Vocabulary learning is essential for all of the foreign language learners, so there are lots of web based tools aiming to ease vocabulary learning. Some of them are Wordchamp (www.wordchamp.com ), Gerry’s Vocabulary Teacher, and Text-to-speech technology.
Wordchamp is the first one to be analyzed. This web site provides the opportunity of practicing many vocabulary items all learners from different levels. One can have access to the teachers and the other learners. It is possible to create communication with other learners and teachers. There are many activities and tools on this web site and you can choose how to learn and what to learn. If we mention the features of this web site, it provides 130 different kinds of languages, first of all we can say. By using flashcard tool, one can use the existing flashcards or creating our own flashcards. Web-reader section enables the learners to develop their reading skills in the foreign language that they choose to learn. The other useful function of the tool is that a tool translating complex and unknown words. You can find a language partner and or tutor and you can create your own class and students but it is not free of charge.
The second vocabulary teaching tool is Gerry’s Vocabulary Teacher. It can be used both teachers and students. It makes easier the burden of teachers on vocabulary teaching and saves them more time. While it is so difficult for teachers to make many repetitions for teaching vocabulary, by using this tool a teacher can prepare quickly and easily different varieties of activities and students can reach them for many times whenever they want. With different types of activities that this tool, it is possible to develop vocabulary skill.Gap-fill sentences, crossword puzzles, discussion topics, proverbs & quotations, web-based exercises, and different parts of speech are some of the examples presented by this toll to the users.
The last tool is Text-to-speech technology. This tool has been created especially for blind people but it is also beneficial for all language learners to improve their listening skills and their pronunciation in the target language. The computer system reads the text for blind people and you can choose the speed or the gender of the speaker. You can save the audio files and you can listen them later.
In this paper, I will examine an article named Emerging Technologies, Blogs and Wikis: Environments for On-Line Collaboration. Also I will discuss creating blogs and wikis in second language teaching and learning,
This article was written by Robert Godwin-Jones from VirginiaCommonwealthUniversity. The article begins with the introduction of the topic, and continues with how much the people interested in language such as teacher, students of language and educators have used the opportunities of the Internet. After, a classification about Web showing the significance of the tools which can be used in language education is done. In this classification, there are two groups; First-Generation Web including asynchronous and synchronous tools, and Second-Generation Web including blogs, wikis, and RSS. Now let’s look on them deeply.
He describes First-Generation Web firstly. In this kind of web, asynchronous tools have no usage now, however e-mails are still being used in classroom exchanging and learning. Then, the features of e-mails and how they can work have been explained. Also in this part, the reasons of why many educators prefer email discussion because of their facilitation properties. Then the author compares the old forums and the new ones.
In the analysis of synchronous tools, instant messaging and its benefits for teachers and students are explained. According to the author, in the recent years, educators have differed their point of views to the chat. They have realized that it is practical and effective tool in foreign language development..
As for the Second-Generation Web, blogs are introduced in a detaied way. What they include and all of the opportunities they have in language learning are described. Then blogs are contrasted with RSS and Wiki. Let’s look at blogs firstly. A blog is a web page on which you can publish your writings, videos or pictures. Everyone can create a blog and use it for various aims. Also blogs are social environment, by using blogs one can share anything that he/she wants such as photos, essays, articles, journals,etc. There is a difference between them; actually blogs are more limited area than RSS and Wiki. One can organize blogs in a chronological way, but it is impossible to organize blogs according to their content which makes blogs more limited. The other difference is blogs are governed by a person, others have no right to interfere anything in the blogs except from commenting to the items allowed by the owner of the blogs. In spite of the limitations, it has stated that blogs are in development now. Then the author explains that RSS is the abbreviation of “really simple syndication" and thanks to it, one can sort various kind of information coming from different resources which makes it more usable than blogs.
