Take a fresh look at the BC's LearnEnglish sites

Although you might have used 1 or 2 of the BC's ELT websites, do you really know all that's on offer?

Podcasts
These are a relatively new addition to the site - and a response to users' requests:

• Elementary podcasts have proved especially popular. They offer learners who want to reach the CEF Level A2 (Council of Europe Framework of Reference) an engaging way to improve their listening skills. Up to now, most listening material designed for this level has tended to be bland, boring and patronising. These podcasts, however, sound fresh and natural – their magazine format ensuring a good variety of pace and content – even though the lexis and grammar employed in them are deliberately restricted. Each podcast comes with notes on how to best exploit it and learners can download a comprehensive Support Pack containing activities, explanations plus a transcript of the podcast.

• Also worth checking out are the Professional podcasts which cover a wide range of current issues of particular interest to professional people and also give advice about how to prepare for English language exams. Each podcast is twinned with an article on the same topic and accompanied by complementary activities.

One click access to the suite of websites
The LearnEnglish portal is at http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish.htm and offers a one-click access to the complete suite of websites:

• LearnEnglish Central provides English language practice for everyone, but especially teenagers and adult learners. Why not try out Wordshake – a great way to practise your vocabulary – or Agents Underground where you play the role of a secret agent travelling around London on the underground solving puzzles as you go?

• LearnEnglish Professionals caters for people who move especially in business and professional worlds. For something that’s really entertaining and fun, I recommend J@m, a cartoon series set in a web design company.

• LearnEnglish Kids is aimed at children of infant and primary age and is one of my all-time favourites. First choose a topic and then you will be presented with a splendid list of songs, stories, activities and worksheets related to it. Many of the interactive activities adapt really well for use with IWBs (interactive whiteboards) or data projectors in a whole class setting. It’s also an invaluable resource for parents/carers who want to help children with their English at home.

• Parents and carers can now find specific advice and information on how to share the experience of learning English with children on the LearnEnglish Parents – a site that is specially dedicated to them. For example, there is a very helpful piece on using rhymes with young children with a link to a scary and gripping animated rhyme In the dark, dark, wood .

• While English Online has been designed for Chinese speakers, it’s well-worth a visit. The site has a community format enabling users to become members, maintain their own blog and to add comments or join in on forum discussions. I can particularly recommend Big City Small World for teenage learners. It’s a highly entertaining audio soap that follows the lives of a group of young people from around the world who meet up in a London café.

• Finally, there is Go4english.com, the British Council LearnEnglish offer for the Arab World. The site provides entertaining and user friendly games and activities as well as culturally specific content, such as celebrity interviews and downloadable resources, for teachers in the Arab World.

Comprehensive list of ELT web links

You'll find this at http://www.britishcouncil.org.ua/tclinks/

login: tcstudent

password: student

Simple online voice recorder

No registration, logging on or faffing; just press record, speak and then upload to email or get the embed code... now that´s handy.

http://www.daftdoggy.com/recorder/record.php

A good excuse to set students speaking homework!

Bring students texts to life

Another winner

http://www.pimpampum.net/bookr/index.php


This site allows you to make online books which you can then add photos to liven up. No need to register, just begin by typing in the title of your book and your name, add the next page and then you can begin with your text and continue for as many pages as you need. For each page you can search for related words to create images (uses flickr, the online photo site) to put around the text. The final product looks pretty impressive and I´m sure the students would love it!

When you´ve finished just click "publish", to save the book on the site. You also can "blog this" which will give you the usual embed code to paste on your site. Shame you can´t print.

Adding voice to youtube videos

This is a nice site

http://www.outshouts.com/

just search for a youtube video, load it up then record yourself introducing it. Plenty of ideas for students
eg being the Dj introducing their favourite song
narrating the story of the video but with a few errors that the others have to find
Making some listening questions for other students

I´m sure there´s infinite uses as whatever you can find on youtube you can load on this, so films clips, interviews, even students own work.

Has the usual embed or email facilities so will sit nicely on your blog or wiki.

