Story Jumper is a website where teachers, parents or even children can publish their own children’s book. The process is simple, fast and fun. If your students have a hard time creating a story, they can use the Story Starter, a tool that will help them write a story in just seven steps. The site comes with many drawings and photos that students can use to illustrate their story. Once the story is all complete, you can keep it for yourself or you can share it online for free with your friends, family or even the whole world. If you prefer you can order a hardback book (starting at around $25). Students will really enjoy the creative process of writing their own book and Story Jumper makes the creative process so easy. In addition to the clipart library included, you can also upload your own photos and drawings as background scenes. There is even a Classroom edition where the teacher can create a class ID make it easier to manage with a large group of students.
Archive for the Category ◊ English as a second language ◊
“Parapal Online” is a collection of English Exercises including Picture dictionary exercises, Letter and e-mail writing exercises, listening exercises, general English exercises, Vocabulary building exercises, Business English exercises, Cambridge style exercises as well as Children’s exercises. All the exercises run in Flash so they will no run on many mobile devices including the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad. The exercises are not very visually attractive, but since they are more geared toward high school students or adults, the simplistic style of the activities is appropriate. It includes fill in the gap and multiple-choice exercises. There is also a discussion board and chat room where you can meet other students.
UsingEnglish.com is an on-line resource for ESL (English as a Second Language) teachers. It was founded in the UK eight years ago and now includes a wide variety of resources for both learners and teachers. Even though most of the content on the website is based on British English, some of the content was also developed by English contributors from the US, Canada and other English speaking countries. It includes References, Worksheets, Handouts, Lessons Plans, Articles, Tests, Quizzes, Essay Samples and many more. It is entirely free, but is ad supported. There is also a discussion forum with many contributors. In the reference section, there are many databases loaded with information such as 354 English Grammar Definitions, 3,473 English Idioms, 620 English Irregular Verbs, 2,686 English Phrasal Verbs and English Dictionaries. They even have a Software Downloads section if you want to access the information while offline.
Are your students bored with word processors designed for businesses such as Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect? PrimaryPad is a web-based word processor designed for UK primary schools that allows students and teachers to work together in real-time. The best thing about this site is the fact that there is no sign-up required. All your students need to do is to press on the big green button and start typing. The features are very limited compared to a full word processor application and include text formatting such as bold, underline, italics and strikethrough as well as bullets and indent. That way, students can really concentrate on writing rather than formatting. Text is not locked-in to this website. Students can export their work in popular format such as Word, PDF, HTML and Open Document. Now the best part about this word processor is the collaboration tools. A student can invite other students to join by providing them with a URL or an <iframe> tag. When they join, each student has a colour assigned to their text. As they type, you can see which student has written each part of the text because it is all in different colour. It is perfect for a teacher who wants to evaluate collaborative work and know what part was done by each student. Finally, there is a time slider to go back in time and see changes that occurred on the document. I strongly recommend this tool for any teacher doing collaborative writing with his or her students.
Here is a great use of a Wiki for students and teachers: a compilation of videos about grammar. The concept is really simple : contributors to the wiki add embeds of videos from YouTube about grammar concepts. Videos currently included on the wiki include the passive voice, negative forms of “must” and “have to”, prepositions of place (at, on, in), who vs. whom, I vs. me, which vs. that, personal pronouns and many more. When visiting the wiki, you can either take advantage of this great collection of resources for teachers, or you can contribute by adding your own resources (videos from YouTube).
“10 Words You Need to Stop Misspelling” is a great resource to put on the wall in your classroom. It includes ten words that are commonly misspelled by students (and adults too!) It is presented in the form of signs that are very cartoony. Each word is a separate picture file. It includes “loose vs. lose”, “weird”, “definitely”, “a lot” and many more. On a side note, you may want to leave out the one about the word “definitely” or modify it before you put it in your classroom.
Literacy Center .net is a great resource to introduce children to foreign languages. It includes fun learning activities for English, French, Spanish and German. The website is visually attractive for children and involves both picture and sound. It includes subjects such as uppercase letters, lowercase letters, shapes, writing, words, numbers, colours and keyboard. The student can click a picture and hear the pronunciation. There is also an option to print the information.
