Graham
Davies's Favourite Websites
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Graham
Davies's Favourite Websites
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This set of resources is arranged alphabetically. I have decided not to organise it into categories as most people appear to find it more useful in its current format, i.e. as a glossary and an annotated, cross-referenced list. Click on the letters in the alphabet below to jump to the first entry under each letter. To search for a specific keyword or phrase use Edit / Find in your browser.
I welcome suggestions for additions to this list, but it may take some time for them to appear. I receive dozens of requests to add new links - far more than I can keep up with. Websites that I am in the process of reviewing are held here: New Websites. Feedback is welcomed if you have already visited these sites or any of the sites listed below. Please use my business contact form if you wish to email me: Contact Form
This list of websites is known as a webliography or a portal, i.e. a gateway to lots of other sites - rather like the bookmarks or favourite websites that you can set up in your own browser, the important difference being is that you and I can access this portal from anywhere in the world. If you want to learn how to create your own webliography, see my INSET training materials at: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/lspinset.htm (Task 2). If I were starting to compile this list all over again, however, I would probably use Delicious, which is a social bookmarking service that enables you to store your favourite websites online.
Feel free to use this page yourself and with your students, but please acknowledge the source: see Copyright. I update the list frequently. If you find a dead link or discover a useful link that I could add to this list, please let me know via Camsoft's Contact Form. A problem associated with link lists like this is that ownership of the domain name can change without the knowledge of the person who maintains the list. I have had two bad experiences, which I document here: Dodgy links at http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/DodgyLinks.htm. I make an effort to check all these links regularly, but it's easy to miss something. See, however, the entry under Wayback Machine, the Web Archive, which helps you locate dead and long-lost websites.
3D Courseware: Canadian producer/publisher of CALL software: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/dddware/. Their products include the CLEF French Grammar Package and La Chaise Berçante, both of which are distributed by Camsoft: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/clef.htm & http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/chaise.htm
200 Words a Day: Introduces vocabulary, based on an accelerated learning technique whereby you imagine a crazy scene - associated with cartoons - which helps you remember the vocab. In French, German, Spanish, Welsh: http://www.200words-a-day.com
About: The About sites listed below have lots of language-related information and links. These are a very useful set of resources.
Academic Word List: This
website contains lists of academic vocabulary, divided into ten sublists in
order of frequency, i.e. Sublist 1 has the most frequent academic words. You
can submit your own short text, and a program will identify core academic vocabulary
in your text, using the Academic Word List. The text will be returned as a new
Web page with words from the Academic Word List, at the level selected, highlighted
in bold:
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/%7Ealzsh3/acvocab/awlhighlighter.htm
Accent, Dialect, Language: The distinction between these three categories often provokes fierce debate. Broadly speaking, an accent is distinguished by features of pronunciation that signal a person's regional or social identity, whereas a dialect is distinguished by features of grammar and/or vocabulary. The point at which a dialect becomes a separate language is debatable. I speak fluent German but I can only understand around one word in ten when listening to Swiss German, which is regarded by some people as a dialect of German but by others (and rightly so) as a separate language known as Schwyzerdütsch. Similarly, Scots (Lallands/Lallans) and Ulster Scots (Ullans) can be regarded as distinct languages from English. Max Weinreich described a language thus: "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy" - or "A shprakh iz a diyalekt mit an armey un a flot" in the original Yiddish ("Yivo and the problems of our time", Yivo-Bleter, 1945, Vol. 25, No. 1, p. 13.). See European Minority Languages, Minority Languages, Speech Accent Archive and - just for fun - Ali G Translator, Dialectizer. The BBC has some excellent information, including sound recordings, on regional accents and dialects of the UK: http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/
The Adam Smith Institute: This site has some interesting downloadable publications on educational issues. My attention was drawn in particular to Wired to Learn (2002) by Tom McMullan, which is described as follows: "The government wants to create the 'school of the future' with ICT-based learning in new-look buildings and at home. But existing government policy stands in the way of this vision. Teacher and ICT expert Tom McMullan identifies the blockages: too much focus on numbers rather than sustainability, low teacher confidence, dismal connectivity, and the lack of realisation that content, and not hardware, is what it's all about." See http://www.adamsmith.org/images/uploads/publications/ict-7-jan-02-doc.pdf
Adodoc: A collection of exercises and activities centred on French radio and TV broadcasts: http://www.adodoc.net. See also Kidon, SCOLA Insta-Class, World Radio Network.
Adopt an Escargot: A zany site for students of French and their teachers: http://www.adoptanescargot.com
Advertisements: The PubsTV website contains links to video clips of advertisements in a wide range of languages - click on Pubs par Pays. Requires registration: http://www.pubstv.com. See also http://www.visit4info.com
Adware: Adware is software that has been secretly installed on your computer by a remote site. Many free utilities that you download from the Internet install hidden software that sends details of the websites you visit and other information from your computer (which can include your email address) to advertisers so they can target you with popup ads and spam. See also the entries under Spam, Spyware and Virus. Further information can be found on my Cautionary tale page at http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/bugs.htm
Aiglon College: The website of Aiglon College, Switzerland. Useful exercises and links for learners of French, German and Spanish: http://www.aiglon.ch/langlink
Airline
Talk: A project funded under the Leonardo da Vinci programme of the European
Union, involving the development of CD-ROM language training materials for
the airline industry. Further information from Commercial Development, Thames
Valley University, St Mary's Road, London W5 5RF.
Ali G Translator: Machine translation programs such as Babel Fish often make mistakes, but this one is pretty good at translating your texts into Ali G street slang - not very politically correct, of course: http://mackers.com/alig. The opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice reads: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." which translates into Ali G slang as "It is a truf universally acknowledged, dat a single geeza in possession of a wicked fortune must be in dig of a bitch." See the Dialectizer. See Accent, Dialect, Language.
ALL: The Association for Language Learning's website: http://www.all-languages.org.uk. Lots of information and useful links.You can browse the ALLNET discussion list at: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/allnet.html. See the homepage of ALL's German National Committee at http://www.dastor.org.uk/GNC/ - some useful resources and links for teachers of German. ALL has many regional branches. The London branch is particularly active and has its own website at: http://www.all-london.org.uk. See also Languages ICT, a CILT/ALL initiative.
ALLE - Alberta Language Learning Environment: A project based at the University of Calgary, Canada: http://fis.ucalgary.ca/alle. The project has several aims in common with the ICT for Language Teachers project, namely: (i) raising consciousness among teachers as to the opportunities and benefits of current technology, especially the Web; (ii) equipping teachers with the skills necessary to integrate technology effectively into their classroom practice; (iii) developing and supporting authoring tools; (iv) doing ongoing research in the area of technology assisted language learning and publishing findings; (v) evaluating the results of teacher involvement in TELL (Technology Enhanced Language Learning). Useful site, with lots of links, especially to French resources.
AllWords: A useful multilingual online dictionary: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch. Also lots of useful links for word lovers: crossword puzzles, word games, glossaries, song lyrics, translation programs, etc: http://www.allwords.com
Alphabet: See how fast you can type the alphabet: http://playfreeonlinegames.eu/playonline/typethealphabet.html
ALSIC: Francophone Electronic Journal for CALL: Apprentissage des Langues et Systèmes d’Information et de Communication: http://alsic.revues.org
Alta Vista: I used to have a lot of luck finding websites with Alta Vista, but my favourite search engine is Google. Alta Vista does, however, include a translation function, based on the original Systran translation package, one of the oldest and most reliable MT packages - now known as Babel Fish. See http://www.altavista.com
Amazon Bookshop: The UK branch of the famous online bookshop. Some bargains to be found here: http://www.amazon.co.uk . Did you know that Amazon's customer services department is moving from Slough, UK, to Cork, Ireland, because it cannot recruit staff in the Slough area that can handle European languages? In a 2005 European Commission poll conducted by Eurobarometer, 30% of UK inhabitants surveyed said they could speak a second language at conversational level. In Ireland, this figure was about a third higher at 41%. So much for our government's policy on language teaching in schools!
