virtual classes

<a href="http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/3783236/virtual_classes"

http://www.parapal-online.co.uk/games/cloze.swf

MeeGenius

Meegenius is a website for kids. It provides a nice collaction of online books and stories that come with audio playback, word highlighting, and personalization. It could be used by children whose language is English.

Why can it be used in  language classes?
It is interesting and motivating.
It s full of  nice pictures which can attract children attention to learn.
 It provides authentic material for language learning.
It helps to improve childrens' reading and writing skills.
The languae is simple and comprehensible for children to understan
Children can listen and read the story.

How can it be used in the class?
A teacher can ask the children to listen to a story which could be chosen by the children themselves. After listening, the teacher can ask the kids to retell thestories to each other. Then, he can tell them to draw pictures describing the story.

Limitations
It can be difficult for younger children to navigate the site. They need their parens or teachers' help.
Not all books are free.

Animation

     
    Xtranormal  is a briliant website that allow you to create text to speech animated movies. What is great in this site is the range of characters and backgrounds that enable users to create different situational dialogues. It is simple to use and enjoyable.

Why is it good?

• It is free , enjoyable and easy to use
• It is suitable for collaborative work
• It  makes students creative and it helps them to think and construct
  ideas and knowledge
• It assists students to use language in different contexts
• It coild develop students' writing, listening, pronunciation, and vocabulary
• Teachers can use it to create materials for their students.

How can it be used in language classes?

There are various ways to use it in the class. Students can create dialogues in different contexts.For example, after finishing a lesson on my favourite place to visit, students can go to xranormal and create a scene or a movie trying to convince other students to visit their favuorite place. Students can work in pairs to set a dialouge and then they show the class their work. You can also get your students to create a short story or choose a poem and present it to the class by using xranormal. A teacher can create a clip with grammatical errors and ask the students to watch, find the mistakes and correct them.



The limitations

It is not 100% free.  You  may need to pay for choosing some characters, otherwise you can not publish your movie.  Some students may not use it in apporporiate way and for educational purposes.
 
This video shows you how to use xtranormal

What is it?

Zimmertwins is an incredible site that enables  you to make a movie.  It is a simple and interesting site for language learners to make  an animation.  It can work well with younger learners. It has three characters in t a cat, a boy and a girl. There are four categories one for writing a text, if you like. The second one is about actions such as laughing or running, while the third one is about emotion. The fourth one is

Why is it good for language learners?
I think this site is very beneficial for younger learners because it is presented in a form of cartoons which can motivate students and make them eager to continue playing and creating animations. It also helps to develop students' writing skills.  It is a good stimulus for writing texts. During creating a movie, a  student will construct ideas and knowledge which leads to creativity. Since it can be published, students will be accurate about their grammar and spelling. Students can use it to learn some action verbs and adjectives of emotion.

It could be used in class or at home.  It could be used to support textbooks.  For example, after finishing a lesson about  adjectives of emotion, Students can go to zimmertwins and create movies describing the emotion of the characters.

For limitation
You can not embed or share the movie that you created. You need to have an account to save the movie. If you want to show the movie to your friends, you need to go to your account and copy  the link.

Second Life

What is it ?
A second life  is a virtual  space that used by many people to communicate and to contact with each other by creating their own avatars. Actually, you can talk, move around and fly to different spaces in this  virtual world. You can also land a land and built on it.

Why is it good for language classes?
There are many benefits for using it in the classes
students can meet  English native speakers and communicate with them.
It is interesting and motivating
It helps to promote creativity which is an important element in language learning
Students have the possibility to think and construct ideas in English. Second life provide a real situation for language use
Students will be actively envovled in.
It makes students independent and autonomous.
It encourages collaborative learning

How can it be used in the class?

Students can use it in their class or at home. The school can obtain a land for students to connect other students from English speaking country . Teachers can also build lands and create an educational envirnmoent for the students. For example thay can create games such as car races or any othe activities. They can encourage students to decorate the land and design activities for other students.
The second life could work well when using literature in teaching English. For example students can choose a play or a novel in English and perform it in the second life. they would be very motivated to choose the clothes and to decorate the stage.


Limitations

It is  a complicated tool.
students might become addictive to use second life.
Younger learners are not legally allowed to use it.
It needs a good internet connection and a powerfull computer.

