Free website hosting - KompoZer

Here's an interesting tool if you or your learners are feeling a bit 'techie'.  This site allows you to create your own website for free. You just go to the site and download the software on there and Bob's your mother's brother!  My 12 year old son assures me that it works and it's really easy to use (they are using it at school to make websites). The only thing that I'd say is that a quick internet search showed me to this site which gives a guide on how to use it, and it says that this is great for experimental or small scale sites,but that you have limited publishing availability, so you have been duely warned!   It has a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) style template set up so that you can do what you want really easily (if you can use Word, you can use this).

 There are lots of ways that you could use this for a class - make one yourself for your learners with links to useful websites or upload homework, etc.  If you (and they!) are a bit more ambitious, you could get them to make their own - it's a great motivation to produce writing for an authentic purpose.
Good luck!

Quizlet

Quizlet is a great site for giving your learners practice in vocabulary that you want them to learn (or they can make their own!)  You can make vocabulary lists with definitions and send them the link and they can use the flashcards to learn the vocab, or play different games with it, or test themselves as many times as they like. You can also print out the flashcards if you want a set to use in class.  Another great thing about this site is that it gives you an automatic sound fgile for each word (ie it says it for you) - great for pronunciation. The only thing I would say is that it doesn't always seem to work :( but hey ho, you can't have everything!  You have to register witht he site, but it's free.  You can also look at other people's quizzes, which is nice - perhaps you won't have to make your own...

Here's an example of some flashcards I made for my celta trainees to help them learn the names of tenses....

Choose a Study ModeScatterLearnFlashcards

Study these flash cards | Study grammar flash cards

Present Me

Present Me is a really nice tool for encouraging your learners to get speaking/ presentation practice  outside class.  Learners can register and then upload a Powerpoint presentation and record themselves talking through the slides.  If you have Business English learners, or people studying for IELTS/ academic English, this is brilliant, but even some of the ESOL exams (eg the City and Guilds Level 1 and 2 Speaking and Listening that I'm currently doing with a class) involve learners giving a presentation, so this is a good way for them to practice, send it to you and get feedback before they do the real thing in class.

It's relatively easy to use, but here are Russell's detailed instructions, which are very helpful.  There are various levels of it, but the most basic is free, and frankly would be fine for most learners.  This allows you to upload up to 50MB of material and speak for 15 minutes.
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Scoop it!

Scoop it is  brilliant tool that I just discovered through Nik Peachy (another winner!). I've already loaded up three different pages and it's a quick and easy way to put all of your internet 'goodies' in an easily accessible basket for people (learners/ trainees/ fellow teachers etc) to view.  In some ways this is like an on-line noticeboard.  You can add links to sites that you like and readers can follow the page (and get new links as they are posted) and/ or comment on the ones that are there. 
Here's a peek at one of my pages that has lots of ideas for lesson plans and materials to use in class.

I've also made pages with ideas for teacher development and with useful sites for learners - have a look and see what you think.

One of the best things about the tool is that it makes it so easy to share informatin in an attractie way.  All you need to do is add the url to the site you like and all of the text/ pics etc come up automatically, so it takes no time at all to do.  I particularly like the idea of having one for each class you teach with sites customised to their needs on it.  It searches the net for sites that might be useful to you, too, if you put in some key words.  The only problem with this is that there is a bit of information overload, so you need to be able to scan through and sift!

To get started, you have to send an e-mail to get registered.  You are then given an access url and you can put up as many different pages as you like.  Simple!

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iTunes and Using Podcasts.

People are often put off looking into iTunes because they don't have an iPod, iPhone, etc, I know I was, but in the oft-quoted words of Mr Stannard:

'You don't have to have an iPod to use iTunes'! 

This is a phenomenal resource which can open up a world of listening resources, most of them free, and you can listen on any computer.  All that you need to do is to download the iTunes software onto your desktop, and it's all yours!  Probably the most useful part of all this is the podcasts that are available for authentic listening practice and for specific lessons in English (or in a wealth of other languages...).  If you're still thinking, 'What's she on about?!', a podcast is like a short (usually) radio programme that is produced on a regular basis and the majority are made non-commercially by people like you and me. Ther are also video-podcasts (or vodcasts) on the site, but we'll stick to the audio for now!

Here is a small selection of the podcasts for learning English that were on the first page I looked at -but there are literally hundreds of others. 



As you can see, there is a 'subscribe' button next to each - teh best idea is to listen to a couple of episodes and you'll soon decide whether or not this person's approach accords with your own!  If they do, you can click 'subscribe' and every time a new episode is published, your computer will pick it up and download it automatically for you - what could be easier?   They'll show up on your iTunes page (see below) and are then accessible to listen to on yor computer, or download to your iPod etc and listen to on the move.

Here's a link to Russell Stannard's step-by step video on how to get the best out of iTunes, not just podcasts, but also apps for language learning. This will tell you everything you need to know!

