General Information: The Internet as a Tool for Teaching EFL

http://www.freepint.com/issues/270400.htm#feature : Article: The Internet as a tool for teaching English as a Foreign Language, By Rachel Arenstein

This is an interesting article for understanding how one uses the Internet to teach EFL. While specifically addressing 10 -12 year olds, it has relative information for all ages. It might inspire you to write your own uses for the Internet in YOUR classrooms.

Sotir Commentary:

Weblogs have been around since 1998, although they were not necessarily named as such at the time. Sometime around 1999 Peter Merholz announced that they were to be pronounced 'wee-blog' but of course that was shortened to 'blog' and you were no longer a weblog editor, you were a 'blogger'. Sites started springing up with blog templates, such as Pitas and Blogger, and were originally link-driven sites with commentary, personal thoughts and even essays and photos. They were also originally written in HTML code by people who already knew how to create a website.

Even though the current crop of blogs has maintained the same format, they are much easier to create, thanks to templates and programs that add the necessary HTML for you. (see www.blogger.com or http://www.squarespace.com/ for the tools and templates you need to create your own blog or Website). It is a revolution, and one that you can join with relative ease. Blog commentaries are to be taken with a grain of salt, as are most Web-based sites. You define your belief parameters, and are your own judge and jury as to the value of the content and authors. It is a brave new world, with instantaneous, unfiltered information delivered on demand.

I'm a relative newcomer, since I just started blogging about 3 years ago, but often feel more like a pioneer. Just as it is difficult to imagine the World Wide Web has been used by the general public for less than 15 years, blog formats are becoming just as ubiquitous in our current age to express beliefs and share information. Blogs are everywhere, as are bloggers. They were even christened a legitimate form of journalism by both the Democrats and Republicans at their last national conventions, and continue to explode daily, if not hourly.

As instructors, we are obliged to address the new forms of communication and to explore how they change the psyche of our students. Just as previous generations explored the impacts of radio, television, computers, the Internet and the World Wide Web, we should explore how the newest communication tools can be employed today. While these tools are not necessary to teach effectively, they can certainly add multiple dimensions to our classrooms.

Articles: Comments

I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has tried some of the RSS/ATOM portals, and your experiences. You can either post as a comment or a separate posting. Thanks!

Commentary: Sotir: "Using RSS and ATOM"

I've been playing with some of the aggregators that I've found, and like some more than others. This is very new technology, but I a amazed by the volume of RSS and ATOM syndications that are available, along with the tools that are developed to view them. Web aggregators, or 'portals' are being offered in a lot of places. As an example, Yahoo has an easy portal for getting relevant information to you on your 'My Yahoo!' page. All you need is the URL of the syndicated Blog or Web site that you want to use. I went to the 'Add Content' area of the My Page site on Yahoo. Under 'Find Content' I chose Add RSS by URL and typed in the RSS feed for this Blog. That immediately added the 'Technology for the Adult Education Instructor' Blog to my Yahoo homepage. It also tells you how long ago content was added, and a simple click takes me to this Blog.

It was an easy check to determine how the portal process works, and frankly, it works well. You can also add specific content areas rather than sites (such as 'Cubs Baseball') and have all RSS feed sites that cover Cubs baseball sent to you. If you're not a current Yahoo user, you can access their site and set up your own My Yahoo! page. Go to www.yahoo.com for more information. Setting a page and getting a Yahoo email address is free.

I have been asked why the AELC Blog does not have a syndication feed. The reason is that the AELC Blog is meant for internal communication, and I don't see the need to open it to anyone else. The Instructor's Blog is open to other colleges and programs, and so the feed makes sense here.

RSS/ATOM is a great new tool. What I like is that adding content areas or URL's to these aggregators is extremely easy. A couple of clicks and you are there. What I didn't like was when I accessed Feedster (which is more of an RSS search engine), and typed in 'Adult Education', some 'interesting' sites popped up. While it listed academic sites, there were also some less than academic 'adult' sites in the mix. Tip: choose your keywords wisely. This is a fairly new process for me as well, so I'll keep you informed about what I find.

Commentary: Sotir: "RSS...It's Magic!"

I'm always fascinated by the many new ways developed to communicate. There are the Blogs and Wikis of course, which are old hat to readers of this site. While not exactly ‘brand new’, many people have not yet heard of RSS, (which stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication), and allows you to be your own Google. And yes, I do realize that words like Blog and Wiki and Google sound more like a script for Star Wars than for an academic environment, but stick with me, kid, and I’ll show you the world as you’ve never seen it before.

Those who know me know that I like, (love, live for) knowledge management. There is just too much data in the world, and not enough time to sort through it all. I live to simplify. Too much data IS a dangerous thing, since its sheer volume threatens its usefulness. Imagine RSS as your personal assistant. You find some interesting Web sites and may even mark them as favorites, so you can go back to them. Of course, the list of favorites grows, but your use of them lessens in time. Yes, they were great sites, but you just don’t have the time to keep reviewing them for new or pertinent information. Enter your RSS personal assistant. By plugging the links to your favorites into an RSS feed reader or aggregator, it delivers frequently changing Web content directly to you. You can get all the new content from favorite sites, or just summaries for you to decide if they are worth a peek. Let the feed readers go out and fetch the new, relevant content for you.

RSS works by setting up keyword searches and then delivering the relevant content directly to you. It works with blogs and Web sites and even e-mail. If you are the owner of a blog or website, and want to get information to a group of people, RSS can let them know that you have a new blog posting. Or perhaps that your conference is coming up, and you want attendees to know what new speakers are on tap. Other Blogs or Web sites, if you choose to open RSS links, can add your information to their sites, furthering the information chain. You always have complete control as to how much email is sent to you. All of those subscriptions to news sites, news groups and other content providers can be channeled into your very own RSS.

Think of RSS as a list maker, and a step beyond marking a site as a 'Favorite' . It takes the sites that you are interested in following, and puts them into a central place. Each of the items will include a title, a short summary, and a link to a URL (such as a Web page or Blog address). Other information, such as the date created and the creator's name may also be included.

So, now of course, you want to know what it takes to reap these amazing benefits.

You need to start with a feed reader. There are Web based readers, e-mail clients and stand-alone applications. I'd suggest starting with a site called Bloglines at: http://www.bloglines.com/ This is a Web based comprehensive site that works great if you have multiple computers, you don’t want to tie up your hard drive by downloading special software and you want to be able to access your reader from any computer, anywhere that is connected to the Web. Their site blurb reads “Bloglines is the most comprehensive, integrated service for searching, subscribing, publishing and sharing news feeds, blogs, and rich Web content. It's free and easy-to-use". There is also a great step by step for using Bloglines located at: http://alex.halavais.net/news/index.php?p=872

Now that you have a feed reader, you need to sign up for feeds that interest you. Go to those sites and look for either an icon with the acronyms RSS, XML or RDF or a site feed address. For example, the syndicated (term used for a site with an RSS feed) address for this Blog is http://wccniuesl.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Just add the RSS feed (XML) to the list of feeds that your aggregator checks. If you are looking for grants, for example, go to the sites which often list grants and see if you can add them to your feed reader. Have a Mac? No problem. There are readers and notifiers that work on PC’s through XP and Mac OS X, and Browsers from Netscape to Explorer to Safari. I've used an XML format called ATOM, which is similar to RSS, as the syndicated feed for this site. RSS is more widely used and supported, but ATOM works best with Blogger sites. This is vaguely reminiscent of the Beta/VHS format wars...