Screan Caputer

Sreen caputer is  a tool that helps you to record your lesson and send the link  to your students to watch the lesson. There are some free softwares that provide you this service. One of these softwares is Jing.

This video shows you how to use Jing




Why is it good for language learning?
It can be used for feedback to correct their work.
Using visuals and arrows. students can listen and watch.
Clarity; it can be used to explain specific information( feedback)
It provides authentic materials

How can it be used in language classes?

students can use it to correct each other mistakes
students can use it make presentations
students can use it to practise their speaking like describing a picture, a movie and  on a sreen
Students can use as a storytelling. They might tell a story using mixbook, bubbler, bookur.
I think it can be used in many ways to help students practise their speaking
Students may use it to practise some grammatical structures and vocabulary. Forexample, they make sentences and then write them on the screen and explain why they used special structures.
Film dubbing. Students can show a film without sound and they work in pairs to take roles and record themselves
Record discussion
peer correction
Present a process
providing students with bad made model of writing and ask them to use caputer screen to correct it
Explaining and evaluation web tools. This can help to improve students' autonomy.
Teanslation
Reading and grammar activity
Students can use it to debate and discuss an argument

It can be used as scaffolding

Its limitations

There is a problem of compration. You have to compress your feedback

Teachers may offer too much feedback that might confuse the students

It can be teacher-centred learning

Make bollywood movie

World-english

World-English is a website that gives language students an opportunity to learn and practise their English. It offers a plenty of different exercises and tasks ranging from vocabulary and grammar to speaking, listening and writing. The great thing about this site is to put students in access with English native speakers or teachers to practise their English or writing. This site provides links to other English sources, the cultures and history of English speaking countries and literature based language.

Why is it good for language classes?

• It helps to improve students language skills.
• Students can practise their speaking and writing by getting in touch with English people.
• In each  grammar exercise there are a section for explaing the  rules of that grammar point.
• Tasks and activities are provided in an accessible and interesting way which can stimulate students to learn more about English.
• It offers tasks and activity for students' with different language levels.
• It is motivating
• Students can access other useful links to learn English such as culture and history of English, friends around the world, quizzes and activities and sound and vision.
• It can make students autonomous.

How can it be used in the class?

It coild be utilized in many way in language teaching contexts. Some of these uses are as follow:

After finishing a lesson about one of the grammatical  rules, for example, a teacher can ask the students to go to this website and click on the category of  grammar exercise and test. Then answer the question related to their lesson. It is useful if the students work in pairs and share their understanding of the rule.

Students can use it to practise their listening. The teacher can ask the students to listen to one of the       . After listening, students can discuss what they understand from the listening activity.
At the end of the term, students might go to online assessment tests and check their  English progress.
Students could also used at home to learn new vocabulary or to develop their reading skills.

Limitations
The answers are already provided which may make students less motivated. This could lead students to be passive and just depend on these answers.
Some categories of speaking part  are not free.
I think not all categories are easy to navegate.

Tutpup is a fantastic site that helps learners to develop their English spelling. It has five  categories which range from easy to more difficult tasks. This site requires learners to spell the words that  they listen in just one minute. The amazing thing about it is to connect you with an opponent from another country and to put you in a competition. I found it very interesting and I could not stop playing it.

It has great benefits for language learning. It helps foster learners' spelling and listening skills. You can learns new vocabulary and what is important is that it put you in a real competition which can make learning irresistible . It assists learners to be autonomous because they can practice it at home


However, Tutpup has some limitations which may not lead to language learning. There are quite difficult words which may affect learners' motivation and make them bored. As a result learners could stop doing it again. Moreover, the answers to the questions are provided at the bottom of the page which may not show  the real levels of earners' proficiency .

Audioboo

Audioboo  is a great site that you can use to record your talk or listen to any podcast.



Why is it good for language learning?
It provides access to a  large amount of authentic input.
It offers access to teaching materials.
It is easy to access and subscribe.
It is easy to use any where and any time.
It fosters listening, speaking and increase learners' vocabulary stock
Students can learn new vocabulary.
It can be used as a self-study material.
It creates real syndication.
It can be downloaded in MP3 or iTunes.
It provides evidence of learner's learning development

How can it be used in the class?
Students can listen to a podcast and then record themselves when they discuss this podcast. They also can record themselves while reading.