Wikis is the last item which is given in the article. it is another collaborative It means quick in Hawaiians. One of the things distinguishing wikis from the blogs is while blogs are personal, by using wikis one can reach more people, so it is much more collaborative than blogs. Anyone may add new things to the web pages, and comment on them. The other fact about wikis is that it is so simple program and I think it is an advantage for it. Anyone can create it wikis free of charge only by signing up. On the web, there are many web cites providing opportunity to create your own wikis. Some of them are Pbwiki, Mediawiki, and Wikihost. Thanks to being easy understandable, it can address lots of people. One of the most popular wiki is Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. One can add new information to it; also change what they want in it. So wikis are more interactive environment than blogs.
It is a free online resource for teaching and learning English as a second language tool. Anyone can access this web site by using two ways; the first way is easly clicking the address written above. The second way is visiting www.about.com and then choosing education and lastly clicking on the English as a second language option. As you can understand from the name of the website, it is a part of really huge website about.com. About.com has many different sub branches and one of them is education and English as a second language is one of the components of education part.
It has been directed by Kenneth Beare since 1997. Kenneth is an ESL teacher, trainer, and content developer. In the point of Kenneth’s view, English seems like that “English is the common tongue of our global village. Whether you live and work in an English speaking country, or need English for travel and fun, English is the passport to success and a deeper understanding of our quickly changing world.” By creating this tool, he has aimed to reach anyone willing to learn and/ or teaching English as a second language all over the world. This website provides comprehensive sources for English from listening to reading, quizzes. Now I will analyze the content of the website by mentioning all of the features of it.
What are the features of the tool?
On the home page of the tool, there are lots of links which may cause a chaotic view. It is possible to feel yourself lost, but actually all of the things are in an order. At the top of the page, learners are leaded according to their English level such as Start Learning, Continue Learning and the last item is for the teachers; Teach ESL.Towards to down of the paper, there is a title “Browse the topics. Under that title, specific names of the topics are given, so one can get through what he needs effortlessly. Also one can get knowledge about the hot discussion topics about elt on the home page. Lastly, Kenneth’s, the manager of the tool, blog and biography can be reached on the home page.
Start Learning includes all of the basic knowledge of English containing ABC and numbers. The first group is The ABCs and 123s are the building blocks of English. These include letter and number pronunciation, spelling rules, the parts of English speech, the verb "to be", basic prepositions and the use of A, An and The. The second group is The Basic Quizzes which can be used to test the understanding of the basic building blocks in English. These quizzes include listening, grammar and vocabulary recognition. The next group is The Verb Forms and Tenses. These are the basic tenses to express things that happen in the present, past and future. Important topics such as auxiliary verb use (do, did, have, will, etc.) and time expressions are also discussed. The other part of this section is What Type of Word? These pages help you use other important words in English such as adjectives (hot, big, fast, etc.) and adverbs (carefully, always, sometimes, etc.), as well as the comparative (good - better, happy - happier, etc,) and the superlative (the worst, the most difficult, etc.). In Important Differences pages, one can find some of the most important special rules in English such as do or make, countable and uncountable. The next part is Essential English Phrases and Vocabulary which enables building your basic English vocabulary. You'll find a list of the 1,000 most common English words with pronunciation examples, vocabulary lists focusing on weather, family and more. Also using the picture dictionaries to help you learn food, sports and jobs related vocabulary is one of the features. As stated before, listening activities are available for all levels of English and beginner listening activities are in that section. By Listening Practice, you can improve his listening skills with these beginning level listening comprehension quizzes. These listening selections concern everyday subjects such as understanding numbers, making plans and asking about prices. By listening the audio files, it is enough to click on the icon and in a few minutes, your audio file would be ready to be listened. One of the most important parts of language, speaking, exists in the beginner section, too. It has been named as Speaking Help for Beginners and it helps the users with speaking skills including pronunciation and basic dialogues that they can follow for role-playing. Before the reviews of the topics, Reading Comprehension Practice is provided. These short reading selections will help the users to boost their reading speed and skill. The topics of the passages are related to basics such as working in an office, cooking and friends. And the last sub branch of the beginner part is Review the Basics including tests giving opportunity to the users reviewing beginning level English grammar and vocabulary. After analyzing all of the features in Start Learning section, it is clear that beginners find anything that they need by using that tool.