Animated GIFs: See Clipart.
APACALL: The Asia-Pacific Association for CALL, University of Southern Queensland, Australia: http://www.apacall.org
University of Arizona, Critical Languages Series: This site contains information on CD-ROMs and Web-based instructional materials for "critical languages" - also described as Minority Languages - e.g. Brazilian Portuguese, Turkish and Korean: http://clp.arizona.edu/cls. MaxAuthor, the multimedia authroing package used to create the materials is available free of charge at: http://cali.arizona.edu/docs/wmaxa
Ashcombe School's Language College Modern Foreign Languages pages: Lots of materials, advice, software evaluations, worksheets, exercises for different languages, etc. A comprehensive and well maintained site - a lot more useful than most of the sites maintained by UK government agencies: http://www.ashcombe.surrey.sch.uk/Curriculum/modlang
Ask: Ask a question in normal English. This search engine will parse your input and then search the Web, trying to find the answer: http://uk.ask.com
AsíSeHace: A free website, created and maintained by José Picardo, containing Spanish interactive exercises specifically designed to help GCSE and A-Level students and generally useful for anyone learning Spanish: http://www.asisehace.net. See also Box of Tricks.
Asset Languages: Asset Languages is a new way of recognising achievement in foreign languages learning: http://www.assetlanguages.org.uk. The Asset Languages assessment scheme supports the DCSF's National Languages Strategy and is designed to provide voluntary accreditation options for learners of all ages and abilities from primary to further, higher and adult education. It is being developed by Cambridge Assessment (http://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk) through OCR (Oxford Cambridge and RSA Examinations - http://www.ocr.org.uk) and Cambridge ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages - http://www.cambridgeesol.org). It has a lot in common with the Common European Framework (e.g. "can do" statements relating to the four language skills) and is tied in with the Languages Ladder.
À Tantôt: A website that provides French and German online resources which are designed to be used in class on an interactive whiteboard. Resources include videos, starter and plenary activities, games, useful links and much more: http://www.atantot.co.uk
ATnotes: A free program which creates post-it like notes on the Windows desktop. It lives in the system tray, takes very few resources and is available in 35 different languages: http://atnotes.free.fr/download.html
Audio Clips: Most of these contain sound effects, etc, but they may be worth exploring:
Auralog: Producer of CD-ROMs and supplier of online language learning services: e.g. Tell Me More: http://www.tellmemore.com
Austrian TV: The website of ORF. Very handy for news reports in German - and especially for weather reports whenever I am about to go skiing in Austria: http://www.orf.at
Authoring Programs: See Module 2.5, Introduction to CALL authoring programs, at the ICT4LT site: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod2-5.htm. An impressive list of links to authoring tools for creating interactive language learning materials. This page is maintained by Christine Bauer-Ramazani, St Michael's College, Vermont, USA: http://academics.smcvt.edu/cbauer-ramazani/Links/authoring_tools.htm. See also The Authoring Suite, Crosswords, Fun with Texts, GapKit, Hot Potatoes, JClic, MALTED, Quandary, Quia, Vokabel.
The Authoring Suite (Wida Software): An old favourite, developed from a range of packages originally sold separately. Widely used in EFL/ESL institutions and departments for creating interactive exercises: http://www.wida.co.uk. See Authoring Programs.
Authorship Analysis Software: Authorship analysis software can help to identify authorship of texts. Such software has been used by literary and linguistic researchers for many years and is now widely used by security services in counter-terrorism activities. See, for example, this prject based at the University of Arizona: http://ai.arizona.edu/authorship/
Babel Fish: Babel Fish is an automatic translator that derives from one of the oldest and most reliable Machine Translation packages, originally known as Systran: http://babelfish.yahoo.com. Babel Fish has limitations, however. Don't expect a polished translation, and watch out some really bad errors. Most automatic translators can only convey the gist of a document and indicate if it’s worth having it translated properly. See Section 3 of Module 3.5 at the ICT4LT site: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod3-5.htm. See also the entries under Free Translation and Logos. For fun stuff see the Ali G Translator and Dialectizer. Google has a translation tool too. Click on Language Tools on the Google opening page: http://www.google.co.uk
BBC Bitesize: A collection of revision materials, including modern foreign languages, for schoolchildren at the BBC site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/revision Try also "Cool" German, French, Spanish and Italian: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/german/cool/ (start with the German and then link to the other languages)
BBC Jam: An educational website tied in closely with the UK government's Curriculum Online initiative. The BBC Jam site has now been suspended: see BBC Jam: a personal view.
BBC Languages: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/. Lots of online language learning materials at various levels from the BBC covering French, German, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, Greek - and more! I worked as a consultant on German Steps, an introductory course in German: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/german/lj
BBC World Service: This is the Web version of the BBC’s excellent news service. As well as texts, you’ll find sound and video clips too. Schedules of broadcasts can also be found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/
BECTA: British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, formerly known as NCET (National Council for Educational Technology): http://www.becta.org.uk. An extensive source of information on educational technology - if/when you can find it, as BECTA is another one of those restless sites, where documents are constantly being moved to new locations. BECTA tends to be strong regarding the technology and weak regarding the pedagogy and suffers a bit from the not-invented-here syndrome, e.g. the BECTA website appears to be blissfully unaware of key sources of information concerning ICT and Modern Foreign Languages, such as the websites of EUROCALL and the ICT for Language Teachers project, which don't get a mention anywhere at the BECTA website. See the BECTA Schools site: http://schools.becta.org.uk. There are some materials for Modern Foreign Languages in this section: http://schools.becta.org.uk/index.php?section=cu&catcode=ss_cu_ac_mfl_03. See also Research for information on BECTA's ICT Research Network forum.
Before You Know It: An interactive flashcard program by Transparent Language, covering 64 different languages, for learning basic words and phrases. A free trial version is available for download. Ready-made flashcard activities are included, e.g. multiple-choice matching, pronunciation and dictation, and you can create your own additional lists of words and phrases. You can also record your own voice and compare it to native speakers. http://www.byki.com. See Vocabulary.
Tim Berners-Lee: My hero, the inventor of the World Wide Web - and he's British! This is his personal site: http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee
Bibliography of CALL: See the ICT for Language Teachers Resource Centre for a select bibliography of CALL and links to other comprehensive bibliographies: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_resource.htm
Blackboard: A Web-based Virtual Learning Environment (VLE): http://www.blackboard.com. See also Moodle. Blackboard and WebCT announced an agreement to merge in October 2005. Effectively, Blackboard has taken over WebCT.
Blackwell’s Bookshop: An enormous bookshop in Oxford. I have rarely failed to find what I was looking for: http://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk. You can order books online. Delivery is quick!
Bof! A set of resources for French, developed by Steve Glover: http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/haberg/index.htm. Click here for links to other sites produced by Steve: Steve's sites.
Bonjour: A set of resources for school learners of French, developed by Stephane Derône: http://www.bonjour.org.uk. Now part of a commercial site: Linguascope.
