Internet sites for teachers

We should point out that we’ve listed the sites in alphabetical order and only included sites that are specifically for teachers and have been submitted by teachers.


About ESL
http://esl.about.com
About ESL benefits from our alphabetical listing because it appears first in our list. However, it’s quite a challenge to find your way around the site to see what’s on offer so we wouldn’t put it top of our user-friendly list. We also found the ads very intrusive when we visited the site, so we didn’t stay long. We know you like it, though, because you told us so.
Why you like it ...
“It provides a great deal of materials for classroom use, with diversity in interests and topics.”
“Most of the time I use the reading activities because the texts and dialogues are nice. I also use the online tests.”

BBC Learning English
www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish
Part of the BBC World Service site, BBC Learning English is aimed at teachers as well as anyone wanting to improve their English. The site has quizzes, topical audio for listening comprehension, grammar exercises, and worksheets for students and teachers. The Business English section is very useful. Look out for “6-Minute English”, a popular resource available as streaming audio or as a podcast to download with a transcript.
Why you like it ...
“I can find worksheets and MP3 downloads to support my teaching.”
“There’s a huge variety of resources with plenty of video to make things interesting, and pronunciation help which students value.”
“I use some of the quizzes or topics for discussion in my classes, which make students have fun with English.”
“Helps with pronunciation and vocabulary very entertaining.”
“It gives me ideas and I can confidently send my students to the site to work independently.”
“It provides students with good reading material, new vocabulary and excellent podcasts.”

Discovery Puzzlemaker
http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com
Although not solely for ESL/EFL teachers, this is a very useful tool for creating your own crosswords and other word puzzles for the classroom. Once you’ve created them, print them out or copy and paste them into a text-processing program.
Why you like it ...
“I make criss-cross puzzles with translations of new vocabulary from the current unit of the course book. Students love looking up the words in a dictionary or testing how much they already know.”

ELLO
http://elllo.org
ELLO stands for English Listening Lesson Library Online. At this site you can find audio and video clips for classroom use. The site aims to help students learn English in an authentic way by listening to speakers from all over the world.
Why you like it ...
“It provides both teachers and learners with excellent material.”
“I can use material that does not normally appear in textbooks. Using the PC is a more attractive way to motivate learners to do listening practice.”

English and Fun
www.welcometoenglishandfun.com
This is a bilingual site from Argentina that’s packed with photocopiable activities, games, suggestions, tips, songs, comics, flashcards to print out, and much more. In fact, it’s slightly overwhelming when you first enter the site, so take your time to explore.
Why you like it ...
“I often use these vocabulary worksheets for my newcomer/immigrant students and students with special needs.”

ESL Kidstuff
www.eslkidstuff.com
This is a resource website for English language teachers who teach children. The main resources are printable flashcards and worksheets. They also have games, song sheets, and tips for teaching English to children.
Why you like it ...
“This is where I get worksheets and materials for my special-needs students. The ‘Tips for Teachers’ section is also useful.”

ESL Printables
www.eslprintables.com
This is a site where EFL/ESL teachers from around the world can share their lesson plans. You need to register and contribute your own materials to use the site. Each time your work is downloaded you get a point, which you can use to download another teacher’s worksheet or PowerPoint presentation. It’s a fun idea.
Why you like it ...
“There are stacks of worksheets and activities on virtually any vocabulary or grammar topic.”
“It’s extremely useful and entertaining. Teachers download such amusing worksheets that students find them great. You can find all kinds of resources to develop all skills.”
“I download materials here when I need to motivate my students with a very visual but to-the-point worksheet.”
“It gives me the opportunity of checking what other people do and the way they do it.”

Humanising Language Teaching
www.hltmag.co.uk
This impressive archive of articles on various issues related to language teaching and methodology as well as practical exercises is aimed at primary kids, secondary teenagers and adult learners.
Why you like it ...
“This website provides me a lot of fresh ideas about teaching English, and it also provides materials for my teaching.”