The second section of the tool has been designed for the learners who are in intermediate, upper intermediate and advanced levels. Just like the first part, not only grammatical subjects but also reading, listening comprehension and practice speaking dialogues are provided. In addition, there is a part related to exams of advanced learners such as; TOEFL, IELTS and Cambridge exams. Now, all of the features of that part will be analyzed deeply. The first subtitle is Verb Forms and Tenses that will help the users review basic tense forms and understand more advanced tenses and forms. The second subtitle is Important Rules providing help on avoiding some of the most common mistakes in English including capitalization and punctuation. The guide to common mistakes in English focuses on 10 problems that non-native and native speakers often face. English Grammar Building Blocks is another part of this section and they focus on providing descriptive information, as well as linking your thoughts in writing and speaking. They also deal with word placement and sentence structure in order to help you communicate clearly in English. This grammar part is followed by the Review Quizzes testing your knowledge of essential English grammar and vocabulary at both intermediate and advanced levels. Most quizzes offer feedback and scoring, as well as follow-up information to help you improve your score. Strategies is another subtitle of this section and they will help take your English communication skills to the next level. The articles will help identify your weak points, learning style and learning goals while providing useful tips and steps to improve your English learning in class and at home. Vocabulary Lists and Reference follows strategies and these lists and reference guides will help you build vocabulary in key English learning areas such as commonly confused words, idiomatic expressions, phrasal verbs and more. Then Idioms and Expression Quizzes are presented to make sure the users of their understanding the vocabulary items in different contexts. Also Business English takes part in this section and the sources in it have been developed for intermediate to advanced level students who want to focus specifically on improving English for business purposes. Like in the beginner English, there are again separate sections for listening and reading comprehensions with quizzes. However, Writing in English appears in that section different from the first one. These resources will help you connect your ideas; strengthen your arguments in both formal and informal writing. There are samples of different types of writing such as letter, paragraph and essays. Speaking and Pronunciation is the penultimate subtitle of Continuing English part and it presents some articles aiming to improve the learners’ pronunciations. The last one is English Tests – TOEFL, IELTS and Cambridge which may help the candidates of the exams understands which test is best for them and how to effectively prepare for their exam. These are all the features of Continue Learning English part of the tool.
The last main section of the tool is Teach ESL designed for teachers of English. Just like the other sections, it has many subtitles. They will be summarized below.
1.Teaching ESL Basics: There are some articles covering everything from common jargon and standard lesson plans to discussions of common issues that arise in the ESL classroom.
2.Getting Qualified: Teaching English as a second language takes place on a number of academic levels. From private schools that require a basic certificate to college programs which require at least a Master's degree. There are some resources that may help teachers understand how to get qualified based on their career goals and how to receive certification.
3.ESL Teaching Techniques: The articles in that part explore various approaches to English as second language education, as well as discussing various teaching technologies and techniques.
4.Teaching Advanced Learners: In this part, lesson plans for advanced learners are available. These lesson plans are some of the most popular ESL lesson plans for advanced level classes. They include grammar, conversation, vocabulary, reading, writing, listening and pronunciation lesson plans. Each lesson plan includes step-by-step instructions and classroom handouts.
5.Teaching Beginning Learners: Lesson plans for the beginners are presented in this part. These lesson plans are some of the most popular ESL lesson plans for beginning level classes. These lessons go from absolute beginners to false beginners and include grammar, conversation, vocabulary, reading, writing, listening and pronunciation lesson plans. Each lesson plan includes step-by-step instructions and classroom handouts.
6.Teaching Intermediate Learners: There are lesson plans including grammar, conversation, vocabulary, reading, writing, listening and pronunciation lesson plans. Each lesson plan includes step-by-step instructions and classroom handouts.
7.Teaching Grammar: These lesson plans focus on developing grammar skills and are some of the most popular items of the site. Each lesson plan includes step-by-step instructions and classroom handouts.
8.Teaching Vocabulary: In this part, several lessons are provided aiming to improving students’ knowledge of vocabulary. Also some popular web addresses based on vocabulary teaching are presented.