Bonjour de France: An interactive magazine for learners of French. Lots of exercises - vocab, grammar, idiomatic expressions and games: http://www.bonjourdefrance.com
Box of Tricks: José Picardo's blog on Education and ICT, with a main focus on ICT in teaching and learning foreign languages: http://www.boxoftricks.net. See also AsíSeHace.
The British Council: The British Council is the UK's international organisation for educational and cultural relations: http://www.britishcouncil.org. Its purpose is to enhance the UK's reputation in the world as a valued partner. It does this by creating opportunities for people worldwide with programmes in education, English language teaching, the arts, science, governance and information through a network of 230 offices and teaching centres in 109 countries. The British Council receives a grant-in-aid from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and earns income from teaching English, conducting British examinations and managing development and training contracts. See also The British Council's LearnEnglish website.
BULL: If you have trouble writing critical essays then this is the place for you: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/nholland/critic.htm. BULL stands for Basic Unitary Literary Language. It’s a computer program by John Holland that generates impressive-sounding sentences such as "In a situated discourse, the metonymy of inclusion devolves into the hegemony of pre-existing structure". I love this kind of stuff . I wrote a poetry generator along these lines (in collaboration with my old friend David Steel) back in the 1970s, but it’s a long time since I saw anything as good as this. If you think the above sample is BULL then the real thing is even better: e.g. "If such a sublime cyborg would insinuate the future as post-Fordist subject, his palpably masochistic locations as ecstatic agent of the sublime superstate need to be decoded as the ‘now-all-but-unreadable DNA’ of a fast deindustrializing Detroit, just as his Robocop-like strategy of carceral negotiation and street control remains the tirelessly American one of inflicting regeneration through violence upon the racially heteroglossic wilds and others of the inner city". This text is authentic and written by one of the winners of the Annual Bad Writing Contest, Volume 11, 82 of the Humanist Discussion Group. See also Dialectizer, The Postmodernism Generator and Shakespearean Insult Generator.
Business and International Communication (SOLVIT): This is a new and very useful site maintained by CILT, BLIS and RLN. It covers all the important aspects of communicating and doing business overseas under the headings Spoken Communication, Written and Visual Communication and Cultural Communication: http://www.solvit.org.uk
C&IT Centre, University of Hull: A centre dedicated to language learning and new technologies that began life in 1989 as the CTICML. The C&IT Centre is now closed, but the archives of the CTICML are still around: see CTICML.
CALICO: The US equivalent of EUROCALL. A long-established professional association devoted to promoting the use of technology enhanced language learning. CALICO is currently headed by Bob Fischer, Executive Director, Southwest Texas State University: http://www.calico.org. The CALICO forum can be found here: http://calico.org/forum/. Registration for the CALICO forum is free of charge. CALICO and EUROCALL are working in collaboration on setting up a Joint Virtual Worlds Special Interest Group (VW SIG): http://colanmc.siu.edu/virtualworlds/. CALICO now has a headquarters in Second Life. Here is the SLURL of CALICO's HQ in Second Life (which is right next door to EUROCALL's HQ): http://slurl.com/secondlife/EduNation%20III/44/24/22
CALL4All: A large categorised collection of links to websites relating to language learning and teaching, compiled by John Paul Loucky: http://www.call4all.us
CALL@Hull: Fred Riley's website of Internet Resources for Language Teachers and Learners, which contains some of the resources formerly located at the CTICML and C&IT websites: http://www.fredriley.org.uk/call/langsite
CALL-EJ Online: A refereed professional journal on Computer Assisted Language Learning and related fields, published bi-annually. It began publication in 1999 after CALL-EJ in Japan and ON-CALL in Australia merged. CALL-EJ Online is now an international journal that welcomes contributions from around the world: http://www.tell.is.ritsumei.ac.jp/callejonline/
University of Cambridge: CALL Facility in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages. Lots of useful information and links: http://www.mml.cam.ac.uk/call
Camsoft: My own business partnership, specialising in the development and retailing of CALL software, CALL consultancy and ICT training for language teachers. The site lists all our software, who we are and what we do, and includes around 800 links to other projects and websites: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk
CanooNet is great as a reference source for German grammar and the new spelling rules. It include dictionaries too: http://www.canoo.net
CAPL (Culturally Authentic Pictorial Lexicon): An image bank set up and maintained by Michael Shaughnessy & Jason Parkhillis, Washington and Jefferson College, Pennsylvania. It consists of a searchable and categorised bank of 2000 or so images. You are free to use the images for non-commercial educational purposes as specified in the terms of a Creative Commons licence: http://www.washjeff.edu/CAPL/. See Clipart.
Cartoons: Use cartoons to create lively language learning and teaching materials. See: Comic Creator, Comic Life, MakeBeliefsComix, ToonDoo, Voki.
CEMLL (Centre for Excellence in Multimedia Language Learning): Based in the School of Languages and Literature at the University of Ulster, the focus of CEMLL is to research the use of computer-based multimedia teaching facilities and develop appropriate teaching methods. CEMLL's approach to multimedia language learning is to integrate use of digital technology in class to promote active engagement and to support dynamic intervention. The primary aims of CEMLL are to: -(i) develop teaching excellence and encourage innovation in the use of multimedia resources, (ii) integrate the use of multimedia resources with face-to-face teaching, (iii) research and evaluate the effectiveness of teaching in a multimedia environment, (iv) collaborate with colleagues within the University of Ulster and other HE Institutions and share good practice: http://cemll.ulster.ac.uk
CERCLES: Confédération Européenne des Centres de Langues dans l’Enseignement Supérieur / European Confederation of Language Centres in Higher Education / Europäische Konföderation der Hochschulsprachenzentren: http://www.cercles.org. Founded in Strasbourg in 1991, CERCLES is a confederation of independent associations from 10 countries of the European Union. It brings together some 200 Language Centres, Departments, Institutes, Faculties or Schools in higher education whose main responsibility is the teaching of languages. Its members have several thousand academic, administrative and technical staff and some 250,000 students who learn all of the world’s main languages. The equivalent US-based association is IALLT.
Cervantes Institute: Central Virtual Cervantes. A very comprehensive website, containing lots of useful links for teachers and learners of Spanish: http://cvc.cervantes.es
Chat Rooms: How to keep safe in chat rooms - useful advice for parents: http://www.chatdanger.com. See also ThinkUKnow, which contains advice for teenagers: http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk
Cheap Online Flights: This site's URL says it all: http://www.cheaponlineflights.com
CILT: The Centre for Information on Language Teaching, London - now known as the National Centre for Languages: http://www.cilt.org.uk. CILT is, in my opinion, the leading information centre on language teaching in Europe - maybe the world. They’re doing a grand job! CILT is a partner in the ICT for Language Teachers project and collaborates with the Subject Centre for Languages Linguistics and Area Studies. ICT features prominently in CILT's activities - check the website's publications section and the ICT links. See also Languages ICT, a new CILT/ALL initiative.
Classroom 2.0: A social networking sitesite for anyone interested in the practical applications of computer technology (especially Web 2.0) in the classroom and in their own professional development: http://www.classroom20.com
CLIC: See JClic.