Its limitation
There is no social context for learning to occur and interaction to take place.
It just provides five minute podcast.
 It requires a membership. Its user has to register and have an account

Education and technology

TodaysMeetListen.
Learners can have access to any materials. Also, learners can listen to an English story while watching 3 dimentional play just in front of
Farah & Leah at 1:23 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
teachnology!
Maria - Costas at 1:22 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
Technology helps language learners develop more efficient learning strategies.
Tiantian&Doreen at 1:22 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
Ss are more exposed to authentic language environment.
Vanessa and Ray at 1:22 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
Less teamwork
Carina at 1:22 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
Development of technology awareness and skills becomes available through language learning
Maria - Costas at 1:22 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
overload psycho- cognitive processes- might be too much
Asami&Tanya at 1:22 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
If technology reaches the level of AI, maybe we won't have to learn any foreign languages anymore. For example, we can talk in any language
SAM & JING JING at 1:22 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
Students are exposed to 'real-life' materials
Eddie & Cherry at 1:22 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
Multi-tasking might not be appropriate for variable learning styles. The beginning of another digital gap?
George at 1:22 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
too much overloaded input will add pressure on students' mind which distract students' selection of the valuable information
jessie&jenny at 1:22 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
Before engaging students into this tpe of learning, students have to be motivated enough to do this kind of learning outside of class.
Jill & Sarah at 1:22 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
It makes second language learning process really interesting and learners are highly motivated.
Tiantian&Doreen at 1:21 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
technology can triger students' motivation
technolgy can triger students' motivation at 1:21 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
harmful to physical heath eg. eyes, muscle
Carina at 1:21 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
They can learn anywhere,not restricted to classroom
Eddie & Cherry at 1:21 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
Technology can build up students' autonomy in learning.
Vanessa and Ray at 1:20 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
Danger of adapting lesson to technologies than the other way round.
Maria - Costas at 1:20 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
However, it does help Chinese speaking students to be more exposed to authentic materials.
Jill & Sarah at 1:20 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
There might be the danger of how to utilise all this knowledge.
George at 1:20 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
will enhance interdisciplinary studies
Asami&Tanya at 1:20 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
really learner-centered language teaching
Jessie&.Echo at 1:20 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
It enables students to communicate in English within the whole world.
Tiantian&Doreen at 1:20 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
Secondly, the edu is mostly test-oriented so spending time on the Internet and computers can regarded as a waste of time.
Jill & Sarah at 1:20 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
No more boring lessons!!
Maria - Costas at 1:20 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
handouts and coursebooks may no longer be used
jessie&jenny at 1:19 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
Less face-to-face communication
Joyce and Angela at 1:19 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
Make the learning process more motivating
Eddie & Cherry at 1:19 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
Learning and teaching are not any more restricted only in classroom. Students can access knowledge which is available on portable devices
Vanessa and Ray at 1:19 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
It really depends on each context. Take China and Taiwan for example. First, there might not be enough divices in education environment.
Jill & Sarah at 1:19 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
Broadens the field of opportunities for language learning and its applications
Maria - Costas at 1:19 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
students may rely on the technologies too much
jessie&jenny at 1:19 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
We think it will be the basis and drive for changing pedagogical approaches and sprucing them up!
SAM & JING JING at 1:19 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
easier access to other learner or teaching communities
Joyce and Angela at 1:19 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
It can motivate the students by offering the update information.
Jessie&.Echo at 1:18 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
negtive: distract the students
Carina at 1:18 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
Learning for multiple intelligences applies to learners' different styles
Maria - Costas at 1:18 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
There might not be traditional classrooms anymore as anyone would have access in the resources any time.
George at 1:18 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
No text books are needed
Farah & Leah at 1:18 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
May increase divide between haves and have nots
Mustafa & Jo at 1:18 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
enrich the learning style
Carina at 1:18 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
Much greater potential for a 'connected classroom' ie the learning doesn't stop at the classroom door
Mustafa & Jo at 1:17 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
Modernizing language learning (up-to date)
Joyce and Angela at 1:17 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
offer more or less equal opportunities for education
Asami&Tanya at 1:17 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
achieve distance language teaching or on-line learning
jessie&jenny at 1:16 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
It can be free life-long learning
Joyce and Angela at 1:16 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
Learning might not take any in any one place
Russell at 1:15 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via web
Learning will be more autonomous
Mustafa & Jo at 1:15 PM, 11 Feb 2011 via webtoday.io/1fzh transcript | projectorTalk.

