Elllo (Week 8)

What?

Elllo stands for English Listening Lesson Library Online which have lots of listening lessons that teacher can use for a lesson specifically listening activity. The materials are divided into few parts which are Mixer, Video, Games, View, and News. Besides, the tool is focusing on vocabulary quiz, speaking quiz and vocabulary focus. The activity is suitable for secondary students age 14-17 years old.

Elllo webpage

How to do it?

Step 1: Go to Elllo Website and you will find as above
Step 2: Click which articles would you like to explore on
Step 3: You can listen to the audio and answer the questions given

*If you want to have a clear instruction on how to explore Elllo, you can listen to Russell Stannard's video about it

Suggested activities:

1. Teacher can use it in a classroom. Teacher can download the audio available on the web and have a try with the students in order to test their listening skills. Besides, teacher can print out the activity that had been provided in the web for comprehension activities

2. In addition, the tool is good for teachers to check their students' vocabulary. This is because the tool is looking at vocabulary focus. It becomes more interesting for students to learn a new vocabulary instead of memorizing the words.

I like it because:

1. It is free and can be access by anyone
2. It promotes students' autonomous learning as they will explore the web by their own
3. Content-based and Language-based can be integrated as one type of activity. It is better known as CLIL
4. It can enhance students' vocabulary widely
5. For teachers, the activity creates variation in their teaching

I don't like it because:

1. Not all the video can be downloaded. It is quite disappointing if the audio which students prefer the most can be played.
2. The label at the left site of page is about numbers. If it is stated the topic, it might help the learners a lot to find the suitable topic for them

Reference Site:

Elllo as an materials for learning language on Youtube!

Wordsift (Week 7 part 1)

What?

WordSift was created to help teachers manage the demands of vocabulary and academic language in their text materials. This tool is helpful in supporting English Language by providing a fun and visually pleasing. Wordsift can be seen as a toy in a linguistic playground that is available to instantly capture and display the vocabulary structure of texts, and to help create an opportunity to talk and explore the richness and wonders of language. The tool works likely the same with Wordle. It is suitable to be used for 8-11 years old.

How to do it?

Step 1: Go to Wordsift website where you will find as below
Step 2: Select your text and paste it on the provided box
Step 3: Click the 'sift' button. You can sort the word from commonly use to rarely used as well as the opposite.

* If you want to know more about wordsift, you can visit Russell Stannard's website

Step 1 and 2

step 3

* The tool is different with Wordle as it can link with a thesaurus and grabs pictures that is associated with the word. For example as shown in the picture below:

Using thesaurus for a specific word

Suggested activities:

Creative teachers will find an endless variety of uses for WordSift, but here are some ways:

Lesson preparation: A teacher can use WordSift to review assigned text to identify challenging words or concepts prior to a lesson, and identify images and videos to use in class. The videos (hidden but displayed by hitting “>Video”) can be especially useful in the preview function since many schools do not allow access to YouTube, but a teacher can download useful videos (such as a science lab demonstration) onto his or her laptop computer from home.

Previewing text: In whole class or individually, students can preview text. Reading comprehension research suggests that previewing text is a useful strategy for improving comprehension. Using WordSift to identify the key vocabulary, and playing with the images and to use the example source sentence feature to “skim” the text can help students who might otherwise struggle with the complexity of the text.

Group activities: Teachers have found simple activities using small portions of WordSift useful. For example, one teacher has developed a simple routine in which she gives students the TagCloud, and has them working in small groups to write or draw a page using the words in the cloud. Another possibility would be to take the Visual Thesaurus® display of a word web and have students identify and discuss related words.

Literacy support: Individual students can use WordSift as they read text, or as they write a response or summary. Adult users of WordSift have reported using WordSift for their own purposes to skim text and also to review their own writing drafts. The creator of WordSift, Kenji Hakuta, uses it to preview and scout around documents that promise to be boring, such as long education policy documents, clicking on key words.