Isabel’s ESL Site
www.isabelperez.com
Extremely popular with teachers, especially in Spanish-speaking countries, this site was created by Isabel Pérez Torres, a secondary school teacher in Spain. Since 1996 she has been adding material produced by herself, her students and other teachers. There are lots of Web-based activities as well as songs complete with audio, lyrics and exercises, and pages of interesting links.
Why you like it ...
“It saves a lot of time, plus there are songs that students are interested in.”
“It’s complete, easy to use, and full of good ideas and links to interesting sites. I use it in the classroom with my students and I spend hours browsing through it. I find lots of information and interesting activities.”
“I particularly like the education-portals links section.”

its-online
www.its-online.com
Our gateway to the four Internet sites for teachers and students. At its-teachers you can access the online edition of this magazine as well as articles and activities from past issues. At 3sixty5 there are activities for every day of the year. You’ll find interactive theme-based activities at its-english. And there’s a community site for your students at its-myworld, where they can find pen pals, create their own English home page, and take part in online projects.
Why you like it ...
“So many activities and interesting teaching materials.”
“Thanks to its lesson plans I can take fresh and up-to-date topics into the classroom. My students love it! And the lessons make me (the teacher) look cool!”
“It gives me a lot of resources and tips to improve my teaching skills.”
“It has downloadable lesson plans complete with illustrations or photos to support the lessons.”

OneStopEnglish
www.onestopenglish.com
According to the site, OneStopEnglish has over 450,000 registered users in more than 100 countries around the world and contains over 6,500 resources, including lesson plans, worksheets, audio, video and flash cards. While some material at the site is free, you need a paid subscription to access the whole lot. A one-year subscription currently costs £32. In November, OneStopEnglish is planning a new Young Learner content launch, with the start of the second part of OneStop Phonics, their phonics series for children. Also look out for the “Live from ...” series of authentic podcasts. And while you’re checking out the OneStop site, visit OneStopBlogs (http://blogs.onestopenglish.com), the site that brings together blogs from throughout the English language teaching community.
Why you like it ...
“It’s user-friendly, with lots of lesson plans, warmers, games and methodology articles by top authors such as Scrivener, Harmer, Underhill, etc.”
“It offers ideas and new ways of approaching grammar lessons and/or lexical lessons.”

Six Things
http://sixthings.net
As a regular contributor to iT’s for Teachers, Lindsay Clandfield’s name will already be familiar to readers. Six Things is a collection of miscellany from the world of English language teaching, all presented in list form. Recent entries include “Six famous school report comments”, “Six things about multiple intelligences that you might not know” and “Six classroom activities with mobile/cell phones”.
Why you like it ...
“It has practical ideas I’ve used in class. It also contains information about teacher development, unusual areas of ELT (aviation English), and even some humour.”

Teaching English
www.teachingenglish.org.uk
Teaching English is produced by the British Council with content and editorial support from the British Broadcasting Corporation. All teaching material on the site is free to access. As part of a pilot project, the site also features a variety of teaching materials produced by selected U.K. publishers. If you’re looking for teaching materials and ideas go to “Try”. If you have a question to ask about teaching, go to “Talk”. You can also explore the “Think” and “Transform” sections.
Why you like it ...
“Lots of great links to useful material, resources, and ideas for teaching adults and teenagers.”
“Long list of lesson plans on a variety of interesting themes. Many of the lessons have downloadable audio files.”
“Really clear. Provides theory and practice for different levels.”

TEFL Clips
www.teflclips.com
This site is one of Jamie Keddie's projects, and it won him a 2009 ELTon award. It’s a site dedicated to the possibilities of using YouTube and other video-sharing sites in the classroom. There are lots of videos and activities at the site as well as some tips for teachers who need them. Jamie is about to give the site a new look to make it easier to use, so watch out for new developments. You can also find lesson plans and articles at www.jamiekeddie.com.
Why you like it ...
“It helps me to prepare video-based lessons for my class to fully engage my students into visualised lessons.”
“He asks himself many of the questions I ask myself. But as he is more experienced, he always gets the answer first.”