What's your name?


Message: 140
By submitting this form you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms.

Blog | About | Help | Privacy | Terms of Use | © 2008–2011 James Socol.

MA students' opnion on the role of tech in ELT

Mailvu, Presentation, Speaking activity

  Mailvu enable you to make a video recording of  yourself  by using your web cam and  you send it to whoever you want.It a way of doing video messaging. It is a good tool to be used in language classrooms.

Why is it good for language learning?

• teachers can use it to record their notes that provide extra support for the students.
  
• students can use it to practice presentations.
• teachers can use it to give feedback.
• it makes students motivated
• It is free
• Students can use it at home
• It can be used as speaking activity
• It is a simple way to get students speaking at home.
• It is a fantastic way of encouraging students to interact and communicate by doing interviews with each other.

How it can be used in the class?

 It can be used in the classroom in many ways . The teacher may get students doing interview or create dialogues and record themselves. It can be used at home as a connection of class activity.  For example,  after teaching students how to talk about a their hobbies, their typical day or the most interesting holiday they had, teacher ask students to record themselves at home and send the recording to s/he.

its limitations

You can not embed mailvu.
It needs the Internet, web cam and microphone.

Vocaroo

Vocaroo  is an easy device that can be used to record your voice. You just need to click on the recoding button. you can listen to your voice and  if you are happy with the recording, you can either send it to whoever you want by email or post it on the  Internet.

It is good for language classes for a number of reasons:
It is easy to use and it just needs Internet connection.
Teacher can use it to give students instructions or listen to their talk and give them feedback.
Student can use it to practise their speech and pronunciation.
It can connect listening, speaking and reading.
It can be used to connect class to home

How can it be used in language classes?
It might be used as  home work.  After discussion  interesting topics  in the class such as students' favorite hobbies, describing their families or  which country they want to visit and why, The teacher ask them to record their talk about  one of these  topics and send it to s/he. It  is also suitable for classroom. Students can record themselves when they  discuss something in the class or when they create dialogues and interviews. They may record themselves during reading a poem, a novel.

Limitations
It is not strictly podcast because it is not syndicated.
You can not make videos. It is just audio tool

WebQuest

A WebQuest is a task-based learning model. While engaging in the task, learners are required to search the web to think and get information related to specific task.In the webquests Teachers can find materials that mmeet their needs and they can also create their own webquests. One of the online authoring and hosting systems for WebQuests is QuestGarden site. This site provides its members with ready made materials that created by other teachers. These materials can be amended to suit members' context. Those members can make their own webquet as well.

Off to Oz is an example of WebQuest.

  

What is Off to OZ?

 This is an incredible Web Quest which introduces students to an English speaking country (Australia).  Students need to use English to search Internet to collect as much information as possible on this country such as the culture, life style and location.         
                                      

Why is it good for language classrooms?                                                                                                     

The topic is very interesting and enjoyable which can motivate students to do the task.

 Language used as a tool to explore other cultures and customs.                                 

It is an easy topic for students to talk about.                                                            

It engages students in interactive and collaborative work.                                        

It develops students' synthetic skills.  

It fosters the four skills. Students read about the topic, discuss it in groups, and listen to

What their peers say and write an essay about this subject.                                     

 How can it be used in the class?

This kind of web Quests can be used properly with pre-intermediate or intermediate students. First, Teachers need to familiarise their students with this site and how they can use it. Then, they can group the students into pairs and ask them to search the web to collect information about the task. After finishing the task, students are required to present their answers to the class and discuss from which site they found their answers.      

  Its limitations:  

    The questions are not clear and ambiguous.

   The task is very broad. There is so much information for students to cover.

  It is overloaded. Students have to talk about the Australian culture, other cultures   

 and their own culture. This makes them feel bored and less interested in the activity.

 It may not work properly with large classes.

 It needs much time for students to get information and present it to the class.

        

                                                                         

Learning Pronunciation

What is it?
This video is presented by an English native speaker to show how the sound /i/ is exactly pronounced. It is presented in a friendly way.