Two excellent links to Prometheanplanet website - Lots of IWB activities

1st for FCErs - a nice activity to practice Use of English

FCE

2nd the website´s ESL activities - something for everyone

ESL

RSS feeds - save time in finding changes on your favourite blog or news sites

It's all explained in the video.

Is this the future?

This is more related to Web 2.0 in general but throws up some nice ideas and gets you thinking







The other two are education and digital learners

What is a Wiki? Plain English

A great series of idiots guides to technology and web stuff...

1st two, what is a wiki?



Specific to wetpaint...



What is a Blog?




What is RSS?



What is social bookmarking?

IWB friendly games

A three great games to practice pronunciation and spelling

Spelling

http://www.bbc.co.uk/hardspell/

All you need to do is choose which word is correct or incorrect against the clock. Pretty hard words, as developed for native speakers so best for Advanced and above.

This seems good. Click subjects at top and from here you can choose from your typical school subjects. I suppose English (grammar and spelling) and geography would be the most useful.

http://www.freerice.com/index.php

If you click on spelling it just takes you to any random word which you have to choose the appropriate synonym, however if you just quickly do the first the second page then gives you a chance to choose an appropriate level for your class. The fist level would probably suit Intermediate. Hardest is for those who find Countdown easy!!

The bonus is that for every correct answer the site donates 20 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program.


Punctuation

http://eatsshootsandleaves.com/ESLquiz.html

Based on Lynne Truss's excellent book, "Eat, shoots and Leaves". Simple sentences that you have to punctuate or not! A few tricky ones but Int and above should be ok.

Videojug - Alternative to youtube

Lesson plan robbed from here

http://www.ihes.com/bcn/tt/eltblog/blog/2008/10/videojug-cool-alternative-to-youtube.html

Videojug is not quite your standard Youtube clone, instead it host thousands of "How to do" videos nicely organised into handy categories, for example with Halloween just round the corner we have in the Halloween section "How to do trick or treat" & interestingly "How to survive a zombie apocalypse"

Interesting idea would be to choose a video that your student would have some idea how to do and obviously matches their level/interests, etc, then get them to brainstorm how they would do it. After watch the video and check if correct.

A nice follow up would be to get students to do their own with equally silly titles eg "How to cheat in your exams", etc or how to do something that they are interested in, eg pelota or playing an instrument, which could then be filmed and put online!

Punctuation Problem?

A great game linked to Lynn Truss´s Best Seller "Eat Shoots & Leaves"

http://eatsshootsandleaves.com/ESLquiz.html

Just play and add the apostrophe

Great Halloween Game

Great activity to engage students
Go to page
http://www.123bee.com/play/halloween-pumpkin-room

Elicit/explain vocabulary
Simple idea of game is to escape from the Halloween Pumpkin room. Normally this is done by clicking things and working out various puzzles.
The idea here is you give them the instructions and they themselves go through and do the activity – a nice fun reading with some great Halloween vocab, imperative and prepositions of place!
Instructions
Knife is in the eye of the fire place
H: move logs in the fireplace
A: Left hand wall, top shelf, spin middle pumpkin
L: front wall, single pumpkin on top, click stem
L: right hand wall, single pumpkin in middle top, click stem
O: left hand wall, single pumpkin above poster, nose
W: left hand wall, very bottom pumpkin, use knife to cut mouth
E: front wall, second shelf, slide second and third pumpkin
E: right hand wall, bottom shelf with 4 pumpkins, click stem of pumpkin on right
N: 3rd pumpkin down on right hand of steps
D: left box on floor
A: Puzzle above door, place round pumpkins first, then rectangles, then pear shaped. Collect pumpkin, Open middle box on floor, collect uncarved pumpkin. Place carved pumpkin on bottom shelf above fire place, click on stem.
Y: bottom right hand scroll of flashing poster

Candle: right hand wall, single pumpkin on top right

Put all letters on top of the empty shelf next to door. Click uncarved pumpkin, then use the knife to carve nose, mouth and stem. Place candle in pumpkin, then click stem to close it. Place the pumpkin on bottom empty shelf next to door. You are out!