Give it a try. You can keep abreast of new information, news stories, available jobs, or grants. You choose the relevant content. RSS can reduce the amount of email and site subscriptions, and simplify your online life. Now if it would only simplify life offline as well…

Additional sites to explore:
Pubsub: http://www.pubsub.com/
Feedster: http://www.feedster.com/
News Gator: http://www.newsgator.com/home.aspx (this integrates into Microsoft Outlook)
Pluck:
http://www.pluck.com/content/rss.html?source=goto&keyword=rss&OVRAW=RSS&OVKEY=rss&OVMTC=standard

ESL: Bilingual Vocabulary Quizzes

http://iteslj.org/v/ Many languages are covered:

Arabic-English Chinese-English Czech-English Dutch-English Finnish-English French-English German-English Greek-English Hungarian-English Indonesian-English Italian-English Japanese-English Korean-English Kurdish-English Lithuanian-English Malay-English Nowegian-English Persian-English Polish-English Portuguese-English Romanian-English Russian-English Spanish-English Swahili-English Swedish-English Tagalog-English Thai-English Turkish-English Ukrainian-English Urdu-English Vietnamese-English Zulu-English

ESL: Idioms/Quizzes

http://a4esl.org/q/h/idioms.html Self Study Idiom Quizzes

Levels from medium to difficult.
Animal Idioms (Kaye Mastin Mallory)
Change Idioms to Plain English (Larry Kelly)
Idioms (Similes - as ... as) - Matching Quiz (Vera Mello)
Idioms with Body Parts - Matching Quiz (Vera Mello)
Idioms with Numbers (Sion Baldwin)

ESL: Vocabulary

http://www.rong-chang.com/ Use the menu on the left of the page to access 'Vocabulary'

English Vocabulary. Learn the pronunciation and spelling of thousands of words using an image based interface.
Vocabulary Test. Free vocabulary test for TOEFL, GMT, SAT, GRE and more.
Vocabulary Level Test. Take a test to find out your vocabulary size.
Vocabulary University Learn English vocabulary in context (grades 5-12) with free word puzzles.
Irregular Verbs A complete list of irregular verbs in alphabetical order.
Vocabulary Training. Test your vocabulary on different subjects.
Building a Better Vocabulary. A good article to guide your study of vocabulary.
5000 Collegiate Words. A list of words in alphabetical order with concise definitions.
SuperKids Vocabulary Builder. Word of the day, hangman, hidden word puzzles, and word scrambler.
Everyday Vocabulary Anagrams. Anagram quizzes by Charles I. Kelly & Lawrence E. Kelly.
for English Language Learners. Vocabulary activities for all levels.
E. L. Easton Vocabulary Multilingual dictionaries, vocabulary quizzes by E. L. Easton Online.
Learning Vocabulary can be fun. Word search, hangman, quiz, and match game.
Vocabulary Improvement Program. Learn English words by studying the roots, prefixes, and suffixes.

ESL: Idioms

http://www.rong-chang.com/: Use the menu on the left side of the page to access 'Idioms'

Self-Study Idiom Quizzes. Including phrasal verbs, and slang, divided into medium and difficult levels.
Pocket English Idioms Hundreds of idioms. Click a keyword and get the idiom with an example sentence.
Dennis Oliver's ESL Idiom Page You can see a complete list, or meanings and examples.
Commonly Used American Slang Nineteen pages of slang collected by Charles I. Kelly & Lawrence E. Kelly.
The Idiom Collection A big collection and many categories.
English Idioms, Sayings and Slang An online dictionary of idioms, sayings and slang.
American Idioms A good selection with good examples.
Animal Idioms A few interesting idioms containing animals' names.
Idioms at Interlink Language Center Multiple choice questions, match the meaning of an idiom.
Idioms and Proverbs Match the meanings of about thirty idioms.
Idioms http://www.speak-read-write.com/ Sally Jennings: hundreds of idioms and phrasal verbs with context examples
Slang City. Yeah, baby! Check out this cool online guide to American slang, including explanations of popular songs and movies, bad words, pronunciation and more.
Idioms Site.Hundreds of idioms in alphabetical order. It also tells you where and when the idiom originated.

ESL/IEI: Grammar

http://www.rong-chang.com/: Grammar skills Use the menu on the left of the page to access 'Grammar' . Some of these sites are excellent, others need to be reviewed for level applicability. Can also be used for GED students.

Guide to Grammar and Writing. Study grammar at sentence level, paragraph level, and essay level.
An On-Line English Grammar Book. An online grammar book with a lot of example sentences.
English Grammar Book.With high-quality English lessons and exercises to help English learners learn English grammar online.
Grammar Index. Discussion of about 400 topics on English Grammar.
Revelle Humanities Grammar Handbook. Explanation of various aspects of English grammar.
Grammar Safari. . A project that requires students to hunt for sentence structures on the Web by using SEARCH and FIND functions. Developed by the Intensive English Institute.
Guide to Grammar and Style. This site explains grammar rules, comments on styles, and suggest usage. A lot of advice on how to write better English.
Grammar Slammer. It has an easy-to-use format to help you find what you're looking for, and provide rules and tips about writing clear English.
Zozanga Grammar Lessons. A free and independent web site for EFL/ESL learners and teachers.
The Internet Grammar of English. An online course in English grammar written primarily for university undergraduates.
Rose of York Learning Resources. Free grammar lessons online.
English Grammar FAQ. Some of the postings made to the newsgroup alt.usage.english by John Lawler, Professor of Linguistics.
English Forum Free English language help. Post your questions here and will be answered by someone.

ESL: Business English

http://www.rong-chang.com/ : This site has wonderful tools for helping students work on Business English skills. Use the left hand menu and click on 'Business English' to access any of the sites listed below:

Business English for Teachers and Learners. This is a page maintained by Linda Thalman, with a big collection of links to business English sites.
Business English Exercises. There are over 140 exercises of different types, crosswords and hangman games.
Bull's Eye Business Writing Tips. An archive of over 300 tips on how students can improve their business writing skills.
Guide to Basic Business Letters. It provides the phrases that are usually found in any standard business letter.
Business English Market The site provides an Instructor's Guide and Lesson Modules that include plans, exercises, and ideas.
American Business Jargon. Over a hundred of American business sayings are defined.
Accounting Terminology Guide. An educational tool for journalists who report on and interpret financial information.
The Devil's Derivatives Dictionary. A huge online Business English dictionary.
Business English for Different Topics. A large collection of English reading materials under different topics.
Business English Links for ESL. Including Mock Job interview, Business Meeting Quiz, Business Writing Links, and Professional Organizations.

ESL/ABE/GED: Writing Assistance Sites

http://www.rong-chang.com/: Writing assistance for ABE/GED and ESL

Paradigm Online Writing Assistant. A lot of information about how to write informal essays, thesis/support essays, argumentative essays, and exploratory essays.
Online Writing Collaboration Project is the meeting place on cyberspace for English teachers and learners.
The Purdue University Writing Lab Handouts. One of the earliest online writing lab. The Handouts section provides excellent guide to academic writing. There is also a section of English as a Second Language.
Essay Info. Basics of essay writing, writing tips, essay types, citation styles, and so on.
Online Guide to Writing and Research University of Maryland University College (UMUC) prvides this site, like an online writing textbook.
Writing Help. Detailed discussion of academic writing, business writing, and technical writing. An excellent online writing handbook.
A Guide to Grammar and Writing. This site gives you help on your grammar. The site also contains computer-graded grammar quizzes.
Research Paper Writing. This site has an idea directory in which you may find research questions you are interested in. The Writing Center section discusses general writing concerns as well as English grammar.
Writing for the Web Research on how users read on the Web and how authors should write.
Essay Writing A step-by-step guide to essay-writing.

ESL: Listening Skills

http://www.rong-chang.com/ : Listening Skills Use the menu on the left side of the page to access 'Listening'.

Phrases for Conversation. Commonly used expressions in conversations provided by ESLgold.
Q/A Approach to Learning English. Listening to the 50 stories, and do the questions & answers exercises.
Wired for Books. Streams hundreds of hours of spoken audio in English - classics, poems, short stories, lectures, and author interviews.
Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab. One of the largest ESL listening training resource on the Web with various interesting topics for three different levels.
English Trailers. Study English using movie commercials, created by Andrew Johnson.
Real Movies. Watch the most recent movie trailers online with the free RealOne Player.
Focus English. A conversation site created by John Liang, University of California, Riverside, with contents added frequently.
Learning Oral English Online. An online conversation book with ten lessons including Meeting Friends, Apartment Hunting, and Shopping in USA.
Foreign Languages for Travelers. An excellent site for people who want to quickly learn some useful English or other foreign language phrases.