Why is it good for language learning?
It represents an authentic material produced by a native speaker.
The lesson is presented in a friendly and comfortable way which encourages learners to watch and listen more.
There is a use of paralinguistic language presented by the movement of the presenter's mouth and tongue. This helps the learners see what exact movement they have to do to produce this sound.
Students can use it at home as a kind of drills or practices.
It is very useful for beginners to develop their pronunciation of English words.
Since it can be used at home, it serves to increase the level of autonomy and self- study among learners.



How it is used?
The teacher can give the students sheets having words with the sound /i/ as in meet, eat and tea. Then he asks them to  pronounce these words in groups. After that, he asks each group to say a word from the list. After this activity, he can introduce this video and then tells the students to listen carefully. In order to support students' acquisition of this sound, the teacher, after watching the video, may write three or four sentences containing words with the sound /i/ on the board. Then, he pronunces the sentences and tells his students to practise them in groups.

Its limitation
The only limitations that can I think of is that the lesson is based on a teacher-centred learning and  there is no  students' engagiment.  Learners just receive  the knowledge and there is no  interaction  between  the teacher and learners and between learners themselves.

Real English

What is it?
It is an example of a video from you   tube which can be used in English language teaching. In this video a presenter interviews English native speakers and ask them some questions. It shows what tenses English native speakers use and when they use them.

Why it is good for language classrooms?
It is an authentic material produced by native speakers.
it fosters students' grammatical knowledge.
It is not just explaining grammatical rules, but it put them into use to show students how to use them in real communication.
It is produced in an interesting and enjoyable way which lowers students' Affective filter'.
It motivates students to learn more about tenses and aspects.
Students can use it at home.

How can it be used in language classrooms?

This video can be implemented in the class in this way.
After explaining tenses and aspects, a teacher can introduce this video to the students as a revision and to referesh their understanding and memorisation of these rules. Then he can divide them into groups and ask them to discuss what tenses were used and why. After a discussion in groups, students can discuss these questions in the whole class with their teacher.

What are its limitations?
It needs an access to internet that may not be offered in classes or at home.
I think it can not be used with lower level students because the interviewees use mostly all tenses that those students have not taken yet.

Using Cartoons to Learn Present Progressive

Quizzes and tests

http://a4esl.org/

What is it?
It is an amazing website that provides a variety of vocabulary and grammar quizzes and exercises. The quizzes range from easy, medium and difficult.

Why is it good for language classrooms?
It is a good source for language teachers and it can offer them various exercises to choose from.
Teachers do not need to be good in technology to use it. They just choose a quiz that they want to use in the class and then print it.
Students with different levels can use this website to check their grammaticl and vocabulary knowledge.
Bilingual quizzes are available. Students can choose a quiz in English and their mother tongue. This will help learning and make learning process less stressful.

How can it be used in the classroom?
It can be used before starting the lesson, in order to check students' backgrounds about what they know on some grammatical rules or words.
It can also be used after the lesson to check students' understanding.
It can be used at home as homework.

Its limitation
The quizzes are not interactive and they are based on drilling.
The answers are provided at the bottom of each question which makes the tasks less challengeable and inappropriate to evaluate students'levels.
The layout is designed in an old-fashioned way which makes the students bored and demotivated.
There is no feedback on the wrong answers.
Lack of clarity because there may be more than one answer.

English for Kids

LearnEnglishkids is a website provided by British Council. This site helps children to learn English. It has a range of different materials for children.

Why is it good for language learners?
It is user friendliness
It is presented in  a nice and motivating way. There are nice categories such as games, make and explore which can attract children to play and learn.
It provides a good materials for  language skills. It helps to improve children's language skills
It has versions in other languages such as Arabic, French and Chinese.

How can it be used in the class?
LearnEnglishkids can be used in classes and at homes. It could be used in many ways in the class. For example, Children can listen to a short story and then every one try to retell the story to the child next to him or her. After that, the children try to draw pictures for the story and put them on the wall.

Limitations
Think it would be difficult for young children to use it. The children need their parents or their teachers help.
It requires children to log in which might be difficult for some.

Online Visual Dictionary

http://www.visuwords.com/

 What is it?

It is an online graphical dictionary. You can find the meaning of the word you search for and all other words and concepts that are associated with. This is presented in a form of diagrams reminiscent of a neural net

 Why is it good for language learning?