Many thanks to the teachers who are quoted on this page: Ahlke Saathoff, Aileen Cotter, Alison Miller, Carina Limardo, Carolina García Pere, Charo Pindado, Elena Nogués Meléndez, Ema Coll, Hall Houston, Jackie Robbins, Jose Angel Bañares Perez, Jose Angel Isla, Josep Sala Esquena, Manuela Kelly Calzini, Marina Alfonso, Maria Consuelo Calderón Gómez, María del Mar Edreira Santos, Maria Jose Fernandez Encina, Maria Mesejo, Maria Pia Berti, Michael Dylang, Natacha Carolina Sanchez Romera, Olga Galperin, Patric Fawcett, Paul Michael Ashe, Pham Nhu Cuong, Renato Gil de Sousa Piedade, Rosa Sanchez de Peralta, Rosario Pindado Santos, Silvia Noemi Morquin, Verónica de la Encina, Yao Tongan. Thanks also to everyone else who took part in our survey.

Online audio and podcasts
its-team
If you want to use authentic audio material in your classes or want to listen to English for your own pleasure, then there is a whole world of audio waiting for you on the Internet.
Internet radio is the radio of the future, and the best place to start exploring what it has to offer is at the BBC Radio website. Here you can listen live to all the BBC radio stations, including stations dedicated to music and speech. On Radio 4 you will find news and current affairs programmes as well as drama and entertainment shows. And there's always the BBC World Service. Not only are these radio stations available to listen to live but you can also listen to any programme for up to seven days after it is first broadcast with the "Listen Again" feature.
To listen to the audio you first need to download the BBC iPlayer. When you've downloaded it, choose the U.K. version and you're ready to start listening. The BBC iPlayer is an amazing invention, giving U.K. residents the chance to also watch TV programmes for up to seven days after transmission. Unfortunately, outside the United Kingdom you can access the radio only.
There are thousands of other radio stations out there. You can search for stations at sites such as the Reciva Radio Portal.
If you don't want to listen to Internet radio on your computer, then there are other options. There are more and more Wi-Fi radios available that allow you to play Internet radio. One of these is the Pico Wi-Fi that links to any broadband Wi-Fi connection to stream both live and "listen again" Internet broadcasts. Radio stations are listed alphabetically by country or music type. The advantage of the Pico is that you can take the radio with you (within Wi-Fi range) and don't have to sit at your computer to listen. It also has a rechargeable battery and looks extremely cool.
Another online audio option is podcasts. A podcast is an audio program that you subscribe to. Whenever a new episode is available of your chosen programme it downloads automatically. You can then listen to it on either your computer, or your MP3 player or iPod. Podcasts are amazing because they allow you to download only what you want to listen to and you can listen to it anywhere, including on the bus to work.
The best way to download podcasts is by using iTunes. You don't need to own an Apple iPod to use iTunes. Go to the iTunes site and follow the instructions to download the program. Once it's downloaded look for the podcast directory. You can then search for the podcasts that interest you. Again, there's a lot on offer. The BBC has an excellent daily news podcast, and other stations such as NPR (National Public Radio) in the United States also have a good range of programmes on offer.
Once you have subscribed to your chosen podcast and downloaded the latest programme, you can either listen to it using the iTunes program or transfer it to your MP3 player. The next time you open the iTunes program it will automatically check to see if there's a new episode of the podcast to download.
There are quite a few podcasts related to learning English, and there will no doubt be many more in the near future. The British Council has just created some new LearnEnglish Podcasts Web pages that are free for teachers and students to use. Via these pages, you can listen online, download audio material, subscribe to podcasts and print study materials. There's a whole range of topics to choose from including elementary podcasts, English for work and professionals, audio fun from LearnEnglish Kids, and Science.
And, as with all the audio we've mentioned above, it's all free!
Websites
• Online radio directory
www.reciva.com
• BBC Radio
www.bbc.co.uk/radio
• Pico Wi-Fi (U.K., Spain)
www.revo.co.uk
www.benteq.es
• iTunes
www.apple.com/itunes
• BBC Podcasts
www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts
• NPR Radio
www.npr.org
• British Council podcasts
www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-podcasts