ESL/ABE: Reading

http://www.rong-chang.com/ Reading for ESL students. This is a wealth of information for low level readers.

Introduction to the United States of America. Online Culture Lessons by Paul Sparks.
Adult Learning Activities. California distance learning project, where you can read and listen to short essays about America.
Antimoon.com - Learn English effectively. Articles on how to learn English effectively, based on the experiences of successful learners.
E-Bookster. A tool for either helping young kids to learn how to read, or to help people learn english as a second language.
PanaVox Speech Server. Broadcasts text as live synthesised high quality speech to users who are using 33 or 56 k or faster modems.
VoyCabulary Reading Assistant. With this program you can check the meaning of any words in the Web page you are reading.
CNNSF Learning Resources. A selected news story is published each week with video, audio, full text, abridged text, and story outline for educational use.
Yahoo Daily News.Quickly updated news, classified into different categories.
This Day in History.A short passage each day describing an historical event in American history. Holidays in the U.S. Description of all the holidays from January to December.
The Quotations Page. The largest and oldest Quotations Page on the Web with about 30 categories such as Great Leaders, Sarcasm, and Wisdom.
Key to College Success. About 10 pages of sincere advice about how to be successful in college. You must read it if you are preparing to study in the States.
A Word a Day. Definitions and example sentences are provided. You can also click to hear its pronunciation. The word is usually difficult.
Online Children's Stories. Many stories from well-known children's books. They are easy and interesting to read.
Public Domain Books. Hundreds of books you can free download or open to read.
Life in a New Country. ESL students writing about the American culture.
Reading Materials Search. Searching reading materials by subject, type, and level.
The English Learner Movie Guides a detailed synopsis of 100 popular movie with an extensive glossary of vocabulary and various cultural references.

ESL: Citizenship

http://www.rong-chang.com/ ESL Citizenship

Use the menu on the far left and choose 'Citizenship'. There are great sites available for topics such as citizenship, American History, the flag and other topics.

ESL: English Grammar Explained in Spanish

http://www.rong-chang.com/ :English grammar explained in Spanish. A good site for students struggling to understand the English grammar listed below:

Simple Present
Present Continuous
Present Perfect
Present Perfect Continuous
Past Simple
Past Continuous
Past Perfect
Past Perfect Continuous
Future Simple
Future Continuous
Future Perfect
Future Perfect Continuous

Use the listing under 'Spanish' from the menu on the left to get to this site.

Commentary: Sotir: Comments on Technological Literacy

Educational theorist E.D. Hirsch, Jr. noted that 'literate people in every society and every culture share a body of knowledge that enables them to communicate with each other and make sense of the world around them. The kinds of things a literate person knows will vary from society to society and from era to era; so there is no absolute definition of literacy.'

Today's society and culture demands that technological literacy be a necessary component of literacy in general. So much of our life is defined by the development and usage of technology. There is no greater indicator of the impact of technology on our society than the Y2K terror at the beginning of this millennium. People were frozen in fear that they would awake on January 1 without computers. Many were nearly paralyzed as a craze worthy of 'War of the Worlds' hit business and individuals alike. Of course, January 1 dawned with none of the fears realized, and everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief. However, it illustrates how deeply technology has impacted society in about 30 years. Although computers have been around for much longer, it was the advent of the personal computer that redesigned the world as we know it. Since the first Apple computer was created and housed in a handcrafted koa wood case, personal computers have become integral to business, science, research and education.

In 1943, Thomas Watson of IBM said 'I think there is a world market for maybe 5 computers.' To be fair to the less than visionary Mr. Watson, even as late as the 1960's a Univac computer cost about $1.6 million and covered an area nearly as large as a ball field. Even less visionary was Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corp. who in 1977 declared 'There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home'. Mr. Watson was 34 years away from the vision of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1975. Mr Olsen should have known better.

However, since the first Apple in 1975 and the first meeting of IBM and Bill Gates in 1981, computers have become ubiquitous to our society. While Jobs and Wozniak hired out a cabinet maker to make the original housing, by 1982 Gates and IBM were selling their PC's at Sears. Even national elections have been defined by the original punch cards invented in 1801 (remember hanging and pregnant chads?). But while we are still utilizing old technologies for voting, society is overwhelmed by the lightening speed that new technologies are developed. Punch cards went to 8" floppies. We then moved quickly through 5.25" floppies, 3.5" not so floppies, to CDs in '85, DVD's in '96 and keydrives in '00. A single CD can contain over 1000 average novels. Bluetooth standard allows any sort of electronic equipment...from computers and cell phones to keyboards and headphones...to make its own connections without wires, cables or any direct action by the user. Information is just there, in the air around us.

What does this imply for education? The need for more and more dollars to support the technology habit that we as a society employ. Children, who have never known a world without computers, are born cable ready. Just point them in a direction of a computer and let them go. A two year old who watches PBS can tell you that the web address is ' http://www.pbskids.org . Perhaps they are not clear on the concept of a web address, but they know it is necessary to reach the home of Teletubbies, Boobah and Barney. They just KNOW.

Our job as educators must move at the same rapid rate. In a relatively short time, the digital immigrants born before 1975 will be outpaced by the digital natives born after that date. We need to keep up with, and more importantly, accept the changes that come into our lives daily. Some changes are easier than others. Most people can accept the idea of cell phones, even though there is a question of whether they make our lives easier or bring the potential for even more stress. Emily Post never dealt with the etiquette of proper use of a phone in a public setting, and yet we have all had the frustration of someone's phone ringing in church or in a concert or theater. But change, in this technological society, is inevitable. After all, YOU are reading a BLOG.

GED/ESL: Health and Wellness: Dental

http://www.dentalwellnesscenter.com/page3.html Dental Wellness Center

This is a small site, but does deal with dental health from the adult education perspective. Check it out!

General Information: Statistics

• 
  The American Management Association reported in 2001 that more than one-third of all job applicants given literacy tests by mid-sized or larger companies could not pass.
• 
  A 1997 survey conducted by the National Association of Manufacturers and Grant Thornton LLP revealed that while roughly six in ten companies receive more than 5 applications for each position, one-third of those applicants are rejected for inadequate reading or writing skills, and nearly one-quarter for poor communication or math skills.
• 
  The same survey revealed problems in those already employed: more than half of the companies reported serious shortcomings in math, written language and communication skills among workers.

from the Adult Learning Quarterly, KET, Spring 2005

ESL: Health and Wellness

http://hlunix.hl.state.ut.us/hrm/ethnic/pamphlet.html

Brochures, medical information and explanations in the following languages:
Cambodian Chinese Korean Hmong Laotian Russian Samoan Spanish Tagalog Thai
Tongan Vietnamese

GED/ESL: Health and Wellness

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/tutorial.html
165 Interactive Health Tutorials
The tutorials are interactive health education resources from the Patient Education Institute. using animated graphics each tutorial explains a procedure or condition in easy-to-read language. You can also listen to the tutorial.

Includes a dictionary, encyclopedia and other resources

ESL: Health and Wellness

http://literacynet.org/vtd/ Literacy.Net Dialogues

This is web site for ESL students. If you have recently come to the United States from another country, a visit to the doctor can be a strange experience. Not only is there new language, but customs may seem be different as well. With this web site you can practice the language you need for getting medical care. Actual sample dialogues included in this site. Wonderful for ESL students!
Beginning to Intermediate ESL level dialogues on visiting the doctor

GED/ESL: Health and Wellness

http://familydoctor.org/ Family Doctor

Large Website with information on:
Healthy Living
Parents and Kids
Women’s Issues
Men’s Issues
Seniors
Health Tools
Search Engine

GED/ESL: Health and Wellness

http://www.kidshealth.org/ Kid's Health

Areas of interest include:
For Parents
Practical parenting information in English and Spanish
For Kids
Easy to understand with lots of pictures
Simple words and definitions
For Teens
Topics that target teen issues

GED: Spanish

http://litlink.ket.org/begin_gedconnect.aspl

Although this is the link to the English site, I have information that the GED Connection Website will soon also be available in Spanish. Keep an eye on the site if you are interested!

