More Larry Ferlazzo “Links I Should Have Posted"

Another Special Edition Of "Links I Should Have Posted About, But Didn't"

via Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... by Larry Ferlazzo on 10/9/11. He writes, 

I have a huge backlog of resources that I've been planning to post about in this blog but, just because of time constraints, have not gotten around to doing so. Instead of letting that backlog grow bigger, I regularly grab a few and list them here with a minimal description.

• Drug war: Cartels unrelenting in bloody conflict is an interactive from the Associated Press about the Mexican drug war. I'm adding it to The Best Sites To Learn About Mexico's Drug War. 
• Can This Poet Save Mexico? is an article from The New York Times. I'm also adding it to the same list.
• Global Protests is a nice photo gallery from The Boston Globe. I'm adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About Protests In History.
• PicFull is a new photo-editing site. I'm adding it to The Best Sites For Online Photo-Editing & Photo Effects. I'm adding Clip Your Photos to the same list.
• TweepsMap will show all your Twitter followers on a map. I'm adding it to The Best Ways To Make A Map Showing Your Facebook Friends (& Twitter Followers).
• Top 10 Real Life Monsters is a TIME Magazine slideshow. I'm adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About Animals.
• The Ultimate G+ Collection: A Treasure Trove of Google Plus Tips, Guides, & Resources is just what the title says it is. I'm adding it to The Best Resources For Learning What Google+ Is All About.
• ELT Pics is a project initiated on Twitter to collect photos helpful to English Language teachers. I'm adding it to The Best Online Sources For Images.
• Kleiner-Backed Vlix Is An Instagram For Video; Adds Filters, Effects And More To Mobile Video is a TechCrunch post about a new iPhone application. I'm adding it to The Best Sites For Beginning iPhone Users Like Me.

Online listening in various accents

From the Webheads group (part of my "Personal Learning Network") Listening material online for ESL/EFL learners, in English but in different accents, and not just native speakers. Each link comes from an experienced ESL teacher. I have not checked out every link on the list, although I am already familiar with some of the sites.

• The International Dialects of English Archive: http://web.ku.edu/~idea/index.htm
• Sounds Familiar? Accents and Dialects of the UK: http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/
• One in eight million project: http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/1-in-8-million/
• "Project We Say Tomato," http://duber.com/wesaytomato/2005/tomatoes.html, offers samples of lots of various accents (both L1 and L2) reading the same text.
• Mike Marzio's Real English features native speakers from several different English-speaking countries in addition to some non-native speakers with a variety of accents. http://www.real-english.com/
• English Central, http://www.englishcentral.com
• Buying or Leasing a Car (the two persons talking in this activity are an American friend from Boston and a Kuwaiti: http://alothman-b.tripod.com/cars_listening_chatting.htm
• Two different American Dialects: http://alothman-b.tripod.com/culture_vinny.htm
• British Council Elementary podcasts, which come with transcripts, exercises, etc. There is also more listening material on the site too, aimed at different levels:  http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/elementary-podcasts
• Elllo, http://www.elllo.org
• ESL-Lab (http://www.esl-lab.com) - you can choose the level of the activity (easy/medium/ difficult) 
• NPR, http://www.npr.org
• Woices, http://woices.com
  
• CBC (Canadian) podcasts: http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/pastpodcasts. html.  They are available on a wide variety of topics--science (quirks and quarks/nature of things), business, medical, arts, etc., as well as news and current events. It's not unusual to hear interviews with people with a variety of accents.

Top ten websites to learn English

Who isn't overwhelmed by the all the websites for learning and teaching English? Here's one teacher's list of websites that her students picked as best for learning English.

A common element in these websites: students have fun while learning English.

Top ten websites to learn English from Jennifer Verschoor's blog My Integrating Technology journey

Neat sites

Something free to listen to ~ and another link for watching online movies: Neat sites from Interesting Pile, 12/29/09

• LoudLit.org lets you listen to and download audiobooks of public domain literature (via Free Technology for Teachers)
• Find over 150,000 movies to watch online at Movie Monitor (via Research Buzz)

20 Free Resources to Learn English from Home

Not everyone can afford classes or expensive English language learning software. Fortunately, there are many free resources available online that anyone can use to learn English on their own. From free online courses to language learning communities, knowledge can be found with just a click of the mouse. Here are 20 free English language learning resources to explore from the comfort of your own home:

20 Free Resources to Learn English from Home

Reading Technical Material

LINKS

• Lesson Plan: Technical Reading and Writing Using Board Games
• Technical Reading and Writing
• Welcome to the English 51 Technical Reading Web Site!
• Online Glossary Tools for Technical Reading (link to downloadable pdf & PostScropt files, zipped optional)
• Quiz on and discussion of technical reading skills & strategies -
• Literary Genres and Techniques (for reading poetry - very different but shows you how much different forms call for different reading techniques. Not all reading is the same...)
• Common Nonfiction Structures in Texts
  

Graphic Organizers help students understand the structure of various non-fiction selections, choose important details from text, and organize this information in a visual way. Many of these organizers can be adapted for fiction as well.

RELATED SKILLS

Taking Notes

Summarization

Writing Summaries is a lifelong skill that can begin in the primary years with story retelling. The ability to synthesize a great deal of material into a few words is a skill that must be practiced with easy text and familiar concepts before it can be applied independently with harder material.

SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review)

Reading Strategies to scaffold interaction with texts

Intensive Reading