Update your English! Keep the use of ICT up!

Teachers of a foreign language never stop being in touch with the learnt language, English in this case. Maybe the level of English is very good or perhaps it is a little bit rusty and a little of update is needed or just we want to practise it a little more. Some sites below provide resources to improve English.
Listening comprehension:
BBC News (http://news.bbc.co.uk/).
Speaking in Tongues is a 25-part radio series about language from International House Barcelona, broadcast on Saturday mornings by Radio Free Barcelona on 107.7 FM.The series, featuring a number people in the Teacher Training Department, discusses a range of different topics relating to language, language learning and language teaching.If you want to listen to some of these discussions, you have to go to:http://www.ihes.com/radio/index.html
English Listening Comprehension Quizzes http://esl.about.com/od/listeningquizzes/index_a.htm
Australia Network is offering video podcasts (or vodcasts) of our popular English Bites program on a free trial basis.
http://australianetwork.com/learnenglish/
Randall's ESL page, that can be also easily used in the class with the students
http://www.esl-lab.com/

Reading Comprehension:
The British Daily Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
The Daily Express: http://www.express.co.uk/
The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/
The Herald: http://www.theherald.co.uk/
The Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/global

On-line writing activities:
English Exercises Online: http://www.smic.be/smic5022/
Online Writing Lab: OWL - http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/index.html
ELC (English Language Centre) Study Zone: http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/
English-Hilfen learn languages on-line:
http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises_list/alle_grammar.htm
Merriam-Webster's online Dictionary: http://www.m-w.com/

About ICT Management:
Have a look at :
Materials de formació XTEC
http://www.xtec.cat/formaciotic/dvdformacio/materials.htm
It offfers a wide range of guides for different courses on ICT tools (webQuest, Word Processing, webpage design, ICT workshops for Primary and kindergarten, Power point, etc.)

Other Resources

To help the teaching/learning practice, internet is an inexhaustable source of resources for both teachers and students.

DIDACTIC UNITS
http://www.xtec.es/aulanet/ud/angles/study/index.htm
Anglès on line: English School: http://www.anglesonline.org/
Poems: http://ettcweb.lr.k12.nj.us/forms/newpoem.htm

CRLE. Materials i Activitats d'aprenentatge:
http://www.xtec.es/crle/05/05.htm

TEACHERS RESOURCES
ABCTEACH
The place for kids, parents, student teachers, and teachers.Free Printables: 5000+ free printable pages and worksheets.
http://www.abcteach.com/

LEARN ENGLISH
Free English on-line. Grammar, English Culture, vocabulary, etc.
http://www.learnenglish.de/

ENCHANTED LEARNING
Endless materials, lessons plans and resources on-line
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/Home.html

TEACHERS NET
Teacher discussion boards and chatrooms. Lesson plans, project ideas and teaching tools. Searchable teacher job listings and career resources.
http://www.teachers.net/

ISABEL'S ELF SITE: ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN OR SECOND LANGUAGE
http://www.isabelperez.com/

LA MANSION DEL INGLÉS
http://www.mansioningles.com/

ANGLES365
Materials and resources for teachers in their classrooms.
http://www.angles365.com

ONESTOPENGLISH
http://www.onestopenglish.com/

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
http://www.oup.com/es/

INFORMATION SEARCH
Encyclopedias - You can access the Encyclopaedia Britannica through the edu365 desktop utility (you must be a registered XTEC user).
http://www.edu365.com/escriptori/index.htm
Wikipedia - An open source encyclopedia originally created in English. It's is very easy to find articles and to edit your own.
Dictionaries - edu365 provides us with a link to a multilingual dictionary (you must be a registered XTEC user).
DACCO is an open source dictionary which allows you to upload and edit new terms if you want to improve the definitions you find.
Dictionary.com is a free on-line dictionary with dictionary, thesaurus and encyclopedia utility at: http://dictionary.reference.com/
Cambridge dictionaries online : http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
OneLook Dictionary Search: http://www.onelook.com/
Word Central for Kids: http://wordcentral.com/ ,It offers your students in cicle mitjà and cicle superior the possibility of playing with words
Merriam-Webster's online Dictionary: http://www.m-w.com/

NEWSPAPERS ARTICLES and WORKSHEETS in English especially designed for students:
VILAWEB: http://www.vilaweb.cat/www/diariescola/noticia?id=634739

AUDIO-VISUAL MATERIALS
Video-library: A selection of the collection of educational videos from the Departament d'Educació have been digitalised in order to be distributed through the Internet.
http://www.xtec.es/videoteca/

SEARCH ENGINES
Google : http://www.google.com/
Yahoo: http://uk.yahoo.com/
And lots more ...

