Category: Language

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.

Shmoop is a great site to get quick information about literature, in simple English. This is a new site, trying out new things (beta version means it is not quite finished), and expanding quickly into other areas like history and poetry. Each entry, common ones assigned at high school in the US, has lots of different information broken down into areas, like plot, characters, literary devices, etc.

I have talked before about Zotero, a good way to collect research. But Mendeley allows you to share it with other people. If you have some research, you can post it there, allow others to see it, and even download it.

Google Maps is a great way to work with directions. In addition, you can map out a route to someone’s favorite restaurant, and share all of these in class. Additionally, you can use Street View, that has pictures of almost every street in Tokyo, to show your neighborhood to other students. Be careful, though, maps you create are made public by default. You should click on the “private” box so you share only with people you want to.

Internet Movie Database (IMDB) is a great place for reference for anything to do with movies. I love to discuss movies with my students. Unfortunately, the names in Japanese often have no connection to the names in English.

With this web site showing, though, I can lecture and show short pictures or even trailers to make a visual connection with the language. I often have my students keep track of the logical connections that are between movies (one actor was in another movie, who’s director made another movie with an actor, who married an actress in another movie…).