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.