ONLINE LEARNING RESOURCES

Course Management Software (CMS) sites are listed separately (at the beginning); other sites can be found either by using the menu or by scrolling through the document.

Resource Sites  Menu

More Websites

Word games

A course management system may also provide students with the ability to use interactive features such as threaded discussions, video conferencing, and discussion forums.

Homepage for WebCT, a leading CMS system.

Interesting open-source, freeware - available at little or no cost!

A vast selection of articles on online learning.

An introduction to Blackboard, another leading CMS system.

A paper on the strengths and weaknesses of current course management systems.

A website listing most of the main CMS available

http://www.cilt.org.uk/where.htm  National Centre for Languages 

http://www.languages-ict.org.uk/

http://www.linguanet-europa.org/y2/

Both contain ideas and resources relating to ICT and the teaching of languages.

 Very up-to-date, has some material of substance of direct relevance to language teachers as well as a strong set of web references to further sites useful for language teachers.

Future directions in language teaching and learning

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http://coe.sdsu.edu/people/jmora/L2Bibliography.htm

http://www.eurocall-languages.org/resources/bibliography/index.html

http://www.eurocall-languages.org/resources/bibliography/articles.html

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Range of links to activities and sites of interest to both teachers and students

Site on life and culture in the UK – a lot of information for students including bits of advice re study skills etc

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Sites of general use

A great place to start off would be with ‘Teacher’s Tips’, a monthly column written by Jim Scrivener the author of Learning Teaching. This column is part of the extensive www.onestopenglish.com Web Site which contains lots of useful material for both teachers and students.

This Web Site includes more teaching tips as well as the opportunity to look at the ‘Language Assistant’, an online manual designed for teachers starting out in EFL.

You can find some interesting articles and ideas on this Web site. Although there is a subscription to get all the articles it is possible, by clicking on the back issues icon and then individual issues, to read some articles online for free (for example Click on Issue No. 1 – October 1996 and you can read a sort piece by John Hunt on Diagnostic Testing).

Resources for exploiting The New York Times are available at - includes lesson plans and guided discussion tasks.

http://english.unitecnology.ac.nz/resources/links/webquests.html

http://english.unitecnology.ac.nz/resources/links/webquest_directories.html           (directories of webquests)

http://webquest.sdsu.edu/

eLibrary is a comprehensive digital archive for information seekers of all ages. Users can do business research, use it for homework, get background materials for term papers. Find out about current and historical events…..and more. All in one vast database designed for both depth of content and simplicity of interface.

Lots and lots of very useful links from Steven Schackne.

Bored? Visit bored.com´s top-rated sites.

iLove Languages is a comprehensive catalogue of language-related Internet resources. The more than 2000 links at iLoveLanguages have been hand-reviewed to bring you the best language links the Web has to offer. Whether you're looking for online language lessons, translating dictionaries, native literature, translation services, software, language schools, or just a little information on a language you've heard about, iLoveLanguages probably has something to suit your needs.

The Tower of English helps ESL students and teachers quickly find the best places on the Internet to practice real English. There are about 300 fun and interesting websites in 34 different categories. Some of these activities can be done at home, and some can be done in the classroom. If you want to know when new activities and resources are added, sign up below for the free newsletter.

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You can download free software which “makes the job of creating stimulating classroom exercises fast and fun”. The software requires no installation and can do the following: flashcards, gap-fill exercises, multi-choice exercises, word jumble, sentence jumble, punctuation exercises and much more.

Another site for free online tools for teachers, and which has just been expanded, - it´s easy, free, no ads, no “catches” and no special tools required!

