ellloenglish

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ELLLO ENGLISH!!! 

triple L.wow!

WHAT IS IT?

it is an English Listening Lesson Library Online (ELLLO), where people can do listening activities, learning vocabulary and downloading audio files, notes and etc.

LET'S EXPLORE IT MORE!!

this is the homepage

content and categories available

can connect with tweeter

LET'T LOOK INSIDE:

one example, scenes

this is a list of scenes topic. there's a lot more actually

choose one

basically, this is how it looks like.zoom for bigger view

in the transcription above, there certain phrases highlighted in blue colour. when you click in the play button, the phrases will be pronounced twice and after that it will pronoun the next highlighted phrases using correct pronunciation

there's also an audio slide show

and audio notes as well

there are also exercises available on the right hand side of the page

LET'S TRY THE OTHER CATEGORIES, VIDEOS

list of videos available

videos created by people from all over the world

an example

there are transcription and quizzes to be looked at

THEN , NEWS!

there is a news reading, exercises and vocabulary explanation

THEN THE LAST ONE THAT I'VE TRIED, MIXER

quite similar to the other categories. some audios or notes can be downloaded

IS IT A GOOD WEBSITE? yessss. WHY?

1. it is a very well organised website because

-easy to be accessed because there's a home button there in which people can go back to home anytime they want

-the lesson is nicely arranged in order, people can see it clearly at the left hand side of the page

-it is arranged according to the categories, and under that it is arranged by topics

-it is easy to download, just right click on the linked words

2. it gives the transcriptions of all the listening audio, so it is very useful for people who want to check whether they listen correctly or not

3. we can click on certain phrases to listen to the right pronunciation of the phrases. the phrases are pronounced twice, then the descriptions of the phrases and the examples of sentences are also given straight away and questions are given as a practise. 

4. there are 3 types of exercises given based on the vocabulary highlighted, comprehension, listening activities where students can listen to the vocabulary highlighted and how to use it. possible answers are also given

5. people can download both notes and audio files for free

6. you don't have to sign up to use this website, so you can freely use this anywhere and anytime you want provided that you've got an access to the internet

7. there are many choices available (eg:views, games, mixer, videos, news, scenes, songs, points and many more)

IF IT IS A GOOD WEBSITE, WHY CAN YOU USE IT IN THE YOUR CLASSROOM AND HOW DOES IT IS CONNECTED WITH THE CURRENT UNDERSTANDING OF LANGUAGE LEARNING?

-it is important for a language learners to listen to a variety of accents so they can know what are the differences between native speakers and non-native speakers of english and ways of how different people around the world use English

-it helps in vocabulary enhancement in terms of pronunciation and information on how to use the words correctly

-the materials are authentic because most of the videos are recorded by themselves so students can learn how do people actually use/communicate in English (english that we won't hear on the script) *real language use vs. language in the book*

-it encourages autonomous learning in which students can learn and doing tasks without teacher's help, independently

-students will be exposed to different types of texts, how the language is used in everyday situations (different text require different styles, vocab, jargon)

-it provides variety of topics so students can choose the topics of their interest, in addition increase their general knowledge can be expanded (content learning through language *CLIL*)

-it helps in developing variety of skills (eg: writing, reading, speaking, listening)because it offers students with the opportunities to practise these skills.

-it provides context (real audience and purpose so there will be a reason to listen/read (language is learned through context, not isolated)

-it contains a variety of levels, so students can choose levels that are suitable for them

-students can enjoy while learning language by choosing the audio that is lower than their levels

WHAT I DON'T LIKE:

-some of the audio/videos have low quality in terms of background noise, the video resolution, the flow of the speakers' voices, the sound of the voice itself

-there are errors after certain times using it (it happened to my friends, i don't know the reason why)

-On the homepage, the categories appear randomly. Suddenly, there will be more options/categories appear, so you can't really see all the categories at one time

-some of the activities (eg: scenes) are not really authentic (it is made as authentic), so it's not really helping students in communicating in reality (videos is a different case)

THAT'S IT!!! TRY IT!!

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zimmer twins

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Let's be a Film Producer!!

WITH ZIMMER TWINS!!

Do you like animation? Have you ever created your own movie before??Do you want to try it?

YES!!! now you can DO that!!

Click HERE.

