TeachingEnglish - Newsletter

Hi, everyone!!

Have you ever heard about 'TeachingEnglish Newsletter'? It is a newsletter managed by the British Council and it is about English language teaching. It has lots of interesting posts about English teaching and everything related to it. 

I recommend this newsletter because, in my opinion, it offers lots of tips to avoid some situations when teaching English and some ways of carrying on the different skills. In addition, we can share by different ways those articles we like most.

I have found this article called 'Encouraging Speaking' which contains a video in which different teachers point out some reasons why students are afraid of speaking in English.

See you in the next post!

About some of the resources...

Hi again!

In relation to the previous post and talking about my favourite resources among them, in my opinion:

- Duolingo is a very good application in which, after doing a previous test in order to know our English level, we can do lots of different activities and work the different English skills. In addition, there is the possibility of chatting with natives. These resource could be used as an extra homework: for example, students should work with it about 5-10 minutes per day.

- Lyrics Training is an alternative of the traditional exercise done in class in which the teacher plays a song with the stereo and students have to complete the gaps of the lyrics. With this tool, students can watch the video clip and complete the gaps. As I have said before, teachers could use it in class as a listening and writing activity.

- English Area is a tool where we can find different lesson plans for printing. They are classified so it is better to find what we want to print. As it has a lot of material, teachers could choose the one they want and print some sheets to work in class.

- Smart Exchange offers different lessons of different topics to download them or to open them with a whiteboard. As well as the previous resource, teachers could use this one to work with the whiteboard in class day by day.

- Anaya Multimedia is a website where we can find lots of e-books (although most times we must pay for them). This resource could be used by the teacher to get some more material to prepare their lessons.

See you in the next post!

ICT Hardware and Resources

Hi, everyone!

What do you know about 'Lino'? I had never used it before I had to do a task with it for my Master's Degree. This is the activity I did (something more complex than the one I have done for this course).

For this course, I have done one in which I have shared some examples of the hardwares and resources I have found related to my field of study: English.

See you in the next post!

Not Only a Blog but the Blog

Hi, everyone!

As all of you know now (I think), my field of expertise is English. Stated this and in my opinion, one of the best blogs to learn English is the one called 'El Blog para Aprender Inglés'. 

This blog has been created by a TEFL teacher called Monica. She is bilingual: she grown in the USA and  her mother is English. She has organized her blog very well with some tabs (some of them send you to other web page) and with a very extense content organized by topics.

I really like this blog because there is almost the whole English grammar in it and it is very helpful for me if I have any doubt while teaching English or even for my students as a tool of support.

Why do not you have a look at it? Maybe it is good for you as well.

See you in the next post!

Drupal

Hi again!

I have had a look at the CMS examples given and there many different kinds of CMS. 

The one which I like most is the one of the IES Enric Soler i Godes created by 'Drupal'. Why this one? Well, when I visit a web site, I do not like seeing lots of content, boards and tools at first sight. I prefer everthing well organised and with different tabs so that I can choose what to see and where to go. And this is exactly what this CMS is (at least in the case of the one of this Secondary School).

Do you want to now more about this CMS? For more information, have a look at the web page of 'Drupal'.

See you in the next post!

Joomla!

Hi, everyone!

Have you ever heard about 'Joomla!'? My answer to this question is: no, I do not ever heard about it. It has surprised me a lot and in a good way. 

'Joomla!' offers the possibilitie of creating a web page even if you do not know too much about computing. In my opinion, it is a very good tool to help those who want to do online teaching because, in 'Joomla!', anyone can desing a web page easily. It offers templates and anyone can choose the content and, in addition, there are lots of boards installed automaticaly in order to make the page more attractive.

I have been browsing through 'Joomla!' and its extensions according to my field of study and the best extension I have found is the one called 'Freestyle Translation Manager'. This extension is mainly about translation of web pages and it offers very high percentages (nearly 100%) according to its overall, documentation, ease of use, functionality and support. 

I suggest you to have a look at 'Joomla!'... It will surprise you, I am sure!

See you in the next post!

The Cloud: Advantages and Disadvantages

In my opinion, the cloud is something very abstract: we cannot see it, but it is there (or maybe here). It is like an invisible platform where we can store (paying a fee if the quantity exceeds the limit established by the company) all of our digital data or pictures, music, books, etc. In addition, we can share files and use it as a backup service.

On the one hand and according to some articles related to this topic, the most important advantages of the cloud are:

• Flexibility: it has not only one use.
• Costs: some of the companies offer a great capacity to store in for free and a reasonable fee if we exceed the limit.
• Portability: it is accessible with any mobile device; the 'here and now' of the connection.
• Accessibility: we only need Internet access to make use of the cloud.77

On the other hand, some of the disadvantages are:

• Security: altough our accounts are highly protected, it is never absolutely enough.
• Dependency: if we do not have Internet access, we cannot make use of it.
• Privacy: our data is exposed.
• Control: users can never be sure of the elimination of their data.

My daily use of the cloud is based, mainly, on the store of pictures and the use of some platforms of communication and education for the sharing of documents, for learning and teaching, etc.

Resources:

Computación en la Nube: Ventajas y Desventajas

Life in the Cloud

Qué es Nube Informática 

Ventajas y Desventajas del Almacenamiento en la Nube

See you in the next post!