ESL Independent Study Lab Michael Krauss’ website contains links to over 225 of the best internet resources for ESL/EFL students. The Study lab is organized by skill area (including listening, grammar, TOEFL) and language level (from beginner to advanced). A simple but effective collection of resources for the student of English.

http://www.eatsshootsandleaves.com/     Eats, Shoots & Leaves - A website to accompany the popular book on punctuation which includes information about the author, Lynn Truss, a punctuation “hall of shame”, an excerpt from the book as well as an interactive punctuation game. If you haven´t already got the book, you can also order from here.

http://www.rong-chang.com/        Rong-Chang Li's English as a Second Language site is a great up-to-date entry-point for finding many links under subject headings such as Listening, Reading, Pronunciation, Writing, Grammar, Methods, Lesson Plans, Games and more.

http://www.ompersonal.com.ar/sitemapenglish2.htm         OM Personal an interesting site from Argentina with plenty of listening and reading material as well as over 200 grammar exercises. Although the main focus is on Spanish-speaking learners of English, the material here can be used by anybody:

http://dir.yahoo.com/social_science/linguistics_and_human_languages/words_and_wordplay/

This will keep you entertained for hours – very addictive! As part of the Yahoo! Directory, it features a large number of sites relating to linguistics and human languages. Extremely entertaining and educational.

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Articles, lesson plans, discussion lists and various newsletters:

http://searchenglish.britishcouncil.org     

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk

http://www.britishcouncil.org/languageassistant/

An excellent site offering a vast range of resources for teachers including lesson plans.

http://www.google.com/language_tools    Language Tools has been developed by Google and is very helpful for anyone looking to translate short passages of text or entire Web pages. First, the page provides an engine that allows users to search for pages composed in over thirty languages. The best feature, though, is a translator that lets users translate text passages and Web pages from English into five different languages, and several different European languages back into English:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/aue.html  John Lawler is a linguistics professor and you can find his masterful explanations on how language really works on this site

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Web logs, otherwise known as blogs, are useful for creating your own online reading pages.  There are a lot of guides available which can help you to create your own blog. One such tutorial is provided by Vance Stevens –-a well-known ELT practioner – and can be found at http://www.homestead.com/prosites-vstevens/files/efi/blogger_tutorial.htm             

Using LiveJounral for Authentic Communicaiton in EFL Classes by Aaron Patric Campbell

This site is full of reading lessons based on Reuters news stories. You need to subscribe, but can do this at ’guest’ level for free. Once you’ve subscribed you can access a bank of lesson plans and materials that are both interesting and informative. Apart from using some of the material in your classes why not take a look through the lessons to see the variety of techniques used to teach reading?

An interesting and thought-provoking article that explores the issue of using (and preparing students to use) authentic reading texts at Intermediate level. This is one of a series of articles that you can find at www.developingteachers.com

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http://www.lextutor.ca/

http://www.wordsurfing.co.uk/4598.html

Free vocabulary level tests based on the work of Paul Nation. Interesting and perhaps even fun for students and teachers.

Free online concordancer and some other tools 

A review of the site 

There are also many links to word-related resources. You can also download WordWeb, a free utility which allows you to look up the meaning of words from within another program:

The Atlantic features two excellent monthly language columns by Barbara Wallraff – Word Fugitives and Word Court.

Apart from the online dictionary, resources include a News Reader featuring articles on people and events that have recently been in the news, crosswords and vocabulary exercises:

Linguist´s Search Engine, a  three million sentence corpus of sentences from the Internet Archive is currently available as well as facilities to build and search corpora based around search results from AltaVista queries. It´s unique and worth the half-hour effort it takes to learn it. You can register for free and get an account where you can begin to build your own corpus.

Oxymora: The List - "Any compilation of phrases or quotations that initially appear illogical or nonsensical, but upon reflection, make a good deal of sense and are often profoundly true." Enjoy an extensive (and growing) online list of Oxymora, compiled by Dr. Mardy Grothe from the book "Oxymoronica: Paradoxical Wit & Wisdom From History's Greatest Wordsmiths." This stuff is funnier than it sounds. Amusing sidebar articles include "Oxymoronic Verse," "Oxymoronica Titles," "Grand Oxymoronic Themes," and "Oxymoronic Samplers" of actors and writers.