ZIMMER TWINS is actually a website tool where people can watch animation movies created by other people who has a Zimmer Twins account, people can create their own movies, or continue other people's incomplete movies. 

HOMEPAGE OF ZIMMER TWINS

 let's zoom in a bit!

click on WATCH A MOVIE and then you watch a movie (many movies created by others)

if you click on MAKE A MOVIE, you can create your own movie or continue others' incomplete movies

If you don't know how to make a movie, click on HOW TO MAKE A MOVIE. This is actually a screen snapshot taken from the demo videos. There is an audio on how to create a movie. DON'T WORRY!!! it's not that difficult =)))

you can type your dialogues as you please.choose your own characters, movement, emotions and ending. you can organise it according to your preferences

this is my short movie example, when you've finished, click on SAVE MOVIE at the top

OPPSSS!! MAKE SURE YOU SIGN UP OR LOG IN, if not your work will be deleted after all that hardwork =(

Then, insert the title of your movie and describe it a little bit

this is your profile.after your movie has been saved, this page will appear. your latest movie will be at the very left handside of the page.

click on the movie you want to watch. You can delete it, comment it, share it with others by sending them a n email or you can mark it as your favourite. You can also rate it!

POST A COMMENT to improve. you yourself can comment as well as others

CAN ZIMMER TWINS BE USED IN CLASSROOM?HOW?

• Ask students in pairs to discuss and come up with their own stories (can be based on their experience) and then ask them to send it to teacher's email. Then teacher can ask students to present/role play the story to the class (both students have to participate in the role play/presentation). This is good because it's personal to the students, students' affective filter will be low so they will be more confident to express themselves. this can help students in many ways: i) building students' confidence level, ii) improve students' speaking skills/presenting skills
• (for intermediate/higher intermediate level's students) can be used as a pre-writing activity where teacher shows her/his movie, and then ask students to discuss the movies in groups and then later ask them to write a narrative essay about the story or continuing the teacher's movie
• (For lower intermediate students) as a writing activity where students can practice writing short sentences (dialogues) in the movie making. The use of language here is authentic because it is an everyday conversation, so students will be more relaxed and motivated

DO I LIKE IT?WHY??

• the quality of the videos are actually quite good
• we can write our own dialogues, in any language
• it's fun, beautiful and interesting because you are working with animation (an important step before making a real movie.LOL)
• it's not difficult to use, plus it provides a demo video on how to use it
• you can actually continue other people's movies, or you can watch movies created from different people in the world. (most of the stories are quite funny). You can see how people from different places are thinking
• it allows creativity especially when people are designing their own movies, where they have to choose their own background, action and etc

I DONT' LIKE IT BECAUSE:

• You have to sign up or else you can't save your movie
• limited characters available (only three characters). it would be good if we can change the names of the characters according to our preferences at least
• sometimes it is slow (VERY) and the worst of all, your work might be disappear suddenly before you really save it
• the word limit is quite small, so people can't really write long sentences/dialogues
• not all actions contain dialogues/chat box
• the characters don't have voice to talk, only background sound
• you  have to pay for more features

TRY IT!!! IT'S FUN!!

trust me =))

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bookr and bubblr

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HI! This week Russell shows me two new websites. They're interesting! They are called BOOKR and BUBBLR

Between these two, i choose bookr because the presentation is more interesting

What is it??

this website is a website where you can made your own slide show presentation by using pictures taken (borrowing sounds more right) from flickr. Click HERE to know more about flickr. In this slide show, you can add your own captions, dialogues or stories about the photos.

How to use it???

this is the bookr home. FIRST you have to write the keyword of the pictures you want to search in the tag box, then click GO. Then a set of 17 pictures will appear. SECOND, select the pictures that you're interested in. If not, click the next button to view the other 17 pictures.

 the photo that have been selected will be pasted into the bigger box. Then you can write the caption in the smaller box by using your own words. Then go to the next page. do the same thing until you've finished the slide show. You can add how many pages you want to. Then you can send it to anybody or embed it in your blog.

