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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Using Video

Using video in class is a great idea for all sorts of reasons - it brings novelty and interest to the class, learners get visual paralinguistic clues to help them with listening comprehension, and if they are learning in their own country, it may even help them to assimilate culturally to English speaking environments.

I remember the days (and it's not that I'm old - although I am!- it's not that long ago!) when using video in class meant booking out the TV and video, lugging it through to the class, and then finding that someone had gone off with the remote and you couldn't use it anyway!  Mostly I didn't bother.   The IWB has revolutionised this and now it is a matter of a few clicks to a wealth of resources on the net.

You Tube is, of course, a brilliant site, with such a wide range of material that most of us don't ever look any further, but this website has a list of other video material that is also good for a change.

One example is the How Stuff Works website. This has lots of great text as well as video clips, on a wide range of factual stuff.    This example is about bullfighting in France (who knew?!).  The French version doesn't kill the bulls and they are the star of the show, which is quite nice.  It's a nice little video - only 2.5 minutes and with lots of opportunity for discussion of animal rights, risky sports, etc.  There are loads of other videos about different countries and cultures - you're bound to find something that will appeal.

Another good video site is CNN Student News. It sells itself as:
'CNN Student News is a ten-minute, commercial-free, daily news program for middle and high school students produced by the journalists and educators at CNN. '
and it really is good.  Although it is aimed at teenagers, it's also very good for adult language learners.  Each show has a transcript, which is great, and a daily discussion and newsquiz, so all of your materials are there for you. What more could you want??!!  As with any topics that might be upsetting, controversial or sensitive, you will, of course, have to make your own judgement about what will work with your class.

Finally,of course, don't forget the TED site (see other blog entry on this) - if that doesn't make you think, nothing will!
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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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Storybird

This is such a fantastic site - it is amazing what is available out there!  If you want to give your students motivation to write something, this is your site!  It makes it possible to produce really lovely looking, professional e-picture books that you can then tweet, facebook or embed, using professional illustrations from a really wide range of artists.  How can this be free? I don't know, but it is!

You can also go onto the site to read books that other people have written.  The nice thing about this is that they are short, and illustrated with beautiful pictures, so you can use them even at low levels.  Some are aimed at children, but others are definitely written for a more mature audience.  Here's an example:


Fight off the doubts! by laurig on StorybirdYou could just send one of these a week to your learners to give them some extensive reading practice, or you could use one in class on a IWB for language work based on the content or (most obviously) narrative tenses.  They're really inspiring! The only limitaton I can imagine is that they will appeal to younger learners and to a lot of adults, but teenagers may feel they're a bit patronising. You could get them to write books (maybe even bi-lingual ones) for younger kids in the school or siblings, perhaps?
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Animoto

This is a really nice site for creating videos of pictures or video content that you can upload from your own computer or from the internet (or from samples on the site).  You get to choose a soundtrack for it and different backgrounds and the result looks something like this:



Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.  When you've made your video, you can save it, facebook, tweet or embed it, and it's very easy to use.  You do have to register to use it, and the free version only allows you to make 30 second long videos - if you want to make longer ones, you have to sign up and pay.  Still, 30 seconds is still enough to make something worthwhile for a language class.

There are lots of potential applications for this. The video I made depicts a trip to Egypt; you could ask your learners to watch the first time to see where I went, and then a second time, ticking off vocabulary on a list of things they saw (eg sail, pyramid, camel, seagull - including some likely things that weren't there -hotel, shops, bus). Then ask them to describe the trip as if they went, or to prepare a tour operator's persuasive sales pitch for the trip.  The possibilities for this to be a catalyst for lots of language work are limited only by your imagination.  You could also include pictures of your learners or of places that are familiar to them.

My only criticism of the site is that, although it's free, they do keep asking you if you want to upgrade and this can be a lttle annoying......

Jing

This is Russell Stannard's favourite, and it really is a fantastic tool. Like some of the other great ideas on the net, it's very simple, but has loads of useful applications.  It's a screen capture tool, so you can use it to very easily take pictures and make videos of what is on your computer screen.  Whilst you are showing the screen, you can also tape your voice explaining what's going on, or (if you have the Pro version) also use a webcam to make a video of yourself.  The basic version is free, or you can download the Pro version very cheaply ($15 a year - about £10), and this gives you a few more options. When you have made a video, you can save it on your computer, or upload it to the server and have a url or an embed code to retrieve it by. There's a little yellow sun that sits on the top of your screen, so it's always there, easily accessible and it's a very simple application to learn to use.

This is a set of training videos from the Teacher Training Videos website that will show you how to use Jing.

There are loads of ways to use this tool.  For me, it's an excellent way to get a 'connected classroom' going.  You can really easily and quickly make videos that you can e-mail to your learners and motivate them to continue to study throughout the week.  Some ideas -mainly from  Russell - thanks :)

 - Send them a short video of yourself talking, explaining what the homework is this week
 - Put their homework on your screen and then talk them through the mistakes rather than using a correction code
 - Put the vocabulary from the lesson on a word document, and show it, talking them through the meanings.
 - Rather then just sending the url for a website that's useful, send a captured picture of it, with notes attached.
 - Get learners to download the free version and ask them to make their own videos - you could ask them to find an image they like on the internet (perhaps one from the Google Art Project) and describe it.  These videos can be embedded on their blogs or they can share the urls with you and with each other
 - I think that with more and more distance and blended learning teacher training, this kind of feedback will really help to bridge the distance between tutor and trainee and reduce the feeling of isolation often experienced.

Here are some more ideas from Russell.

I recently sent out my first Jing feedback on some homework that a learner had sent to me, and she was really surprised and pleased.  She wrote back:

Hey..