GED: Main ideas

http://www.teachers.net/lessons/posts/1174.html How to Write A+ Essays! Teacher's Net

Not a lot of substance, but a good review of basic methodologies and concepts for writing essays.

GED: Main Ideas

http://www.ucd.ie/adulted/main/pages/stu_essays.htm

Though this is from Dublin, it's a good piece on main ideas for essays. There are hints, transition word lists and other checklists which could be of use.

Pre-GED, GED: Algebra Solutions

http://www.gomath.com/algebra.html Pre-Algebra and Algebra Solutions

The quality of sites available is always amazing to me. While there are some questionable sites, there are, by far, many that are extremely well done. This is one of them. In research for materials for a pre-Algebra student, I came across this site. Their information says:
'To find a solution, enter your math problem(s) and click on “Submit” for automated step-by-step solution.
To practice, click on “Practice” then “Submit” for automated step-by-step solution and answer.For a quick review of the subject, click on Mini-Lessons.
GoMath’s Mini-Lessons will guide you through the topics with graphics and examples. For additional practice off-line, click on Worksheet. All worksheet are in printable format.'

This is a great tool for students, instructors and tutors. You can enter an actual problem and receive a step by step solution.

Pre-GED/GED, Spanish GED: Pre-Algebra

http://www.glencoe.com/sec/math/prealg/prealg03/index.php4/na Pre-Algebra Edition, Glencoe

This is an interesting site, especially for bilingual students. It has a wonderful multiligual section on mathematical glossary terms and definitions: http://www.glencoe.com/sec/math/mlg/mlg.php?letter=m&language=0000000004 which defines them in everything from Arabic and Bengal to Taglog and Urdu, along with more common Spanish, Russian, Hmong and Vietnamese. I would think this would be very helpful in getting an ESL student to understand what mathematical term was necessary.
There is also a great section on USA Today related activities for pre-algebra http://www.glencoe.com/sec/math/prealg/prealg03/usa_today/index.php4/na and self-check quizzes http://www.glencoe.com/sec/math/prealg/prealg03/self_check_quiz/index.php4/na
BrainPOPS are 3- to 5-minute animated movies that provide a clear and concise explanation of a particular topic in an engaging manner. While they are animated, they explain the terms very clearly, and students at all levels will find them helpful. http://www.glencoe.com/sec/math/prealg/prealg03/brainpops/index.php4/na
Overall, this site has a lot of excellent material done in an easy to digest format. I highly recommend it for former ESL students, Spanish GED students as well as any student who needs a basic primer on pre-algebra. It is geared to the Glencoe text series (which we have) but can be used with or without the text.

GED: Reading, Writing, Vocabulary and Math

http://www.tv411.org/index.shtml TV 411

This is a broadcast that airs in mostly mid and downstate Illinois, as well as across the country. The nearest station to Chicago is in Indiana. However, the website is quite good. There is a slideshow setting up the activity, and then it takes you through the answer and an explanation. There are 70 interactive lessons on reading, Writing, Vocabulary and Math, and some teacher resources. Even without the corresponding broadcast, this is a good site. There is also an online calculator, an online dictionary and toolkit, which are easy to access.

GED/ESL: English Grammar

http://www.chompchomp.com/menu.htm Grammar Bytes!

Billed as 'Grammar with an Attitude' this site has terms, exercises, printable handouts, and tips and rules for a lot of grammar. Many of our students will find this site fun to use, and you as instructors will find it academically sound. It does a great job introducing terms, defining them, re-defining them in an exercise format, and then allowing students to choose one of two answers. Answers appear immediately, and you can click on 'Get an Explanation' whether your answer is right or wrong. This is a particularly well done site for grammar.

GED/Pre-GED/Workplace: PBS Literacy Link

http://litlink.ket.org/ PBS Literacy Link

This site requires a free registration sign up and password to access. It has some helpful areas, including:

• GED ConnectionLiteracyLink Online is a dynamic, user-friendly system with practical tools for learners and teachers to use to support their goals.
  Learners can log on to www.pbs.org/literacy, and
  take a GED practice test
  use interactive exercises that support GED content and skills
  explore Internet-based activities that include GED-style practice questions
  When a learner registers, he/she creates a personal profile, a home space with message center, and a digital portfolio.
  Find a broadcasts in your area.Order workbooks
• 
  Workplace Essential Skills Workplace readinessLearners can log on to www.pbs.org/literacy, and
  use lesson objectives to set a goal
  watch a video clip online
  apply and practice using an Internet activity
  reflect and respond in an online journal
  When a learner registers, he/she creates a personal profile, a home space with message center, and a digital portfolio.
• The workplace skills include communication at work, writing memos, employment strategies, reading and math in the workplace.

After you register and log in you'll go to your homespace where you can access lessons, practice tests and related activities.

Geography: US States

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/states_experiment_drag-drop_Intermed_State15s_500.html

A friend sent along this website, which lets you drag and drop the states in the correct position, and gives you average miles of error, number correct, percentage correct and the number of seconds it took you to do so. It's a fun way to test your geography skills, and once you have some of the western states filled in, not too difficult.

ESL: Business English

http://www.english-grammar-lessons.com/irregularverbs/menu.php
English International Lyon

Basically a grammar site, but an interesting format. It's basically drag and place in the correct categories, but there are a lot of grammar skills, from present simple and irregular and passive to conditionals. This type of website will appeal to those students who prefer text-based programs. There is no audio, but the lessons are short, with a check button at the bottom. There is a 'Hangman' game http://www.english-grammar-lessons.com/eglhangman.html that works on using irregular verbs.

ESL/ABE/GED: Public Speaking

http://www.effective-public-speaking.com/ Public Speaking: How to Speak Better in Public

This is not an interactive site, but often our students are asked to do speeches to work on pronunciation, grammar and writing skills. There are excellent tips in here to deal with things like nervousness, 'microphone blues' and calming techniques. This could be quite useful for students who are preparing speeches for their classes or for graduation.

ESL: Business English

http://www.better-english.com/grammar.htm Business English Exercises

I get some requests for ESL with a business focus. This website has quizzes and vocabulary that relate to business. There is a section on collocations (two words that are used together regularly)http://www.better-english.com/strongcollocation/collocations.htm that is unique and helpful.

There is even a game of 'Hangman',
http://www.business-english.com/bushangman.html though it does not strictly adhere to business vocabulary.

General Information: Online IEP's

If you come to the AELC in the afternoons, you may have noticed Kristy Laurx sitting at a computer and quietly reviewing web sites. She is working on the new online IEP project, and has just finished ESL level 5. The online IEP's will be similar in format and content to the current ESL IEP's, but will be housed on the computer desktop instead of the file cabinet. All of the skills sets content from the classroom texts will be cross-correlated with websites, and then installed on the AELC computers. To access the material, you will be able to simply choose the correct skill, click on the link, and it will take you directly to the website. In keeping with our policy of making technology as invisible as possible, you will not have to type in long URL's or look elsewhere for the information. This is the newest tool in our academic arsenal, and has a lot of potential for the future of the AELC.

One of the issues with websites, particulary academic websites, is the fact that they disappear as rapidly as they appear. The online IEP's will require a quarterly 'check-up' to see that the sites are still viable. While losing a site is disappointing, it is amazing how many wonderful sites pop up daily. This is a rich source of instructional material for the AELC, and is worth the little bumps along the path.

Until the online IEP's go live, you can find great academic websites on this Instructor Blog.

ESL: Pronunciation/Listening: Minimal Pairs

http://www.manythings.org/pp/ American English Pronunciation Practice, Charles I. Kelly

Minimal pairs are always an excellent way to practice listening and pronunciation. This is not a fancy site, but it certainly has some good content and is presented in a straightforward manner. There are also tongue twisters that Americans remember from their childhood:
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck?
Rubber baby buggy bumpers
She sells seashells by the seashore.
The site requires the free FlashPlayer plug-in, version 4 or higher. It is downloadable from the site if you don't already have it. As with many websites, you need to have an adequately configured computer to access the more sophisticated sound capabilities. Sound on this site is very clear.