I like it because:

1. It is a fun way to learn language other than the traditional way which is quite boring
2. It can expand student's vocabulary with the help of thesaurus
3. It is marvelous for teacher to help students in finding key words in text

I don't like it because:

1. It is not good for a colour blind student. It may demotivate them to learn the language
2. Nothing more rather than highlighting few words from a text. Teacher needs to explore more on the tool to expand the activity.

Reference site:

Worsift on Youtube!
http://www.wordsift.com/site/about

Wordle (Week 7 part 1)

What?

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends. The tool is suitable for young learners at the age of 8-11 years old. The images can stimulate students' awareness of the topic.


How to do it?

Step 1: Go to Wordle website and you will see as below
Step 2: click at 'create' button on top of the page and paste your own choice of text
Step 3: click submit and choose the style, layout, font and the color that you want your visual to be.

* If you need more information about Wordle, you can visit Russell Stannard's website

step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Suggested activities:

1. The tool is suitable to be used as a pre-reading activity. For example, teacher gives students a paper consist of wordle words in it. As we know that, the bigger word means it is a key ideas of text. So, students need to guess the main ideas of the text before they read it.

2. Besides, teacher can use it for speaking purposes. The tool encourages students to talk during the discussion. It creates a communicative task for learners by giving up their opinion of the upcoming text.


I like it because:

1. It is free and everyone can assess to the tool
2. It motivates students to think creatively during their own learning
3. The tool suitable for any text and languages
4. It creates communicative task for students

I don't like it because:

1. It is not suitable for colour blind. They might find it useless to use in class
2. Students need to have a better internet connection to use the tool


Reference site:

Wordle on Youtube!

Listen and Write (Week 2)

What?

Hi, today we are going to look at the next tool in learning language which is 'Listen and Write.' It is a simple but very useful site for learners of English. It helps students in dictation practice where you listen to a text and then you have to write down every word you just heard. The users' work is checked in real time and they have to spell each word correctly. If they make a mistake, they need to try again until they get it correctly. The users can stop and play the text again as many times as they like. There are a lot of different levels of difficulty, so the users will find their own suitable texts based on their level.The activity is suitable for secondary school at the age of 13 to 17 years old. It can be used by the teacher as a classroom activity or as a homework.

Listen and Write webpage

How to use it?

Step 1: Go to the Listen and Write website and you will see a webpage as above.
Step 2: Choose a story that you want to listen. There are different types of difficulties available such as Full mode, Quick mode or Blank mode
Step 3: After that, click the play button to listen and at the same time try to write words in the box provided.
Step 4: If you unable to spell the word correctly, you can click the hint button. A red 'good' will appear at the end of line if you write correct sentence.
Step 5: You can also submit your own oral recording as part of the bank of recorded items.

*If you want to have a clear instruction on how to use the tool, you can visit Russell Stannard Website


Suggested activities:

1. Teacher used it as a listening activity. Teacher can ask students to work individually or in pair. Students listen to the audio transmission and fill in the blank to complete the text. The process of doing it may help students to become better listeners in real-life situation.

2. Besides, teacher can give a homework for students where they need to find an article on internet and record it. Then, they will exchange the recording with the others to transcribe. It makes the learning process becomes more meaningful for the students.

3. Autonomous learning can happen when the students have free time and practice a listening skill by their own, outside classroom environment.


I like it because:

1. It can add on students' vocabulary by referring words to the dictionary.
2. Students are expose to the authentic language because there are lots of articles available on it.
3. It can develop students' autonomous learning where students practice the language by their own.
4. It is free and everyone can use it
5. Students can choose their preferences level based on their competency in a target language
6. It is a fun way of learning a new language
7. Students can evaluate and assess themselves after doing the activity

I don't like it because:

1. Unreliable sources of text as everyone can contribute to post the article
2. Students can get distraction with the other links on web
3. Some students may not have a proper technology facilities such as internet connection
4. Teacher does not know the progress of the students if it is an autonomous learning. This is because there is no form of feedback can be given to them.
5. Students may use a 'Hint' button to complete the task without trying it first.


Related Link

Listen and Write on YouTube