Opps

Excellent Site For ICT Self Study

A collection of excellent teacher training videos on all the usual suspects in web 2.0 and ICT.

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/


Clear simple instructions, something for all.

Giving Directions?

Nice interactive game - follow the instructions and get the various characters to the respective destinations.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/words/grammar/texttypes/instructions/flash0.shtml

IWB friendly

Interactive Vocabulary

Roll the cursor over the picture and hear the word...

http://www.languageguide.org/english/esp/

Lots of themes. What more could you ask for?

Perfect for IWB

Furniture Vocab Game

Help Roger decorate his room!

Nice game with plenty of furniture and descriptive language.

http://www.ur.se/sprk/engelska/inredning/

You can practice first to review the language, designing your own room which can be printed off then you can do a compare and contrast (FCE) with another student or a picture dictation.

The game is to choose the things Roger asks for to decorate his room as quickly as you can, so plenty of compettion element.

Perfect for IWB as teams race against the clock.

Karaoke Madness!

Had to post this due to popular demand!

http://www.karaokeparty.com/en/

Great and fun way to get them singing (if you can strand it!) and more importantly practicing stress and rhythm!

Thousands of songs, all that cheesy pap your students love and more - I just did Nivarna Smells Like Teen Spirit as well as a bit of Elvis!

Great thing is you score points if you get the timing and pitch right, so plenty of incentive for them to hit those notes.

Enjoy!

Yack Pack

This seems to have potential, especially for those setting up Wikis or Blogs, though as it's online it can be used by anyone.

YackPack

Hard to explain but basically so watch this Video to see it in action

Basically as you can have all your students logged on and talking in real time and everything is recorded.

Or you can just record a message for students for them to answer at homework and they themselves can leave messages for anyone else, which means it's great for collaborative tasks as part of a wiki.

Plenty of scope some great activities, for example the classic jigsaw listening; each students has part of a story and questions which can only be answered by listening to everyone else.

Or just putting on a question which students discuss online, leaving their messages for other to pick up and follow up from. Perfect chance for students to practice those discussion skills and associated language.

Please do add other ideas...

Centre Challenge!

Can you beat my score - Geography quiz but higher the score the more cups of water they will donate. Not sure how that works but I assume they put in wells or pipe water to people... anyhow worth 5 minutes of your life!

Fun and scarily authentic computer voice

If your students have done any writings on the computer, why not get them to paste them into one of these sites...

http://text-to-speech-translator.paralink.com/

http://public.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php#top

and listen to their own words come alive! A little tempremental, but always works after one or two clicks. Impressive English voices - though not too sure on foreign English pronunciation (Spanish, Japanese, etc).

You can even slow down the first site without effecting the voice too much, which might be nice for dictations or dictaglosses which the students themselves could set up for each other.

Get students to Practice Questions!

Great way to get students to practice asking questions and help with listening too.

Follow LINK and get students to type in any question.

Ideas

Get students to interview her and find out as much as they can then report back to class. Could be used also to practice reported speech.

As she is pretty intelligent you could students to think of general knowledge questions to ask her, try to beat the computer. She knows where Bilbao is, who the first man on the moon was!

I'm sure there are a million and one uses so please to add more to comments as looks like a great and fun tool for students.

Become a Star!!

Robbed shamelessly from http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/ which I do recommend people to join as he regularly has winners.

This one Fame Star allows you to create a mini reportage of your scandalous life, which I'm sure will be much to the amusement of your students!

Please do see the above blog for ideas on this and many others.

Bloggers unite!

While I think it's great that Martin has discovered wikis (see his post), don't let what he says put you off starting up a class blog. They can be great fun for you and your students if you use them for task-based work.

I always start off a task in class time and then ask students to complete it (if necessary) for homework. Then, when you next book out the CALL Room, make sure you have a new task ready for your students, so that while they get on with that one, you can talk to them individually about the problems they had with the first.

