Useful Teaching Resources/Links
Wallwisher
http://padlet.com/
This website allows teachers to create "walls" where students can view online and post post-it notes to share their thoughts or answers to the topic of study. Through this sharing of knowledge on the wall, students are able to read posts by their classmates and widen their perspectives. Students are able to reflect on what they themselves have written and whether what their classmates have posted are in accordance of the task requirements.
The affordances of Wallwisher :
- Each and every student can express their thoughts through the post-its and the teacher does not have to worry about time constraints.
- It also helps students who are not vocal and shy to be able to have an avenue to clarify their doubts with regards to writing.
- It serves as a quick mindmapping tool for a writing task. For example, in a brainstorming lesson on an essay topic.
- Saves time as students are able to type and post their thoughts in real time. For example, during a feedback session, teacher is able to provide synchronous or immediate feedback to students making the process simple and quick.
Mural
https://mural.ly/
Mural.ly is an online whiteboard that allows students to brainstorm their ideas all in one page and simultaneously from their own browsers. Photos, videos and documents can be dragged directly into the mural as little pockets of relevant ideas to organise their thinking. Such an online tool is great for the planning stage of the writing process and is a great platform for students to check the coherence of their essay by filtering out contents unrelated to the theme.
Twitter
https://twitter.com/
Twitter is a micro form of blogging where users are able to send and read 140-character text messages, also known as “tweets”. Twitter can be a useful platform to teach students how to use accurate vocabulary to convey a message and also in teaching punctuation.
Englishvocabularyexercises.com
http://www.englishvocabularyexercises.com
The website allows for the learning of general and academic vocabulary, through collocational use and fill-in the blanks questions. Easy to navigate and use, students can systematically search for the sub-lists of the AWL and learn how to use them in writing. Besides the general and academic word list exercises, the website also provides weekly study guides, where general vocabulary, academic vocabulary, reading, pronunciation, listening and grammar are included, allowing the student to improve on English through a holistic approach. Teachers can also use this website as a platform to structure the student’s learning, in different contexts of use.
AWL Highlighter
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~alzsh3/acvocab/awlhighlighter.html
This simplistic website is functional, allowing the user to see how many AWL words are employed in each piece of uploaded writing, and the number of occurrences of the words. Teachers can use this website to check the number of AWL words used, and which sub-lists they are from.
AWL Gapmaker
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/alzsh3/acvocab/awlgapmaker.htm
The AWL Gapmaker allows teachers to write text / copy and paste text into a template to a maximum of 2400 characters. A sub-list is chosen from 1-10, and words found in the set will be blanked out, upon clicking submit, making it a very suitable tool for making exercises for students, when testing their command of academic vocabulary.
Concordancer
http://www.concordancesoftware.co.uk/
A concordance searches a collection of texts in electronic form for a selected word or phrase, with words that come after and prior the selected word to the left and right. This is useful to teach vocabulary in context, such as when is it useful to use a specific word as compared to its synonyms. It also allows students to explore collocations, word families and to understand differences in word meanings from genuine examples.
http://www.ugru.uaeu.ac.ae/concordance/index.html
This tool consists of data driven, vocabulary in context materials created for collocational learning. Teachers can use this website to assist ESLs, by selecting words for elaboration, and 10 examples will be displayed. These 10 examples can then be tested according to 4 tasks, if necessary.
The Study Zone
Hosted by the University of Victoria, this website has a wide variety of exercises to practise grammar and reading, and is designed for adult ESLs. Teachers can select from the 5 different ability levels, ranging from Upper Beginner, Lower Intermediate, Intermediate, Upper Intermediate and Advanced, based on the ability of the students. A topic is next selected from the ability level, and a lesson with suitable exercises is recommended. A section addressing grammar needs is also provided, ranging from nouns, adjectives, conjunctions, causatives, determiners, and prepositions, to name a few.
VocabProfiler
http://www4.caes.hku.hk/vocabulary/cgi-bin/profile/profile.pl
A useful website for teachers grading students’ use of academic vocabulary, it displays the following functions after a paper is uploaded:
1. the list of the most frequent 1000 words,
2. the list of the most frequent 1001 - 2000 words,
3. the Academic Word List (AWL), (Coxhead 1997),
4. the remaining words in Xue and Nation's (1984) University Word List not included in the AWL, and
5. the words that do not appear in any of the preceding lists.
Notably, it also displays words from the UWL, a word list that was used prior to the conception of AWL, offering extra coverage of words for the teacher if necessary.
AWL Worksheets & Exercises:
Youtube Video:
http://padlet.com/
This website allows teachers to create "walls" where students can view online and post post-it notes to share their thoughts or answers to the topic of study. Through this sharing of knowledge on the wall, students are able to read posts by their classmates and widen their perspectives. Students are able to reflect on what they themselves have written and whether what their classmates have posted are in accordance of the task requirements.