Cliché Finder: Just the ticket for people who like to incorporate hackneyed and/or boring phrases into their essays. Search for a word and this search engine will return any clichés which use that phrase, e.g. "in the pink", "kill the goose that lays the golden eggs", "talk through your hat", "feather your nest", "keep a stiff upper lip"... http://www.westegg.com/cliche
Clicker: A powerful and incredibly easy-to-use writing support and multimedia tool by Crick Software, which enables you to write with whole words, phrases or pictures. It has won five BETT Awards, the "Oscars" of British Educational Software, as voted for by teachers. It can be used to support any area of the curriculum: http://www.cricksoft.com/uk/ideas/languages.htm
ClicNet: Swarthmore College’s list of resources in French - all in French too! See: http://clicnet.swarthmore.edu
Clipart: There are a number of useful sites offering clipart libraries:
CMC SIG: The Computer Mediated Communication Special Interest Group in EUROCALL. Here is the link to the CMC SIG's forum at Yahoo Groups: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CMC_SIG/
Comic Creator: Create your own comic strips: http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/comic/index.html. See also Comic Life, MakeBeliefsComix, ToonDoo, Voki.
Comic Life: A utility that enables you to create comics, picture albums, how-to guides - and much more! Just drag in your pictures, captions, lettering text and speech balloons: http://plasq.com/comiclife-win. See also Comic Creator, MakeBeliefsComix, ToonDoo, Voki.
Common European
Framework of Reference (CEFR) for Languages: Also known simply as the Common
European Framework (CEF). The main aim of the CEFR is described thus:
"[...] the Council of Europe should develop a comprehensive, transparent and
coherent framework of reference for the description of language learning and
teaching at all levels. This instrument will provide a basis for the international
comparison of objectives and qualifications, thus facilitating personal and
vocational mobility in Europe, and will provide a valuable tool for policy making
in member States." See: http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/
The six levels of language proficiency that are described in the Common European Framework are used as yardstick in the DIALANG diagnostic testing project and in most EFL/ESOL examinations and national examinations in Europe. See also the entries under Council of Europe, Languages Ladder, Language Testing and Linguanet Europa.
Computer Assisted Language Learning journal: Also known as the CALL journal, formerly published by Swets & Zeitlinger and now taken over by Taylor & Francis. The current editor is Jozef Colpaert, University of Antwerp.
Concordances and Concordancing Programs: See Module 2.4, entitled Using concordance programs in the Modern Foreign Languages Classroom, at the ICT for Language Teachers website: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod2-4.htm
The Consultants-E: The Consultants-E is a leader in online and distance education and is an innovative company of consultants specialising in online learning and teaching in higher and adult education. The EduNation islands in Second Life are owned and managed by The Consultants-E: http://www.theconsultants-e.com
ContentGenerator: This website offers a range of Flash-based tools for the generation of quizzes, games and other applications: http://www.contentgenerator.net
Copyright: A thorny issue, especially in this electronic age. Generally speaking, materials published on the Web are subject to copyright and may not be disseminated without the author's permission unless stated otherwise. The materials contained on this page are subject to copyright, but I have no objection to them being downloaded and used for non-commercial purposes, e.g. as printed handouts in a teaching or training environment, subject to the prominent inclusion of an acknowledgement of my authorship. I would, however, strongly object if I found this list or a substantial part of it on someone else's website or intranet without due acknowledgement of its source. See the link to the Creative Commons Licence at the foot of this page. A page at the ICT for Language Teachers website is devoted to Guidelines on copyright - many useful links: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_copyright.htm
Corpora: See the ICT for Language Teachers website: Module 2.4 on classroom concordancing and Module 3.4 on corpus linguistics. See also Concordances and Concordancing Software. A CORPUSCALL discussion list has been initiated at: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/corpuscall.html
Council of Europe: The Council of Europe (CoE) website is at http://www.coe.int. The CoE is not to be confused with the European Union. See the CoE Language Policy Web page: http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/ which describes the Common European Framework for Languages and the European Portfolio. See also the site of the Council of Europe's European Centre for Modern Languages.
Courses in CALL: Want to
take CALL seriously? The ICT for Language Teachers
website covers a wide range of topics for beginners, intermediate and advanced
students and is probably the most comprehensive set of free training materials
of this type on the Web. For a list of postgraduate courses in CALL see EUROCALL's
list of links: http://www.eurocall-languages.org/resources/courses.html
Creative Technology: This is the website of a business that specialises in computer-based packages for learning and education: http://www.cict.co.uk/software. One of the shareware packages that can be found at this site is Martin Holme’s Markin, a program for marking work submitted by students as text data, for example via email or as a word-processed document. Markin was developed as a marking system for courses delivered via the Internet, and can produce marked work in the form of HTML files that can be viewed using a Web browser, or as RTF files that can be viewed in a word-processor.
Crosswords: Chris Lacey's Teacher's Pet website provides a macro for Microsoft Word that creates crossword puzzles automatically from a vertical list of words. Try the Instant Online Crossword Puzzle Maker at http://www.puzzle-maker.com/CW/. Here's another one, called EclipseCrossword: http://www.eclipsecrossword.com. Ready-made crosswords in French and German are provided free of charge for non-profit educational institutions at Alcester Grammar School's website: http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/square/fk26/xword.htm. See also the entries under Allwords and Authoring Programs.
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The
Crown Bar, Belfast: This magnificent ornate bar, complete with real
gas lights, is in my personal World Top 10 of Favourite Bars. There used
to be a live camera situated at one end of the bar, so you could make
an arrangement with your friends and relatives anywhere in the world to
see you enjoying a pint of Guinness or a glass of Bushmills. This is a
picture of Sally and me on 2 October 1998. We were not aware at the time
that we were being watched by David Herren in the USA. David sent us this
picture that he downloaded at Middlebury College. It looks like I am just
about to order a second pint. See: |
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CSLU Speech Toolkit: An excellent tool that helps deaf people to learn how to articulate. The toolkit was eveloped by Ron Cole, who is based at the Centre for Spoken Language Research (CSLR), University of Colorado. The tool features BALDI, an animated 3D talking head that automatically synchronises natural or synthetic speech with realistic lip, tongue, mouth and facial movements: http://cslu.cse.ogi.edu. The CSLU Speech Toolkit can be downloaded from http://cslu.cse.ogi.edu/toolkit. See also Speech Technology.
CTICML (Computers in Teaching Initiative Centre for Modern Languages): This centre was set up in 1989, based in The Language Institute at the University of Hull: http://www.hull.ac.uk/languages/langinst.html The Centre changed its name in 2000 to the C&IT Centre and was initially linked with the Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics, and Area Studies at the University of Southampton. The C&IT Centre was finally closed in 2002, bringing to an end a long association between Hull and language learning technology. Most of the CTICML and C&IT electronic archives have now been relocated to the CALL@Hull and the EUROCALL websites.
Curriculum Online: A UK government initiative that ran from 2003 to 2008 and which had the noble aim of providing ring-fenced funding, known as e-Learning Credits (eLCs), to schools to enable them to buy software and online services to support their teaching. Unfortunately, the initiative was surrounded with an atmosphere of controversy from the outset, resulting in court action against the BBC, accusations of high-level bungling and a very expensive and complex website. My personal perception of Curriculum Online is that it was a technological and bureaucratic sledgehammer that wasted far too much money on the technical infrastructure and created cosy clique of suppliers who dominated the market place and forced many smaller specialist suppliers into liquidation. The whole initiative had a pre-1989 East European flavour. Having gained control over teachers with the introduction of the National Curriculum, the DCSF tried to gain control of educational suppliers. Tom McMullan described the Curriculum Online initiative as being a government plan for "backdoor nationalisation of the UK educational content marketplace" (Wired to Learn, Adam Smith Institute). The Curriculum Online website was radically revamped several times in response to feedback from teachers, but it still had a labyrinthine look and feel. Moreover, the listing of a product at the Curriculum Online site was not a guarantee of quality as only random checks were carried out. There was an evaluation process operated by two agencies, Schoolzone and E-valuate, but for an exorbitant fee that small businesses could not afford. See BBC Jam.