Here's some ideas for your first blog tasks:

• In pairs, students decide on song in English
  
• They look for it on youtube and then copy the code they'll find next to the video
• They create a new post on the class blog, embed the video in it (by pasting the code in Edit HTML) and then give their reason for choosing the song
• They do a google search for the lyrics and add a link to them on their post
• They then look at their classmate's postings and comment on their choice of video
• Now they go to this karaoke page (thanks to Gary for this one) and see if they can find the song they chose. They get a set a set of headphones with a mike and sing along to it. (If their song's not there, they choose another.)
• Now they check out if the singer or group they chose is on myspace and also if there's an entry on wikipedia
  
• They create a new post. Using the information they've found, they write about what they think is interesting about the history of their singer/group and say why they think they have been successful. Warn them to put it in their own words - no copying and pasting allowed!
  
• Finally, they write a comment on their classmates' postings saying what they think is interesting about the lives and music of the singers/groups they chose.

My Pre FC1 class is currently working through these on their blog, if you'd like to take a look at the results.

Teaching English Website - a must for Dip candidates?

The BCs English Teaching website has undergone radical changes recently and now has become a truly collaborative platform where teachers worldwide can join together in a wide range of debates on teaching practice.

If you're doing the Dip this year (or even if you're not), I'd recommend visiting the Think section, where you'll find some stimulating ideas on all aspects of teaching:

• articles from experienced teachers and ELT professionals
• podcasts (I found those from the BBC Word Service, Innovations in teaching series extremely interesting and informative)
• a teaching knowledge wiki providing a collection of definitions of ELT terminology
• links to top stories related to English Language Teaching
• information on upcoming conferences around the world

In the Transform section there's also a very useful series of training videos which illustrate good classroom practice from language teachers around the world.

Another new feature to the website is the Guest Contributor. At the time of writing this is Barry Tomalin and he has generated an extremely lively debate on the role of culture in ELT. I would particularly recommend watching the video interview with him where he offers up a lifetime of teaching experience and provides a clear-sighted analysis of current methodologies in the world of ELT.

Maverick ICT lesson ideas

For those of you who are fans of of James Keddie's TEFL clips (every week a new lesson plan using online video clips), here are some more regularly-updated blogs with ICT lesson ideas - this time from the maverick British Council consultant, Nik Peachy:

• Daily English activities "This site is for EFL | ESL students. Each day you can find a new simple online activity to help you improve your English."
• Quick Shout "News, Links and Opinion on Learning, Technology, Web 2.0 and EFL, ESL"
• Learning technology teacher development blog "Tips, resources and teaching materials for EFL and ESL teachers"

Well-worth a look.

More links for young learners

There's a useful review on the TESOL Newsletter of websites for young learners.

Also, you'll find a more comprehensive list on TESOL online resources .

Thinking of doing a class blog? Think again!

Well, at least consider doing a class wiki instead.

Fergus and I set up a class blog with our adult advanced 1 students last year. It was quite successful in many ways - the best bit was when they got into writing restaurant reviews. Click here to have a look.

But there are 2 downsides to the blog format. 1) Students don´t get any say in how it´s designed and organised - perhaps this is why they don´t really contribute unless really pressed 2) You´re restricted to just 1 page in effect.

I´ve decided to try doing a class wiki this year and although I haven´t met the class yet, I´ve begun setting one up using the site called ´wetpaint´. There´s not much to see at the moment apart from my corny profile but click here and have a look. The adverts are a bit annoying but it´s got so much more scope than the blog - most importantly you can add as many pages as you like. Also, by its nature it´s meant to be collaborative so I´m hoping students will feel more comfortable starting threads, discussions and creating new pages.

Any thoughts or ideas?

Let me know if you want help setting one up.

Web-Based resources for teaching and practising listening comprehension

Thanks to Susana Gómez Martínez for this list of interesting web sites - which she provided in her talk at our Educational Conference.