Buzzwords can be confusing jargon but this website aims to make them clearer.

This provides a large collection of games, puzzles and quizzes for helping to improve English language vocabulary. Packed with synonyms, antonyms, crosswords and other vocabulary exercises.

www.educationworld.com/a_tech/techtorial/techtorialintro.shtml     Collins Cobuild have developed an interesting language game which could easily be adapted as an off-line version for use in the classroom.

The Cobuild Definitions Game involves clicking on a button to get a randomly selected definition extracted from the new Cobuild dictionary. Then try to guess which word is being defined.

Company Name Etymologies – ever wonder why Qantas is called Qantas, or how companies like Adidas, Starbucks and Google got their names? The answers to these corporate mysteries can also be found at this interesting free online encyclopedia. You can also find the biographies of all the companies listed.

Evan Morris is the Word Detective and answers questions on origins of colourful words and phrases – complete with a large archive:

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Etymologic presents you with 10 randomly selected etymology (word origin) or word definition puzzles to solve. Some of the answers are improbable, incredible and hard to believe!

WordZap is a fast-paced addictive word game which you can play over the Net or against the computer.

Hangman with several different twists: Celebrity Hangman, Hang Your Ex-Whatever, Hillbilly hangman, and others:

http://www.mdlsoft.co.uk

Games  that may be useful in language teaching

http://www.avp.co.uk

http://www.anarchy-online.com

http://www.nestafuturelab.org/viewpoint/learn04.htm

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Online Writing Labs can be used for your own needs or you can have your students submit drafts to the labs and receive feedback about their writing from experienced tutors.  Probably the most famous is the OWL offered by Purdue University:

This provides a wide variety of materials for both students and teachers, including over 100 instructional pages on writing skills, ESL guidance, and links to other writing resources.

http://www.developingteachers.com/tips/pasttips35.htm   

This is one of a series of articles that you can find at www.developingteachers.com

Writing doesn’t need to be dry and boring, it can be zany and zippy – at least according to this Web site. Lots of ’creative writing’ ideas to make your lessons sparkle – it certainly gives a different perspective to writing activities for the classroom.

When you think of teaching writing skills, what do you think of? One area that is often neglected is the teaching of punctuation. This simple site can be used both as a reminder to the teacher of how important this aspect can be and also as a basic resource for students.

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http://iteslj.org/links/TESL/Songs/

http://www.web-pop.com/flashindex.html

http://www.onestopenglish.com/Games/Games/games/Game19.swf

Shaggy dog stories for ESL learners

Range of speakers to listen to from all over the world

Movie trailers with activities for learners

Lectures and speeches with interactive exercises

An Australian site that contains hundreds of interviews with musicians from around the world. Check out which artists they have interviewed by using the alphabetical search facilities. Use the interviews for general listening comprehension or make up your own tasks (gap-fill, T/F, comprehension questions etc.).

A great site from CNN. Over 50 news stories categorised under headings such as: crime, environment, adventure etc. Each story has a range of activities focussing on comprehension and vocabulary, most of a multiple-choice format.

Over a hundred listening extracts with activities from Randall´s ESL Cyber Listening lab.

American Rhetoric –. An index to and growing database of 5000+ full text, audio and video (streaming) versions of public speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates, interviews, other recorded media events, and a declaration or two.

Ohio University – useful for listening practice for more advanced students as well for your own pleasure. It features many of the best writers of the English Language:

The World´s Funniest Budgie - this site has real recordings of a talking budgie named Victor who understood the English language and could converse on almost any subject. It began with a parrot intelligence study and is the first time that it has actually been proved that parrots have a natural sense of humour.

The Engines of Our Ingenuity – is a radio programme that tells the story of how our culture is formed by human creativity. Written and hosted by John Lienhard, it is heard nationally (USA) on Public Radio. Among other features, this website houses the scripts for every episode heard since the show´s inception in 1988. Streaming audio is available on each of the posted episodes. Fascinating and enjoyable listening.