COOPERATIVE WORK
This reffers to differents sites directly related to international projects or partnership and cooperative work.
PUNT DE TROBADA - http://www.xtec.cat/trobada/index.htm
eTwinning - The goal is to get european schools working together in different projects.
http://www.etwinning.net/ww/es/pub/etwinning/index2006.htm
SPRING DAY IN EUROPE - After registering schools can participate in different activities involving the idea of Europe as a common space. It tries to foster the knowledge of the european institutions by students.
http://www.springday2007.net/ww/en/pub/spring2007/index.htm
OFICINA EUROPEA - The "Oficina de Cooperació Eudicativa i científica Internacional" at Departament d'Educació" plays an important role in the management and coordination of international cooperative projects.
http://www.xtec.es/ofinternacional/

Educational Applications

This tiltle includes useful applications we can find on the internet ready to be used with our pupils. Sometimes we can create our own activities by means of the application itself. Under this topic we include:

1. MUDS
At edu365.com, there are small didactic units (MUD) for different levels and differents areas, a set of precise tasks related to specific contents of that area or subject. (Clic on the picture to access to some Primary examples of MUDS)

2. JClic Aplications
The Jclic project is an upgraded evolution of the program Clic 3.0, a tool to create multimedia educational applications. All along this time many educators have used it in order to create interactive through which diverse skills are practised and which cover wide areas of the curriculum, ranging from kindergarten to secondary.
http://clic.xtec.net/ca/index.htm

3. Quaderns Virtuals ("Digital Notebooks")
They are digital learning environments that allow teachers to create and carry out multimedia activities in order to evaluate their students' progress.
A digital notebook has one or more "sheets" or "pages", each sheet containing one or more questions. There are different types of questions that can be created: Multiple choice, gap filling, ordering, click and drag ...
http://clic.xtec.net/qv_web/ca/index.htm

4. WebQuests
WebQuests are Internet-centered group projects based upon the idea of guided activities. Students are asked to search for information and data in the www in order to achieve a specific goal. Given a certain story or situation recreated in the WebQuest, each group of students takes up a specific role that is guided into some specific websites where they must find the information they need. The outcome of the search (or "quest") can be published, printed, drawn, or explained to the rest of the class. This is why WebQuests are so interesting to educators, they cover different areas of the learning process: Cooperative work, creative and communicative skills, and also reflective work.
http://www.xtec.es/recursos/webquests/htm/farmpets.htm
http://www.xtec.es/recursos/webquests/htm/insect.htm
You can find different WebQuests and templates to create your own at:
http://www.xtec.es/recursos/webquests/index.htm

5. Blogs
A blog is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. A blog comprises hypertext, images and links to other web pages, video, audio and other filesBlogs use a conversational style of documentation. They allow the web readers to post their comments. Often blogs focus on a particular "area of interest", such as ESL, different educational areas, and other fields. Some blogs discuss personal experiences. They can be used as a very powerful educational tool, as they allow fluent communication between the author and the readers.

http://crle-le.blogspot.com/

http://formacioicelleida.blogspot.com/

Blogs can be hosted by dedicated blog hosting services. This allows people to create their own blog and publish it in their own web space provided by the blog hosting service. Examples of this are Blogger and Word Press
Very recently xtec.cat, the Catalan teachers site has published its on blog hosting service:http://blogs.xtec.cat/

In it you'll find all the support you need to help you to publish your own blog. It's very easy!! Go on it's good fun and useful!!

Do you know any other resource that it is not listed above?

