More on online dictionaries and vocabulary building

Tools for helping students build their vocabulary:

• lingro paste URL of  a website to make all words clickable with dictionary definition or translation. Students can also create wordlists and play games with them
• wordnik gives a series of definitions, shows the word used in context and lets you hear it pronounced
• forvo hear words pronounced by people from all over the world
• wordia with videos to illustrate a words
• SnaPanda for Android phones recognises words and offers definitions
• Shahi visual dictionary that conbines a search of Wiktioanry and Flickr
• Spezify searches the internet for all media - photos, sounds, videos, music - related to a word

Getting Students To Produce IWB Flipcharts

Like a lot of teachers, I've been worried about hogging the IWB a bit too much. The recent insett on getting students to create flipcharts was really helpful and interesting. It gave me the idea of getting students to produce 5-minute tasks based on module 5 of English File Upp-int. One of my worries was that it would take up too much time so that's why I called them 5-minute tasks. I thought up the tasks and divided them into 'revision' tasks i.e. on areas we'd already covered and 'teaching' tasks i.e. on areas which were due to come up over the next few weeks. We then spent an hour in the CALL room and I monitored closely and made suggestions as to activity type - a lot of the final products were mix and match activities e.g. one pair wrote up rules for using 'used to' with examples for each rule. The other students then had to match the example to the rule. Over the next few weeks the students presented their 5-minute activities. They proved great as fillers and both the presenters and their audience seemed really engaged. And the objective of making the classes more learner-centred was certainly achieved. My biggest worry had been that the hour in the CALL room would be laborious, and would challenge their computer rather than their language skills. However, I stressed that the project would only be successful if they did the preparation part in English and they reponded well to this. This was something of an experiment for me, as I suspect that my classes generally rate low on the 'learner-autonomy' scale, but it worked out really well.

Is TEFL really a profession?

Ideas on the topic from Professor Baker, Scott Thornbury and The TEFL Times   

Life for weary students?

Want to inject a bit of life into a weary bunch of students? Here's a post on using Discovery's puzzlemaker.

Also a list of the best learning games for English language learners from reknowned blogger, Larry Ferlazzo

Imaginative ways to recycle vocabulary

One of our perrenial tasks is to help our students build up their vocabulary - which means that we have to be inventive in finding ways to recycle and extend the words they know.

Here's some great ideas from Cecilia Lemos which work for all age groups and also a list of further activities from the TeachingEnglish website for you to try out .

MyWordBook - great self-study resource for your students

MyWordBook helps students build up their vocabulary on the go. The program is free and works on on iPhones, iPod touch and iPad. It comes with a set of flashcards but more interestingly, you can create your own and add images, sound and notes. You can even draw your own pictures to help you remember the meaning of a word.

55 ways to use an IWB in the classroom

Following the recent post on 55 ways to support writing in the classroom, here´s a presentation on 55 ways to use an IWB in the classroom