Dictionaries
its-team
We asked publishers to send us sample copies of dictionaries they have published in the past 18 months. These are our first impressions of the dictionaries we looked at for different levels and age groups.
The first thing we realised when we started looking at the dictionaries arriving at the iT’s office was just how much they have changed over recent years. Gone are the days when a dictionary offered little more than a definition or a translation of a word. Today’s dictionaries are designed to develop study skills, enrich vocabulary, and turn the task of looking up a word into an adventure and an exploration of the language.
Today’s dictionaries also have a lot to offer the teacher (including lesson plans), so if you’re thinking of using dictionaries in class with your students or want a new dictionary of your own, here are our first impressions of some of the latest titles and editions.
Primary
We’re going to start and end our look at dictionaries with picture dictionaries. Garnet has a new Primary Picture Dictionary that is about to be published in an English/Spanish edition. The pages are big, bright and colourful, and it has been specifically created to appeal to kids around the world. (The copy we looked at was for Arabic speakers.) The book is in two parts: at the beginning are the picture scenes and at the back is the bilingual dictionary, which includes more than 600 key words for Primary. A set of wall sheets is also available for classroom use.
The Larousse Junior comes with a CD (which we didn’t see) that promises activities and songs and gives kids the chance to hear the pronunciation of all the words in the dictionary. The book consists of 22 scenes in which the vocabulary is presented. The central part of the book contains the bilingual dictionary, followed by exercises in the final part.
For the older primary kids there’s the Larousse School dictionary and the Longman Primary Dictionary. They are both bilingual and would appeal to very different types of students and teachers. The strength of the Larousse lies in its clarity and simplicity. The Longman is more ambitious and is the first of the dictionaries we’re looking at to go beyond being just a reference book.
In the Longman’s introduction Mario Herrera writes that the contents of the dictionary “reflect young learners’ interests and the things they may want to express in English (e.g. ¡Cómo mola!) or the things they are likely to come across in English (What a cool jacket!).” It certainly does feel young, and it looks good. It has some fun colour illustrations, and it comes with a CD that includes pronunciation and comprehension exercises.
Secondary
Both of the new dictionaries we looked at for Secondary are excellent. The Oxford Pocket dictionary is very easy to use. It has everything you’d expect to find in a dictionary and more. There’s quite a complete grammar guide in the centre of the book that includes verb conjugations and uses, and information about nouns, punctuation and spelling rules. There are also notes on false friends, telephone language and text language. In the main dictionary sections there are culture notes, and the picture dictionary in the middle has “more to explore” boxes. Note the appearance of that word explore again.
The Longman Pocket Plus is more colourful than the Oxford Pocket and highlights the 2,000 most frequent words in red. This is a really useful feature that makes finding common words much easier. The grammar guide isn’t as extensive, but it does have a useful culture guide at the back that includes information about the education system, and weights and measures for both the United Kingdom and the United States. There’s also a mini phrasebook.
Both dictionaries come with a CD that allows students to hear each word being spoken with both a British and an American accent. There are also interactive exercises on both. On the Oxford CD these include category list translations, crosswords, hangman, pairs, anagrams and word soups. We really enjoyed doing the activities, so hopefully your students will too. The Oxford CD also includes exercises for KET and PET, as well as dictations.
An important feature of these dictionaries is the introduction that includes exercises designed to help students find their way around the dictionary and understand all the different features. It’s easy to start using a dictionary without taking the time to fully investigate and understand its features, so these exercises are particularly useful for a student to work through on their own or with a teacher in class.
So both of these dictionaries get the thumbs-up from the iT’s team in their Spanish editions for ESO and Bachillerato students. In fact, it’s impossible to choose between them because they both have positive features. If you’re a secondary teacher and want to start using dictionaries in class, then take a look at both of these titles and make sure you also check out the CDs to see what they offer.
Advanced
Comparing two dictionaries is difficult enough, but what happens when you have four quality dictionaries in front of you that come from the giants of the publishing world that are Cambridge, Macmillan, Longman and Oxford?