•   It is produced in an interesting and fun way.
• It is free and it does not require a membership.
• Students can move the neural net up and down and they can zoom it in or out.
• It works as a dictionary and thesaurus. It gives word meanings, synonyms, antonyms, word classes with examples.       

                   

How can it be used in the class?

The teacher may group the class into pairs and give them a text to read. Then he can ask them to go to this website to look for the meanings of words they do not know. The teacher can encourage students to use it at home by  giving  them homework on writing lists of words with their meanings.       

Its limitations

• It is full of interconnected colours which may not be comfortable for some students.
• It needs internet access that may not be offered at schools.  

           

             

                                                                           

Using A Word Cloud to Learn Vocabulary

http://news.yahoo.com/
What is it ?
The WORDLE site is a very enjoyable and interesting website. It can be used to show a word cloud of a text or a webpage. It can easily be implemented in classrooms.

Why is it good for classrooms?

It helps to improve and develop students' vocabulary stocks and to keep their vocabulary active,
Students can resort to this technological tool to remember and recall what they read from a text,
I think the most important factor for using this website is that it is interesting and enjoyable activity which makes learners eager and motivated to learn the language,
Students can do it at home easily.So it can be used to encourage self- study,
Since students can choose the color and the layout that they want, wordle site can make the students responsible for their learning,
It broadens learners' knowledge about what words that match each context.

How it can be used in classes?

Students might read and discuss a text with the help of their teacher. Then the teacher copies and paste the text in the wordle site which creates a word cloud for the text. After that, he show to the students this word cloud or he can print it out and give the students copies of it. Students can read it and see how much of the text they can remember by looking at the cloud. Then they can write a summary of the text using the words that they remember from the word cloud.

Limitation

The only limitation that I can see is with having a soft copy from this site,but teachers can save or print out the word clouds.

Good Presentations in Different Contexts

What is it about?

It is a great website that offers a variety of videos about different topics such as technology, education, environment. These videos presented in English with subtitles by people from different countries.

Why is the content good for language learning?
It provides examples of how students can make good presentations.
Students can learn a range of different words in different contents.
The materials in this website are provided in a high quality that inspires and motivates students.
Using paralinguistic language which represented in involving audio and visual aids that enhance students' understanding of the context and the language used.
Providing subtitles that help students to understand the meaning.

How might you use it in a language teaching context?

I will take the above video which presented by BIRKEBEAHR on our food system as an example.
If the lesson is about healthy diet and genetic motivated food, the teacher can group students into pairs and ask them to discuss what they know about this topic. Then he can ask the whole class to discuss about what is the GMF and what its positives and negatives are. What they think about healthy diet. After that students watch the videos and write comments. Then they discuss in groups what they learned from the video and evaluate their diet,whether it is healthy or not.

Limitations

Teachers have to spend a long time to look for which video can serve the aim of the lesson.
It can just work with advanced learners and I think it will be hard for lower level learners.

Using CNN learning website

http://edition.cnn.com/studentnews/

  

What is it about?
CNN students news is an amazing website that has various entries such as politics, weather, entertainments, economics and sport. Each entry provides news from different parts of the world,e.g. politics covers the world political news. It can be displayed in English and other different language. It can be used in different purposes not just as a tool for language learning.

Why is it good for language learning?
It offers a different range of authentic materials
It is very interesting and learners can choose to watch or read what they want.
Language is used as a tool. Learners can know information on different topics by using language.
Language is used in an interactive and communicative way.
It enhances language skills; learners can listen, read and write comments.
Learners can use it at home.

How it can be used in classrooms?
The teacher, for example; can group students into pairs and tell them to search in the entertainment entry about the latest Jennifer Aniston's news. Then he asks each group to report the information that they collected to the whole class. After that he can ask each group to write a newsletter on Jennifer Aniston as a homework and then to post this letter on the class wall to be available to the other students to read.

Limitation
It is for high proficiency students. Students with lower levels find it difficult to understand the speech and the articles.

Using Literature in language learning

literature for your ears and eyes

What is this?

Loudlit is a website that offers a famous collection of literary materials such as stories and poetry. the user of

this website can listen and read any of these materials at the same time.

Why is the content good for language learning?

• It helps foster listening and reading skills.
• It can be used to enrich students' vocabulary knowledge.
• It can be downloaded as MP3 file, so students can use it anywhere.
• It is free and out of charge.

