BBC Learning English

“Heffel also known as the language lady welcome back to my channel if you're new here I want to let you know that I make weekly teaching tips for teachers of English language learners and if this is a topic fitness of interest to you I welcome you to hit the subscribe button and the notification bill so you don't miss a weekly teaching video I also want to let you know that all the websites mentioned in today's video will be linked in the description below so without further ado let's hop into today's video one of the challenges that I found with online teaching is not being able to have that one-on-one contact in person with my students to provide the support that they need with learning English in this video I know that I could have covered so many other websites but I wanted to be able to talk about the ones that works for my class and before I begin I'm curious if you could mention in the comment section below which websites works for your students also I would love to hear your thoughts about whether you agree with my choices for effective English websites as well as my top pick for English language learners okay so for my shortlist in no particular order we have busuu duolingo lyrics training and BBC learning English okay so the first one I'm going to talk about is called busuu busuu is an all-in-one English learning website that can also be downloaded on your phone that allows your students to interact with the English language through listening speaking reading and writing each lesson begins with vocabulary cards that they will hear the correct pronunciation for and then they get to repeat afterwards and then there are exercises that they can use these vocabulary words in context where there's listening reading writing and speaking involved there's also a paid version where you're able to assign and schedule assignments and follow up with your students progress you can do that with a free version but it won't be laid out for you like it would in the paid version in the free version you're going to be setting an account for every individual student you want to use their school email address if they don't have one that you can go ahead and use a personal one another option is to share a link after you have signed up yourself and that way your students can link up with you and then you're able to continue check on their progress the other way to check on their progress is to keep track of all your students username and password so you can enter as them and check up on their work the next English teaching site is called duolingo and there's also a free and a paid version for this website in the free version you're able to set up an account for your students your students as they sign in will type what language they speak so that the directions are in their native language to ease them into transitioning to see more and more in the target language as they increase in levels the exercises have they listen to audio words and sentences and they are asked to write with the hear in the target language and at times in their native language there are even exercises while they're here something said and then they'll have to write down what they think they've heard so it really forces them to listen to the sounds of the words as well as to write the words correctly the overall format looks like a game so it's easy for students to feel like that they're in a competition with themselves and more more inclined to want to practice you can set how long students practice English daily I recommend the 20 minutes in points low daily as it's a great compliment to whatever work you've already assigned for them during that day without making them feel too overwhelmed next on my list is lyrics and training this is an incredible website that I recently discovered to help my students and they love this because it allows them to listen to popular music that they really enjoy this one website lets you test your skills by typing and missing words as thus all of your choice play section by section you can challenge yourself from easy to hard there are two modes in this platform and that you can have your students fill in the actual work that has to be written or you can use a choice mode which is especially nice for beginner and as well as for newcomer students there's a custom mode that you can assign your students that already comes with pre-selected words that are highlighted but you can also choose which words you want them to be able to write based on maybe a topic or a theme that you're working on with your students whether it's verbs in the past or subject pronouns and things of that nature last online list is BBC learning english in cbc learning english your students have the opportunity to practice such skills like grammar vocabulary and pronunciation and there's even an introductory taxa thing they can take to determine what level is most appropriate for them so it goes all the way from lower intermediate intermediate upper intermediate as well as advanced aren't you gonna talk about the bonus website you know why don't you plan to tell them about will I ever get to get through a video without you interrupting yes there is a fifth website that I want to share with you that is called learning English the English a lot like BBC English has different modules for your beginners your intermediate and your advanced students one of my favorite features within learning English is if they have a segment called nudes words and what they do is that they highlight something that's happening in the world and they will highlight a specific vocabulary word and the student is allowed to repeat it seating context and learn more about that with video and give providing more support and scaffold so the student can understand the deep meaning of that word they're constantly updating the news so it's not only allowing them to learn English but they're also being able to apply it in practical ways in the world around them another feature is that any article that you select within learning English allows you to see vocabulary words in context so you'll watch a video or read a short article and then at the end of the article are the highlighted vocabulary words that they are going to be learning about in that article so if you want to start off with a game or some type of activity to warm them up to these particular words and then you're able to dive into the actual article with your students or the video if you're not sure on how to introduce vocab words to your students make sure to check out this video with some helpful tools that might help you with your lesson planning okay so here's a part of the video where I share it with you what my top pick was so drum roll my top pick for English website out of all these resources was really hard because all of them had different aspects that I really enjoyed but I must say that it was BBC learning english and the reason why I chose this was because of all the different features would allow them to speak to read to write and I also like the fact that they're able to get tested before they start to level out to see specifically what level they are but in all honestly all of these resources are very helpful I've found different components of each website helpful for my students and I really do hope that they help yours as well if you're looking for more resources for your classroom make sure to check out these videos and I'll see you next week for more tips strategies or resources through the English language learners in your classroom”