What's your favorite website?

Hello colleagues, In a recent discussion thread, there were a few websites mentioned as favorites. Let's expand this discussion of favorites. There are new sites popping up all the time, and it's great to hear how teachers and learners are using the sites to further develop English language skills.

A site I visit often is Breaking News English. At this site, you will find brief news items on a wide range of topics available at low intermediate to advanced levels. The news stories can be both read and listened to. The site includes many interactive exercises for each news story that can be completed online. You can also download the entire lesson with all the exercises or a 2-page version of the handout.

Please share one or two of your favorites. What sites do you and/or the adult English learners you teach visit most often? What makes the site so attractive to you as a teacher and/or to adult learners?

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, AELL CoP

 

Comments

I use several websites and encourage students to explore from a list of websites to find one that is most appealing to them.  One of my favorites, however, is www.a4esl.org.  This website offers a plethora of lessons at all levels and in multiple languages, so no matter the language, students can increase vocabulary in English and be in the comfort zone of their home language at the same time.  There is also a search engine that can direct students to specific exercises on any given topic, and there is a link to VOA (Voice of America) which gives readable and listenable daily news stories.  There is a also a Merriam Webster dictionary embedded into the (VOA) text, so if the student encounters a word they want to learn more about, just click and a pop-up from the dictionary appears on the screen. 

Hi Mark and all, Thanks for these suggestions. Recently, I used an article on VOA that focused on controlling asthma.  This was a podcast with a script at a fairly high level of English. I love having a script since there is so much you can do with the language in a script, cloze exercises, sequencing exercises, peer dictation, etc. [If anyone would like an explanation of these activities, please let me know!] I didn't explore the VOA website all that much. Can you tell us about the range of levels of the materials that are available there? Are there beginning level materials available?

It's interesting about the Merriam Webster dictionary being embedded in the text. Can you tell us if this is an English learners' dictionary with easy to understand explanations and examples? Similar to the dictionary feature on VOA, I learned about the Lingro.com site recently. At this site, you can copy and paste any web link and it will translate any specific word on the page into different languages. My Chinese student loves this tool, but he told me recently that when he reads, he understands all the words in a sentence, but he doesn't understand the sentence! He was looking for a tool that would translate sentences accurately!

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, AELL CoP

Unfortunately, the dictionary is not an English learner's dictionary with examples, but it is not too far off the mark as it is not overtly complex and seems to provide the definition as it pertains to the context of the reading (although I'd have to spend some time to verify that!)  VOA is for more advanced students and it is challenging for ELL's, but it is nonetheless a great resource for those transitioning between ESL and academic programs or the ambitious student who likes to be challenged.  The website offers much for students of any level, but VOA is not in this category.  Please note that there are two columns when one clicks the link to VOA.  On the left is a YouTube list of articles, and the YouTube articles do not include the use of the dictionary.  Instruct students to click articles on the right of the screen to access the dictionary.  On a side note, I am exploring the websites given by other instructors.  THANKS GUYS! 

I have so many favorite websites it's hard to choose!  But I'll focus on a few of my favorites to support reading.  I really like Newsela and Smithsonian Tween Tribune.  These websites offer very recent news articles.  Each article is available at multiple different lexile levels making it possible for the whole class to read the same content but at an appropriate level for each individual student.  The articles also include quizzes to check for comprehension.  

As a follow up activity, after students have read an article from one of these websites, they can copy and paste the article into Spreeder which is a free online speed reading program. Spreeder allows students to adjust speed and chunk size of the text presented and it really helps students push themselves to increase reading speed!

Newsela and Tween Tribune are for intermediate to advanced students.  But Fluency Tutor is a great program for students of any level that allows the teacher to send articles to students based on lexile level.  Students can listen to the article, review vocabulary words (with definitions presented in picture and text form), and finally students can then record themselves reading the article aloud.  The teacher can then access all students recordings.  The premium version allows teachers to send feedback to students and create custom passages.

I look forward to learning about other websites from this thread!

Becky

Hi Becky, I love Newsela and use articles from that site often.  I just signed up for Smithsonian Tween Tribune. This was a new one for me.  I'm always eager to find good sources for reading materials.

The Fluency Tutor app sounds great. I really like that students can record and listen to themselves. I've done a lot of audio (and video) recording in class with smart phones, too. I tried downloading Fluency Tutor, but it seems to be available only for Android.

I'm wondering if anyone in our community would be willing to compile the list of resources that we generate and create an annotated handout for us. Please let me know if you are interested in taking on this task. I know many of us would be most appreciative.

Cheers, Susan

Moderator, AELL CoP

Hi Becky,  Thank you for your willingness to pull this together. It looks great, and having the annotations is quite useful.

Colleagues, let's continue to add to this list. It's especially helpful to hear examples of how you are using a particular site and the specific tools that are available.

Cheers, Susan

Moderator, AELL CoP

 

 

 

Hi Becky:

I love the spreadsheet!  Not sure if this exactly fits the list but I want to encourage study skills development for all students as early as possible.  Study Guides and Strategies makes study skills strategies available to in 35+ languages for students with fairly strong reading skills in their native language.

Cynthia Zafft

Moderator, Postsecondary Completion

Hi Becky:

I love the spreadsheet!  Not sure if this exactly fits the list but I want to encourage study skills development for all students as early as possible.  Study Guides and Strategies makes study skills strategies available in 35+ languages for students with fairly strong reading skills in their native language.

Cynthia Zafft

Moderator, Postsecondary Completion

Wow! What an amazing resource. Thank you, Cynthia! This is a new one to me. Since I'm currently teaching a transition class, I'm definitely planning to recommend this resource to learners.

Has anyone referred adult learners to this resource? Please share with us how these resources have worked in your experience.

I'm thinking this would be quite helpful to case managers, coaches, career advisers/academic advisers and/or navigators in our programs. I'll be doing a series of workshops with faculty at a local college that prepares students for careers in health care this summer, and I will definitely be sharing this resource with them.

Cheers, Susan

Moderator, AELL CoP

The ELC Study Zone:

http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/

This site was always a favorite when I taught computer lab sessions for ESL classes.  Grammar, Vocabulary, Reading and Puzzles for "Upper Beginner" to "Advanced" students.  It works very well to review topics students have already been studying in class.  Choosing an answer gives immediate, explanatory feedback.  The exercises appear in a random order each time, so there's a lot more repeatability too.  Since the URL is rather cumbersome, I teach students to google 'ELC Study Zone'.  Thank you, University of Victoria!

For example, for the question 'Barbara swims ____________ than Anna because she has stronger arms.' 

If you choose a. fastlier, you get the message, "Be careful! This is not a real word." 

If you choose b. fast, you get "We need to COMPARE Barbara and Anna's swimming speed."

Choosing the correct answer, c. faster, you get "Good. This is an irregular adverb." 

Hi Josh, Thanks so much for sharing this site and for suggesting how to find the site "FASTER" using a Google search! I'm certain adult learners appreciate being given a brief explanation after answering the questions.

I'll look forward to exploring the site!

Cheers, Susan

Moderator, AELL CoP