CyberItalian: Online materials for learners of Italian. Log in as a visitor and try a lesson free of charge: http://www.cyberitalian.com
Dead Links and Dodgy Links: A growing problem on the Web. See my Dodgy links article: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/DodgyLinks.htm
Declan Software: A range of flashcard activities, including audio, and tools for learning to read and write: Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Russian, French, Arabic, German, Spanish, Italian and Indonesian: http://www.declan-software.com
Delicious: A social bookmarking service that enables you to store your favourite websites online. You can also use Delicious to see the interesting links that other people bookmark, and you can share links with them in return. You can even browse and search Delicious to discover bookmarks that everyone else has saved - which is made easy with tags that enable you to organise and remember your bookmarks: http://delicious.com
Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF): http://www.dcsf.gov.uk - formerly the Department for Education and Skills (DfES). One of two ministries responsible for Education in the UK, the other one being the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS): http://www.dius.gov.uk. A useful source of information of information, but I do wish they would stop reorganising their websites and failing to indicate where important documents have gone. Now that the DfES has changed its name (June 2007) wait for all the URLs containing dfes to disappear...
See also:
DeutschAkademie: An online comprehensive German course. The grammar and vocabulary exercises are structured according to selected textbooks and to the levels of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Requires registration: http://www.deutschakademie.de/online-deutschkurs/english/
Deutsche Welle: German news service: http://www.dw-world.de. News in German and 30 other languages. Texts and streaming audio and video
Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst: An organisation that provides information and assistance for students wishing to study in Germany, and for German students wishing to study abroad: http://www.daad.de
Devon Languages: Lots of links to language teaching and learning resources: http://delicious.com/devonlanguages
DIALANG: A major EC-funded project on online diagnostic language testing, co-ordinated by the Freie Universität Berlin. The project aims to design sets of diagnostic tests at 6 different levels in 15 different languages, linked to the Common European Framework. Access to the tests is currently free of charge: http://www.dialang.org. See also the entries under the DCSF's Languages Ladder, Language Testing and Linguanet Europa.
Dialect: See Accent, Dialect, Language.
Dialectizer: See: http://www.rinkworks.com/dialect/. Some years ago I recall being given a copy of a DOS program that converted any text into Jive slang. I suppose it had to come... here's a website that converts websites into Cockney, Jive, Redneck, Elmer Fudd, etc. Alternatively, just feed in a text of your choice. Here's my original text, followed by Cockney: (i) "I was walking down the road the other day when I felt thirsty, so I went into a pub and ordered a pint of beer." (ii) "I were walkin' dahn the road the bloody uvver day wen I felt firsty, so I went into a rub-a-dub and ordered a pint of beer." Hmm, a couple of rhyming slang opportunities missed, I think: (i) "road" = "frog" ("frog and toad"), (ii) "beer" = "pig's" ("pig's ear"). The Jive version is better: "Ah wuz walkin' waaay down d' road t'oda' day when ah felt dusty, so's ah went into some pub an' o'dered some pint uh beer. Ah be baaad..." See BULL, The Postmodernism Generator and Shakespearean Insult Generator. See the Ali G Translator. See Accent, Dialect, Language.
Dictionaries: There are lots of dictionaries on the Web. See: AllWords, FreeDict, LEO, Lexicool, Logos, LookWAYup, Martindale's Language Center, TheFreeDictionary, WordReference, NetLingo, Picture Dictionary.
Digital Video for Teachers: Training courses and resources for teachers interested in creating and editing video: http://www.digitalvideoforteachers.co.uk
Dordogne Hotels and Restaurants: Quite a useful site for teachers looking for authentic materials in French - to practise online searching, seeking and understanding information, etc. Also handy if you really do want to book a hotel or find a restaurant: http://www.hotels-restau-dordogne.org/choihot0.htm
Download Accelerator Plus: A useful tool for accelerating and scheduling big downloads, e.g. WAV and MPEG files: http://www.speedbit.com
Dreamweaver: My favourite Web authoring tool by Adobe: http://www.adobe.com/uk
Dudley Modern Foreign Languages Resource Centre: Bright Ideas Task Exchange site - free downloadable resources for teachers of Modern Foreign Languages and links to useful sites: http://www.edu.dudley.gov.uk/mfl
EBLUL: The European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages: http://www.eblul.org
Educational Jargon Generator: Stuck for a fine-sounding phrase for your thesis or report? Look no further: http://www.sciencegeek.net/lingo.html. Some examples: "to facilitate holistic curriculum integration", "to harness research-based differentiated lessons", "to expedite top-down staff development", "to synergize problem-based differentiated lessons". See also the The Postmodernism Generator.
E-Language: A resources wiki, created by Mark Pegrum, containing a wealth of information and resources for teachers and learners of languages: drills, quizzes, webquests, simulations, Web 2.0 in education, social networking, podcasting and virtual worlds: http://e-language.wikispaces.com
elearningeuropa: An initiative of the European Commission. A comprehensive portal on e-learning: articles, EC-funded programmes, tools and resources, etc: http://elearningeuropa.info
e-Learning Factory (ELF): The e-Learning Factory (ELF) is a concept developed by Lynn O'Neill, a CPD/ICT specialist with over 25 years experience of designing and delivering comprehensive training solutions within the UK education sector. ELF consists of experts in education, teacher training, the National Curriculum and ICT. The team provides a range of courses and support facilities to enable organisations and individual teachers and trainers to make effective and appropriate use of ICT in their teaching and training programmes: http://www.inevent.com/elf/
Encarta: Microsoft's online encyclopaedia. Useful articles, including a dictionary, thesaurus, atlas, quizzes and multimedia clicps: http://encarta.msn.com
english-4U: A website run by ESL teachers for ESL teachers. The site offers free, ready-to-use lesson plans in PDF format based on current news stories and lyrics of songs: http://www.english-4u.com
English-to-Go: This site produces a useful resource for English teachers, namely photocopiable lessons based around Reuters news articles. There is either a free lesson each week or you can subscribe to a library of lessons: http://www.english-to-go.com
ePals: A community of ePals in educational institutions all over the world. Useful for finding partners with whom to exchange emails: http://www.epals.com (Dead link? Under review.)