9.Teaching Conversation: The lessons intending to improve students’ speaking abilities are given. Some materials which can be appropriate for speaking courses are delivered.
10.Teaching Listening Skills: The lessons focusing on developing listening comprehension skills are there and again some web addresses related to developing listening skills are given.
11.Teaching Writing: Writing based lesson plans are provided. Also some bright ideas which can be applied in writing courses are given.
12.Teaching Pronunciation: Tongue twisters, IPA transcription lists and word stress are introduced with appropriate lesson plans.
13.Teaching Reading: Reading skills and types are emphasized. Understanding newspaper titles and other authentic materials added to the writing lesson plans are presented.
These are all the features of the tool provided for the English teachers. Under these subtitles, there are many links which are the most detailed components of these subtitles again and one can reach any of them just by clicking on it.
PART II
After introducing the tool, now I will continue with the evaluation of this tool according to the its effectiveness as a language learning device, the advantages and drawbacks of it in using English Language Teaching besides its technological features.
In my opinion, if you are teaching English as a second or foreign language, or a learner of English, or just a candidate of ESL Teacher, there are some things you should know about Kenneth Beare's web site at www.esl.about.com. It is like an enormous and interactive online English practice resource book. If you have a question about grammar, or you simply want to find a practice tutorial for a grammar point, the chances are that you will find what you need at this website.
The first affirmative feature of the tool is its being user-friendly. Everything is so very well organized. It is possible to go into a particular level and find grammar or listening and speaking, or pretty much whatever you want. There is everything from low beginning to high
advanced. That brings us to the issue of user-friendliness. There is organization by level as already stated, or organization by area of interest, such as listening/speaking, reading, or writing. It's like having everything you ever wanted for an ESL class in one place. Also the other positive aspect of that website is that the payment or subscription is out of question.
The second assertive point of the tool is that you don’t need to wait or download any program to reach the listening exercises. After clicking on the icon, the audio file starts to play or you can select to record it to your own computer. It takes just a minute and Winamp is enough for the listen to it. Moreover the quality of the sound is benevolent. However I think that the listening exercises are beyond the levels of the learners, especially for those are the beginners. Some of the words in the listening activities are too challenging for the beginner learners and that may cause serious problem. They may give up listening because they may feel themselves helpless and hopeless, which is a negative aspect of the tool.
The third affirmative aspect of the tool is that its presenting related links to students and teachers. It makes easier the work of the users, because thanks to these very profound and reliable links, you can reach many sources related to your research topic. As an ESL
teacher candidate, I find myself engaged in ESL Teacher heaven by following all the links. It's like the song that never ends, but you don't want it to end. It's so nice when you're stuck for a really good ESL lesson and you don't have much time.
As for me, this website is not only beneficial for the learners but also is a must for the instructors. Thanks to having really comprehensive context, this tool addresses to so many people from different levels or occupation that as stated before the business English part even exists. However, I think students compose the group that can benefit from that site to greatest extent. Since everything has been organized regarding their needs and levels. Even the exams such as; TOEFL and IELTS have been taken into consideration. So they reach whatever they want only by following the links on the pages. The second group which is lucky for having a chance to use this site in a greater extent is teachers. Many different kinds of materials are presented. Also some useful strategies to teach specific contexts and prompts are provided. There are really great sources for lesson plans in nearly every subjects related to ELT. The other beneficial aspect of that tool for the teachers is that they can reach the hottest topic related to ELT by following the Kenneth’s blog or the home page of the tool. Also the lists of the related links are another service to the teachers which saves time. Even if they cannot find the material they are searching in this tool, they can reach it by following the other links presented by the site.