ESL: Pronunciation

http://grove.ufl.edu/~klilj/pron/ Academic Spoken English © 2000-2003 Kristin Liljegren Maurice

This is a very interesting site for learning pronunciation and American accents and slang. I wasn't sure what to make of it the first time through, but the more I explored, the more I liked it. Especially interesting was: http://www.americanaccent.com/ from the section How to have a standard American accent. A character gives a bodaciously whiz bang job on the whole shebang, yada, yada, yada, and blah, blah, blah. The voice is excellent, but when you hear it, you wonder if we've been teaching the wrong language skills. Check it out.
Accent in Action on the same page gives a radio news broadcast of an interview with Alan Keyes and Sen. John McCain , and also provides the transcript and a phonetic accent.

On the main page, http://grove.ufl.edu/~klilj/pron/, there are some excellent examples of:

Word Stress
Emphasis
Intonation
Phrasal Stress
Reduction
Consonants
Thought Groups (Phrasing)
Linking
Vowels

The female voice is clear and easy to understand, and the accent is universal.

Another link http://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/-ed.htm is to an area where they explain the pronunciation of '-ed'. While there is no sound, the information is very useful.

All Things Considered http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=2 is the NPR current broadcasts. They speak in slow, well modulated voices and it is a good practice exercise for higher level learners. Since these are current news stories, they can be used to stimulate discussion.

This site is a conglomeration of commercial and academic materials. It is not especially easy to navigate, but there are some real gems in here if you are looking for different ways to help students study English pronunciation.

ABE/ESL: Printable Worksheets

http://members.aol.com/skillsworkshop/other.htm

There are some good printable worksheets for ABE and ESL students in the following areas:
Literacy and ESOL
Literacy and Numeracy
Numeracy (& mental maths)
Clip Art

Some of the sites listed are British sites, which are noted with a British flag. Use these only after careful review. British and American English differ greatly, and while some aspects of British English are indeed useful, others would confuse student unnecessarily. This is one of those treasure sites that you have to look through to find the gems.

ESL: Phonics : Abstracts : Reading/Phonics

http://www.literacyonline.org/products/ili/pdf/ilprocmj.pdf Phonics in ESL Instruction: Functional or Not?

This 30 page abstract is from the 1996 World Conference on Literacy, and was written by Monica Jones. There are some extremely relevant subject areas discussed, with a good base for understanding the pros and cons of teaching phonics in ESL.

This is another abstract of a project on ESL Reading instruction
http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Swearer_Center/Literacy_Resources/fritz.doc
"Reading Instruction in Adult ESOL Classrooms Introduction: The goal of my project was to review the research that is available on the best methods for providing reading instruction to adult ESOL learners and to distill these findings into a user-friendly guide for beginning ESOL instructors."

ESL: Phonics

http://literacy.kent.edu/Midwest/Materials/ndakota/soup/ English is Soup!

Site was developed for adult ESL students. Done in Adobe/PDF, so there is no sound, which is very helpful with phonics. However, the lists are complete and easy enough to make a copy for students to take with them to study.

ABE/ESL: Phonics

http://www.tampareads.com/phonics/phonicsindex.htm

There are two excellent phonics and vowel areas on this site:
THEVOWEL SOUNDTEACHER
THEADULTPHONICSTEACHER
Both of them utilize RealPlayer for sounds, which are very clear. The phonics page
http://www.tampareads.com/realaudio/tests/index-rm.htm also has a great video on phonics rules. This is well done, and should be very useful for ABE and ESL students.

Check out the Wiki discussion of this topic in the Literacy Tent Wiki: http://wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/LackOfPhonics

General Information: Adult Education Wiki

http://wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/Main_Page Literacy Tent Wiki

A great new Wiki for Adult Literacy Education. This site has discussions on various disciplines from ABE and GED to ESL to Family Literacy. As a Wiki is always a work in progress (much the same as Blogs), check it often to see new additions. This one is very new, and is still short on content, but has an enthusiastic list of supporters, so I expect that it will not remain empty long. Check it out: Highly recommended.

Adult Readers: Purchase Site

http://www.literacyconnections.com/PictureBooksforAdultReaders.html

These readers have good pictures to help with understanding the story. They include biographies, history and geography, non-fiction titles and others, all mostly under $7.00 per title. There is also a series of books on astronomy and space.

Adult Readers: Free Readers

http://www.readinga-z.com/newfiles/tour/tour7.html There are 30 free readers at this site, but they are set up for a book format and require you to print and assemble them in book form. Some are extremely low level, but others have interest for readers of all ages. You'll need Adobe PDF to access these readers.

Adult Readers: Short Stories/Low Reading Level

http://www.swadulted.com/Stories/stories.htm Very Short Stories for Adult Readers

The blub on this reader is: "The book you are about to open contains a growing number of stories written for improving adult readers, by experienced authors . You are invited to read the stories and share them, providing you follow our guidelines.
Our stories are presented to you in two formats: continuous text and text interrupted by comprehension and discussion questions. Some teachers/readers prefer to assess comprehension as the story progresses; others prefer to read the story first and follow the reading with questions. Each story has a link to related questions."
The comprehension and discussion questions are good, and considering these are indeed very short stories, they are a great beginning for new readers.

Stories include:
Saturday Shock!
Long Day at the Cafe
Blind Date
Dr. Ocho
Real Men Go Camping

Book: Getting to Know Computers

Getting to Know Computers. By Mary Beth Lundgren. Cleveland, OH; Project Learn, 1997. Writers Group Books Series. Fry Reading Level 3. $10.50
.Excellent book that is available in both a controlled vocabulary version for new readers and a generic version for those who are computer illiterate. A keyboard insert makes understanding easier. Clear explanations of computer terms told in a nonthreatening manner. Excellent for ESL. This is an older book but well written and good for very low readers. Since it was a grant program, only limited supplies of the book are available. There are some available as as today, but you can contact them directly for additional information and availability:
Project: LEARN
1701 Payne Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44114
Phone number: (216) 621-9483
Web Site URL:
http://www.netmarkinc.com/projectlearn/

Adult Readers: Book Reviews

http://www.resourceroom.net/comprehension/bookreviews/index.asp

This listing has a lot of book reviews for high interest/low reading level books, and can be used also as a resource list for new reader books.

Adult Readers: High Interest/Low Reading Level

http://www.resourceroom.net/older/hilow_sources.asp Sources of high interest, low reading level materials for adults.

Geography: Political and Physical Maps of the World

http://www.atlapedia.com/online/map_index.htm Atlapedia

There is always a difficulty in finding current world maps, given the state of change that the world has been in recently. This has quick, easy to find and understand maps of all parts of teh world, including state by state in the US.

General Information: Talking Tool: Awesome Talkster

http://www.awesomelibrary.org/Awesome_Talking_Library.html Awesome Talking Library

According to their Web page, Awesome Talkster combines a browser, directory, search engine, and text-to-voice technology. This allows you to select online text and have it read to you. Children can have the Web pages read to them slowly, but adults can have pages read at normal speed. Click Here for a Free Copy No Ads, No Spyware, No Trial Period. This is "Freeware," courtesy of Code-it. Keeping in mind the adage that there is no such thing as a free lunch, I downloaded a copy of Talkster after first running a spyware check on my computer, and then running the same spyware check after installation and use. I did not get any indication of problem. Disadvantages: it is a large program that takes a long time to download. If that is a problem, you can order a CD of the program for $10.00. Browse in Spanish, French, German, Russian, Dutch,Arabic, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, or Japanese. It works on PCs (not Macs) from Windows 95 to XP.

Awesome Talkster can also make the Web more accessible to persons with impaired vision or persons with impaired ability to navigate a page with a mouse. It can be navigated with keystrokes. Awesome Talkster is very fast and has the largest screen area of any known browser.