As an English teacher, I think this website is quite useful to be used in my future teaching context because:

1. firstly because this website is free and students don't have to pay for it
2. this website is funky and easy as well. Students get to borrow many pictures from flickr and they can create their own presentation
3. it can encourage language learning activity which involve both speaking and writing activity
4. teacher can use it for group presentation in classroom
5. students will be able to work on their own and it creates personalisation in which students will be more motivated
6. it encourages students' creativity to design their own slide show presentation
7. it is good to attract students' attention because it involves visuals and suits students' own interests
8. by borrowing flickr's photos, students will not break the copyright so it is legal

What i don't like about these website are:

1. the pictures of our choice might not always be there
2. it is time consuming and distracting because there are too many images to view and to choose
3. the pictures chosen sometimes can't really fit the page, so this cause students to spend more times on choosing pictures rather than writing the captions
4. the work can't be edited after you've saved it
5. the website is quite slow sometimes, and it will make students distracted and bored
6. without teacher's guide, students' writing don't really use the language as teacher want it to be (so in this case, teacher should guide the students by telling them what are they expected to write)

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lyrics training

~Lyrics Training~

another website that i knew from my lecture is LYRICS TRAINING. this is a website where you can learn english through English songs. While the song is being played, you have to type the lyrics of the songs or filling up the blanks with missing words from the song. 

lyrics training. Click HERE to go to the page.

the activity

so, i think this website is suitable to be used by students as a tool to improve their English, because:

• it's FREE and FUN! because students will dealing and working with songs, that i believe most of people enjoy songs, so this will make them happy and exciting doing this activity
• it has three different levels where students can choose the levels that are suitable to them (the levels are beginners, intermediate and expert)
• students are free to choose the song that they favour the most, or they can choose new song that they like
• students can enjoy and learning at the same time. Not only that, they can also memorise the song lyrics
• students can view their score and they could also view the vocabulary items in the song if they sign up
• students can enhance their vocabulary level because they will be exposed with broad themes of songs that contain many words
• students can develop their listening skill 

what i don't like about this website are:

• there are a few songs which contain inappropriate music, music videos and lyrics, so they are not quite suitable for students to learn. (they might use that kind of language in their written exercise)
• there are time limit to type the lyrics so it's quite annoying for me because we are not testing students in terms of speed, but listening and vocabulary, so students should be given some time/their own time to finish typing
• some words that are missing are not actually words, but the other kinds of sound which follow the melody of the song such as ooooo, yeahhhhh, ahhhhh..... <-- these are not really helpful in developing students' vocabulary, students might get confuse as well
• the sentences used are not formal because it is a song, so it won't contribute in helping students' writing skills as much

inappropriate music videos for students in my culture

and that's it! =))

happy singing and learning!

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Listen and Write

~Listen and Write~

DICTATION

this week, my lecturer, Russel Stannard showed us a new website that can help students learn English better. this is the LINK to the website. The website is called LISTEN and WRITE or in other words, people call it DICTATION. dictation can be defined as sentences that teacher reads out to test students' ability to hear and write the words correctly. So, to conclude, this website works by reading a passage out loud and then students have to write the words read/played. it has 26 different levels which are arranged according to titles and difficulty order, and each level has three types of tasks;

1) full mode (students have to write the whole letter of the word)

2) quick mode (students have to type the first letter only of the word)

3) blank mode (students have to fill the missing words in the boxes)

In my opinion, the full mode is the most difficult task, followed by the blank mode and the  easiest one is the quick mode. This website is suitable for students in the age of 13 and above.

Students can use this website to improve their english as it has a lot of benefits. the benefits include:

• AGAIN, it free!! Students don't have to pay for learning =)
• it can encourage autonomous learning since students can learn by themselves without teacher's help/guidance
• students can do it at home if they have their own computers and internet access
• there are many levels provided where students can choose the levels that are suitable for themselves
• by doing the tasks, students can enhance their own vocabulary because they will be exposed to a lot of new vocabulary items
• students can develop their listening skill as well as spelling skills (or maybe their typing skill??) because they will listen to many words repeatedly and this will make them familiar with the sound of the word (may include the correct pronunciation of the word as well)
• the tasks are fun because it involves sound, in which a real person is speaking!
• students can evaluate or assess themselves in terms of listening skills and spelling skills
• the topics used are good and are up to date which can help students to increase their general knowledge

However, there are certain things i dislike about this website, which are:

• the speakers speak/use different kind of English and accents and this can make students confused of how certain words are pronounced by speakers from different parts of the world
• the website can be shared via facebook, so, if the students share it, they might get distracted with facebook
• students have to sign up to view their score
• last but not least, students with no access to internet cannot do this activity

that's all.happy trying!! =))

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