As stated before, I totally believe that this tool is so beneficial in learning and teaching English. For the one who is willing to do something to improve his level, the tool is a priceless resource. I want to give examples from my own experiences related to this website. I discovered the tool while searching a complicated grammar subject of English. Throughout my research, I encountered many drawbacks in other websites because of their complex structure. However, in this website I could find everything that I search especially in vocabulary and idioms part. I discovered many authentic materials and unfamiliar examples of English language. Thanks to this tool, I have prepared so many creative lesson plans and activities for my ELT courses. Hence it seems that when I start my profession, I will use the tool so frequently. Also, there are some useful parts which make complicated grammar rules easier and more understandable even for us advanced learners. After analyzing all the options of the tool, I have realized that there are so many things that I should learn from the t website. Shortly, I really liked this tool because of its being user-friendly and having immense kind of contexts and I think it should be used everyone who has any kind relationship with English.
Content management system provides the users to create, edit and publish audio and video files. I will analyze three of these systems; http://www.dokeos.com/ , http://www.nicenet.org/ , http://www.moodle.org/. The first one is Dokeos.com.It is one of the most popular content management systems.It is being used lots of people all over the world and its having 34 different languagae options has proved its popularity. Thanks to this free tool, teachers can create interactive environment to be used for educational purposes. By using that system, teachers can follow the improvements of their students and increase their learning capacities by preparing activities.Also it provides the users to publish powerpoint presentations and share them not only with the students but also with friends. The other feature of this tool is video conferencing that makes distance education possible.This toll is really effective, but the only drawback of it is that to use all of the oportunities provided by the tool, one has to pay some money. The second content management system is Nicenet. Again it has been founded to serve educational aims. It is a totally free web site. Teachers can benefite from this tool by creating virtual online class atmosphere thanks to video conferencing feature of the tool. It provides sharing links with your students, giving them assignments and discussing them any points about the classes. .Also students are informed by the announcements of the teacher. Anyone can create their own account or join the classes. The difference between Nicenet and Dokeos is that uploading any file to Nicenet is impossible, which is the only drawback og the tool. Last content management system is Moodle.I think there is no need to stsye that it is an educational based web site. It foceuses on learning and teachind just like the other content management systems. By using this tool, one can publish any material related to the courses.Different from the others, it has forum application that enables the discussion of topics with the teacher. The other feature of that website is that students can also upload materials. Creating online classes, giving assignments to the students, grading and publishing them are among the options of this tool. I think it is very easy to use and beneficial in online education.
By using http://www.filamentality.com/, Del.icio.us - http://del.icio.us/, WebQuests-http://www.webquest.org/, and Podcasting - http://www.podomatic.com/, one can ctreate and save his/her own hotlists. The first website is Filamentality. Thanks to it, users can create web pages for educational aims. The pages that they can create include five different types of activities. These types are hot list, multimedia scrapbook, treasure hunt, subject sampler and webquest. People who are interested in education in some extend can use this website for creating authentic teaching materials. The first step for creating website is the clicking the “start your new page” button and choose the types of activity which will be existed in the web page. Giving the contact information and deciding the name of the topic is the second step. The third step is to design the activity. After completing all of them, the web site is nearly ready to be used for the educational purposes. The second web site is Del.icio.us… It is a social bookmarking web-site and supported by Yahoo.. Also this is a free web site and signing up is enough for using that web site. Making online bookmark lists is the basic feature of that website. One can save any links to his/her bookmarks and access to them from anywhere internet exists. So it is possible to reach your bookmark lists without your computer. The other feature of that tool is by using that you can see the others’ bookmark lists and vice versa. I think it is very time saving and practical tool. The third one is WebQuest. This toll was developed by Bernie Dodge at San Diego State University in February, 1995. The basic aim of creating this tool is defined just like that by the creator of the web site “an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web”. It provides to create online webquests and you can share them with your
students or other instructors. Of course it is possible that you can benefit from other webquests. You can choose the most appropriate frame from the different patterns of various educational purposes. However, this toll seems too complicated to me. The other drawback of this tool is that after 30 days to continue the using that toll, you have to subscribe to it. The last website is Podomatic.com which provides publishing podcasting without any subscription. These podcasts can be shared by the others. You can comment others’ video and audio files, so they do. This tool can be very useful for educational purposes. By using that tool, the instructor can create online learning environment. Also in the classroom, they can watch or listen to different podcasts for educational purposes. Especially missed classes can be compensated by using these tool.