Developed by Evaluation and Development Institute, Microsoft, Lernout and Hauspie, and Code-It, and Dr. Jerry Adams.

Spanish GED:Spanish Math: ESL

http://mathforum.org/library/languages/spanish/ and
http://mathforum.org/teachers/spanish/
One area in ESL that has a limited presence in the tech world is Spanish GED materials. These two sites from the Math Forum at Drexel give some good online materials in Spanish. These are lists of math online resources that are either bi-lingual or in Spanish. There are lesson plans, math lessons, problem solving experiences etc. If you teach Spanish GED, this could be a valuable resource list for you.

General: Research: Adult English Language Acquisition

http://www.cal.org/caela/ CAELA, The Center for Adult English Language Acquisition

Finding adequate statistical data for Adult English Language Learners is usually difficult. CAELA is a site that offers statistics and resources for many of the areas, including:
Assessment and Accountablility in Programs for Adult English Language Learners
Adult English Language Instruction in the 21st Century
EL/Civics Resources
Health Literacy Resources
Adult ESL Practice in the New Millenium
Fact Sheets on Adult ESL
A Vision and Action Agenda for Adult ESL in the 21st Century

In addition, there is a new online periodical now available, CAELA Currents, http://www.cal.org/caela/currents/jan05/ that is a quarterly newsletter and can be subscribed to free of charge at caela@cal.org and in the subject line writing "Subscribe CAELA Currents"
CAELA is funded by the US Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education.

ESL: Website: Two Part Phrasal Verbs: Idioms

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/print/esl/eslphrasal.html Purdue University OWL (Online Writing Lab) program

Separable, Inseparable and Transitive two part phrasal verbs (idioms) There is a short lesson followed by a list of these difficult to understand phrases. Since these need to be memorized, this is a nice listing of the phrases with some meaning and context.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/esl/#handouts There are also some good grammar handouts, and a short interactive section for spelling and grammar.

ESL: Website: Listening Skills

http://www.englishlistening.com The English Listening Lounge

This site has free areas and member (fee) areas. However the free guest area has quite a few good dialogues, at several skill levels. The dialogues center mostly around university life, but I like the fact that these are people speaking in real circumstances, and includes things like um and ah, which students need to hear as well. There are both male and female voices included.

Free Guest Area
Start learning English now! Go to a listening menu, and choose a listening passage. It's free.
New Listener Menu:- a good place to start listening. Regular Listener Menu:- if you are used to listening. Advanced Listener Menu:- for more challenging passages.

ESL: Listening Skills

http://esl.about.com/cs/listening/ ABOUT.com Listening Skills Practice
English as 2nd Language

Listening Skills PracticeGuide picks:
The Internet is the best place to practice your listening. This resource provides listening quizzes, interviews, specific English learning listening resources as well as where to go to listen, listen, listen.
Beginner Listening Pages For people who have never studied English. Or for those of you who are "false" beginners. Listening comprehensions include very easy number recognition, pronunciation and basic information exercises.
Lower - Intermediate Listening Pages Relatively easy listening comprehensions focusing on understanding general information, also included minimal pair work. Equivalent to the Cambridge KET exam.

This is a good program that gives a conversation and then has drop down menus to answer questions about the conversation. A negative for our students is that it is a British made site, and the accents are obviously British. I do like the topic areas, and the accents are not so strong as to be unrecognizable to Americans. Do review first, for situations that include mention of the cost of the item in Br. pounds instead of dollars. However, I have always found that listening to different accents helps students increase their understanding of English. Also, some ESL students come from countries where the British accent is much more common than American, so this may be helpful for them.

ESL:Listening Skills: Website

http://www.esl-lab.com/ Randall's ESL Cyber Lab

Listening Skills and quizzes in easy, medium and difficult levels. You will need to download Audio/Video Players for these listening quizzes. Real Player works if you have already downloaded that player. These are some that are general topics, others that are more academic topics and also a few longer topics for advanced students. Most have three areas of skill development:
. Pre-Listening ExercisesII. Listening ExercisesIII. Post-Listening Exercises

Some of these topics can also be used for workplace skills. Audio is clear and easy for students to understand. You can listen to it multiple times. A medium level conversation might be about two minutes in length.

Workplace Math: Website

http://www.readiowa.org/workplacemath/contents.html Workplace Math Skills
Marty Lundberg North Iowa Area Community College

It's hard to find math skills geared for the workplace, but I did like this site. It is a paper/printout assessment, but there is an answer key, and for students who need to focus on workplace math, this is done well. It's in Acrobat, so you need an Adobe Acrobat Reader (free download) to use. Areas include:

Addition and Subtraction of Whole Numbers
Addition and Subtraction of Shop Decimals
Addition and Subtraction of Shop Fractions
Scale Drawing
Metric Conversion
Ranking Decimals and Fractions
Measurement
Answer Key

Math Skills: Compendium Website:: AAA Math

http://www.aaamath.com/ AAA Math

This is a good free site for K-8 level math skills. It also include lessons on estimation, graphs, mental math and statistics. I tried the fractions and decimals lessons and found it easy enough to use to be effective for our students. There are good explanations of the math topics, followed by interactive practice lessons. This site has:

*Hundreds of pages of Basic Math Skills.
*Interactive Practice on every page.
*An Explanation of the math topic on each page.
*Several Challenge Games on every page.
*Math Problems are randomly created.

GED & TOEFL: Website: 4tests: GED and TOEFL Practice Exams

http://www.4tests.com/main/home.asp?gohome=1 4Test is a free site with practice exams for both GED and TOEFL. With the exception of the essays, the tests are all multiple choice. Students can take the test and check their answers. This might be a good site for students still nervous about their ability to pass the exam.

GED: Website: GED ONLINE

http://www.gedonline.org/ GED online organizational website. This has 2 good features for new students to the GED:
View a slide show of the GEDonline process.
Facts you should know about the GED
This is not a government site, and there is a $50. fee for registering. However, the information listed above is free and useful.

General: Informational: Blog Search

The small white 'B' on an orange background or the 'I Power Blogger' symbol will take you to either the 'edit' page or the dashboard if you are a posted, registered member of this blog. When you get to the 'edit' page, (Click on the Blog title from the Dashboard) you will see not only your posts, but a box for 'search' functions. Type in the word you want to search for in all posts (eg: ESL) and it will list all posts that have the search word(s) in it. If you are looking for something particular (or an archived post), this is a good tool to have.

Software: Focus on Grammar

http://www.exceller.com/focus-on-grammar.html Exceller Software, 1-888-848-3298

Despite all the new and glitzy versions of software, sometimes students prefer the tried and true. Focus on Grammar is one of those programs. It has stayed on top with our students and instructors for a number of years because it does what it says...the focus is on grammar. It's reasonably priced, well done, and the newest version is compatible with XP. Cost is $300/5 user license, per level. There are four levels...Beginning, Intermediate, High Intermediate and Advanced. This is a small company that takes care of its customers.

General: Informational: New Organization

I've gone back through previous posts and added a descriptive word or phrase to the post headings, such as: ESL, ABE/GED, ESL/ABE/GED, ESL TOEFL, Computer, Correctional, Citizenship, General and Service Website. I hope these target words will make reading the blog easier. I have purposely kept the list open to several disciplines, since many of the site overlap skill sets. If you have any ideas to further clarify the posts, please let me know. I'd like this blog to be as user friendly as possible.

Software: 2nd speech center

I have installed a trial version of 2nd Speech Center on system 28. This is a text reader for the visually impaired. It will time out in 30 days.

I was looking for something to read the text on the GED web sites and programs used in the center.

There are problems with the trial version that make it difficult to use for a person that would really need to use the product. It requires the text to be read to be placed on the clipboard. This means you need to be able to see well enough to find the text you want to have read.

There does not appear to be away to read text that is hovered over by the mouse pointer. This means it cannot be used to navigate a web site. It will only do a start to end read of the data on the clipboard.

