Mylingo.org
http://mylingo.org/
Target group: Adult learners 20 – 30 yrs
Level: Material for beginners as well as more advanced

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summary of site

As it claims, it really is a fun site for language learning,and really puts into practice the concept of ‘online community’.  It’s Free to join and once you log on, you can access mixture of learning resources. One weakness is it doesn’t have  a very clear thematic organisation.
Technically it is very straightforward to navigate and upload with pictures and sound for pronunciation. Key feature is the use of ‘homemade’ videos and photos of young people
presenting  dialogues or other listening material in different contexts. There are also lots of  music tracks with lyrics and blogs. There is good content for all levels.
For beginners I recommend  Photo Phrases. See : Yes/No Questions with verb to be.
Intermediate learners could get real benefit from the  Diary Notes function that will be corrected by the ‘community’ of members.

A teaching idea / speaking and conversation

Stereotypes are they useful of annoying? Create a small group discussion using one of the video resources: ‘Lessons by Lotti’ on theme of ‘Stereotypes.’ [9 min/ select approx. 3min].
The speaker in the video chats about what is usually understood by the following: Punctual / tolerant / romantic/outgoing/ nationalistic/ well dressed. etc.

Have students listen and take note of the descriptive adjectives and readers definitions.

Revise some of the terms with the class writing vocabulary and phrases on board. Before listening a second time,  give out prompt sheet for the Group listening and speaking task.
With questions such as:
·         Do you like his explanations? Discuss
·         Can you think of other examples of typical behaviour of people who fit these stereotypes?
·         Think of a famous person or personally friend who fits one of these stereotypes and describe.

ESL Library.com

http://www.esl-library.com/
Target group: Adult and Teenage learners Intermediate to Advanced    

Summary of site

The ESL Library produce lesson plans and flash cards  that are particularly designed for English conversation classes.  These resources which are available for down loading and copying on a  membership basis. But membership is not expensive: ($22 US for 3 Months, $55US for a year)

The site is easy to navigate and each model of activity has samples you can download to view in detail. It clearly states the resources are designed for adult and teenage learners from at intermediate level.
 

The lesson plans are constructed with attention to varied modes of learning, interaction and problem solving. The format is very traditional - similar to what you would find in a text book-

but with some dimensions that relate to  CALL modes of learning and information access, such as; Ebooks,  blog list posts with Audio MP3s,  and  direct hyperlinks to  news articles.

The advantage of these resources is you can choose exactly what suites your curriculum or students, you can reduce paper by supplying to students as a down load to work on computers and you can adjust the activity and the size of handout to suit the time for the activity. They claim to add new resources  monthly, which seems to be correct as there were some discussion lesson plans referring to recent news items and students can preview the lesson in weekly podcasts.

Two resources designed specifically for conversation activities.

Discussion Starters lesson plans  Are a series of worksheets based on topics designed to get students talking. They have chosen topics that are relevant today such as; protest , tipping, road rage, and flu shots . Each lesson contains warm-up questions, an audio file, a reading, vocabulary review, comprehension and discussion tasks, and class survey templates.  Intermediate

Everyday Idioms  - Is a conversation course in the form of a  serialized ebook,  with  15 conversations with a uni student Kate, who deals with the ups and downs of campus life during her first year. Each lesson introduces new idioms in a short dialog between Kate and another member of the cast. The resource includes vocabulary review, discussion tasks, and pair activities. Intermediate to advanced

Note this is an American product so based on American spelling. However the themes are generic and topical conversation lessons pick up on global and generic events.

 
A teaching idea / speaking and conversation
Using these resources for conversation activities is pretty straight forward as they are designed for this.  I would get the students to prepare by providing elements as homework before class. The Discussion Starters have a short text but with the e-zine / serial story I would keep the ‘next episode anticipation for class’ and ask them to prepare to talk about an issue that comes out of the story – e.g.  ‘What would your parents feel if you proposed to live in a co-ed dorm? / or what would you think if your daughter/ sister proposed to live in a co-ed dorm?’ (depending on the students)

Other Great Sites.com

Cambridge UP Teacher Zone  http://www.cambridge.org/gb/elt/teachers/zones/

National Geographic for Kids  http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/

BoxofTricks,net  http://www.boxoftricks.net/

 

MentorMob.com

http://www.mentormob.com/
Target: all teachers developing materials for wider range of students

Summary of site

The short video ‘The Learning play list concept’ on the home page explains the rationale behind the

development of this CALL program.

 The software is an example of an ‘Authoring Tool’  which enables teachers and learners to create their own ‘Play lists’ or a package of selected internet articles, videos, sound files or webpages . The ‘curatorial’ facility avoids the timewasting and unreliability of web searching and enables organising, storing and sharing of material in coherent thematic bundles of resources.

To use the mentormob site you can Browse Playlists and see ‘lists’ on a wide range of themes; Science, Art, English and language learning. Several  of these ‘Play lists’ have the potential to be fantastic resources for a ESL language class and could provide listening thematic material and language to be developed into conversation activities.  The variety is really stimulating and the quality of material high.  The available play lists are guaranteed to be useful if you are developing a thematic lesson plan.  

The site has a few other  resources for ESL teaching worth looking at e.g.  the list of ‘Best websites for Grammar.’  The site also demonstrates and sells the software for creating your own ‘Play list’. This can be set up to provide access to multiple users such as a whole class.

 A teaching idea / speaking and conversation

My favourite Play list on the site was: Weather Science Project for Kids. This consisted of 10 items including great videos on hurricanes and clouds, and  a creative problem solving activity; ‘I can’t take the Pressure’ ( about air pressure), the Kid's book of weather forecasting and weather basics.