1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/video_and_audio/default.stm
2. 2A http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/. 2B http://www.radio-locator.com/?xyz=2
3. http://www.lyrics.com , http://www.azlyrics.com , http://www.lyricsworld.com
4. http://www.youtube.com
5. 5A http://www.script-o-rama.com ,5B http://www.movieweb.com/videos
6. http://www.apple.com/es/itunes
7. http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish
8. http://www.esl-lab.com
9. http://www.EnglishListening.com 10. http://www.dailystep.com
11. http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-central-skills-listening.htm
12. http://www.dy-tech.info/hotpot/quiz_page.html
13. http://www.dictationsonline.com
14. http://www.howjsay.com
15. http://www.fonetiks.org
16. http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/tweenies/songtime/games/karaoke
17. http://www.eslpod.com
18. http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-podcasts.htm
19. http://www.archiecomics.com/podcasts
20. http://malted.cnice.mec.es

Like to join in on an international collaborative summer project?

Looking for an easy and attractive project for your summer course which will put your students in contact with others all over the world? If so, try this initiative started up by Mary Hills for students to collect pictures and comments about food.

Mary has set up a wiki and a group on Flickr:

You can also contribute by adding posts on your class blogs (why not do some VoiceThreads?) or adding photos directly to Flickr using the tag: globalcookbook

Ecoogler - every time you do a search, help save a tree

This is an ecologic searcher that works with Google, the only difference is that with every search you donate a symbolic leaf to plant trees in the Amazon and the rest of the trees in the world. It works just as Google and gives you exactly the same results. Donating a leaf is something symbolic, because each 1.000.000 of leaves represent a donation of trees to the Aquaverde association. These trees will be used to repopulate the Amazons and the forests worldwide. Ecoogler uses Google Custom Search technology.

Ecoogler shows the same results that google.com, so while looking for what you need you will be helping to repopulate the forests.

Spanish Voices in the English classroom

Download this extremely interesting and useful PDF by James Keddie on teaching pronunciation to Spanish speakers. As well as being thought provoking - are we teaching pronunciation in the right way when we expect Spanish speakers to master the whole range of English vowel sounds - it also has practical ideas for use in class. Well-worth the read!

Web sites for Seniors and Adults

Here's an excellent site called Breaking News English that's suitable for Senior and Adult classes. It's updated every few days and features an item in the news.

Each lesson plan starts off with a news article and provides a range of interactive activities based on it. Could be used for individual or whole class work.

Another highly recommendable site is TEFLclips. This is great for whole class teaching and presents a new lesson plan each week based around video clips. And if you like the look of the site, check out the blog of the guy, James Keddie, who produces it (more about him in the next post) - very interesting stuff.

Web sites for Primary and Junior kids

Check out this DirectgovKids site. It's a UK site with authentic language - very colourful and well-designed with lesson plans, games + animations, instruction and factfiles. Good for Primary.

This web site is good for vocabulary work and whole class teaching - suitable for Primary and Junior classes.

Insett: try something different this term!

The idea was to motivate teachers to try out one of three different aspects of teaching this coming term and during the summer courses: learner diaries, cuisenaire rods and vocabulary bags.

1. Learner diaries: click here to read Nik Peachey's analysis of how, when, why we can use them in class.


2. Cuisenaire rods: have a look here to find out how to use those strange little rectangular multi-coloured bits of wood.


3. Vocabulary bags are used by a number of teachers already, here is an extensive list of activities you can try out to motivate students further. Also click here for Ceri Jones' list of vocabulary games - games which she presented at the BC Bilbao teachers' conference last September.

Have a good time experimenting! And please post any sites you come across which relate to these 3 areas.