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/iTunesNew/index.html



Podcasts are great for langauge learning for all sorts of reasons.  They are, of course, a great source of authentic material, both for teachers to use in class and for learners to use outside class.  There is such a huge variety of material on every subject, it would be impossible not to find something that would interest any individual.  You could challenge your learners as homework to find a podcast that they really like (maybe by telling them that they have to listen to a minimum of 4 or 5) and then post the links on a class blog, or a Wallwisher (see other posts about these) so that they can all try out each others.  Hopefully, if they find something useful/ interesting, they'll stick with it and this is an ideal way of motivating learners to continue to learn, week after week, on the long haul that is learning a language.  The only difficulty is the sheer amount of material that is available, some of which is brilliant, and some of which (of course) isn't so great.  If you search for a certain type of podcast, eg put TEFL or ESL into the search box, you'll get a list that will also show you how popular each one is, and this can help to be some kind of guide as to the quality.  At least once you've found something that you like, it's not a one off - it'll keep on coming!

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VYou

This is another real winner from Nik Peachy - I think the man should have a knighthood, personally. Where does he find all this brilliant stuff??!!
One of the most motivating things when you are learning a language is to get involved on a personal level with native speakers of that language in my experience, but this can be a tall order.  If you are in your home country, there won't be many English speakers around probably, and even those people who are living in an English speaking country (ironically) sometimes find that making friends and interacting outside of their own language community can be difficult.  This site is a great way to practice your listening, but in a very personal way.  If you click on the site, there are hundreds of people there with a brief description of who they are, categorised under 'hobbies, entertainment, professional sports etc etc. You can ask any of them a question and they will send you a video reply (presumably within a couple of days).  You can also watch video responses to questions that other people have asked.  Predictably, some of the responses are a bit lame, but some people are just great.  One guy will write you a song about any idea that you send him!
If you'd like to be a participator as well as a listener, the sign up process is very easy and quick.  And, of course, if you'd like to talk to me or ask me a question, here I am - go right ahead!!



The only potential problem with this is the obvious one that it's not filtered, so you might get some unsavoury content, but having had a quick surf through it, it seems OK.
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Wallwisher

Another great site from Nick Peachy's blog.  It's free, it's quick to set up, you don't have to register and it's very interactive!    It's the internet equivalent of a big notice board that anyone can add content to.  This could be text, pics, video, links to websites, etc.  
There are all sorts of possibilities with a class - you could have a discussion topic in class and ask them to post their views so that they can all be viewed or you could get individuals to make a wall each over a period of time (maybe a month).  This could be on a particular theme, or could be an accumulation of ideas, language, texts that they like etc over that time. In this way, it acts just like a blog, but perhaps because it's so easy and intuitive to use, it might be seen as more of a do-able task to less 'techie' learners.

The only downside I can see is that it's potentially very public (but so is a blog...).  You can set it so that only the designer of the wall has access to it, or so that other peole can see it but not add to it, and you also have the option of 'vetting' all posts before they go on the wall, so hopefully this will be enough to ensure that you don't get anything nasty on there!

Here's my 'wall' - feel free to stick a comment on it!


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Phras.In

This is an interesting little site for learners particularly at higher levels, who are interested in collocations, etc.  It's very simple.  You need to have two possibilities of words/ collocations/ sentences that you want to test, you type them in and the site will tell you how many hits there are for each (ie which one is in more common useage) and also show you the contexts that they appear in. 
Here's an example I tried with the rather loaded word 'spinster' vs 'single woman'

You can see which is more common!

This can also be used to good effect for comparative grammar.  I put in 'I went to China' and 'I have been to China' and it was interesting to see that the simple past is 4 times more common than the present perfect, but also to have lots of authentic examples of the (problematic) latter tense.  It's concordance for the common man!

I think that this will appeal to a certain type of learner, who is very interested in the language itself, but you could give them pairs of possibles to try out for a homework task.  It's also nice to ask them to put in phrases you have taught to give them a wider context for using that language. 

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Nik's Daily English Activities

This blog is absolutely brilliant!  Nik Peachey has so many great ideas for using the internet, and this is a list of dozens of websites for learners to use outside the class.  It's also a great one for you as a teacher as many of these ideas can be adapted to use in class. 

Here's an example - A city love story  using a short film (9 minutes) from You Tube about Beirut.  I used this is class - opening with a discussion of places you have been that have surprised you (because they've been better or worse than expected) and then discussed people's impressions of Beirut.
I then showed them the first minute (showing what a beautiful city it is) and asked for impressions.



They then watched the next 6 minutes and noted the things that the girl and the boy like.  It's not in English, but there is really nice language in the subtitles (he likes the elasticity of cheese, for example!).  We did watch  the end of the film, but my main focus was then on the learners writing what they like about their cities or towns.  It was really inspiring!
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