
find characters.
Choose from English, Spanish, French or German to test your language skills.
Pick a language and topic, then fire away!! This website can be useful
for language learners as early as middle school. It can be used by English,
Spanish, French and German speakers alike.
This site is excellent for your students (regardless of age) who are
pre-production
learners. This site has simple stories with great pictures that easily
display vocabulary and concepts that will enhance their learning. The site
also has more advanced stories for the advanced readers.
(2nd review) This site contains links to about a dozen stories at about
a 3rd through 8th grade reading level. Multiple activities such as
comprehension,
cloze, and "choose what comes next" are included on some of the stories.
Recommended for students who are mature enough not to rush through the
activity by clicking the arrows. A fast Internet connection is probably
necessary.
If you have the time to sift through a lot of gravel to find a few gold
nuggets, you might want to give this site a try. It has links to 23 popular
yet mostly unrelated sites, with such big names as Winnie The Pooh, Peter
Rabbit, Paddington Bear, and The Wizard of Oz, among others. Many of the
sites seem to have the original books available for reading, along with
follow-up activities and paraphernalia for sale. This would probably be
most appropriate for engaging reluctant readers who like well-known characters
and using computers but don't like books.
This is the website of the science and technology educators of Mexico.
Teachers in Mexico use the site to help in teaching grades K-12. Mainstream
teachers here can recommend it to students who are literate in Spanish
to help them do research on a variety of science and technology topics.
Bilingual teachers can do the same or they can take some of the hands-on
activities and engage the whole class. Spanish teachers can use it with
intermediate or higher level students to practice reading skills or can
do the hands-on activities with their whole class. The site has gorgeous
photos, up-to-date information, instructions to teachers on how to present
the information in a hands-on way and more. It is constantly being added
to and improved.
This site allows teachers and students in all disciplines to interact through
e-mail and on-line discussions with people from other countries. It is
a free service with lots of links to other resources.
A multi-faceted link site for almost every aspect of education (beyond
ESOL and bi-lingual). Easy navigation and in site search engines make this
site a utility that won't take long to look at and that will keep your
bookmark command busy.
Summary: Quia has lots to choose from in the topics of creating and playing
games, quizzes, creating homepages. This site has a lot to offer but is
a little overwhelming and you will need plenty of time to dig through the
materials. Age group appropriateness is probably competent third grade
through high school. Quia would be helpful to intermediate - advanced for
ELL.
(another comment) This site allows teachers to create very easy
web pages of their own. Then you can create a variety of different on line
games and exercises for students to use. I have created 4 such pages. The
games one can create include: Flashcards (target language->English and
English->target language), Matching, Concentration, Word Finds, Hangman,
Scrambled Words, Fill in the Blank and Jeopardy (a quiz game you can play
against an opponent or against the computer). These allow the teacher to
focus on the vocabulary and structures that he/she is dealing with at the
moment in his/her own classroom. I use these sites to allow my students
to practice at home on their own time. If they e-mail an activity to me
I give them 2 points of extra credit (per day).
TESOL - Professional Association for ESL/ESOL Educators, www.tesol.org/
This site is of use to those who wish to join a professional organization
geared towards the ESL/ESOL educator. It includes membership forms,
professional/academic
journals, annual convention updates, and has information on advocacy, new
education programs and academies, job related events (world-wide), ESL
Standards for Pre-K-12 Students, plus links to other organizations and
web-sites of interest.
This site is billed as the official site for Test of English as Foreign
Language programs and services. It has sections that include computer and
paper based testing, informational bulletins, tutorials and practice questions,
and pages for educators, researchers, test takers, and even information
for test takers with disabilities. Excellent for educators of high school
or college aged students, this site would be helpful to students who are
interested in continuing on into higher education, but also has valuable
information for any level of educator or learner.
This site is best for younger-aged students such as 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and
5th graders. Students are given a topic and picture to choose for their
writing and can post a story on the site. It is not posted immediately
but sounds as though all writing will be posted as long as messages are
not inappropriate.
This site is geared toward advanced writers; it provides clear, concise
examples of writing for different purposes. An interesting link includes
a visual representation of the organization of writing among various cultures/languages.
This link is can be used for DOL (daily oral language) or just as a fun
way for students to assess their own understanding of English grammar and
its rules. Terry the Terrible Teacher writes incorrect sentences on the
board including mistakes such as punctuation, subject-verb agreement, run-on
sentences, capitalization, and others. Students are to choose whether the
sentence is correct or incorrect and tell why. I believe this site is geared
toward students who have limited to average English writing skills. It
suits all ages but may work better with middle school-aged students to
adults.
This is geared to upper elementary school. The student identifies misspelled
words in a sentence. There's no meaning or context, and a lack of explanation
when students incorrectly identify the misspelled word. There are distracting
ads within the game. Not recommended.
This web site offers vocabulary development activities. It says it is
appropriate
for children as young as pre-school age. I found that the picture dictionary
was very easy to use and had links to topics that would be useful to elementary,
middle, and perhaps high school students who are at beginning stages of
second language learning. The dictionary is offered in different languages
(English, English-Spanish, English-French, English-German, and
English-Portuguese)
The dictionary was easy to use. I was able to make a language choice, but
it appears that the dictionary is the only part of the site that provides
another language other than English. There are links from the dictionary
that are easy to use and that provide good information (text and pictures).
There were many good activities, addressing many different topics. I think
the site would be good for ELL students who are able to read English at
least at a 2nd or 3rd grade level. It would help students understand content
area units that are being taught in their classrooms, and would help students
doing research projects. The site would be very useful for teachers as
they plan lessons and look for new ideas and activities.
This site gives a literal meaning of about 60 idioms. If you think that's
not very many, you're probably right. The rest of the site is pretty worthless
also.
This is a list of William Safire's no no's for writing. Many are obvious,
but others do creep into our language like a freshman on the girls' floor
at midnight. Go Beavers!
Multi-level vocabulary practice exercises that involve the learner and
instructor in application-based games. Good for any level learner but
particularly
good for 3-8 grades.
This site provides links involving spelling activities for kids of all
ages. Sites are broken down in the categories: very easy, easy, intermediate
and advance. Some of the focuses are: spelling rules, homonyms, plurals,
i before e rules, etc..
This information is geared to a "college level" age group, however it seems
as if it can be used for younger audiences as well. The information is
general dates from history. These can be used as a start for many discussions.
These discussions can be a nice way to involve many kinds of students.
They can be a fun way to involve students in lively discussion.
