Russell Stannard finds sites that make learning fun.
In this issue we are going to look at some websites which are particularly good for young learners. There are some that your students can use on their own to learn English and others which you can incorporate in your classroom teaching. I have made a short video for each site to help you use it.
At the end are a couple of curious sites that I think everyone will like. When I tried these out in the class, my students were engrossed.
Spotlight on spelling
Site: www.learner.org/interactives/index.html
Help video: http://screencast.com/t/AbK3ESfb
This site has useful listening and writing material that the students can use for free. Click on Spelling Bee in the Language Interactives section to hear gapped texts at a variety of different levels being read. The students have to try to complete the missing words. What I like is that the students can play the full text but can also listen to individual words by clicking on the boxes or the red question mark next to each box. They can also check their scores and review the words before moving on to another level.
Site: www.eduplace.com/kids/sv/books/content/wordbuilder/?
Help video: http://screencast.com/t/MTgzYzM1ZTc
This great website also has a spelling theme. It breaks down words into parts to make them easier for the students to spell. The focus is on individual words, but you do hear them in the context of a sentence, which is important. What I especially like here is the masses of content and the variety of levels. It is very easy to use, so your students can work alone or you can use the material in class. They just click on a grade and then click on a unit. A series of gapped sentences is then read out and, for each one, they move sliders up or down to choose the right elements of the missing word. Clicking on the ‘Hint’ button will produce a clue. When the students are happy with their spelling of the missing word, they click on ‘Go’. If they are correct, the full sentence is read out and the correct word is added to a list at the side. If they get it wrong, they are asked to try again.
Short and sweet
Site: www.listenaminute.com
Help video: http://screencast.com/t/jftmpTz6B
This website is produced by the same person who makes the fantastic breakingnewsenglish.com site. It offers shorter and easier content that is appropriate for younger and lower-level students. The material is organised alphabetically by topic. Just click on the topic of your choice and a page will open with a short text and a selection of pre-made activities which you can use in class. If you click on the ‘Listen’ button, you can hear the text being read out. You can also download the listening file onto your computer by right-clicking on the ‘Listen’ link.
Don’t overlook the excellent quizzes on this site. There are usually two for each text. In the first quiz you generally have to re-build the text by clicking on a series of choices. You will see the text slowly building up as you re-make it. This is a great activity for pairs or small groups. The second quiz allows you to predict words from the text. It is a sort of ‘dictogloss’, where you type in words and hope they are in the actual text. If they are, they appear in the correct place.
Note that you can also see all the learning content in a pdf format by simply clicking on ‘pdf’. This is a really worthwhile site, brilliant when you need a quick option, and the material is very well made.
Curiouser and curiouser
Site: http://quizicon.com/quiz?id=37
Help video: http://screencast.com/t/M2I2YWU3O
This can be used with any students. In fact, teachers might like it, too. You have to think of the most common 100 words in English and you are limited to five minutes to find them. This is good for spelling, good for vocabulary at low levels and it is just great fun to see how many you can think of in five minutes. I managed 44 words – not very impressive, I am afraid.
Site: www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/body/interactives/senseschallenge/senses.swf
Help video: http://screencast.com/t/ZGNhZjE5ZD
This is an extremely simple site and nothing directly to do with language teaching. However, I have found that my students love it. It is all about the senses and how we are fooled into seeing things in a different way. You have probably seen the things I mean, where you see things that are not really there, etc. The good thing about this site is that it is interactive, and once you have finished each task or question, you get feedback on it. This is nice for higher-level students who will enjoy both the interactivity and reading the feedback. Students can work together or in pairs.
Russell Stannard is a principal lecturer in ICT at the University of Westminster, UK. He won the Times Higher Education Award for Outstanding Initiatives in Information and Communications Technology for his website www.teachertrainingvideos.com and has recently been shortlisted for the British Council ELTons awards.
This article first appeared in issue 67 of English Teaching professional, March 2010.