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http://www.esl-lab.com/

http://onlearn.biz

http://www.cdlponline.org/

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/tutorial.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/index.shtml

http://www.selfaccess.com/sa/sa_home.php

http://www.englishlistening.com/

http://www.uefap.co.uk/

http://www.virtualilc.com

http://international.ouc.bc.ca/takako/index.html

http://www.thewclc.ca/edge

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Phonetic script writer

The English Pronunciation Tip of the Day has over 160 tips in helping students improve their English pronunciation with some having sound files. Useful links to other pronunciation and phonology sites

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Rong-Chang Li's English as a Second Language site is a great up-to-date entry-point for finding many resources, including a good set for grammar.

Dozens of digital handouts on grammar and English usage, over 170 computer-graded quizzes, and recommendations on writing 

The Grammar Gorillas is gives fun sentences and asks you to find the noun, verb, etc. It's a parts of speech game.

A series of free, on-line grammar lessons covers all the parts of speech, as well as punctuation.

Do you have a question about English grammar? See if the answer to your question is already here and if not send in your question to get it answered.

This is one of a series of articles that you can find at www.developingteachers.com

Two terms that often cause confusion are ’inductive’ and ’deductive’ teaching. These terms are often applied to the presentation and teaching of grammar. Here is an article that tries to clarify the distincton between these two approaches as well as the background on the the pros and cons of these two opposing views.

Lots of practical ideas on how to teach a range of grammatical items - this link page can be found at the renound Dave’s ESL Cafe.

Here is an interesting article about ’Passive Grammar’ which tries to demonstrate that we all have an innate ability to ’identify’ grammar. The article includes a short ’lesson’ in Bulgarian. There is plenty of food for thought here.

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Radio series with archived reports Living on earth

CNN "timeless" stories- 

National Public radio- (Try "All things Considered")

Speeches: (international speakers- variety of accents)

Favorite poem project- (ordinary people reading their favorite poem- video format)

US radio

Talk About English is a new magazine-style programme for learners of English from the BBC World Service. It's broadcast twice a week but can be streamed from the site. An added bonus is that the script is downloadable in PDF format

For example, most radio programmes can be heard again via the site during the week in which they were broadcast.  Some are archived for longer than that.  For language teaching, see especially the sections named in the top toolbar: TALK, and WHERE WE LIVE [which has a useful subsection: Voices]

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Here´s something for those of you involved in Technical English – a journey through a jet engine can be found at Build your own engine

John Ratzenberger´s Made in America is an extremely interesting site with lots of video clips of visits to factories and businesses –

Using video as part of your teaching activities is very rewarding. This a really neat site which uses film trailers as the basis for language activities. Each trailer has a summary, a cloze exercise, notes on key vocabulary and a quiz. There are currently 55 trailers listed, which adds up to a lot of listening practice. If you create an account (free), you can see even more trailers and scores can be saved.

Glenys Hanson from the Université de Franche-Comté has created a nice series of video listening exercises based on movie trailers. You have to reconstitute the text of the trailer, of which all the letters have been replaced by asterisks.

Jeffrey Hill has some useful negotiations material using scenes from three movies: Dangerous Liaisons, Wall Street and Local Hero. There´s a worksheet and script for each scene and a final role-play exercise.

The CNN Learning Resources site -offers web-delivered instruction using current and past CNN San Francisco bureau and CBS 5 - KPIX (CBS Broadcasting) news stories. Each module includes the full text of each story and interactive activities to test comprehension. The learner can choose to read the text, listen to the text, and view a short video clip of the story. Each module is designed for ease of use so the learner can use it independently.