What is QuizFaber? QuizFaber is a tool which allows you to create easily and rapidly multimedia quizzes in HTML with a JavaScript, embedded in the HTML page.Luca Galli is the creator and he is an electronic engineer.
By using quizfaber, one can create several different types of questions. These are;
Questions with multiple choice, only one answer can be the right one. Questions with multiple answers, one or more of which can be right. True or false questions. Question with an open answer, that is to say a text box in which the student can write freely his answer. Gap filling exercises: a phrase with missing words: a text in which some words have been replaced by empty spaces. Matching words: there are two distinguished groups of words placed into two columns. The student will have to associate each word of the first group with one of the second. The advantages of QuizFaber Make a quiz not only a simple self valuation tools but a versatile program in order to store result of a quiz exam. Build statistics of quiz results, for year, for student, for quiz.
Storage ofquiz results into your PC
QuizFaber can be configured to produce web quizzes that runs in a client-server manner, in other words, the web quiz is the "client" side that send information (the quiz results) and your PC the "server" side that gain the information sent by the web quiz-client. The main advantage is store in a permanent way all the quizzes results and browse them at every time with a simple and intuitive web page that shows easy search criterion (by student name, by quiz name, by date). Morover, some basic statistical parameters (like mean value, standar deviation) are supported.
HOT POTATOES
*It is a small Windows or Mac program that creates a variety of exercies and can be freely downloaded for educational purposes. Hotpotatoes provides these types of questions:
v Multiple choice v Short answer v Jumbled sentence v Crossword v Matching/ordering v Gap-filling
Also it allows: - including audio files in MP3 format - storing exercises on a central server
PART I 1. What is ELLLO? It is a free online listening resource and its name is the abbreviation of “English Language Listening Lab Online”. Anyone can access this tool by using http://www.elllo.org/ easily. This tool includes more than 1000 listening exercises of which topics vary in a great extent. Anyone who wants to promote his/her level skill of listening can use this tool without any charge or subscription. Also users of the tool can easily find the exercises which are suitable for their interests. The other important feature of this tool is all of the audio or video files can be downloaded as MP3 files. Lastly, the mp3 files and text on Elllo are Creative Commons. Students and teachers are free to download copy and distribute these materials for educational purposes. They are not transferable for commercial purposes. The website was created in February 2003, as a project for Temple University's "Technology in Teaching" course. Initially, interviews were conducted by the website's author, Todd Beuckens, a male native speaker of American English. However, recent interviewers also include native speakers from Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The ELLLO website has clear pedagogical goals: (1) to offer students ample exposure to comprehensible input while engaged in authentic listening and (2) to enhance concentration and interest by providing visual support with photos of the primary speakers and key vocabulary items. Learners focus on listening tasks as they try to understand the input. The tasks support comprehension using pictures and vocabulary to contextualize the topic and interactive feedback to guide user responses. The website is specifically meant for students and teachers around the world who do not have access to authentic, graded listening material. In the creator's words, "It is hoped that by having one clip a day, students will be motivated to practice listening [daily], or . . . frequently" Using this tool for listening activities is a really easy task because on the home page, all of the links and kinds of exercises can be shown. It is useful to remind it, whole of the activities are ordered easy to difficult, so according to your level you can choose them. Clicking the item which you want to use is enough and the next step is more challenging due to the wide range of topic. As I mentioned before, the activities are related to may different issues and the next step is choosing an appropriate one according to your interest. After choosing the exercise, the only thing that is to be done is waiting the finishing of the buffering just 5-6 seconds. Now the tool is ready for you.