L'Escale: Lots of imaginative activities in French. Designed for young native speakers. Great authentic materials: http://www.lescale.net
ESLUSA: Useful information for students of EFL/ESL wishing to study in an English-speaking country. Links to the USA, Canada, the UK and Ireland: http://www.eslusa.org
Essentialist Explanations: A collection of amusing definitions of different languages in the form "Language X is essentially language Y under conditions Z". English is described thus: "English is essentially bad Dutch with outrageously pronounced French and Latin vocabulary." French is described thus: "French is essentially the first syllables of Latin words spoken with a headcold." See http://mercury.ccil.org/~cowan/essential.html
E-Strategy: In 2005 the UK government published a document entitled Harnessing technology: transforming learning and children's services. This document describes the UK government's E-Strategy, i.e. the use of digital and interactive technologies to achieve a more personalised approach within all areas of education and children's services: http://publications.dcsf.gov.uk
| EUROCALL: This is EUROCALL's website: http://www.eurocall-languages.org. EUROCALL is a professional association devoted to promoting the use of technology enhanced language learning. There is a wealth of information at the main website, with numerous links to publications and other sources of information. You can also join the EUROCALL Discussion List at: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/eurocall-members.html. I was the Founder President of EUROCALL (1993-2000). The current President is Ana Gimeno, Polytechnic University of Valencia. EUROCALL's sister association in the USA is CALICO. CALICO and EUROCALL are working in collaboration on setting up a Joint Virtual Worlds Special Interest Group (VW SIG): http://colanmc.siu.edu/virtualworlds/. EUROCALL organises an annual international conference that attracts participants from all over the world. The EUROCALL 2009 conference will take place in Gandía, Spain. EUROCALL now has a headquarters in Second Life (which is right next door to CALICO's HQ). Here is the SLURL of the front porch: http://slurl.com/secondlife/EduNation%20III/9/29/22/ |
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EUROMOBIL: A multimedia language learning and information project promoting student mobility in Europe. The website contains demo exercises from the CD-ROM as well as information on the partner countries and the EUROMOBIL project in general. English, German, Finnish and Hungarian are the target languages: http://www.euro-mobil.org
Euronews: A news round-up in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Arabic. This site is maintained by the Lyon-based Euronews company, which is now owned by ITN. The news is presented here from a European perspective: http://www.euronews.net
Europanto: The emerging new lingua franca of the European Union, an amusing mixture of several different European languages, the brainchild of of Diego Marani: http://www.europanto.be
European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML): The Council of Europe's centre in Graz, Austria. The ECML runs regular workshops for teachers of Modern Foreign Languages, including workshops on ICT. The website includes reports on past workshops, useful resources, and announcements of forthcoming activities: http://www.ecml.at
European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL): An internationally recognised qualification in ICT: http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=nav.5829. See also the ECDL for Educators, which is designed specifically to help teachers, support staff and ICT coordinators develop practical computing skills for teaching and learning in the classroom and leads to an internationally recognised level of certification: http://www.educatorsecdl.com
European Language Council: A professional association, set up with the aid of European Union funding, which aims to act as a forum and a lobby group: http://www.celelc.org. Includes a Policy Group on New Technologies and Language Learning. See also the related Thematic Network Project in the Area of Languages (TNP).
European Minority Languages: http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/saoghal/mion-chanain/en. Some of the languages listed here were completely new to me, e.g. Casubian and Nenets. Scots (Lallands/Lallans) and Ulster Scots (Ullans) have been recognised as languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages: http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/Treaties/Html/148.htm. My wife Sally is from Belfast. I had a few problems understanding my mother-in-law when we first met. I was fooled by the following expression that she used in a early conversation that we had: "Thon wee fellow fernenst me" = "The chap who lives opposite me". I love Ulster expressions such as "He got a quare gunk" and "Give my head peace", the latter being the title of a BBC Ulster sitcom: http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/gmhp/. Another example: "Laird Laird, Heich Executive o tha Ulster-Scotch Agencie, said Juin at he trows tha role o tha Agencie is uphauldan Ulster-Scotch feks, an no takan thaim owre. He eikit 'Ulster-Scotch maun be an inclusiv cultur, no an exclusiv. Bein inclusiv is whit bein Scotch-Airis bes'" - see http://www.ullans.com. See Minority Languages. See Accent, Dialect, Language.
European Quiz: A nice little quiz site (in French) with questions on a variety of topics: http://www.europe.learningtogether.net
European Railway Timetables: An interesting task for the language learner is to plan a journey by train, making use of authentic railway timetables. You can find details of most train numbers, connections and prices by consulting the websites of national railway networks. The three that I use most are Deutsche Bahn (Germany: http://www.bahn.de), ÖBB (Austria: http://www.oebb.at) and SNCF (France: http://www.sncf.fr), which can be consulted in English as well as in the national language. The Dutch Railways site at http://www.ns.nl is also very good for national and international connections. For the UK I tend to use the National Rail site, which - significantly - is available only in English: http://www.nationalrail.co.uk. Try planning a rail journey from Oxford to Munich or from Manchester to Brussels. The Deutsche Bahn website allows you to do this, detailing all connections and the time that should be allowed for using the London Underground between stations. The SNCF site is much more temperamental, offering less detail and falling over if there are too many connections or if you choose an unacceptable preferred departure time or date. According to National Rail, however, UK trains only connect with Eurostar trains departing from Waterloo: end of the line. I guess this is what happens when you set up a privatised railway network, which is barely capable of handling connections between the different private train services in the UK, let alone international connections.
European Schoolnet: The European Schoolnet is an international partnership of Ministries of Education developing learning for schools, teachers and pupils across Europe and beyond. It provides insight into the use of ICT in Europe for policy-makers and education professionals. This goal is achieved through communication and information exchange at all levels of school education using innovative technologies, and by acting as a gateway to national and regional school networks: http://www.eun.org
European Union: This is the European Union's homepage, with lots of multilingual links: http://europa.eu. The following pages will link you to some of the EU's key programmes and activities:
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E-valuate: A digital resources evaluation agency appointed by Curriculum Online. See also Schoolzone, another evaluation agency appointed by Curriculum Online. Both agencies charge exorbitant fees for evaluating software. A nice little earner! E-valuate is owned by The Guardian newspaper. Does this explain why The Guardian is so enthusiastic about Curriculum Online? Hmm... See: http://www.learnevaluations.co.uk
University of Exeter German Course for Beginners: This course, by Paul Joyce, is now located at the University of Portsmouth.
Filtering Software: Unfortunately, the Web is a jungle. You can be unpleasantly surprised by what you encounter. Children in particular need to be protected. If you maintain a links site in a school you should install filtering software, e.g. CyberPatrol: http://www.cyberpatrol.com. There could be legal repercussions, e.g. the parents of a child accessing an offensive site via a school's set of links might take action if they thought the school had been irresponsible. See my Dodgy links article at http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/DodgyLinks.htm
Flo-Joe: A resource for teachers and students preparing for the Cambridge First Certificate in English (FCE) and the Certificate in Advanced English (CAE). The site is maintained by a small team of teachers and coursebook authors and includes interactive practice tests, strategy training, a writing class and forums. The site is updated with new vocabulary every day: http://www.flo-joe.co.uk
FLTeach: Foreign Language Teaching Forum, an extensive set of resources for language teachers and students, maintained by the State University of New York College at Cortland: http://www.cortland.edu/flteach/
Foreign Language and Culture: Lots of links to language and culture all around the world: http://www.speakeasy.org/~dbrick/Hot/foreign.html
Le Français Fantastique: A website maintained by Marilyn Banack. Marilyn gathers together materials provided by teachers across North America and makes them available to other teachers via this site: http://home.ican.net/~marilyn
France-Jeunes Net: An information site and discussion forum for young people, covering topics such as: books, cinema, humour, music, people, sport, television, etc. Aimed at native speakers (and therefore authentic), but useful for teenage learners of French of any nationality: http://www.france-jeunes.net
FreeDict: Lists of online multilingual dictionaries in a variety of languages: http://www.freedict.com
FreeTranslation: Type a text and get it translated. Covers most European languages: http://www.freetranslation.com. It works - more or less! See also Babel Fish.