INSETT - Using ICT for pronunciation

A practical hands-on session giving you time to investigate:

• ELT pronunciation software
• interactive web resources for practising sound production, matching pairs, rhymes, limericks and games
• web-based publishing options, such as vokis and voicethread, for recording and assessing your students' progress
  
• using the MP3 recorder and producing podcasts with your classes
  

ELT pronunciation software
We have the Sky Pronunciation suite installed on Front Office computers which consists of:

• practising similar sounds - students can record themselves and compare their pronunciation with the original
• working on word and phrasal stress
  
  

Interactive web resources
Here you can find an extensive list of pronunciation web resources
Some favourites from the list:

• a phonetics site where students can see and hear how the different vowel and consonant sounds are produced (click on American English)
• mouseovermusic.com where students can move your mouse over the lyrics and hear a song
• shiporsheep.com where students can practise minimal pairs (similar words where just the vowel sound is different)
• stress monsters - a game where students can test their knowledge of which syllable is stressed in a word

For primary age kids:

• phonics practice
• word games practising consonant sounds and rhyming words
• words that sound the same, word patterns and counting syllables
• rhyming words
• practising the past tense of verbs
• learning to read and distinguish sounds

Web-based publishing options:

• instructions on creating and using vokis

• instructions on creating and using voicethreads
  

Producing podcasts

• instructions and examples
  

Interesting.

Prisoners dilemma at the Council? Mmmm new modes of colloboration? Bring em on!

Interesting site...

http://www.chinswing.com/

Easy way to create online conversations with your class, not tried it but on the long list.

Some classics of the TEFL world. Enjoy!

Students could simply be asked to comment on them or even come up with there own method. The videos come from a 8 hour 1985 documentary called "The Story Of English". Forget the DELTA just watch this!

Bubbleshare

On Bubbleshare you can create a photo album for your students and then let them add captions and trimmings. Click on the photo below to see the results with a Primary 3 class.

• First, create an account and login at Bubbleshare
• With very young learners, upload some photos (I uploaded one for every class member) from FlickrStorm to create the album (remember to click on Advanced when you do your photo search so that the photos are Creative Commons)
• Click on edit, then Album properties to select the level or privacy you want. I think Public with the Comments box unchecked is a good combination which allows students to view the album with their friends and parents and you to link to it on a blog, but avoids unwanted comments.
  
• Demonstrate to the class how to arrive at the album using your login and then clicking on edit
  
• Show them how to add a caption by clicking on the appropriate symbol above the photo
• Get them to size the text at 12 so that it enters into the speach bubble
  

INSETT - Using ICT with young learners

EFL software installed in CALL Room, Room 8 and 6 for use with young learners

• Storybook Weaver - a creative tool enabling young learners to write and illustrate their own animated storybooks. Learners can choose from hundreds of images and scenery combination.
• Story World 1 and 2 - a collection of popular children’s stories brought to life with pictures and music. The program also includes simple games based on the stories. Learners can also record their own versions of the featured stories.
• WordBird's Word Land - has a range of 20 topics (such as numbers, colours, school, family, farm animals, transport and ‘at the sea’). Each topic is divided into four activity screens

For more information on these programs plus teaching ideas go to http://bcnet.britishcouncil.org:8000/ee/thestaffroom/preparing_lesson/teaching_software/index.htm (this is a BC intranet page, so you'll need your login)

• English with the Finglies – for Primary 1 and 2 particularly. A story with interactive exercises that’s divided into 4 units. Includes a Teacher’s Guide with lesson plans, worksheets and flash cards.

Finding material and ideas about how to use it
Handbook4ICT (follow the instructions of how to sign in as a guest) has:

• ideas on how to use Storybook Weaver. Go to ICT Integration > Practical integration ideas
• a list of ELT software mapped to the CEF levels with tips on how to use them in class. Go to ICT Integration > Syllabus Integration then choose the level and skill that interest you

BC Links for ELT materials Use this to search by category, key words and level

BBC Schools although the material is not ELT, there’s much you can use.

Kids' sites where there’s a whole list of sites with their descriptions from which you can choose material to brighten up the topics you’re covering in the course book

Funbrain for a selection of interactive educational games

Creative publishing web resources

• Voki – students can create their own animated character and then give them a voice. Great for practising structures and pronunciation
• Voicethread – students choose photos and then can record themselves talking about them
• Bubbleshare – students put together a photo album and then add captions
• Zimmertwins – students produce an animated movie using the character and scene options that are provided.
  

Easy-to-follow instructions are provided on all the sites.
For teaching ideas and class instructions on using Voki and Voicethread, see an earlier post and for Bubbleshare see a later post on this blog.

