Category: Language

This poll took me about 45 seconds to make, including the time I needed to sign up for an account at Micropoll. This simple little tool is often called a “widget” on the Internet, and many sites allow you to add widgets to their pages. Let’s try one here. Sometimes the box doesn’t line up with the words on the page, but that may mean I need to read a little on the website.

I may be getting too technical, but if you have a web site, or make pages on the web, you can use this service to get quick easy feedback, and keep people interested and coming back to your site. You could even make a quiz with it. It works with cell phone, but unfortunately, now, only in the US.

YouTube has upgraded its service and now you can put comments on videos, and link them to other videos. Someone has made a kind of branching coversational hypermedia conversation with one, with a man trying to get a date with a nice looking girl. Imagine the possibilities of making activities for students like this in other situations using other functions. Enjoy.

Moodle Community is a group of people that will help you with your new Moodle installation. You see, Moodle, like Linux, is a kind of software made with a system called Open Source. People get together and help out with writing and making the software. They give freeely of their time and skills to help everyone else. That is how some of the best software in the world gets made, for free. And the one rule is that everyone has to share for free.

People don’t just write software, they write documentation for how to use it, and if there are questions, they help answer them. The Moodle Community is excellent for this. I have always gotten quick answers to my questions about my problems when using Moodle. They are consistenly faster, and have better information than many commercial software sites like Microsoft. Open Source is just better. Never mind that it is free, too. If you have a question about Moodle, I’d be happy to try to answer it over at Moodle Community.

Moodle Course Management System is a lot like Blackboard, but better.It is multilingual, which means people can use the software with everything in their own language. Moodle is designed by teachers, and works much better for teachers. It is also free, where Blackboard is very expensive.

I’ve been using Moodle for about 10 years now. I used to use it only with my computer classes, but now, I use it with all my classes. It helps me organize by putting all my assignments, quizzes, materials, and anything to do with the class in one place on line. It keeps track of all my students, and keeps them separate and safe from outsiders. It automatically assigns grades to tests or other evaluations (there are many types). It makes life easier.

I won’t kid you, it does take a lot of work to set up, but you can get a service to do it for you (try Mistek here in Japan). Once you get it set up, though, you can extend the student experience outside of class, make it happen in between classes with online discussions, and many other kinds of interaction.

This is by far the most useful tool I have talked about for English teachers.

OK, I am taking myself far too seriously lately, so let’s have a little fun. Learning a language, we get lots of input. But for EFL students, it is usually a very standardized kind of input. Students think they need the perfect British or American speaker to be there model. Learning “World English” means you need to expose yourself to lots of different accents. Even within a country there are many different accents.

But what about when someone is drunk, or on drugs. They tend to speak differently too. It is a skill to be able to understand them. Here is a kid, just after the dentist, talking to his father in the car. I find it hilarious. The kid looks a lot like my little brother at that age.