French Assistant: Free online materials for learners of French: http://www.frenchassistant.com
French by Podcast: This site is a good example of the direction in which we should be heading. The recordings are of high quality, professionally produced and backed up by useful downloadable printable materials: http://www.learnfrenchbypodcast.com
French Dictionary: A bilingual dictionary online: French to English and English to French, containing about 75,000 terms. A product of the ARTFL Project, University of Chicago: http://humanities.uchicago.edu/orgs/ARTFL/forms_unrest/FR-ENG.html. See also Dictionaries.
French Language Course: A basic French course created by Jacques Léon: http://www.jump-gate.com/languages/french
French - Learn French Free: Activities and games for learners of French: hangman, crosswords, matching, etc: http://www.lsfrench.com/beginners2.html
French Online: Free French lessons for beginners. Includes a conjugator for French verbs and an English-French Dictionary. Also includes ImTranslator: write in French listen to the sound output: http://www.frenchspanishonline.com/beginnersfrench/freefrench.html
FrenchTeacherNet: The site is maintained by Steven Smith Ripon Grammar School and aimed at anglophone French teachers looking for worksheets, links and interactive tasks: http://www.frenchteacher.net
French Verb Conjugations: Le Devoir conjugal is a package that conjugates over 7000 French verbs, i.e. the totality of those found in Robert and Bescherelle: http://www.pomme.ualberta.ca/devoir. Includes a number of less-frequently used verbs and Canadian French verbs. Part of the Pomme project, led by Martin Beaudoin at the University of Alberta. See also Verbix.
Fun with Texts: An authoring package for the automatic generation of text manipulation exercises. Lots of ready-made materials are already available: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/fwt.htm. See Authoring Programs.
fusée: See the Hodder & Stoughton link.
Futurelab: NESTA Futurelab simplified its name to Futurelab in April 2006. A high-tech educational initiative, working in partnership with industry policy and practice. Futurlab is beginning to become active in the area of ICT in Modern Foreign Languages and has produced the following articles and reports and articles. I do wish, however, that they would keep their feet on the ground. Some of the projects that they support are pie-in-the-sky stuff.
GapKit: An authoring package for the generation of gap-filling and multiple-choice exercises linked with pictures and audio files. Lots of ready-made materials are already available for GCSE examinations: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/gapkit.htm. See Authoring Programs.
German Electronic Textbook: Basic German grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary by Gary Smith, The College of William and Mary, USA: http://www.wm.edu/modlang/gasmit/german/
German for Travellers: A site which started out as an online German for Beginners course at the University of Victoria, Canada: http://www.germanfortravellers.com
German Spelling Reform: These sites are useful for information on the German Spelling Reform (Die neue Rechtschreibung), which came into effect on 1 August 1998:
German Steps: An online course from the BBC for beginners in German. I contributed to this course: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/german/lj
German Studies Trails on the Internet: A big collection of resources and links, compiled by Andreas Lixl , University of North Carolina at Greenboro.When does this man sleep? He must spend thousands of waking hours surfing the Web and hunting down resources for teachers and students of German - and other languages: http://www.uncg.edu/~lixlpurc/german_WWW/index.html
GlobalEnglish: Online courses for learners of EFL/ESL. Sample lessons and assignments are available free of charge: http://www.globalenglish.com
Glossary of Terminology: See the ICT for Language Teachers website for a comprehensive Glossary of Terminology - both technical and CALL terms: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_glossary.htm
Steve Glover: Check out Steve's Really Useful German Site: http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/haberg/reallyusefulge/default.htm. See also Bof!
GoAnimate: Make your own animations: http://goanimate.com. See the Perfect Tense (French) animation, "Le weekend dernier": http://goanimate.com/go/movie/0NnfTGpxHT5c/1
Goethe-Institut:
The Goethe-Institut maintains and sponsors a number of websites. http://www.goethe.de
- Jetzt, a site maintained by Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen. German
for advanced learners and tips for teachers:
http://www.goethe.de/z/jetzt/
- Goethe-Institut London:
Lots of useful links for teachers and learners of German: http://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/lon/deindex.htm
The Good Practice Guide: A guide to good practice for learning and teaching in Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies. Located at the website of the Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies (LLAS), University of Southampton. Contains a collection of commissioned articles written by recognised authorities in their field and reviewed by an editorial board. Browse the guide by author name or subject (e.g. CALL, an article by Graham Davies): http://www.llas.ac.uk/resources/guidecontents.aspx
Google: An efficient search engine, and currently the most popular on the Web. It's my personal favourite. Simple to use and very fast. I've had a lot of luck with Google - and it finds the Camsoft homepage almost immediately! Try the "I'm feeling lucky" button, which homes in on the site that is most likely to fulfil your needs. You can also search for images and news items in the world's press. Two other useful features of Google: (i) type "define:" immediately in front of a word and Google will search for definitions of that word; (ii) type "link:" immediately in front of a URL and Google will find Web pages that link to that URL. Google's UK homepage is at http://www.google.co.uk. Try Google's Language Tools at http://www.google.co.uk/language_tools and search the Web in a variety of different languages. Google also offers a basic automatic translation service - not 100% accurate but it will give you an idea of what the text or website is all about.
Graham Davies: Click here to find out more about me: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/cvgd.htm. You'll find links to all the online articles that I have written at: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/freestuff.htm
Grammar Checkers: Free online grammar checkers for English at http://spellcheckplus.com and French at http://bonpatron.com
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Greyhounds: I've always been a greyhound fan, and an owner of retired racing greyhounds for over 20 years. Greyhounds make lovely pets. Here (right) is a photo of our own "Swifty" who, like all our previous greyhounds, raced at Wimbledon before he retired and was adopted by us from the Greyhound Welfare kennels in Hersham, Surrey: http://www.hershamhounds.org There is a YouTube video of him too (below). You'll find lots of information about racing greyhounds, including the pedigree of "Swifty" under his racing name "Groovy Guzi" at http://www.greyhound-data.com See also: http://www.retiredgreyhounds.co.uk and http://www.grwe.co.uk. The greyhound is the only dog mentioned by breed name in The Bible: Proverbs 30:29-31. |
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The Guardian: See http://www.guardian.co.uk. This used to be my personal favourite English-language newspaper, but I've gone off it a bit since it got involved so closely with E-valuate, an evaluation agency appointed by Curriculum Online.
Gutenberg: The Project Gutenberg is a huge archive of free books which are in the public domain: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page. Many of the audio texts stored at the LibriVox website are based on the versions stored in electronic format by the Project Gutenberg.
HangOut: A website that enables you to create and customise your own 3D room, where you can hang out with your friends: http://www.hangout.net
Hemera Clipart: http://www.hemera.com. See Clipart.
History of CALL: Philippe Delcloque's History of CALL began as a poster exhibition that was produced to mark the beginning of the new millennium. It was then set up as a website (now closed) and is now available in PDF format: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/History_of_CALL.pdf
Hodder & Stoughton: A very useful site that ties in with the Hodder & Stoughton fusée French course is fusée en ligne. Contains useful ICT activities and links.
Horizonte Language Institute, Regensburg: Useful materials and links for learners and teachers of German, relating to German language, literature and culture: http://www.horizonte.com/englisch/community/comm_language_corner.shtml
Hot Potatoes: See: http://hotpot.uvic.ca. A suite of five Web authoring tools for language teachers, written by Martin Holmes and Stewart Arneil at the University of Victoria, Canada. Create your own Web exercises in Windows or Mac format: i. Multiple-choice quizzes, ii. Jumbled sentences, iii. Short-answer questions, iv. Gap-fill exercises, v. Crosswords. A library of Clipart for use with Hot Potatoes and other authoring tools is available at the University of Victoria site: http://hcmc.uvic.ca/clipart/. See also Quandary, another product from the Holmes/Arneil team. See Authoring Programs.
