resources that interest me

This week I will be mentioning resources that interest me.

I have a fascination with the history of the English language.

For years, I have been following the podcast lectures of Stuart D. Lee from Oxford University.
He teaches a class on Olde English- fascinating stuff and all free!!!
http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/

If you are very interested in Olde English you can take this online course:

http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/eduweb/engl401/

For people that are more into how sounds are made,
I found a really good site for help with IPA and placement:

http://www.sil.org/computing/ipahelp/ipaartr2.htm

How about this for word origins?
This is a site that is updated weekly that focuses on the origins of specific words:

http://www.takeourword.com/index.html

For more advanced learners of English and lovers of English.
Check this out:

http://www.bartleby.com/cambridge/

It is the Cambridge History of English and American Literature
(Considered the most important work of literary history and criticism ever published!)


I hope that you like this links as much as I do.
Please let me know what you think and what sites you like the best.

Speaking and Pronunciation resources

http://esl.about.com/od/speakingenglish/Speaking_English_Pronunciation_and_Conversation_Skills.htm

This site has a lot of exercises and information for all levels.

It also has conversation and pronunciation lesson plans.

Also- check out the speaking strategies they offer.

http://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/index.htm

I think this one is interesting because it focuses more on word stress/ sentence stress, phonetic spelling, etc.

http://www.esl-galaxy.com/speaking.html

This site gives "communicative lesson plan resources", they also offer role plays, have quizzes and podcasts

http://www.talkenglish.com/

This site seems well structured for what it provides. 
It offers English lessons based on travel, business, interviews... 
also links for phrases and idioms, grammar 

It does sound like they are trying to make it sound easy to learn English, however.

"To become a fluent English speaker, you must study and master reading, listening, and speaking. At TalkEnglish.com, the lessons are structured to give you practice in all three areas at the same time."

Typical sales pitch, eh? It just takes three steps: identify, integrate and understand.

The speaking lessons offer a music player where you can hear certain things like greetings being said in correct pronunciation.

It just all seems to be based on a 'repeat after me' type of instruction. 
The site spends no time working on common problems- it's just- this is how it is said, 
repeat after me... 

The student is asked to perceive all that is required from listening to the sound files. 
There is little help with the production of these sounds.

I think this could be good practice for advanced learners possibly 
but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else.

http://www.esl-lab.com/

This seems like a good resource for practice with perception of English sounds. The quizzes are cut up between easy, medium and difficult. I also like the 20 minute voc. lesson.

Reading and Writing Resources

Hello everyone,

 

This week, I am posting some reading and writing resources that I have found on the web related to ESL.

 

The first one is perfect for my teaching context. It is a group of selected readings, designed for intermediate students, from Oxford Press and come with quizzes on the readings so teachers can check for comprehension or students can check the answers for themselves.

 

http://www.oup.com/elt/catalogue/teachersites/selectreadings/?cc=global

 

In one of my reading classes in the past, I would start every Friday morning off with reading something from the Daily Texan. This was good practice. I have found online that there is a newspaper for new readers available online called, the Key.

 

http://keynews.org/

 

Here is something I found called 100 free short stories for ESL learners:

 

http://www.rong-chang.com/qa2/index.html

I also really like this site from Voice of America. They are Broadcasts and scripts written in clear, simple English.

 

http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/about_special_english.cfm

 

 

For writing, I found another ESL blog that learners can read and write on called:

Ron’s ESL blog

 

http://rong-chang.com/blogs/

 

It’s main focus is writing and grammar for ESL students.

 

This site for writing is a good site for all things writing and grammar related in ESL:

 

http://www.zozanga.com/

 

As always, please share with me your favorite links and let me know how you liked these. Thank You!

Joe

 

 

 

 

Listening Resources- Podcasts

This week, I am putting up a few links to podcasts.

The first one is a very famous podcast (Grammar Girl) that is geared towards better writing and advanced grammar in the English language:

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/

download the podcasts for free!

The second link is not related to English but for English learners of the Japanese language. It is a podcast that I have loved for years:

http://www.japanesepod101.com

I like the way that it is accompanied by a pdf file that you can download. They follow slow conversations to identify specific concepts. This podcast was completely free until about a year ago. Now, you can download half the show for free but, for extra content, they make you sign up as a member and pay a small fee.

I just discovered this site for ESL students that seems to be at a lower level than my context but I think it would be useful for teachers of all levels. He seems to really take his time to explain things. It's called ESL ALOUD. Check this out:

http://esl-aloud.com/

After doing more research on ESL podcasts, I found a very interesting one from Shanghai, China. This podcast is presented by two Canadian brothers. It seems simple and straightforward and low budget enough to help us all to realize that- anyone can podcast! Just like the Japanese learning podcast, they have a special VIP section for transcripts and more detail. 

http://www.china232.com/

I also thought this was very interesting:

http://www2.gol.com/users/norris/roadsdownload.html

It offers podcasts of a book, where learners can listen to the chapters and answer questions related to them. This is at the intermediate level.

I especially liked:

http://languagecaster.com/

This is a site that is geared towards English learning through content related to soccer (or football). It offers plenty of listening activities as well as other activities and resources.

Do you have any favorite podcasts related to language learning?
Let me know.

Joe

Moody's New Blog

Hello, and welcome to my blog related to the teaching of the English language.

My main purpose for having this blog is to share information with my graduate course in Methods for Foreign Language Teaching at the University of Texas at Austin.

However, all are welcome.

chosen teaching context, and preferred type of comments in your blog:

My teaching context that I will be referring to within this blog is mostly intermediate students interested especially in conversational English. I have experience with many different levels and ages but I am most concerned in this context with focusing on learners of English as a second language with learners between the ages of eighteen and thirty five. Please feel free, however, to post any comments or research related to any level or age group.

I would love any type of comment on my blog as long as it is done in a respectful and professional manner. Thanks for visiting!