Home > The Treasure Hunt Club > The Treasure Hunt Club No. 95
The Treasure Hunt Club No. 95 (2013年07月12日)
カテゴリー: The Treasure Hunt Club
投稿者: 名ばかり編集長
July 2013 Treasure Hunt
Marcel Van Amelsvoort
神奈川県立国際言語文化アカデミア
Kanagawa Prefectural Institute of Language and
Culture Studies
It's July again. And for some teachers that means the end of classes.
Summer is a great time to explore new technology that you might want
to introduce in your classes in the fall. This month I'd like to
give you some suggestions for things you might want to check out
over the summer.
There are many tools for exploring, learning, and tracking
vocabulary on the web. One of my favorites is Quizlet, (http://quizlet.com/) which keeps getting better and better. It now has a
new cards function and is easier to access from mobile devices. The
cards function is a presentation interface change that will make it
easier to use the system to learn collocations or strings. Take a
look at this example that also uses images: http://quizlet.com/20736176/flashcards If you haven't checked out Quizlet recently, it
might be a good time to go back and take a close look. Using Quizlet
with smartphones (there are many apps that work with Quizlet, or you
can access the a mobile-friendly version from your device: http://quizlet.com/mobile) is a great way to give your learners an powerful
resource for vocabulary learning. If you aren't already doing it
with your learners, now is a good time to explore how you can do it.
Another vocabulary tool that has come to my attention recently is
Wordcount, a tool that gives you frequency information about words.
It's a little limited in functionality, but the interface is very
nice. You can search by word or by frequency rank.
http://www.wordcount.org/main.php
One site I've been playing with recently is No Red Ink, a grammar
practice site where students can take quizzes on various grammar and
punctuation features. Teachers can make quizzes for their students
and monitor progress.
http://www.noredink.com/
Many teachers dream about connecting their learners with learners in
other countries. Well, ePals is a website that does exactly that.
You can choose by language, age group, and then narrow your search
by country or number of learners. Summer would be a great time to
look for a class in another country to set up a keypal exchange.
http://www.epals.com/
Finally, creative projects can be daunting to do with learners,
especially if you've never tried them before. Summer is a great time
to do that. If you can successfully complete the project and have
fun doing it, chances are your learners with be able to do the same.
One project to consider is subtitling movies. Bombay TV was very
popular with many teachers and students but doesn't seem to be
working recently. Instead, you can try The Peanut Gallery (https://www.peanutgalleryfilms.com/) which uses voice to text to add
subtitles to old silent movies, or a shot-by-shot subtitle tool for
the famous scene in the German movie Downfall where Hitler blows up
in anger (http://downfall.jfedor.org/). Both of these sites require
a little practice to use well. Since The Peanut Gallery requires
voice input, getting the accents right, as well as timing the
utterances can be tricky. Good luck and have fun.
On Twitter? For more treasure more often, @Marcelva. For high school
and junior high school English teachers, @AcademiaEFL.
Marcel Van Amelsvoort
神奈川県立国際言語文化アカデミア
Kanagawa Prefectural Institute of Language and
Culture Studies
It's July again. And for some teachers that means the end of classes.
Summer is a great time to explore new technology that you might want
to introduce in your classes in the fall. This month I'd like to
give you some suggestions for things you might want to check out
over the summer.
There are many tools for exploring, learning, and tracking
vocabulary on the web. One of my favorites is Quizlet, (http://quizlet.com/) which keeps getting better and better. It now has a
new cards function and is easier to access from mobile devices. The
cards function is a presentation interface change that will make it
easier to use the system to learn collocations or strings. Take a
look at this example that also uses images: http://quizlet.com/20736176/flashcards If you haven't checked out Quizlet recently, it
might be a good time to go back and take a close look. Using Quizlet
with smartphones (there are many apps that work with Quizlet, or you
can access the a mobile-friendly version from your device: http://quizlet.com/mobile) is a great way to give your learners an powerful
resource for vocabulary learning. If you aren't already doing it
with your learners, now is a good time to explore how you can do it.
Another vocabulary tool that has come to my attention recently is
Wordcount, a tool that gives you frequency information about words.
It's a little limited in functionality, but the interface is very
nice. You can search by word or by frequency rank.
http://www.wordcount.org/main.php
One site I've been playing with recently is No Red Ink, a grammar
practice site where students can take quizzes on various grammar and
punctuation features. Teachers can make quizzes for their students
and monitor progress.
http://www.noredink.com/
Many teachers dream about connecting their learners with learners in
other countries. Well, ePals is a website that does exactly that.
You can choose by language, age group, and then narrow your search
by country or number of learners. Summer would be a great time to
look for a class in another country to set up a keypal exchange.
http://www.epals.com/
Finally, creative projects can be daunting to do with learners,
especially if you've never tried them before. Summer is a great time
to do that. If you can successfully complete the project and have
fun doing it, chances are your learners with be able to do the same.
One project to consider is subtitling movies. Bombay TV was very
popular with many teachers and students but doesn't seem to be
working recently. Instead, you can try The Peanut Gallery (https://www.peanutgalleryfilms.com/) which uses voice to text to add
subtitles to old silent movies, or a shot-by-shot subtitle tool for
the famous scene in the German movie Downfall where Hitler blows up
in anger (http://downfall.jfedor.org/). Both of these sites require
a little practice to use well. Since The Peanut Gallery requires
voice input, getting the accents right, as well as timing the
utterances can be tricky. Good luck and have fun.
On Twitter? For more treasure more often, @Marcelva. For high school
and junior high school English teachers, @AcademiaEFL.