If you have a text document that you want read the program has the ability to open the document in a tab and read that document highlighting (reverse video) the words as they are read. It can read these documents starting at the cursor or from the top of the document.

The voice choices are the standard computer generated voices most old time game players are use to (Think HAL). Pitch and tone can be modified.

The reader does not serve the purpose for which I was trying to use it. You have a few days to see if it meets a need I did not foresee.

ESL: Newsletter: Accent Reduction

http://www.free-english.com/Newsletters/ESLNewsletters.aspx ESL PROSystems newsletter

Many students come to us asking for pronunciation help to reduce accents. They complain of not being understood over the phone, or of constantly hearing 'please repeat' over and over again. ESL ProSystems sends a monthly newsletter and has some excellent ideas for students to work on reducing their accents. I especially liked the idea of buying books on tape, and listening and reading at the same time. Also, we have audio recorders in the AELC to let students read text and then play back to the AELC instructors to critique with them. I've also suggested going to malls and listening to conversations at the stores. Websites such as 'Movie Trailers' (see the post, January 27th 2005 http://www.english-trailers.com ) are also good to hear conversations in a normal tone and cadence.

ESL and Special Populations: Software: 2nd Speech Center

http://www.zero2000.com/ Zero2000.com Download: 39.95 Disk backup: 9.95

We sometimes get students who have specific needs due to hearing or vision problems, and are always looking for an easy, inexpensive solution to meet those needs. This program lets you listen to documents, e-mails or web pages instead of reading on screen. Materials to read are simply copied into the program, and then the program will read the text. It will also work for 11 languages besides English. It is intuitive to operate, and is within the budgets of most organizations. I am interested in hearing other perspectives on the ease of use and applicability of this program. There is a free trial that you can use to see how this program actually works and try it with the materials you want to have read.

Tool: Blogarithm subscription

To make things easier, I added a’ Blogarithm’ subscription at the bottom of this Blog page. You can add your email address to the box, and Blogarithm will send you an email when there is an addition to this Blog. There is no charge for this subscription.

You might also note that there is a site meter now attached to this page (at the bottom). This tallies the number of 'hits' to this Blog since I installed the meter two weeks ago. It's good to see that this Blog is being used!

Software: Computer: Computer Literacy: Teknemedia

http://www.teknimedia.com/html/computer_training_courses.html
Teknemedia

These are software programs, which are a diversion from the websites that usually populate this blog. However, we have used this software in the AELC for a couple of years, and I have found it to be easy to use and understand. Their mouse tutorial is one of the better ones, and they go from basics to the Internet. Come check out the programs in the AELC, or check out the website. The programs are relatively inexpensive and better than most texts.

Citizenship: New York

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/newyork/laic/home.html Citizenship: New York to your Town

A PBS site that was created for children with a focus on New York, but the reading level is low and the interest is high. You can click on objects in the pictures to get additional information on immigration and historical issues.

Computer: Computer Literacy for Adults

http://aalrc.org/resources/tech/complit/welcome.html Computer Literacy for Adults

This is a site using the older hypercard style, but it is good for giving students who need computer vocabulary an easy to use program. There are a limited number of hypercards in each stack so you need to go back to the main stack to start a new section, but it is good for limited use.

Citizenship: International Institute

http://www.iiri.org/citizenship/ International Institute of RI Online Citizenship Class

Char Rokop found this program to help students with preparing for the citizenship interview. It covers :
History
Government
N-400 Forms and the Interview
100 Questions
Spelling
The reading level is fairly low, so almost any student at high beginning or intermediate and higher would profit from this site.

ESL: English Language: English Daily

http://www.englishdaily626.com/ English Daily
This is a site that I like for content, but it is not interactive. It also seems geared to Chinese students, though most items could be useful for students from any culture. Worth looking into. There are many areas covered, including:
Conversations: Includes topics like: 'I made a good impression.' 'Who's in the line-up?' 'Make the shortlist.' or 'Entry level model.'
Common Mistakes in English: Gives Chinese style vs. American style eg: Chinese: It's seven twenty o'clock. American: It's seven twenty. Chinese: He's become better. American: He got better.
TOEFL Vocabulary
Learn American Idioms: Gives both definitions and examples in context: eg: Cough Up or Scratch Someone s Back
Proverbs: eg. 'Between the devil and the deep sea': To choose between two equally bad alternatives in a serious dilemma.
Grammar: Good definitions for parts of speech. eg: Verbs, transitive, "A transitive verb requires an object to complete." examples: A. The hunter killed a bear. (bear is the object of killed) B. The scholar learned his lesson. (lesson is the object of learned)
Ancient Chinese Stories: eg: A Recipe for Immortality The difference between Fifty yards and a Hundred The Fox who profited from the Tiger's might
Learn American Slang: includes: definitions and examples, etymology and synonyms for about 115 terms like: 'mystery meat', '24/7', 'brewski' and 'phat'. Not the usual list, these are current and up to date terms that confuse students.

Computer: Basic Computer Skills: English and Spanish

http://northville.lib.mi.us/tech/tutor/welcome.htm

This tutorial has been designed to help people who have never used a computer before. We will concentrate on using the mouse and a few other basic skills. It also has a button to change the lesson to Spanish, for those low English literacy students. Look for the 'en espanol' link.

This site
http://www.austinfree.net/curricula/Introduction_to_Computers.htm
also has some other interesting skills for basic computer and the Internet,
and a few of them are in both Spanish and English.

Computer: Absolute Computer Basics

http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/abbeg/abbeg.shtml Absolute Computer Basics

I like this site for some really simple basic skills such as using the mouse and cursor. However, you need to note that it was produced by the BBC, so you get the occasional British words and spelling ('whilst' and 'colour' are examples). I decided to add it to our list anyway, since it really is quite good.

Computer: Computer Basics: Terms

http://pediatrics.med.miami.edu/mailman/basic.htm#what

Vocabulary is always a stumbling block for new computer users, especially for those who already are learning a second language. This site has a lot of information, but I like the definitions page to help a new computer user become comfortable with the language.

Computer: Computer Basics

http://distance-ed.fullerton.edu/pages/students/basic_skills.htm

This is a link to basic computer information, and has a lot of information available. There are many layers of information in here, so dig deep.

ESL/ABE/GED: Grammar Compendium

http://a4esl.org/a/g.html English Grammar Quizzes

I get a lot of requests for really specific grammar skills, and often it is difficult to find those exact skills on large software programs. This site has English grammar quizzes on a large volume of skills including grammar and vocabulary, and has them in levels from easy to difficult. Some topics include:
Do or Make Did or Made Go or Do Have-Has For or Since
How Many?-How Much?
How & Complement - Matching Quiz
Make or Do Set, Sit or Seat?
So or Because Some, Any or No
Still-Yet
Tell or Say
"There Is" or "There Are"
Their-There-They're
Until-Since-For Was or Were
Was-Were What-When-Where What-Which-How
Adverbs or Adjectives

The above are examples from the EASY level of instruction. See the main site page for additional skills and levels. It's worth the trip!

ESL/ABE/GED:Idioms

http://www.webgrammar.com/idioms.html
Idioms are always among the most difficult concepts for ESL students. Here is a link to a site with several Idiom links, including some that are quite specific such as color related idioms and action verb idioms. There are also sites for specific languages such as Czech idioms...so...'czech' it out!

Computer: Computer Basics: Computer Literacy 101

http://www.jegsworks.com/Lessons/ : Jan's Illustrated Computer Literacy 101
This is a free for personal use site, and a permission to use form for teachers, and is available in both English and Spanish. Here is the permission information for teachers:
"Since my computer literacy materials are copyrighted, you do need to get permission to use them in your classroom. At this time there is no monetary charge for such use.
All you need to do is complete the Permissions form and await my reply (almost 100% guaranteed to be Yes! I'm so happy that you would want to!!) As a reward for filling out the form, I will send you the address of a zipped file of end-of-the-chapter questions for the Computer Basics section.
There are a few simple restrictions and one requirement.
Restriction: No permission is given to include these materials in another published work.
Restriction: Any use of portions of the materials on this web site, whether in print or onscreen, should credit the source and include the web address http://www.jegsworks.com
Requirement: You must provide me an evaluation of how well the materials worked for you!
Please use the Evaluation form so I can respond appropriately to your comments, whether positive or negative."
Check out the site for additional information.
permission granted to include this site in the blog: 2/21/05 by Jan Smith

GED: Problem Solving

http://www.mwcc.mass.edu/HTML/DEVENSLEARNINGCENTER/problems.html

Included are lesson plans and ideas for instructors to teach various math problem solving skills from graphs to algebra and geometry, fractions and percents.