We’re now moving away from the secure bilingual world of secondary education to the monolingual world of the advanced learner (and teacher). These dictionaries don’t need to encourage students to explore English. They have been created for the student with a thirst for new words and the teacher who wants a dictionary they can rely on.
Unfortunately, we don’t have a copy of the latest edition of the Collins COBUILD to look at. It’s a significant dictionary because it was the first to be based entirely on a corpus. In fact COBUILD stands for “Collins Birmingham University International Language Database”, a corpus of texts gathered from British and American newspapers, books, TV programmes and real-life conversations that were analysed to gather information about how the English language is actually used and which words are used most frequently.
The other major dictionaries are now also based on a corpus and make a feature of their own particular lists. The Oxford 3000 is a list of 3,000 words that includes the most frequent words in English but that also “includes words which would fall outside such a list, but which are useful for learning as well as relevant for defining purposes”. In The Oxford Advanced Dictionary all the Oxford 3000 words are highlighted in larger type and given a key symbol.
The Cambridge Advanced Dictionary divides words into three groups: Essential (E) with 4,900 words, Improver (I) with 3,700 words, and Advanced (A) with 3,700 words. The dictionary also claims to show the relative importance of meanings and of individual phrases.
The Macmillan Advanced Dictionary, known affectionately as “the red Mac”, has a star system to indicate the importance of different words. The dictionary claims that it is “a dictionary of spoken as well as written English” and that “if you use it well, you should end up speaking like a native speaker, not a native writer”. It also promises more coverage of English words spoken in other countries than is usually the case, with Australian English, for example, well represented in the word list.
According to a reliable source, the Mac was the first to introduce a different colour to highlight the frequent words. It’s an effective device that is also used by the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, which highlights its 2,000 most important words in spoken or written English and labels them as S2 and W2. The dictionary says that the examples in the book are “usually slightly edited versions of real sentences from the corpus” and that “this means the examples are more realistic than in some dictionaries”.
The Mac has a nice feature for words with several meanings. A mini menu at the top of the listing guides the user to the appropriate definition, making it easier to navigate the entries. The Oxford and Longman dictionaries also highlight the different meanings effectively. The Longman has some attractive graphs that show which are the most common words used in a particular context, or which structures are most commonly used with a word. All the dictionaries have boxes that focus on different points of interest. These include common errors, choosing the right word, grammar points, cultural references and collocations. The Longman is perhaps the most comprehensive in its coverage of collocations and includes a further 173,000 collocations on its CD.
The CDs that come with these dictionaries are more than just an add-on. They allow the user to install the complete dictionary on their computer and use it as a reference while they are working in programs such as Word, Internet Explorer or Outlook. Some of them include mini pop-up dictionaries to enable fast access to definitions and other features. They also include exercises, spoken phrases and other resources. Students can record their own voices and compare pronunciation. And on some CDs teachers can find those lesson plans and worksheet ideas that will allow them to make the dictionary an essential component of the English course.
Stocking filler
Finally, a picture dictionary for adults that, together with one of the advanced dictionaries above, would make a very nice Christmas present for a teacher or advanced student. The Larousse Visual Dictionary has more than 20,000 words and 3,600 illustrations. These are the kind of illustrations that show you the inner workings of machines and buildings and then tell you what the different parts are called in five languages (Spanish, English, French, German and Italian). It is a real pleasure to dip into this dictionary and discover vocabulary through pictures. The dictionary is divided into 17 themed sections, and there is a list of all the vocabulary at the back of the book that directs you to the corresponding illustration.
You will find links to all the publishers mentioned in this article below.
• Cambridge University Press (Dictionaries)
• Garnet Education
• Larousse (Spain)
• Longman Dictionaries
• Macmillan Dictionaries
• AskOxford (Oxford University Press)
• Oxford English Dictionary