For those of you interested in video-based learning, check out English-behind-the-scenes which is “the brainchild of a group of qualified and experienced English language teachers from diverse backgrounds who, among other things, work as English language examiners for a prestigious international university.” They offer a collection of ready-made, user-friendly lessons based on a range of well-known, thoroughly enjoyable and highly-motivating films. Titles include Harry Potter, My Big, Fat Greek Wedding and Erin Brockovich with more added on a regular basis. Lessons are reasonably priced and are graded according to students´levels:. There is a free sample available.

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Subvertising -  is a site that provides some balance to advertisements in general 

Adbusters.org takes an aesthetic often humorous view of contemporary advertisements

A random Stephen Wright joke generator is available here

http://humor.about.com/cs/advertisinghumor/a/ds020402.htm?nl=1                        About.com has an archive of humorous Super Bowl adverts going back to 1998. The majority of these are very funny – use this link:

The funny world of advertising – real, imagined and satirical

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/humor4.shtml

This site exists to prove that even though many people love Christmas, not all folks have a sense of how to celebrate.  

Real crimes committed by dumb criminals will leave you shaking your head at just how stupid people can be. Take, for example, a man wanted for throwing bricks through jewellery store windows and making off with the loot. He was arrested after he threw a brick into a Plexiglas window.-.the brick bounced back, hit him in the head and knocked him cold until the police got there.

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Interesting Sources

Here are some key articles and book extracts that either have fed into the Dogme ELT discussion group or have been written by members of the group, and which underpin the thinking behind Teaching Unplugged.

A Dogma for EFL, by Scott Thornbury. This is the original article and the one that triggered the forming of the "Dogme ELT" discussion group. It was published in IATEFL Issues 153, Feb/March 2000.

Teaching Unplugged, by Scott Thornbury. This came out in It's for Teachers, Feb 2001.

Grammar, Power and Bottled Water, by Scott Thornbury. This is an earlier article of Scott's, but the Dogme spirit is starting to show itself. It came out in the IATEFL Newsletter 140, 1998.

Against Dogma: A Plea for Moderation, by Simon Gill. Simon wrote this in response to Scott's original Dogma for EFL article. It came out in IATEFL Issues 154 (April/May 2000).

Teaching without a Coursebook, by Adrian Underhill. This appeared in the late 80s (Adrian can't remember where) and had a "slow-release" effect on Scott.

Extract from Teaching as a subversive activity, by Postman & Weingartner. Written in 1969, this is another radical agenda for education that has interesting parallels with Teaching Unplugged.

The Roaring in the Chimney, by Sylvia Ashton-Warner. This extract comes from Teacher (first published in 1963). The visionary NZ primary school teacher Sylvia Ashton-Warner might well be the patron saint of Teaching Unplugged.

Dogme out in the Open, by Scott Thornbury and Luke Meddings. This article celebrates a year of Dogme ELT, and appeared in IATEFL Issues in June/July 2001.

McEnglish in Australia, by Scott Thornbury. A paper given at the 13th EA Educational Conference (English in Australia, Australia in English) in Fremantle, Western Australia, October, 2000. Touches on such themes as the globalization of ELT, positivist/transmissive models of education vs dialogic models, and emergent grammar.

Coursebooks: The Roaring in the Chimney, by Scott Thornbury and Luke Meddings.(Modern English Teacher Vol 10 No 3, July 2001) This is the first of three articles and was written in response to an article by Jeremy Harmer in the same issue.

Using the Raw Materials: A "Dogme" approach to teaching language, by Scott Thornbury and Luke Meddings. Practical suggestions as to how learner language can form the raw material of the lesson. First published in Modern English Teacher.

Dogme and the Coursebook, by Scott Thornbury and Luke Meddings. This article suggests ways that the coursebook could be integrated into a "Dogme approach". It was first published in Modern English Teacher.

Don't mention the war! Taboo topics and the alternative textbook, by Scott Thornbury. Why coursebooks - in dictating the topic agenda - are counterproductive. This article first appeared in IT's for Teachers, Feb 2002.