This simple PowerPoint presentation will be very useful if you teach English and your students have difficulties choosing between the contractions or the possessive pronouns. This presentation helps the students with three troublesome pairs:
- it’s and its
- you’re and your
- who’s and whose
Substitution tests are presented to the student so he or she can better decide which one to use in a sentence. The PowerPoint can be downloaded on the computer. It doesn’t have to be watch on-line from the website.
This resource is a little treasure for all teachers and their students! The visual dictionary is now available on-line and is entirely free! It is not an imitation here. It is the real one published by Merriam-Webster and that is also available on paper and on CD-ROM. I already own the version on CD-ROM of this dictionary and I find it very difficult to always have to reinstall it when I reformat my computer or when I switch computer. Now, all I have to do is to bookmark the visual dictionary and it is available from any computer.
This is a very useful tool for students, especially those who better understand when looking at a picture. The dictionary is also useful when we can think mentally of an object, but we have no idea how to call it. As it is the case for the CD-ROM version, the dictionary is divided in 15 major themes such as plant kingdom, animal kingdom, house, food, science, arts, etc. The dictionary also include the audio version of each word, which is very useful for students who don’t have English as their first language. I hope you will add a shortcut to this site on your computer desktop on in your web browser.
“Tip of My Tongue” is a cool project that helps students and teachers looking for a word with incomplete information to find it. If you now what it starts with, or what it ends with or you have an idea of the length of the word, but you can’t find it, this application will be very useful. Sometimes, you just have a word on the tip of your tongue. The dictionary that runs this website is not complete, but it contains enough words that you usually find what you are looking for. The project is under development, so it can only get better as time goes by.
WordChamp is a very incredible tool to let your students practice the vocabulary while learning a second language. In order to use this website, you will first need to register and create a class. Registering is totally free and I tried to find if they will charge you something at a later date, but I couldn’t find any mention of it. Wow! Registering is quick and easy. When creating a class, you need to indicate the main first language of the students and the language they want to learn. It is also possible to create more than one class with only one account if you teach students at different levels or if not all your classes are learning the same second language.
Once the class is created, there is an option to print and instruction sheet for the students so they know how to access the system. As a teacher, it is possible to create many vocabulary exercises and flashcards that may be used as homeworks and include a deadline as to when they need to be completed. You may create your own list of words or you may choose from the database included with the website. Homeworks created fall in two categories: vocabulary exercises and reading exercises. Vocabulary exercises include translation, listening comprehension, dictation, reading practice, flashcards and pronunciation. The interface not only include the written version or words but sometimes include some visuals as well as audio files to let the students hear how the word is pronounce in both languages.
WordChamp will also let the student visit a website published in his or her second language. Without providing a full translation, students will be able to mouse over some words and get a translation as well as an audio file to hear how it is pronounced. This site is produced by linguists and is truly amazing. You should register to discover its full potential. The site supports many languages including English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese and Mandarin as well as dozens of other languages such as Slovak, Swedish, Romanian or Flemish.
The University of Victoria in British Columbia presents 200 vocabulary exercises for students learning English as a second language. The exercise is very simple and looks like a resource already presented on this blog : illustrated vocabulary. An image is presented to the student and he or she must select that proper word. The vocabulary words are in the following categories : furniture, school, office, home appliances, kitchen utensils, clothes, animals, coins and food. An interesting fact, the coin category is adapted to the Canadian audience.
If you are teaching English as a second language, this site, “English Grammar Quizzes in Javascript”, will be good practice for your students. It contains tons of computerized little quizzes to test their knowledge of the English Grammar. It is all multiple choice and the student gets immediate feedback after he or she answered. It covers many concepts of the English grammar including nouns, verbs, pronouns, punctuation, misplaced words, prepositions, participles, etc. It comes with five level of difficulty : easy, easy to medium, medium, medium to difficult and difficult. All the quizzes are written in JavaScript, so they should run easily in your web browser.
If you teach English as a second language, “Illustrated vocabulary”is a good source of exercises to help your students practice basic vocabulary. Students look at a picture and then need to select the name of the object from a multiple choice. Exercises include pictures in various categories including: food, architecture, office, colours, school, shapes, hospital, garden, days, months, jobs, music, tools, seasons, transportation, sports and zoo. After completing each exercise, students may check their answer and get their score.
