As a member of CATESOL, I receive many e-mails from people interested in helping teachers and students learn English as a 2nd Language and I found Larry Ferlazzo’s e-mail about his Websites of the Day For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL, I asked if I could write about it, and he said “sure.” I couldn’t help but notice that this site has been nominated for the edublog awards for 2007 for
best resource sharing blog. His top three
sites are as follows: (1) Henny Jellema’s Online TPR Exercises; (2) Starfall; and (3)
student Sites of the Oxford University Press.(1) I wish I had known about Henny Jellema’s Online TPR exercise when I was teaching two listening and speaking classes in the Spring Semester 2007. After modeling the physical responses, have the students go to this site and click on the numbered audio sound bytes and choose the number that corresponds with the appropriate picture. It’s great; you’ll find the link to it below.(2) Starfall is a
great site for beginning literacy. It colorfully teaches the letters of the English Alphabet in the ABCs bar. There is Zac the Rat and other tales in the “Learn to Read” toolbar. Then, the “It’s Fun to Read”
toolbar has About Me, Art Gallery, Magic, and more. The last toolbar is called “I’m Reading” and is about plays, nonfiction, comics and more. (3) Student Sites of the Oxford University Press has a number of icons with all sorts of language games and activities. For example, the “Adventure” icon has websearches, word games, vocabulary practice, cartoons, and e-cards. For another example, the “Kids United Brazil” has games, e-cards, and interactive exercises. In conclusion, Larry Ferlazzo has a very helpful, useful, and user-friendly Web-Site with links to sites like Online TPR Exercises, Starfall, and Oxford University Press. Henny Jellema’s TPR
Exercises rock for listening/speaking ESL classes. Starfall is super for beginning literacy. Student Sites of the OUP has great resourses for putting fun into the ESL lab. This is why ESL students and teachers should bookmark Larry Ferlazzo’s Website, as I have done.
More reviews about the http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2007/12/22/the-best-internet-sites-for-english-language-learners-