After viewing and listening, I would use these to spark a conversation activity after working up the key vocabulary and follow up with a task in which you hand out to groups of students a problem solving activity e.g. envelopes with key weather and geographic  clues, which requires students to discuss and work out the country and season they are in. Or scenarios of extreme weather and direct the conversation to what safety measures people would have to take.

CALL SOFTWARE PACKAGE   EVALUATION

AMES   - Adult Multicultural Education Services
http://www.ames.net.au/learn-english/english-for-living-in-a

Skill and study Focus

CALL Resources: Software: Conversation
 
The AMES programs are developed specifically for new Australians to learn English for living and working in Australia. The AMES,  Advance Intermediate is a tutorial style program with interactive functions, designed for individual computer based learning, either in a language lab context or for independent study.  As such it does not directly appear to be suitable for communicative conversation activities. However, it has many features which make it an ideal tool for language learning in preparation of conversation practice.

The program builds language learning around everyday life themes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Example Topics: Who’s minding the kids?, Love and Marriage & Family news. Provide the context for informal language learning.

Input is provided in text and in audio narration, and the content is based on conversational language, structured in short sentences or phrases relating to authentic themes. Common idioms are highlighted such as: be in touch / that’s good news / thrilled to hear / single minded.  The language is clearly thought about from a functional approach to develop skills for essential forms of enteraction: Reasons and opinions / Weighing up advantage and disadvantages / Narrating everyday events. These are all based on lexical and grammatical learning that can be’ re-cycled’ in a follow up conversation activity.
Interactivity includes: Extended listening, single word mouse click pronunciation, Gap-fill and drag and match exercises for comprehension and grammar. There is a cheerful feedback message with applause or helpful corrections, the program also has a process for monitoring individual student progress.
The mode of communication is predominantly reading text on screen, listening and writing on a PC. The presentation is simple without pictures or videos or extensive graphics. The visual component of multi-media is not exploited but it is not there to distract either.
Positive features are:  All listening materials use clear voices with Australian accents, which is appropriate for target learners and their social environment.  Each topic generates short learning modules across a range of skills and language.
Group conversation activities could be easily devised by teachers to extend the learning into productive speaking. As a complement to this program in a lesson  divided to provide a mix of computer based activity and communicative practice in group work.
AMES appears to have been written with sympathetic understanding of Adult ESL learners

Review : Lisa Nolan 27/08/2012

 

TEXT BOOK EVALUTION

Skill & Study focus
Textbook: Vocabulary
Level: Intermediate & upper intermediate

English Vocabulary in Use for upper-intermediate, Published by Cambridge University Press

is the third of a series of four, including elementary and
pre-intermediate and intermediate.
Authors: Michael McCArthy and Felicity O’Dell  have extensive experience and publishing record in the field of ESL including texts on, English Collocations, Phrasal verbs, idioms and Games for Vocabulary learning. O’Dell has had a particular interest in developing online learning resources.

The objectives of the book are two fold; to help students improve English vocabulary through not only learning the meaning of words, but also how words are used.  

The text book is designed to be used both in the classroom with a teacher and in independent study. It is very clearly and consistently set out. Every unit or theme has 2 pages where the left page provides the meaning of words and how to use them, and the right page has series of exercises. The first 7 units are devoted to effective strategies for vocabulary learning such as; creating word trees, bubble diagrams, tables or highlighting  for identifying word class, and other organising devices.

Units 8-17 deal with Word formation (e.g. suffixes, compound adjectives and words form other languages) and later units focus on functional aspects such as ‘Connecting and Linking words. The remainder of the units are organised by a thematic principle under very diverse subjects e.g.; Towns, Sound and light, Money or success, Failure and Difficulty.

Although the book is dominated by written text, the page layout breaks up the information in easy to digest segments, and small diagrams and pictures give some variation, but this is minimal.
I would recommend this book as a very usefull traditional teaching tool and resource.
Review Lisa Nolan 28/08/2012

Evaluation of Software: Letters, Faxes and emails

This learning software is straightforward in terms of readability and access of resources, however the level of interactivity and range of functions are very limited.

In summary the program provides models illustrating the different conventions for formulating a letter, and email or fax  in terms of layout, structure and content. The topics modelled are : complaints, enquiries, applications and a few more.

The student is required to write their own examples of these and refer to the structues provided, .

Typical errors are explored in a rathe rad hoc way highlighting grammar points.
The approach is formulaic but one of the positive elements is that it encourages the student to
 think through the rationale of the authentic task and find a sequenced appropriate language.

The software does not exploit the potential of multi media or CALL interactivity.
The skills principally are reading and writing.  The writing is supported by the scaffolding of modelled phrases and templates.

 http://www.proteatextware.com.au/shopexd.asp?id=18&bc=no
Interactive picture Dictionary
Is a Proteatextware software product  available  in Beginner and intermediate levels in which has the following features.

There is no access to a sample on line and the review on the site is probably written by the marketing department. The product description gives the following information. 

Over 800 key words arranged in 6 main groups and 40 topics.
Teaches and tests the spelling of singular and plural forms of over 800 English words.
Develops vocabulary skills in context.
Includes spelling tests and vocabulary recognition tests for every topic.

Authorable   ( more explanation of this function would be desirable! - we dont like the made up word!!1)

Customise the program by adding word lists (singular and plural word, context sentence, number of syllables per word). The program automatically generates the exercises for filling in the missing letters, typing the words from memory and the appropriate spoken feedback.

For each word there are a range of features and interactive activities for vocabulary learning involving different skills and contextualized settings :

photo
pronunciation
spoken and written context sentence
three spelling activities for each of the singular and plural word forms
type the missing letters
type the word from memory
type the word in new context sentences
number of syllables per word as an aid for pronunciation.