• The sounds are very clear.

How can it be used in classrooms?

It can be used in the class to practise either reading or listening. Students may read a story or a novel silently and then play the recored . Students may also repeat after the recorder.

Limitation

• There are no enough pictures and no colors just white and black which may not attract students.
• The language used needs students with high levels which could demotivate learners with low levels.

Free Website for Learning English Using Songs

http://www.lyricstraining.com/

What is this?

Lyrics training is a nice website that uses up-to-date songs to assisst language learners.A learner can listen to a song that he chooses and writes missing words at the same time. It does not only helps learners to learn English, but it can also be used in learning  other languages such as Spanish and French. 

Why is the content good for language learning?

• It is a very enjoyable  tool for learning a language
• Teachers can make use of it in their classes and they can encourage their students to use it at home
• It serves to foster most of language skills. It can improve learners' listening and writing skills and it helps them to acquire new words with their pronunciations.
• It represents an authentic material.
• Impleming this material in classes increases learners' motivation which can encourage them to learn more. Since it can be used at home learners can be autonoumus and responsible for their learning.

How might you use it in a language teaching context?

At the beginning of the lesson  the teacher can explain to the students how this website works. If the the number of students is small,  he can divide the class into pairs. After that each pair can listen to a song that they chose, discuss together what the missing words are and then write them. However, if there are a big number of students, the teacher can use just one computer or a white board and play a song and then discuss with the whole class what the missing words are. He also can print out the  lyrics, copy it, give the copies to the students, play the song and then ask the students to listen and fill in the gaps.






What are the limitations?

• I t requires access to the internet
• It does not work in some countries 

interactive learning

http://www.todaysmeet.com/








Description:
Todays Meet is a creative website that helps to improve  learners' writing skills by creating a chat room that enable them to communicate and interact by writing.Teachers can  use it in the class  interactions.


Why is this particular tool or technology relevant to language learning? 

• It is easy to use and does not require high experience in technology
• It enhances creative writing,
• It develops students' writing skills,
• It can make the lesson very interesting which make students motivated and eager to learn English,
• It engages students in the language in an interactive and communicative way which according to SLA research is considered  as a vital factor for language learning to occur.

How might you use it in the classroom?

It is a very flexible tool that teachers can use it in many ways.One way is to use it as an exercise  before
and after a reading text. Before starting, students will be grouped  into pairs and then their teacher asks
them to use this website to write what they know about  the topic of the text. This activity is a  kind of 
discussion, interaction  and giving ideas and opinions that the whole class can share. After reading and
discussing the text, the teacher asks the students again to write in pairs a summary of that text and to
highlight the main ideas.

 What limitations can you see with the use of this technology?

• It can  only be available for a certain period of time. Students can not go back to the websit whenever they want to see what they and their pairs wrote because the chat room closes after a limited time.

• It does not guarantee that all students will participate in the activity.
• In big classes teachers wiill not be able to see and correct all the students mistakes.

a nice and useful website for learning word groups

  http://www.learningchocolate.com/



What is this?
Learning chocolate  is an amazing  English language learning website and it can be used in the classroom or at home.It provides various materials for learning vocabulary, spelling and pronunciation.It can be utilized to enhance learners' listening skill.
          
Why  is the content good for language learning?

•  it represents  an authentic material,
• it  is  a good tool for learning  words with their spellings and pronunciations,
• it is made to provide learners with wide a  variety of word groups,
• it is an interesting  and attractive website since it is colorful and it is equipped with pictures, different types of  exercises and a good quality sound system. this makes learners motivated to learn more, 
• it help learners to be autonomous. they can access the materials at home,
• it reduce  the affective filter which according to Krashen (1985) hinders the process of acquiring a language,
• it is suitable for students with different levels and different age groups,
• it fosters  students' listening skills.

How it might be used in the class?  
 A teacher can divide the class into groups of two or three students and then asks them to think and write together different  types of fruit  or name parts of human body. After that, she asks every group to quickly shares what they wrote with the whole class. After this activity, the class can watch the web and practise the pronunciation and spelling of  this group of words.

Limitation

• it requires access to the internet which my not be available in the class,
• there are odd words that even native speakers do not use or know as in the activity about parts of bull's body.