Monday, February 28, 2011

Online Resource: Pearson Longman USA ESL/EFL Daily

Here's another online ESL "newspaper" from paper.li:



Do you have a favorite online resource? Strategy or tips for DIY (Do It Yourself) learning online? Please use the comment feature to share them with us. 


Tuesday, February 22, 2011

The # ESL Daily


The # ESL Daily is a an automatically generated "daily newspaper" with ESL news, study resources, lesson plans, articles, images and videos aggregated by Paper.li (collected and organized) from tweeted links with #ESL hashtag.

Read Twitter and Facebook as a daily newspaper. paper.li organizes links shared on Twitter and Facebook into an easy to read newspaper-style format.

This is a great way to discover content that matters to you - even if you are not connected 24/7! Use the free application to create your own custom newsletter from tweets you follow on your Twitter account (@youraccountname), lists or even Facebook

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Oxford University Press – English Language Teaching – Global Blog

Young man chewing pencil while studyingIn the first of a three-part series, Mark Hancock, co-author of the English Result series, defines and explores two kinds of motivation that can lead to different learning outcomes with adult learners of English as a foreign language.

‘Many people give up on learning after they leave school because thirteen or twenty years of extrinsically motivated education is still a source of unpleasant memories. Their attention has been manipulated long enough from the outside by textbooks and teachers, and they have counted graduation as the first day of freedom.’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 2002)

Three key terms in this quote are motivated, attention, and learning, and they are closely related. Attention determines what appears in consciousness, and without it no learning can be done. Attention is a kind of psychic energy, an effort of the mind, and to make this effort, you must be motivated to do so. The quote implies that there is more than one kind, or quality, of motivation; it speaks of being extrinsically motivated, implying a contrast with intrinsically motivated.

And it seems that these different kinds of motivation can lead to different learning outcomes. Stevick has pointed out, ‘In the long run, the quantity of your students’ learning will depend on the quality of the attention they give to it’ (Stevick 1982). Csikszentmihalyi’s quote is pessimistic about the quantity of learning which will result, in the long run, from relying exclusively on extrinsic motivation.

So what are these two kinds of motivation?

Continue reading ‘Enjoying Learning: Motivating Adults through Content (Part 1)’

Posted via email from Academentia

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Happy Valentine's Day


Explore the history of Valentine's Day, a holiday that celebrates love observed by exchanging candy & gifts. Find out why love is in the air on February 14 

Sharing cards and messages about your feelings is another Valentine's Day tradition. 

Sometimes you have feelings for someone but you're not sure if they feel the same way about you. To share your feelings straight out can be scary and leaves you very vulnerable. On Valentine's Day, you may want to write a humorous poem, one that feels light and sweet, in order to find out whether they have feelings for you. In this way you won't get hurt if they not interested and you've shown that you are interested if they are. This is a safe way to make your feelings known without getting hurt. 

English Lessons for Valentine's Day 
Try Eslflow's guide to English language vocabulary and other language lessons about family, friendship, love, marriage and relationships. ESL Lessons for Valentine's Day

Live Teacher ESL Class GMT 5 pm

Reminder: weekly voice chat (speaking and listening) class with Teacher Dave GMT 5 p.m. Sunday, Sunday February 13, 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Thursday, February 10, 2011

PHRAS.IN ~ Say this or say that?


Because spell checkers only do 80% of the job.

If you speak English as a second language, you know that using correct spelling doesn't protect you from writing those awkward sounding lines.

Tell me, how many times did you come up with two ways to say the same thing, and couldn't decide which one was the best fit? One solution is to google both expressions and check out the number of web results. Low figures meant that very few people ever phrased the sentence that way, thus it was probably incorrect. On the other hand, higher numbers indicated common use, and the 3 line preview in the results will help you figure out which is the right form.

This tool does just that, in a much quicker and convenient way. Just please remember that this in NOT intended to be a SEO tool.

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Written evidence of the workings of the mind

 A useful writing checklist for the self-paced learner, particularly learners preparing for TOEFL and future university studies in an English speaking country. Don't dismiss mistakes as editing carelessness: they can reveal deeper cognitive and language skill gaps. Checklists can help you identify, become more aware of problem areas and address them on your own. The immediate, short term benefit is a better grade.
Students could vastly improve their assignments, and marks, if they followed a few important rules. Tara Brabazon, Times Higher Education, offers a 20-point checklist 

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Review: Educating Emergent Bilinguals

 Not much about computers or writing but definitely about language learning.
reviewed by Lynn Zimmerman — January 04, 2011
coverTitle: Educating Emergent Bilinguals: Policies, Programs, and Practices for English Language Learners. Search for book at Amazon.com
Author(s): Ofelia Garcia and Jo Anne Kleifgen
Publisher: Teachers College Press, New York
ISBN: 0807751138, Pages: 192, Year: 2010  

For Garcia and Kleifgen the question: What’s in a name? is more than an existential question. In their book, Educating Emergent Bilinguals: Policies, Programs, and Practices for English Language Learners, they assert that how the question is answered not only gives a different meaning to the experience of people who are labeled in various ways as learners of English, but also has profound implications for educational policies and practices that impact them. Rather than using the “deficit model” of naming which has been the norm in the education of non-English speaking learners, Garcia and Kleifgen suggest calling them “emergent bilinguals.” This critical act of “re-naming” shifts the focus to the knowledge that they have and to the possibilities of bilingualism instead of focusing on their lack of English and the narrow goal of learning English.

Thursday, February 03, 2011

The #ESL Daily and your PLN


Paper.li uses Twitter hashtags (#) to generate online newsletters from tweets that contain links related to the paper's subject. If you can't find the right newsletter for your learning needs, create your own. 

Newsletters are automatically updated daily. Today, The #ESL Daily has articles, stories, videos and pictures from IATEFL, TEFL Net, British Council, ESL.About, links to related "dailies" and a wide variety of ESL teaching and learning blogs. Every issue has links to back issues, which are saved online.

Give your learning a boost by reading The #ESL Daily: add it to your PLN (Personal Learning Network).

Need help with your PLN? Here is a good article, "PLN: Your Personal Learning Network Made Easy," that explains the PLN and will help you start your own.

Here is a wonderful video called "The Networked Student" that shows how on-line networking can enhance your 21st century skills.

When there is a large group of people combing through online resources and then collectively identifying what is the most useful, it makes sense to tap into this collective knowledge

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