ABE/GED: Charts and Graphs

http://www.az-aall.org/AALL/Pages/Lessons/Graph%20Lesson/graph%20teacher.htm

This is a lesson plan with hotlinks to sites to teach charts and graphs to low reading level students. Within the lesson plans there are wonderful ideas on how to teach this subject, as well as some simple to understand explanations of the various types of charts and graphs.

GED/TOEFL/IEI :Five Paragraph Essay Wizard

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Atrium/1437/index.html : Five Paragraph Essay

The five paragraph essay is an essential lesson for students, but often difficult to find specific websites that address it. This is a great site for that purpose. There is a lot of information contained in the hotlinks as well as the main topic areas.

ESL: Listening: All levels

http://www.esl-lab.com/ Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab

Listening skills programs and sites are hard to come by, but the new TOEFL test emphasizes them and students always ask for them. Here is one that gives listening skills at levels of beginning, moderate and advanced.

ESL: Idioms

http://www.idiomconnection.com/

Idioms are always difficult for ESL students. Here is a comprehensive site to help students figure them out!

Beginning ESL: Color Clothesline:

http://hub1.worlded.org/docs/clothing/index.html

It's often difficult to find programs for the lowest level ESL student. Colorful Clothesline is a lesson created to introduce level 1 ESL students to clothing, colors, and color patterns. Students can test their knowledge of colors and clothing. Select a category to practice vocabulary, and take a quiz to test what was learned.

Correctional: Project Metamorphosis: Prison Related

http://www.doe.state.la.us/slrc/proj_meta/index.html

There is not a lot of material developed especially for the prison population, but we all know that many of our programs include this component. This site was developed to give some instructional materials that are relevant to that population.

ESL: Grammar Gorillas

http://www.funbrain.com/grammar/index.html This is a fun way to check grammar skills. There are questions for both beginning and advanced students. Each set is only 10 questions, but you can play again with different questions.

ESL/ABE/GED: National LINCS: Learner Produced Material

http://www.nifl.gov/lincs/hotsites/hotsites.html National LINCS
A service of the National Institute for Literacy

The section I particularly liked is called Topics (http://www.topics-mag.com/), which is an online magazine for learers of English. There are movies and reviews, stories written by students and a section called "You Said It' which is student opinions on the topics. I liked this site because most of the material is produced by learners, so the reading level is appropriate, and the topics are relevant to our students.
This is a great site for working on reading and writing skills, and it is set up so that students can participate in generating materials for the next volume. Intermediate and higher level students might like this site.

Welcome Wheaton College Students!

A warm welcome to students from Dr. Seaman's class from Wheaton College. I hope you will add your comments to the posts as you review the websites.

ESL/TOEFL: FYI: Next Generation TOEFL

Next Generation TOEFL Update
There are some exciting upcoming changes to language tests administered by Educational Testing Service

The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL®) is undergoing some important changes. In order to meet the challenge of providing a more comprehensive assessment of an applicant’s ability to understand and use the English language in an academic environment, the “next generation” TOEFL® has been developed to assess all four language skills - listening, reading, writing, and speaking. The new test will be administered on fixed dates in a network of secure Internet-based test centers. While some questions in each of the sections will be similar to questions found on the current computer-based TOEFL® test (CBT), others will be new. The scoring system will change as well. Each of the four language skills will now be reported on a scale of 0 to 30, and there will also be a total score. In addition, the next generation TOEFL® will no longer have computer-adaptive sections; it will be a linear assessment test covering a full range of question difficulty. Note taking will be allowed on the new TOEFL® in order to better reflect real-life academic situations. The new TOEFL® will take approximately four hours to finish.
Starting in July 2004, students were introduced to this new version of the TOEFL® (iBT TOEFL®) on the Internet. Full-length tests will be unproctored (i.e.: not supervised), and the scores will be given to the examinee only. In September 2005, the iBT TOEFL® will begin to be administered at official ETS® test centers.
A very important change to the TOEFL® is the inclusion of a mandatory speaking component - the Academic Speaking Test. Your responses will be recorded on tape and then reviewed later and given a score. During the test you will be asked six questions, two of which will focus on familiar topics. The other four will ask about short conversations, lectures, and reading passages. Both the questions and the reading passages will be printed in the test book. The time you have to prepare your response and speak will be printed below each question. The preparation time begins as soon as the question is finished, and you will be told when to begin speaking.

The Reading and Listening sections will be fairly similar to those on the current TOEFL® CBT, although some new question types will be introduced. The Writing section, however, will now include two writing tasks instead of just one. There will be an integrated task (combining listening, reading, and writing) in addition to the current independent task, and typing will be required.
This integrated approach to language testing will help students prepare for success in the real academic environments they will be in when they begin their studies.
The test will first be administered in the United States on September 24, 2005. On October 22, the TOEFL iBT test will begin in Canada, France, Germany and Italy. The test will be introduced in the rest of the world in 2006.

AELC Instructors

All AELC instructors will receive an invitation to join this blog as well as the AELC blog. Please use any free time to review the sites on this blog, and add them to our overall use of the web for classes.

ESL: Movie Trailers: Listening, Reading and Writing

Movie Trailers
Finally. A website for listening, reading, and writing practice in English. English-trailers.com uses movie trailers (commercials) as the basis for learning better English. It has a video component as well. I've had others recommend learning ESL via watching English-speaking movies, but until now haven't found a website that presents learning and is also family safe. http://www.english-trailers.com/. English-trailers is a nonprofit, educational website.

But it's useful for more than just ESL. Many English-speaking people in the Western world have difficulty with our language. English-Trailers is also for them. If you know of anyone (with a computer that supports video), tell them about English-trailers. The trailers are the property of Dream- Works, an enterprise started in the 1990s by Stephen Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenburg, and David Geffen.
Note: this is a large framed site, and you may need to reduce the resolution to get access to the entire page. Our computers set at an 800 x 600 resolution need to be changed to a 1024 x 768 resolution to access the cloze, quizzes and scripts portion of the site. Right click on the mouse to access 'Display Modes' and then 'True Color' followed by changing the resolution to 1024 x 768. You may have to try additional resolutions for your computers if this does not correct the problem.

ESL/ABE/GED: Harnessing Adult Literacy (meta site)

http://www.alri.org/harness.html

Sometimes you run across a site that is so full of valuable information and lesson plans that it's well worth the time to visit. This is one of those sites!

Computer: Practice Using a Mouse

http://www.alri.org/harness.html#MOUSE

This site has some great practice for a student who is unfamiliar with using a mouse. Give it a try.

General: Tools: Pictures and Documents

These sites are courtesy of the ALRC (Adult Learning Resource Center) in DesPlaines:

Free photos for class: This site has thousands of free photos for non-profit use in the classroom or on websites. Photos range from landscapes to historical photos or individual objects. Most are travel related, but there are some that are applicable in the classroom.
www.picturesfree.org

Historical Documents for GED or Citizenship: 100 Milestone documents from the Declaration of Independence and the Emancipation Proclamation to the original design of the Great Seal. www.ourdocuments.gov

ESL: Information: New Generation TOEFL Test

The New Generation TOEFL test will be implemented starting in September 2005. This test will incorporate all 4 language skills- reading, listening, writing and speaking. Speaking and writing are the newest portions of the test, and are also among the most difficult areas of English for foreign students to grasp. The AELC has several new software programs that address the new test and skills.