HTML Code Tutorial: A helpful and very comprehensive guide to creating Web pages: http://www.HTMLCodeTutorial.com
Hugo's Podcasts: Podcasts in French and Spanish by Hugo, a ventriloquist's dummy skilfully animated by Stuart Gorse, The Royal Grammar School, Lancaster: http://hugowho.podomatic.com
University of Hull: Former seat of EUROCALL and the CTI Centre for Modern Languages - a former partner in the ICT for Language Teachers project. The University of Hull offers an MEd in ICT for TESOL - see Courses.
Human Languages Page: Now known as iLoveLanguages, a comprehensive guide to language-related Web sites. Tyler Chambers (né Jones) is a great gatherer of information about foreign languages. You’ll find these pages worth a visit: http://www.ilovelanguages.com
IALLT: The US-based International Association for Language Learning Technology. Established in 1965, this professional association changed its official name from IALL to IALLT in May 2001: http://www.iallt.org. IALLT is dedicated to promoting effective uses of media centres for language teaching, learning, and research. The equivalent European association is CERCLES.
IATEFL: The UK-based International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language: http://www.iatefl.org. IATEFL embraces a Special Interest Group for Learning Technologies - formerly known as the Computer SIG and formerly known as MUESLI (Micro Users in ESL Institutions): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LearningTechnologiesSIG/. See also TESOL, the US-based association.
i-c@fé: A fresh and innovative website for students and teachers of French, German and Spanish, maintained by Oxford University Press. It includes regular online magazines for 11-16 year olds, i-c@fé français, Deutsch and español, packed full of interesting articles and interactive activities, and a separate area for teachers: http://www.oup.com/uk/i-cafe/
ICAL: An organisation that offers online courses in TEFL / TESL: http://www.icalweb.com
ICT for Language Teachers (ICT4LT): http://www.ict4lt.org. This is the website of the ICT for Language Teachers (ICT4LT) project, initiated with funding under the Socrates programme of the European Union. ICT4LT is a Web-based course in Information and Communications Technology for Language Teachers. The site consists of 15 modules at three different levels, plus an additional module on Computer Aided Assessment (CAA). The site also contains a comprehensive Glossary of Terminology, a Resources Centre and over 1000 links to other sites. The ICT4LT blog can be found at: http://ictforlanguageteachers.blogspot.com. Access to the ICT for Language Teachers website and blog is free of charge. The English language version of the site is updated every week by Graham Davies. The original partners in this project were Thames Valley University (coordinating institution), University of Hull (UK), CILT (UK), University of Venice (Italy), University of Jyväskylä (Finland). A positive review of the ICT4LT website, by Jean W. LeLoup & Robert Ponterio, appears in the online journal, Language Learning & Technology 8, 1 (January 2004): 3-7: http://llt.msu.edu/vol8num1/net/default.html
Illustrated Vocabulary: Around 500 basic words of vocab in English, French, Dutch and Danish. Simple multiple-choice exercises with pictures. Institut de la Providence, Belgium: http://www.illustratedvocabulary.ip-providence.net
iLoveLanguages: Formerly known as the Human Languages Page, a comprehensive guide to language-related Web sites. Tyler Chambers (né Jones) is a great gatherer of information about foreign languages. You’ll find these pages worth a visit: http://www.ilovelanguages.com
Institut für Interkulturelle Kommunikation (IIK): Offers language courses, language tests and puzzles, teacher training. Develops multimedia software for business language in German, French, Spanish and Danish. Lists a variety of German-language search engines. A handy site: http://www.iik.com
Institute of Education: The PGCE Modern Foreign Languages Web Pages by Norbert Pachler contain a rich bank of Web-based resources for French, German, Spanish and Italian: http://www.ioe.ac.uk/schools/clc/pachler/pgcemfl/indexnew.html. The resources include links to online authentic as well as didactically prepared material, information provided by organisations, bodies and institutions in the field and articles and guidelines about pedagogical issues. The aim of these pages is to help beginning teachers develop necessary ICT skills as well as learn about the potential of the Internet as a teaching and learning aid. The Institute of Education offers an MA in TESOL that contains a module in Technology and Language Teaching and Learning: http://www.ioe.ac.uk/schools/clc/ma-tesol/technology/. I have taught on this course.
The Institute of Linguists: The UK-based association for the languages profession: http://www.iol.org.uk
Interactive Whiteboards - Training for Learning: Ideas and materials for using interactive whiteboards in the Modern Foreign Languages Classroom, created by Wendy Adenji: http://www.trainingforlearning.co.uk/links/modern_languages.htm. See also Section 4 (Whole-class teaching and interactive whiteboards) of Module 1.4 at the ICT4LT website: Whole-class teaching and interactive whiteboards: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod1-4.htm#anchor12058
InterDeutsch: Online materials for learners of German - fee-paying: http://www.interdeutsch.de
Interlex: A free vocab acquisition package by Andrew Quilley. It supports several different languages, is easy to use, comes with lots of ready-made vocab files, and students can write their own files to test the words they want to learn. The website also lists lots of useful links and has a file swap area where users can post the files they have created and share resources with other learners: http://www.vocab.co.uk. See Vocabulary.
Internet for Learning Languages: http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/he/tutorial/langs. See also Bernard Moro's Web Literacy site.
Internet Learning Centre: A mine of information about the Internet, compiled by Walt Howe. An ideal introduction for beginners, divided into different sections: Internet Learning Tree, History of the Internet, Internet and Web Glossary, Navigating the Net, Publishing on the Web: http://www.walthowe.com
Intute: Intute is a free online service providing access to a wide range of Web resources for education and research. The service is created by a network of UK universities and partners: http://www.intute.ac.uk
Japanese, Monash University: This site (Sakura) is designed for students of Japanese language of Monash University in Australia, but it is also available for general use: http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/japanese/resources/sakura/
Japanese Online: A useful
site for learners of Japanese. Since 1996, Japanese Online has been providing
free learning services to people who wish to study the Japanese language. This
service was later expanded to include Japanese mathematics and a very popular
forum/bulletin board service:
http://www.japanese-online.com
JClic: JClic is a freeware application, developed by Francesc Busquets, for the development of multimedia activities for language learners. With JClic you can create different types of activities: puzzles, associations, crosswords, identification activities, exploration actitivities, open-ended answers, multiple choice, etc: http://clic.xtec.net/en/jclic/index.htm. See Authoring Programs.
Jennifer's Language Page: Jennifer seems to spend all her time collecting words and phrases in different languages. She lists languages that I had never heard about before. I found a link to over 300 different ways of saying "Merry Christmas" here: http://www.elite.net/~runner/jennifers/.
Jeopardy: A computerised version of the TV quiz show. Free software that enables you to build questions on any subject you like, including questions in foreign languages: http://stuhasic.com/jeopardy
Le Jeu de l'Oie: Activities for learners of French in a game format: http://jeudeloie.free.fr
JISCMail: A mailing list service that facilitates discussion, collaboration and communication within the UK academic community and beyond. You can now join all kinds of useful discussion lists and follow the threads at this site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk
Joe Dale: Joe is the author of the blog entitled Integrating ICT into the Modern Foreign Languages Classroom at http://joedale.typepad.com. This covers a variety of topics relating to the teaching of foreign languages, especially blogging, podcasting and using interactive whiteboards.
John Higgins: One of the veterans of CALL and co-author of the first two CILT publications on CA