Teaching Unplugged: One Teacher's Account, by Nerina Conte and Scott Thornbury. Scott interviews Nerina about her experience teaching a small group of primary school children without a coursebook. Instead, they produced their own "scrapbooks".

Do we have the bottle? by Jacqueline McEwan: this is a first-hand account of curriculum change along "dogme" lines and was first published in the EL Gazette.

Dogme 95 The film collective whose "vow of chastity" Scott used as an analogy

Open Space A humanistic approach to the organising and running of meetings, workshops - and classes.

Rage & hope:Paolo Freire A site devoted to the work of the visionary Brazilian educationalist - check at Giroux and co while you're there

Something on Critical Pedagogy -masses of articles and links: Another Freire site

Informal Education Homepage - learning through doing, with a special emphasis on youth work

CLL Community Language learning Chinese-based site but you don't need to download Chinese characters

More CLL:includes CLL lesson plan

Humanising Language Teaching - the e-zine that Mario edits

The Journal of the Imagination in Language Learning - another on-line journal worth a browse

Adrian Holliday's Homepage author of Appropriate Methodology & Social Context etc etc

Leo van Lier's Homepage:check out Leo on ecological educational linguistics

Uncovering Grammar: a link to MacMillan's Onestop English site, where you can read up on Scott's book

and, in the interests of balance, the Pearson ELT Forum site, with more stuff on Scott and his books

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This Web page is constantly being added to and is an excellent source for all areas of methodology. There are quite a few articles that look at approaches to teaching such as The Silent Way, Audiolingualism and Grammar Translation, as well as articles on a range of issues from ‘Attitudes to Being Observed’ to ‘What is Standard English?’.

A look at frequently used acronyms and abbreviations in the world of EFL.

What is the perfect teacher? In Learning Teaching Jim Scrivener talks about three types of teacher (p6). This article compliments this section of the book and includes a couple of lists including suggestions on ‘being effective’.

Another article that looks at teaching styles. This one gives an insight into four types of teacher and asks the reader to think about which ‘style’ best describes them.

‘Learning in later years’ takes a look at Adult learners and examines why teaching adults is different from teaching children.

A useful site that looks at a number of key classroom issues including learning styles, motivation and attitudes to teaching. Apart from brief articles on some of the issues there are also a couple of questionnaires designed to explore teaching styles and beliefs.

Language classrooms are complex places and the roles taken on by a teacher are dependant on the stages of the lesson, purpose of activity and many other factors. This article tries to examine some of the ideas surrounding these issues. There are a couple of very useful tables and diagrams plus an attempt to set all the theory in the classroom context.

Why invent the wheel again? Find lots of lesson plans that you can use immediately in your classroom. If you have any lessons you wish to share just send them in.

This is a short article which takes a look at ways of evaluating coursebooks, although it does not include any reference to ‘Choosing your Coursebook’ by Alan Cunningsworth. Tends to be a bit wordy in places but the basic ideas are quite useful. The site http://iteslj.org includes lots of other articles on a range of topics. The archives are split into three categories: lessons, teaching techniques and articles.

Another short article on using coursebooks, includes a short practical checklist.

An interesting interview (and online chat) with Roger Hunt called ‘Par for the course’. The interview/chat focuses on using coursebooks and has quite a few interesting questions and answers.

An interesting article on Communicative tasks for speaking. The article highlights some of the basic premises and ingredients that go to make up a successful communicative speaking task.

Online lessons focusing on speaking.

This short article entitled ‘Getting the most out of your textbook listening’ is well worth a read as it not only applies to coursebook/textbook listening activities but to the skill in general.

This short article is aimed at students but in fact has a lot of relevance for teachers. It takes a look at how students can practise their listening skills outside the classroom in a ‘non-English speaking’ country. There are quite a few good ideas that can give a teacher (working outside a country like the UK, USA etc) some ideas on how to help their students outside as well as inside the language classroom.

Lots and lots of materials focusing on teaching vocabulary at all levels. Whether you teach British or American English you’ll find something here for you.