Aproaching other subjects. CLIL

"This approach involves learning subjects or contents such as history, geography or others, through an additional language. It can be very successful in enhancing the learning of languages and other subjects, and developing in the youngsters a positive ‘can do’ attitude towards themselves as language learners". (David Marsh)In this section we will be able to find resources to enhance or support our practice as teachers teaching a subject or part of it, a content, etc. in English. They are very useful since children can watch small films, pictures, etc. that help to understant contents in a meaningful way, mainly visually as well as orally or written activities.

IT'S VERY IMPORTANT TO BE AWARE OF:

Most of the links offered are not specially designed for CLIL lessons in English! They are original versions used for english-speaking natives. That means very often teachers need to readapt the materials to be more useful in the lessons.

Other times just using them as they are, it is good fun for our students.

Discover what you can find in the sites below:

Centre de Suport a la Investigació i recerca educativa en llengua, section "Ready-to-use classroom materials"  CESIRE CIREL
Other sites:
http://www.richmondelt.com/clil/default.aspx
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/

http://www.scrib.org.uk/

http://www.rainforestmaths.com/

http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/jeather/jennyindex.html

http://www.coloring.com/

http://www.mathsisfun.com/

http://switchzoo.com/activities.htm

Let's sing and play!!!!

Songs and games are an excellent way to practice vocabulary, language structures and pronunciation. Many sites provide lots of resources through interactive activities, songs and games.

Some useful sites: (Take your time to look at them!!! you'll probably become mad!! :) )

http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/kids/songs/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/children/

http://pbskids.org/

http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-songs.htm?mtklink=kids-songs-kids-popular-offers

Angles365 has got lots of songs and karaokes:

http://www.angles365.com/classroom/songs3i403.htm

http://www.angles365.com/classroom/songs3i402.htm

http://www.angles365.com/classroom/songs3i401.htm

and more ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/games/

http://www.learningplanet.com/

http://funschool.kaboose.com/

As usual , please, surf the CRLE web page for more ...

http://www.xtec.es/crle/05/05.htm

Can you add more sites dealing with songs and games?

Tell us how you work with songs how you use games in your teaching practice!

Once Upon a Time ....

Children love books , so why not to use the e-books in our lessons?
E-books help them discover the joy and power of reading because they are lively, beautifully illustrated and Flash animated. Words highlight while they read or sing to make it easier for kids to follow along.
They are fun-to-read stories and provide an opportunity for children to discover how much they can enjoy and learn by reading.
With on-line stories, we can prepare a wide variety of activities to use in our English lessons:
Listening comprehension

Reading comprehension

Writing

Introducing/reviewing vocabulary , etc.
And we can extend them to other curricular subjects: Art, Maths, Science, Music, etc.
Have a look at a compilation of web pages that include learning resources related to stories:
Leading to reading
Reading is fundamental
Learnenglish Kids Stories
angles365
Storyplace
Kizclub. Story props
Mightybook
Kidsreads
Funbrain Reading

and lots more at:
http://www.xtec.es/crle/05/05_4p.htm (Primary)
http://www.xtec.es/crle/05/05_4c.htm (Kindergarten)

Extra reading:
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/methodology/storytelling.shtml

Please feel free to add more interesting web addresses !!! and of course tell us your comments and ideas!!!

What can ICT offer?

Using ICT in our English classrooms is very enriching because it encourages:

Work.

Teachers are not simply deliverers of knowledge. They help pupils to obtain, handle and present information.


Relationship with students.

Our everyday face-to-face relationship with students can be complemented with a relationship through media.


Learning.

Students can use all possibilities that new technologies offer in order to produce multimedia, audio and video messages and thus improve their ability to communicate, and also obtain information in the target language. This will help them to get to know, analyze and evaluate real life; in short, to build their own knowledge.


Access to information.
Internet is a large source of data and information. Available communication tools give access to new possibilities: communication with students and teachers via e-mail, virtual environments, forums, chat rooms, videoconference, blogs, fotoblogs, ...

Interesting readings:

Why using ICT in learning?

Primary Strategy - Learning and teaching with ICT