Wow this is kool

I didnt expect you talking to me

I did this in my email program, really quick  I am sorry... I promise the next it´ll be better

cheers

Hopefully it'll be motivating!

I really like the idea of using this tool for giving feedback to learners.  This is a link to an excellent article about this, and here's an example of a video I made on Jing showing how you can give feedback on written work.




Not many limitations with this - it takes a little while to upload a video after you've made it, and the maximum time you have is 5 minutes, but you can always make a series of more than one video if thats' a limitation. All in all, a real winner!
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Quizzes

Quizzes - there are gazzillions of them (yes, that is a real number...) on the net.  Just put 'English Quiz' into Google and you'll see that I'm right.  They're quite good if you want to do a bit of form focused grammar practice, or if you want to learn vocab in lists.  Does that sound a bit old-fashioned? A bit Skinner-esque?  Get out the carrot and stick?

I guess it'll depend a lot on the kind of learners that you have whether or not these will be motivating or effective. I think that there is a place for this kind of material, if only because it raises awareness of language form and because using ICT you get instant feedback.  You could use it to give practice in a specific area for homework or ask learners to find a couple of quizzes that they found helpful and swap them with each other as a warmer for the next class.  It's probably worth using with an eye to how your learners enjoy it, though. 

About.com has a wide range of quizzes at all different levels. This is the page showing you all of the options:

As you can see, there's loads of stuff!  It can be useful if you want to give learners specific practice in a particular area, but the layout isn't all that motivating. Here's what they look like:

Another quiz site that has a huge amount of material is http://a4esl.org/ .  As well as thousands of quizzes to practice vocabulary and grammr, there are also bi-lingual vocabulary quizzes in a really wide range of languages. This can be quite fun to do with languages you have never learnt - I got a surprisingly high score in Croatian based on some cognates and a bit of lucky guesswork! 

This site also has some really nice links to VOA Special English (where you can read and listen to a special news programme) and to a variety of podcasts designed for esl learners.

Language Plants

This is a link to a blog called Language Garden, by David Warr, which has a whole collection of 'word plants' in it.  They're hard to explain, so the easiest thing is to show you a one!  Have a look at this one - how could it fail to brighten up your class?

There are lots of others, some very thought provoking, using lots of different kinds of texts.  This one is one that stirs me.....

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Martin Niemöller,
a German anti-Nazi theologian

I think that they are a really nice way to introduce a text for further work on vocabulary or structure, or for further productive work on  the same topic.  What's particularly nice for lower level adult or teenage learners is that a lot of the texts are quite profound or thought provoking, but quite accessible due to the repetitious nature of the texts.  The visual aspect may also help to add motivation, and comprehension.

Limitations?  I guess you might have to be a bit sensitive to your learners in terms of some of the content (the one above, for example, might be upsetting to some), but apart from that I think they're great for a five minute filler, or for basing a whole lesson around.  Let the garden grow!

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Hot Potatoes

Hot Potatoes is a quiz maker.  You can download it for free from here, and it has a range of different types of quiz, ranging from a crossword, to multiple choice questions, matching activities and clozes.  It's nice in that you can produce quizzes that are applicable to your learners and include colour, pictures, and useful feedback with the answers.
This picture shows you the screen you get for making a JQuiz:

It's a great tool if you have something specific that you want to test your learners on, and they can be saved to use with further classes or to share with colleagues or on the net.  It's worth considering, though,  that they take a lot of time to make and a very short time for the learners to consume.  Also, although you can include feedback with the answers, on the whole, they are a testing, rather than a learning tool.  They do take a lot of time to develop and there is already a huge amount of quiz type material on the net, so if you want to test your learners on standard grammatical items, it's probably best to do a quick Google search.  If you want to develop more specific quizzes, though - this is your tool. 

Web Quests

WebQuests are interactive journeys that learners can make to find specific information using the internet and then report back on it in various ways.  They bring ICT to task based learning and can be very motivating for learners.

This is a link to a ready made WebQuest in which you plan for a trip to Australia.  The introduction states:

In this Webquest your objective is to find out about the culture and lifestyle in Australia. When you go there, what differences do you find? What do you like and dislike about it? What do you miss from your own country? What would you like to bring back from Australia?

and then there are five tasks to complete.  These practise all four skills and also include a lot of helpful functional language. The first task, for example, asks learners to use certain sites to find out specific information, giving them lots of practice in reading.

But it's not all about using the net to find information - the learners are also required to do something with it! 

So, after they have found out the information, there are speaking and writing exercises, including sentence stems to help with language activation (although there would probably need to be some teacher input on the 'I wonder (whether/ if)' structures, too).

There is a wide range of material here, covering grammatical areas such as comparatives and superlatives as well as the functional language. Plenty for several lessons.  In fact, that might be my only real criticism - by the time you get to the end of it, you might well be heartily sick of the subject!

There are lots of WebQuests ready made and available on the net.  The original idea was:

'developed by Bernie Dodge at San Diego State University in February, 1995 with early input from SDSU/Pacific Bell Fellow Tom March, the Educational Technology staff at San Diego Unified School District, and waves of participants each summer at the Teach the Teachers Consortium.'

and their website has loads of resources, There is also a linked site - Quest Garden which has templates to make your own WebQuests. You can register for a free trial for 30 days, or sign up and pay for a member ship, but it's only $20 for a 2 year subscription, so it won't break the bank!  Making your own might be very helful if you were, for example, teaching CLIL and had specific content that you needed to cover. Other than that and if you are teaching general English, making your own is a lot of work and  there are many good WebQuests already out there so you could use 'off-the-peg' ones!