Quite a long article on vocabulary entitled ‘Lexical Loquacity’ – which was originally (or so it claims) an assignment for a Diploma course. The article is split into two sections: the first section takes a look at what is meant by lexis and some of the recent thoughts surrounding the subject; the second section looks at the implications for classroom teaching and suggests some activities that can be used.

This ‘Virtual’ thesaurus gives a new perspective into the relationship between words. Once the homepage has loaded click on the ‘loaded, click to launch’ icon to enter the display. Words will be displayed in a mind map format with fine lines showing the relationship between the words. Click on a word to show words related to that particular one while those unrelated disappear from the display. Users can search for any word or phrase by using a simple text-entry box. You can also search words based on part of speech, for example, similar nouns or verbs.

A really interesting site all about ‘Words’.

Are you interested in new words? Take a look at this site dedicated to Neologisms taken from the Independent newspaper from the UK.

A very interesting article entitled ‘Give me mistakes!’ The author shows through a particular situation the fear that students often have about making mistakes and the importance (as far as the learning process goes) of getting/letting them make mistakes. A key sentence in the article is "I do NOT want correct sentences, you don't need help with those".

Here is a short article on Echoing in the classroom. Although this is mentioned only on page 16 under classroom management – potential problems it is often an issue discussed when talking about error correction. The article tries to be balanced with points for and against, but it is clear with only 4 points for and 11 against which way the author leans.

A fairly theoretical article covering the basic issues behind languages testing such as validity and reliability, rationale behind different types of tests etc - a good starting point.

This page includes tips and materials for both FCE and IELTS exams. If your students are preparing for either of these exams this is a must. The tips here can also be useful for testing in general.

This monthly online magazine brought to us by Pilgrims is packed full of interesting articles. The July 2002 issue focuses mainly on testing and contains articles on ‘How to cope with exam stress’, ‘Making oral tests more human’ and ‘Humanising exam classes’ as well as an exam questionnaire for teenagers. If you like what you see here why not take a look at the back issues?

http://www.dialang.org    DIALANG offers diagnostic tests in Listening, Reading and Writing in 14 languages. Assessment is geared to the 6-point Common European Framework scale:

http://www.teaching-unplugged.com/sources.html

This article by Andrew Wright gives three reasons why storytelling should be an important part of teaching English. The author gives arguments to back up the points he makes as well as giving some advice for storytelling. This is quite a good theoretical starting point for an area which is often seen as on the fringes of mainstream EFL but which, in recent years, has made a comeback.

If you’re interested in using stories in the classroom this is a good place to start. The article has a good section on the theory and basics of storytelling and gives plenty of practical suggestions. There are also links to other articles and useful sites.

A complete Web site devoted to Storytelling in the classroom. This site contains articles on the rationale behind using stories in the classroom, lesson plans and activities as well as an amazing store of online stories.

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This brief article appeared in ‘The Language Teacher’ an online magazine from JALT (The Japanese association of language teachers – affiliated to IATEFL). Short and to the point this article looks into a few aspects of classroom teaching such as learner participation, teacher talk and observations.

Ongoing teacher development has been a ‘hot’ issue in recent years. This article focuses on a range of issues surrounding this topic.

We all have stories from the classroom, some of these stories are funny and some plain embarrassing and many of them will actually help other teachers who find themselves in similar situations. This Web page is full of stories from practising teachers. Read through them, have a laugh, say ‘Ah! Yes, that’s happened/could happen to me.’ And, if you like send in your own little anecdote.

Another interesting page which contains letters from teachers from around the world. In these letters the teachers try to tell us what teaching is like in the country in which they work. This material could be very useful both for teachers who want to go and work in those countries and for teachers who already do.

This Website also has other sections which may be of interest to teachers and trainees – these include: ‘tip of the week’ – with classroom ideas – and ‘travel zone’ – which includes lots of information on working in different countries.

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