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EFL CLASSROOM 2.0

EFL Classroom's Blog – November 2010 Archive (16)

Typing for EFL students

Today's site is a place your student's can go to learn to type in English. Very friendly and cartoonish but effective. I think typing skills in English are a very necessary skill students should learn when young and also by doing so, they learn a lot of English at the same time!

This site goes through 4 stages, just follow the dinosaurs instructions. In flash and flash and dynamic! Check it out!

I also recommend…

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Added by EFL Classroom on November 28, 2010 at 3:38pm — 2 Comments

Phras.in

Phras.in is a great way to compare phrases, chunks, collocations and even sentences. Having an argument about grammar and usage with a colleague or student? No problem, use Phras.in and settle it for good. How the language is used, should be the measuring stick!

Phras.in will compare the two expressions using the vast corpus that is the internet. It will give you how often the phrase occurs and tons of…

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Added by EFL Classroom on November 28, 2010 at 3:24pm — No Comments

Randall's Cyber Listening Lab

Randall's Cyber Listening Lab is a great site for students to get LOTS of listening practice. All listening activities are leveled from Easy Medium Difficult and Very Difficult and are appropriately leveled in my opinion. A great compliment to our own Listening page.

After the listening portion, there is usually a short multiple choice quiz for… Continue

Added by EFL Classroom on November 22, 2010 at 8:01pm — No Comments

Transl8it.com

I love Transl8it.com! If your students love text messaging (and most do), they will be motivated by this creative tool.

Transl8it simply takes real English and then supplies you with the text message translation. Simply put in the English and it spits out the text message. Copy this text message and print. Give this to your students to translate! They will love it! A great way also to cover course content, have them translate… Continue

Added by EFL Classroom on November 22, 2010 at 7:48pm — No Comments

ELT Games

ELT gamesis a nice "basic" resource site. All the resources are interactive and task based/conversation based. Students must use the information provided to communicate in "real" language terms. The teacher just needs to cut up the materials and distribute and explain (better demonstrate) the task well. I've always been a person who tells all the teachers I train that their best friend isn't a computer, a textbook or even a C.D - it is a pair of… Continue

Added by EFL Classroom on November 22, 2010 at 7:30pm — No Comments

Quizlet - the ultimate ELT flashcard resource!

Quizlet I like for one important reason -- it shows the initiative and drive of youth. Quizlet is run and designed by a high school student! Yes, it started it based on his own need to study his French words in high school. And now look at what we have!

Teachers, students can go and practice. I've set up an EFL Classroom account and I'd like members to go there and create a quizlet. That… Continue

Added by EFL Classroom on November 16, 2010 at 3:33pm — No Comments

SOHO Exchange

Sozo Exchange is a new video site for language learning. I am impressed by how clear the audio is and how well produced. Aimed at adult learners, the episodes focus on interviews and real language. Get a transcript to follow along. Unfortunately, they can't be embeded but you can download them thought they are quite large files. See the latest episode here or I've also… Continue

Added by EFL Classroom on November 16, 2010 at 3:30pm — No Comments

Go 2 Web - reference of sites

GO2WEB20 is a cool way to search and find web 2.0 tools and applications. Many that can be used in the classroom and / or are educational. They are displayed by logo and also there is a search function. Even better,hit "tag search" and you can then select a tag and find the web pages that are best suitable for yourself (say, bookmarking or photos or powerpoint).

Take a moment and browse around when you have the time. Really addictive so… Continue

Added by EFL Classroom on November 14, 2010 at 5:08pm — No Comments

2 essential video professional development sites

Edutopia is an excellent, teacher friendly place. A kind of "grab all" site with lots of resources for teachers but more importantly, great prof. development examples. I especially like the collection of videos showing what actual teachers are doing in their classrooms. Great articles accompany and explain each video. There is a great one about Project based learning and students studying volcanoes. See the one in our player, I just loaded - an… Continue

Added by EFL Classroom on November 14, 2010 at 5:00pm — No Comments

SPRK - Many resources

SPRK is a great site with some "flashy" content. It is available in several languages (the original is Danish?) and has some applications/games you can enjoy right away.

The best by far is Help Roger Decorate His Room. Your students will love helping Roger and it has lots of audio and is very easy to use. Help… Continue

Added by EFL Classroom on November 8, 2010 at 10:09pm — No Comments

Teaching Recipes - lots of ideas

I was going through our "sites" of the day and really kind of taking joy at this list of resources. Solid sites that help educators. But I noticed one glaring hole -- Teaching Recipes.

Teaching Recipes is a site where you… Continue

Added by EFL Classroom on November 8, 2010 at 10:08pm — No Comments

Lyrics Training

Anyone who has read a few of my postings knows without a doubt, that I'm a karaoke/music enthusiast! I find it a very motivating way to teach and learn English. It isn't the whole cure but it sure dulls the pain of learning English. See my full listing on our karaoke resources (especially this post) as proof of my commitment to… Continue

Added by EFL Classroom on November 8, 2010 at 9:59pm — No Comments

Posterous - simple place to park lessons/docs

Posterous is the easiest way imaginable to get your content online and accessible by students/colleagues - whoever!

Simply email post@posterous.com , attach anything, a video, a document (pdf/word, txt), an mp3 or ppt and poof! It will be posted in an attractive fashion. You're also signed up! They'll reply with the link and share everywhere!

I wrote awhile ago about the potential of… Continue

Added by EFL Classroom on November 4, 2010 at 4:07pm — No Comments

Edu 2.0

Edu 2.0 is the place I'm now recommending teacher's start their own classroom LMS (learning management system). I've waited awhile on this call - for a lot of new sites to consolidate and be built. IMO - Edu 2.0 wins for both SIMPLICITY OF USE, FUNCTIONALITY AND POSSIBILITY. Also, remember our own LMS (learning management system) eFront.… Continue

Added by EFL Classroom on November 4, 2010 at 4:05pm — 2 Comments

Dropbox

DropBox is a great idea. See the video below which explains the general principles by which it works. The basic idea is that it gives you a "virtual pocket" where you can find all the documents/resources/videos/items that are on your computers.

So for teachers it is a godsend! If you have a computer at school and also at home and then another 2 laptops, like I do -- it sometimes becomes very, very… Continue

Added by EFL Classroom on November 3, 2010 at 4:49pm — No Comments

Poem Hunter - Lyrical inspiration

Poem Hunter is a site I chanced upon. It offers a really deep array/list of songs based on a "subject" or "theme". Here's the one for "FUTURE". Click the topics on the left for others.

It gives a great list for each topic. A perfect teacher helper - in finding a song to compliment a lesson. I know how difficult this can be! Music is… Continue

Added by EFL Classroom on November 3, 2010 at 4:30pm — No Comments