Computers in the Classroom
- "VoyCabulary" site lets you add automatic (point and click) dictionary (English or English - German) look-up to all the words in any web page you are reading!
- Tools and templates for you to make computer learning games for your class:
- The "Trackstar" site helps you to create guided web lessons. You can also use lessons created by other teachers but watch out for mistakes.
- Hong Kong's ESL site offers a wonderful generator for paper or software crosswords!!, an online interactive marking system, authoring help for gap texts ("cloze") and multiple choice questions on reading comprehension. Sponsored by the rather biased South China Morning Post.
- Interactive Exercise Makers free web-based tools for creating all types of web-based learning activities including cloze exercises, multiple choice, clickable text annotation "glossing", matching, drag and drop, and much more
- At Quia! you can make your own language games just for your class, or use games other people have made. Note that Quia is no longer completely free as from 26.02.02.
- Filamentality helps teachers to create web activities for their class
- Quizlab @ Funbrain sign up for free and you can create web activities for your class
- Blackboard.com helps you to create an internet learning environment for a specific class.
- Hot Potatoes is an authoring tool you can download from the web and use on your computer to make computer-based activities for your class.
- News about software and updates for software
- Some authoring software is also available on CD from the MVHS English Dept. These programs help you to make interactive learning games for your students to use on a computer.
- Some learner software is also available on CD from the MVHS English Dept. Students can use these software programs for learning and practise.
- Authentic Materials to look at online:
- Downloads an audio clip of today's news in easy English (from Voice of America)
- Travel information such as Cars, Flights, Hotels, Cruises - students can practice booking and vocab. Also see the trip planning simulator aimed at elementary students working in groups.
- The British Tourist Authority have an interactive web site where you can look up hotel, travel, events, and attractions in the UK.
- "Virtual" tours such as the Capitol Building in Washington DC USA,
Harvard University or find out information about the European Union.
- At amazon.com you can get your students to review books they have read.
- Online chat (sometimes known as IRC or Internet Relay Chat) allows shy students to chat anonymously, and forces over-correct students to write
faster and therefore take more risks. There are chat rooms aimed at native speakers as well as hosted chat rooms
with an english teacher guiding the conversation (though it would still be a fluency exercise rather than an accuracy
one because the teacher usually doesn't have time to correct errors). Voice chat technology is still having teething
problems, maybe it'll be worth using in a few months time.
- Online chat robots like Erin the bartender, Alice or Alison.
- Getting email pen pals for individuals or for your whole class. Also try Its online.
- Exploring MOOS (an advanced MUD which is a more complicated form of chat).
- Adding a Chapter to a Story
- Creating fridge poetry
- ESL sites with specific information about using the internet or computers to teach English:
- Sites with audio material:
- Sites with lists of links:
- CALL theory sites:
- New Tools for Teaching links include documents on the effectiveness and possibilities for incorporating the Internet into your instruction; how it works, what it costs, time involved, etc.
- Info on CALL
- CALL@Chorus (UC Berkeley) reviews CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) software and books.