Elllo English..Its not Hello English..

What it is..

Elllo English is a website for learners to learn English naturally through listening. It has six different components which are views,mixer,games,videos,scenes,talking points and news. This website provides authentic materials for students.

Who can use this website?
All learners with no particular ages or levels.

How can teachers and learners utilise this tool during and after the lesson?

1) Teacher can use one of the videos as listening activity material.

2) Learners can listen to one of the native speakers' videos to improve their pronunciation and listening skill.

Snapshots of the activities.

ELLLO-Views

ELLLO-Videos

ELLLO-Talking Points

ELLLO-News Centre

ELLLO-Music

ELLLO-Mixer

ELLLO-Games

OMG..I do like it..
1) It is completely free..
2) It provides a lot of authentic materials.
3) Students can learn variety of Englishes.
4) Autonomous students can learn the language e.g pronunciation on their own.




Points to ponder..
1)Although the materials are 'raw' and authentic, some of them are not really up to the standard. 
2) There is no level indicators. 


Link to the website:
http://www.elllo.org/

Just The Word..

What it is

JustTheWord is a completely new kind of aid to help you with writing English and choosing just the word. It shows combinations of words, suggests alternative to the searched words, and it can show errors which the learners always do.

Who can use it?

This tool is suitable for all learners at any levels.

How to use it in the classroom?

1) Teacher can do a word game. Student who guesses the most correct combination will win the game.

2) Students can use this tool to help them in writing English.

How to use this tool?

Type in the word you want to search

The results will come out like this.

You can link with this tool with Wordle.

OMG..I do like this tool.
1)It's completely free..
2)It shows a lot of combinations of words.
3)The website's layout is simple,well organised and user friendly.
4)It can link with Wordle.
5)It displays the error in word's usage which the learners always do.


Points to ponder.
1)None.


Link to the website:

http://www.just-the-word.com/

Wordle. Words and doodle..

What it is..

'Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide.' I quoted this sentence from the website itself. They don't call it 'a tool' for reasons. This 'toy' is exceptionally brilliant. Why did I say so? It can help you to distinguish between the least common words to the most common words in a text in a single click. Furthermore, you can customize the font colour,size and type. You can also modify the layout . For your information, you can use any text, no matter how long it is( Isn't it interesting?). The size of a word in the visualization is proportional to the number of times the word appears in the input text.So, if you type

                                'football basketball basketball  hockey hockey hockey'

 into the create page's text field,you will see that basketball's font size is twice football, and hockey''s font size is 3/2 that of basketball's.

A sample of wordle.

Features which can be customised.

Who can use it?

Students of all English language levels and teachers.

How to use it in the classroom?

The teacher could use the Wordle as pre reading activities.For example, students need to predict the main idea of the text from the Wordle. The activity is simple yet really engaging(communicative) activity because the teacher will get lots of answers from the students and I bet the students (even the cheeky one) would love this. Give it a try and leave your comments once you have done it.

OMG.. I do like it..

1) It will cost you nothing(even a penny).

2) Students' attention usually can easily be captivated by fancy worksheets.

3) Wordle reliefs the teachers from stress(it gives them a resource idea)

4) It helps the teacher to create a communicative classroom.

Points to ponder..

1) You cant save it in other format.

2) It needs java plugin but it can easily be installed.

Link to the site:

http://www.wordle.net/

Brainshark- Suprisingly,its not alive...

What it is..
Brainshark is a website where the user can create,share and track online video presentations for e-learning and more. Users can add their voice to powerpoint slides, documents, photos and more; transforming them into engaging and interactive video presentations, which then the users can share via emails, social networking or play it on blog and website. The audience can assess the video presentations online on-demand at their convenience.

This is a sample of video presentation using Brainshark.

Who can use it?

Teachers and secondary students of all English language levels.


How to use it in and outside the classroom?
1)It could be used for classroom presentation. Instead of letting the students do the presentation in front of their mates, why not let them prepare this incredible video presentations at home and play them later in the classroom.
2)Teacher might want to use this platform to provide students with extra notes. This can be beneficial especially during the examination weeks as the students revise the notes to the utmost. 


OMG..I do like it..
1)It is free. They do have paid version with some extra but the free version is not that bad.
2)It can help to lower students anxiety when doing the presentation because nobody sees them. Some students do not like to do presentation. So, this tool will help them to develop their confidence and sooner or later, they can stand in front of their mates and do the presentation.
3)The content can easily be accessed.
4)Brainshark honored as Best of E-learning! Award Winner.


Points to ponder.
1)If you are using the free version, your video presentations will be made public. In terms of privacy, this is not good. However ,if you use the paid version, you can choose either to make it public or private.


Links to the website:
http://www.brainshark.com/

Bookr. Learn to create a book full of photos.

What it is

Bookr is a tool which allows users to create a photo book. You can get the photos from Flickr.It is quite easy to use it. First, what you have to do is, search for images which you want to put in your story book(s). There is a search engine (the purple box) on the same screen as the book editor. 

Who can use it?
The activity suits all levels of English proficiency


How to use this tool in the classroom?
1) Learning by pictures is good because usually students can remember the lesson better with pictures. For example, if the teacher wants to teach the students a poem about nature, the students can search pictures with describe nature and paste them onto the photo book. Isn't that simple?easy peasy lemon squeezy..

2)For low level students, this activity might be interesting for them. Let say they are learning about family tree(the topic could be anything). The teacher can ask the students to create a photobook which represents family tree. For example,

OMG..I do like it..


1) It is free.
2) Pictures can be easily searched from the search box.
3) Lots of classroom activities can be done with help from this tool.
4) This tool offers variation in learning and teaching styles.


Points to ponder..


1) Who owns the copyright for the photobook? The author or the photographer(s)?
2) Time consuming.
3) It could be a boring activity sometimes.
4) Students may access inappropriate contents. 




Link to the website:
http://www.pimpampum.net/bookr/