The affordances of Wallwisher :
- Each and every student can express their thoughts through the post-its and the teacher does not have to worry about time constraints.
- It also helps students who are not vocal and shy to be able to have an avenue to clarify their doubts with regards to writing.
- It serves as a quick mindmapping tool for a writing task. For example, in a brainstorming lesson on an essay topic.
- Saves time as students are able to type and post their thoughts in real time. For example, during a feedback session, teacher is able to provide synchronous or immediate feedback to students making the process simple and quick.
Mural
https://mural.ly/
Mural.ly is an online whiteboard that allows students to brainstorm their ideas all in one page and simultaneously from their own browsers. Photos, videos and documents can be dragged directly into the mural as little pockets of relevant ideas to organise their thinking. Such an online tool is great for the planning stage of the writing process and is a great platform for students to check the coherence of their essay by filtering out contents unrelated to the theme.
https://twitter.com/
Twitter is a micro form of blogging where users are able to send and read 140-character text messages, also known as “tweets”. Twitter can be a useful platform to teach students how to use accurate vocabulary to convey a message and also in teaching punctuation.
Englishvocabularyexercises.com
http://www.englishvocabularyexercises.com
The website allows for the learning of general and academic vocabulary, through collocational use and fill-in the blanks questions. Easy to navigate and use, students can systematically search for the sub-lists of the AWL and learn how to use them in writing. Besides the general and academic word list exercises, the website also provides weekly study guides, where general vocabulary, academic vocabulary, reading, pronunciation, listening and grammar are included, allowing the student to improve on English through a holistic approach. Teachers can also use this website as a platform to structure the student’s learning, in different contexts of use.
AWL Highlighter
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~alzsh3/acvocab/awlhighlighter.html
This simplistic website is functional, allowing the user to see how many AWL words are employed in each piece of uploaded writing, and the number of occurrences of the words. Teachers can use this website to check the number of AWL words used, and which sub-lists they are from.
AWL Gapmaker
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/alzsh3/acvocab/awlgapmaker.htm
The AWL Gapmaker allows teachers to write text / copy and paste text into a template to a maximum of 2400 characters. A sub-list is chosen from 1-10, and words found in the set will be blanked out, upon clicking submit, making it a very suitable tool for making exercises for students, when testing their command of academic vocabulary.
Concordancer
http://www.concordancesoftware.co.uk/
A concordance searches a collection of texts in electronic form for a selected word or phrase, with words that come after and prior the selected word to the left and right. This is useful to teach vocabulary in context, such as when is it useful to use a specific word as compared to its synonyms. It also allows students to explore collocations, word families and to understand differences in word meanings from genuine examples.
http://www.ugru.uaeu.ac.ae/concordance/index.html
This tool consists of data driven, vocabulary in context materials created for collocational learning. Teachers can use this website to assist ESLs, by selecting words for elaboration, and 10 examples will be displayed. These 10 examples can then be tested according to 4 tasks, if necessary.
The Study Zone
Hosted by the University of Victoria, this website has a wide variety of exercises to practise grammar and reading, and is designed for adult ESLs. Teachers can select from the 5 different ability levels, ranging from Upper Beginner, Lower Intermediate, Intermediate, Upper Intermediate and Advanced, based on the ability of the students. A topic is next selected from the ability level, and a lesson with suitable exercises is recommended. A section addressing grammar needs is also provided, ranging from nouns, adjectives, conjunctions, causatives, determiners, and prepositions, to name a few.
VocabProfiler
http://www4.caes.hku.hk/vocabulary/cgi-bin/profile/profile.pl
A useful website for teachers grading students’ use of academic vocabulary, it displays the following functions after a paper is uploaded:
1. the list of the most frequent 1000 words,
2. the list of the most frequent 1001 - 2000 words,
3. the Academic Word List (AWL), (Coxhead 1997),
4. the remaining words in Xue and Nation's (1984) University Word List not included in the AWL, and
5. the words that do not appear in any of the preceding lists.
Notably, it also displays words from the UWL, a word list that was used prior to the conception of AWL, offering extra coverage of words for the teacher if necessary.
AWL Worksheets & Exercises:
- http://tefltastic.wordpress.com/worksheets/eap/awl/
- http://www.usingenglish.com/teachers/lesson-plans/level-advanced.html
- http://www.uefap.com/vocab/vocfram.htm
- http://www.dcielts.com/ielts-vocabulary/awl-exercises/
- http://quizlet.com/class/858566/
- http://quizlet.com/class/183794/
Youtube Video:
- Academic Word List presentation and E-learning (suitable for secondary school students)
- Using the AWL Highlighter