2. What are the kinds of listening activities in ELLLO? As stated before, there are various kinds of listening activities in this website. Now, brief information about all kinds of activities will be given. . a) Interviews: They are natural conversations with different speakers of English. By this way one can find multiple listening options. Nearly all of the materials are authentic and it is hard to find the similar of them in any kinds of books. Also different from other listening websites, Elllo provides pictures related to the contents of the exercises, which makes understanding easier. On the home page, the first links is the interviews. There are five versions of interviews and some of them have lower sound quality than the others for resembling the conversations to phone conversations. Slide show, slide quiz, text view, audio notes, worksheets can be reached at the same time listening the interviews. b) Mixer: Mixer is a survey that features six different speakers answering the same question. Students can easily follow the topic and compare the various responses. Each speaker's segment comes with two questions which appear at the end of the audio segment to develop test taking skills. Again it can be reached by using the links at the top of the home page. c) Listening Games: In this part, one can listen to audio about a topic and choose the picture that matches the audio. The listening games are designed for beginning students and for students who want to listen for fun and enjoyment. Its link is on the home page, too. d) News Center: It is animated newscast and each of the newscasts includes six students. Students are to answer the questions about the each story after listening them. In this part, academic language is used. e) Steps: “Steps” is the abbreviation of Standardized Test Practice. These listening activities are designed to help students prepare for Standardizes Tests of English and become accustomed to exercises used to test listening and reading comprehension on TOEFL and IELTS. In this part, students can reach both the reading text with or without the audio files. And they can answer the questions about the text either at the same time with the audio or later than audio by using the text. Also in this part there is a picture description. After listening ten descriptions of various pictures, one is to choose correct picture. f) Talking Points: These are activities that help students with test taking skills and academic English. Each listening activity is a mini-lecture or presentation divided into six sections. They are designed to be short talks to help students on standardized tests like TOEFL and IELTS. Also the transcript of the audio can be seen on the same page with audio. g) Situations: These listening activities are a series of audio activities that present situational English language between two characters. The activities focus on the daily language and besides the transcript of audio, it is possible to see slide shows according to the activity. h) Songs: Elllo provides lots of songs and while the students listen, the words are displayed on the screen so students can catch the lyrics (words to the song). Also the songs are not usual ones and they can choose which of them they want to listen. i) Podcasts: It is the mixture of slide show, dialogue and audio text. The topics of podcast are selected from agenda and they are really like a real lecture. There is one main lecturer and other people giving interviews and talking about the current topic. To use this exercise, iTunes and Quick Player are required.
PART II After introducing the tool, now I will continue with the evaluation of this tool according to the its effectiveness as a language learning device, the advantages and drawbacks of it in using English Language Teaching besides its technological features. First of all, I think this tool is one of the easiest tools dealing with listening activities because only by using the home page, you can find what you are looking for. Under the main title of the website, all of the subtitles and the names of the activities are shown such as interviews, mixer, listening games, news center etc. Also on the home page, at the top of the page brief information about the content of the tool is given and all of the subtitles have the same brief information, too. This information prevents the possible confusions and makes the visitors’ search easier. For example, before visiting the mixer in the website, I hadn’t understood what it is. But only a few seconds after clicking the title, I got enough information about it and learned what it is. Briefly only by going over the home page, one can easily understand the format of the tool and its subparts. The main strength of the website lies in its authentic interviews with its diverse group of mostly native English speakers. The dialogues provide an insight into the lives of 'real people' which stimulates the learner's curiosity. The topics (animals, travel, love, sports, family, politics, etc.) are quite interesting and encourage persistence and repetition. The personal nature of some of the stories may even encourage identification with interview subjects as potential role-models. This effect is further enhanced by the preponderance of young interview subjects, since the target audience is of a similar or younger age. The photographs of the interviewees add a significant dimension to this connection process. The other advantage of this tool is that except some parts of it, one doesn’t need to download any program or save the audio files to the computer for listening to audio files. After clicking the start button, the tool immediately starts to buffer the audio file for you. And if you want to download the audio file on your computer, again you can do this by just clicking and these audio files can be opened by the Winamp, which is really very widespread program. Also the sound quality of the tool is really wonderful. But several interviews have indeed very low sound quality and it was done intentionally. Making