Part C: Online resources

http://www.languageguide.org/english/

Language guide is an interactive website focusing on the acquisition of Vocabulary skills. A noticeable advantage of this web space is the vast choice of Vocabulary items that can be used; both teachers and students are not limited to a set Vocabulary parameter. There is a vast range of items to choose from such as transportation; in the home and animals just to name a few.

It appears that the website is aimed towards young learners aged between 12-14 years of age; however, it can also be suited to the favoured young adult age group as important topics such as automotive and medicine are also included.

The website’s interactive set up provides learners with media add-ons such as audio-generated pronunciation of featured words. Teachers can also benefit from the pronunciation feature but special care must be placed on the different expression challenges it might place if the website is used in countries other than the United States. 

http://www.academicvocabularyexercises.com/#w

Vocabulary Exercises for the Academic Word List is a New Zealand web space focused on more Academic style of English for young adult learners. The website is highly useful for TESOL based University students as it provides ten sublists based from beginner right to advanced levels. The overall presentation is comprehensive and well set-out with the direct links to each of the “sublists”, however, the content cannot be applied to the intermediate level at hand. Multimedia features such as audio files are also included to aid in correct pronunciation. The work presented can also be considered as authentic as beginner based vocabulary is also identified with lexical terms one might find in newspapers, magazines, movies and television. Exercises are feature cloze-like sentences which must be matched with their corresponding “drop down” arrow option. Teacher can adapt these exercises into their teaching but face the limitation of this only featured exercise, basically across the entire website.

http://www.cpr4esl.com/gerrys_vocab_teacher/index.html

Gerry’s vocabulary teacher is a co-operatively website-program based approach providing gap-fill exercises for introducing, practicing and assessing vocabulary. The website is also well set-out with its clear purpose and user friendly menu option. With many experienced issues on running various teacher friendly applications, the program is also compatible with both PC and MAC computers.

Exercises can be tailor made by the Teacher to suit specific student needs and these can also be adapted to American, British or Canadian type Englishes. In addition, the website provides a more interactive method for reviewing vocabulary in methods of multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword and matching/ordering.

The application also enables teachers in designing and setting of testing procedure to challenge the student comprehension. This website can be used with intermediate second language learners and as an extra communicative interface, exercises provide students with discussion opportunities based on the new vocabulary content.

http://www.eslgold.com/vocabulary.html

ESL Gold is a complete resource website designed for ESL teachers aiming to provide a whole context approach to teaching English. The website also provides exercises and resources for the main macro skills as well as language skills such as grammar and vocabulary. The site is not limited to basic cloze-exercises as other emphasis on words and phrases provide learners with a vast-range of methods employed to learning English vocabulary. Amongst the most attractive features of this web space is the “learning strategies” link – aiding teachers to further encourage learners to reading activities in attempt to expand their comprehension of vocabulary.

A large array of exercises can also be adapted to formal assessment procedures such as TOEFL and in addition, business and pronunciation links give an insight into the vocabulary involved in a business/economics field as well as demonstrating pronunciation techniques. Teaching aids can be adjusted from beginner right up to advance levels and as an added extra, there is also a brief section dedicated to idioms – which can be adjusted to the teaching context.

http://www.manythings.org/lulu/

Many things is a website providing a more interactive method for delivering vocabulary comprehension. The enjoyable approach to learning takes the form of games – all differing from animals to more authentic purposes such as adjectives or buildings. All games involve pictures activities matched with their corresponding word meaning and further game option enables a word to picture or picture to word format. Each word family contains seven games coinciding with a total of nine words and these games include finding section, matching, pairing, memory and pronunciation videos. Activities can also be suited to beginner and intermediate levels and can also be adapted to a young adults learning group. A game image is provided above.

CALL Authoring software - a WIDA produced Vocabulary game.

Focusing in the favourable area of teaching vocabulary, this basic yet effective Language learning program is developed by the English program designers : WIDA, and the application is aimed at young adult learners with potential of appealing to a slightly older age group. A main advantage of this application is its nature- use and classroom learning or even lab learning takes place in the form of a game interface where students engage in a series of games (6 in total) comprising of mindword; skullman (a revised version of the traditional hang man game) and word order just to name a few. Initially students are introduced to the newly acquired material i.e the weather, in the home etc.; they are then provided with practice opportunities by mediating between a particular word; a clozed-like sentence and a "hint" sentence.

In an effort to providing an insight to one of the six games: Word order - words within the context sentence are purposely scrambled to enable learners to choose the one and only response. The hint sentence provides overall clue and the correct answer can be checked at any time. There are six words to choose from and advancement is only permitted by choosing correct word. Teacher intervention is evident by assigning and updating existing list(s) to program and like most current coursework, games can be suited to current unit(s) of work along with scaffolding tasks in the form of homework tasks. The program is also compatible with a print-out feature which enables teachers to generate printed templates of the games for further self-study.

In addition, the application can adapt a desired Vocabulary list in accordance to any of the available games. By doing so, learners have the freedom of concentrating on a particular vocabulary whilst being exposed to a fun yet interactive array of games.

Students can also take advantage of the picture and sound application which can be attached to any word in accordance to the difficulty employed. WIDA Vocabulary is also compatible with both PC and Mac, and download samples are also available prior to full-package purchase.

Coursebook review: New cutting edge intermediate

The following coursebook review is based on the 2005 release of the TESOL "New Cutting edge" series student workbook - a textbook aimed towards the Intermediate level. In regards to overall appearance, the material reaches the goal of attracting future teachers or current TESOL students not only because of its bright colour scheme or inclusion of relevant images but also due to the incorporation of suitable font describing the level of difficulty. Appropriate age level is centered around the young adults stage i.e. 18-25 year of age and the course work can be based or suited to an existing syllabus in the sense that lessons are carefully set around a corresponding module. Overall, there are twelve modules and teachers can easily gain a general concept by noticing the total units of work as well as the incorporation of the general macro skills. In addition, there is a reasonable communicative emphasis to the book as students activate corresponding schemata via the use audio excerpts - which are played prior to commencing an activity. This New Cutting edge also allows for pair and group work as learners interact when practicing new vocabulary and take part in interviewing techniques. The latter activity is an example of the authenticity of the book and learners are exposed to practising new skills by part-taking in exercises such as booking a flight; resume writing, and even making a telephone call. The “Practice” sections located at the end of each module sets out homework tasks which students can take advantage of in order to gain grasps of the newly-acquired vocabulary and grammar aspects such as Auxiliary verbs. In relation to the above items, small emphasis is placed on vocabulary and grammar and further practice is employed via sentence matching; crosswords and even discovering new words through the use of dictionaries. Teacher and students versions of these books feature answers to chapter exercises in the back section and as a “bonus”, a mini-dictionary is also an added feature of this 2005 release.