Suggestions for whole class activities (Room 8 and 6)

• For very young primary learners, there are stories and activities on learning to read at the Starfall site.
• For primary-age young learners, choose a topic at LearnEnglish Kids – and select a song or a story. Follow it up with one of the worksheets that are provided and then do one or two of the games or activities related to it. Divide your class into teams and let them take it in turn to use the wireless mouse and keyboard
• For primary-age young learners, choose a story from BBC Schools
  
• For secondary-age young learners, choose a video from the BBC’s or the National Geographic’s youtube channels to practise comprehension skills
• Review and vote on the work that your students have completed using Storybook Weaver, Voki, Voicethread, Bubbleshare or Zimmertwins

Classroom management tips

• Make sure you have alternative material in case your run into technical problems
• An easy way of dealing with naughty students is to have some worksheets or Activity Book exercises handy so that you can take them off the computers and give them these to work from. Usually the threat is sufficient to bring them back in line.
• If you’ve chosen various activities from LearnEnglish Kids or another kids site, create a Word document with a list of the links to the activities, and save it in your folder on the T:drive. Show your students how to open the document at the beginning of the session and demonstrate some of the activities to the whole class with the data projector. Back on their work stations they work through your list of links, this way they won’t get so lost and distracted as they do when looking for links on a web page, and you can see what activities they have done by checking the colour of the links (the colour changes once they’ve been visited).
• Finish the session on the computers a few minutes before the class ends. Do not let students leave before they have closed program windows, hung up headphones and pushed their chairs under the tables. Please make sure you leave the CALL Room tidy and ready for the next class.

Dealing with technical problems:
The web site or program doesn’t function properly

• Most of the participatory web sites and programs (Storybook Weaver, Voki, Voicethread etc) require Flash Player. If they don’t work properly (you can’t see a video or animation or you can’t record sound), it means that Flash Player didn’t install correctly on start up. The solution is to re-start the work station. (Some of the CALL Room computers don’t respond to the re-start menu command. In this case, switch off the computer and then switch it on again.) You then have to give time for the updater to finish its installation process (5-10 minutes) before the work station becomes fully functional.

No sound when working with the data projector

• Make sure the Sound Manager (the box with slide controls on the teacher’s desk) is switched on. When you finish your session, please switch this off to get rid off the annoying buzz from the speakers. But don’t switch the speakers off, it’s a hassle to turn them on again.
• Make sure that the Sound Manager cable is connected to the sound socket on the CPU (marked with a headphone symbol on the computer box on the teacher’s desk). It may be that someone has connected a set of headphones (instead of the Sound Manager) into the socket.

No sound or you can’t record from one of the work stations

• Make sure the sound output hasn’t been muted by double clicking on the speaker symbol (bottom right hand corner of the screen) and unchecking the box.
• Check that the headphones are connected correctly with the input jack in the green socket (headphones) and the output jack (microphone) in the pink/blue socket.
• If neither of these solve the problem, replace the headphones with a new set from the cupboard by the door (key on hook under teacher’s desk). If it’s only a problem with recording sound i.e. that headphones still work, put the faulty set in the box provided. Otherwise, if you’re sure that neither the headphones or mike work, throw the set away.

(All these are covered with helpful screenshots of the relevant equipment in the red Help folder in the CALL Room.)

If you are unable to solve a technical problem or there are not enough headphones/ splitters for each work station (2 sets of headphones, one splitter per work station) or the CALL Room was in a mess when you arrived for your class, please fill in one of the forms provided.

Social bookmarking - let's get started

Following Gary's suggestion, here's a link to my bookmarks in del.icio.us, feel free to use them.

There aren't that many at the moment, but if you click on the link and then click on view network you will see those of people who I've included in my network who have many more.

This is the way we could build up a shared list of useful ELT web sites:

• by registering in del.icio.us,
  
• giving each other the URL of our del.icio.us bookmarks via this blog and
  
• then adding each other to our networks

Anybody game?