them lower quality, they have resembled these interviews to phone conversations. The only drawback is one has to download Quick Timer and iTunes to watch and listen to the podcasts. Luckily, they can be downloaded by following the steps which the tool shows without any charge. These down loadings last short but, iTunes’ making ready the audio file takes nearly 3-4 minutes. As for the speed of this tool, I cannot decide whether it is fast or not. Because sometimes it is so easy to reach every links on the home page quickly but sometimes I couldn’t reach even the home page. I think it’s because of the speed of internet connection. If the internet connection is fast, the website reaches an unbelievable speed, but if one uses wireless connection or the low speed internet, it may take a bit long time to reach even the homepage. However buffering of the audio files is so fast and one doesn’t have to wait for minutes. Interviews’ buffering takes nearly 5-6 seconds according to the length of the passage. Mixer can be ready in 4 seconds and games are ready after 30 seconds buffering. News needs 25 seconds to be listened. Podcasts need more time than the other activities. According to the speed of internet connections, sometimes it takes 3 minutes. However for steps, talking points and situations activities, there is no need to wait because they are ready for listening. I think this tool is the most beneficial for all of the students who are learning English as a foreign language because they have no opportunity to busy with listening and speaking English out of classroom. So this website is essential the ones who want to improve their listening abilities by their own efforts. One of the advantages of the tool is that it’s providing the examples of the daily speeches besides the academic ones. Usage of daily speech in the dialogues makes the students familiar with the natives lives and culture. Furthermore students can choose the topic of the listening exercises according to their interests which turn these activities into the fun. The variety of activities is the most attractive feature of the website because thanks to the variety, the website addresses nearly everyone from the primary student to the university students. The other advantage of the tool is that students can see the text of the audio file while listening and it makes their understanding easier. Also many of the activities have slide shows and interactive quizzes which address the visual intelligence. The animation used in the activities is one of the components which make the activities charming. Especially young learners are affected these type of animation and colorful design of the city. Moreover Elllo permits to download all of these materials free and thanks to that everyone can use these materials whenever they need or want without thinking about any license. The second group of people who can facilitate mostly from the opportunities of this website is the “English Language Teachers.” All of the activities in the website can be applied in the classroom environment and they are really effective in teaching listening. All of them have the transcript of the audio files and teachers can download all parts of the activities with the exercises. Thanks to the different levels of the activities and various topics, they can be applied all levels of students without any hesitation. Especially the interviews, mixer, news, songs are so suitable for the classroom environment and games can be used as a follow up activity to relax the students. I think, as a candidate of a teacher, Elllo provides really invaluable sources for teaching and improving listening. Lastly, the website is entirely free and grants liberal access rights to the audio material as long as it is for non-commercial purposes. Thus audio files can be downloaded to a hard drive, audiocassette, or other reproducible media for playback flexibility. This offers teachers and students the option of using the interviews in various settings without computer or internet access. Teachers could off-load the materials for use in a language lab and/or produce copies of the material for students to take home. The material is designed for independent learning. However, teachers could also use the website's material to expand classroom activities. By using this tool, anyone including the lecturers and students can make their listening abilities better. But of course, it isn’t only tool which provides these kinds of materials. On the web, there are lots of pages related to learning English as a second language and I am the member of several of them. For example by using the tools in the internet, one can communicate with the native speakers’ of the language. For instance; Skype is one of the programs providing opportunity speaking and listening natives’ to students. Also via internet, I have learned many grammar issues and daily usages of English. Lots of the grammar based websites give practical information about the grammatical issues and thanks to them I have found out many tips about the some challenging grammar topics such as prepositions, articles. Also by using the internet one can reach the foreign press easily. News, articles, and newspapers not only make the students familiar with the foreign country but also provide examples them the official usage of the language. The other advantage of the internet using in ELT is the possibility of watching the movies and serials in English. Again that can improve the learners’ listening abilities. Shortly, thanks to internet, language learning has become much easier than it has ever been. One can speak with the natives, listen their real conversations, learn the grammatical structures of the language and improve his writing ability by following the instruction in the ELT based websites or only using the mails.
hi friends, as you all know, this blog has only one function, to present my reviews to you. I am sure that nobody will read my reviews, if one who has enough courage to read, please comment it for my doing better.
