I will start talking about the websites devoted to grammar. The Punctilious website contains an extent list of grammatical issues, as well as a guide to writing and composition. It offers very detailed information about many different grammar points, together with interactive activities related to the topics presented. Users can access theses exercises either from the theoretical section to which they relate to or from the index page by clicking on Quizzes. Moreover, these quizzes are connected to the section of the guide pertaining to the grammatical issue(s) addressed to in that quiz by a link that appears immediately before the quiz’s name. I find this system very useful, since students can revise the grammar point by doing the activity, and if they have any doubt, they can go and check on the explanation given. On the other hand, the fact that this website does not offer a printable version of the exercises is not very convenient since this makes it more difficult for teachers to make use of this website outside the computer room. However, it is also true that we can just copy the quiz and paste it on a word document and use it in a regular class.
The second website I have been exploring is the English page.com. Although I find this web less thorough than the Punctilious website, I like the idea of the weekly lesson changing every certain period of time. It is a useful tool for the days we do not have much time to prepare our class. I have also found very interesting and convenient the “English Reading Room”, section in which we can practise reading different types of authentic materials, from magazines to online books. This website contains many “multiple choice exercises” which are very useful to revise different grammatical aspects. On the other hand, this website uses the grammatical material, mostly theory, but also some exercises, from the Punctilious and a4esl what makes me prefer those two websites when trying to get a grammatical explanation.
The third website I am going to comment on is the a4esl, which offers a collection of online exercises. What I find most interesting is the fact that this website divides the activities according to their level of difficulty, what I think is something very important, and that the other websites have not taken into account. I think English the easy way is the most convenient website to use with lower level students since the explanations are more straightforward, and it still offers some exercises.
When looking at the writing websites, I noticed a big difference in the levels of the three websites; I would say the “Owl Purdue online writing lab” is for groups with a higher level of English, while “English the easy way” is, as its own name indicates, easier to manage and to use, at least from my point of view. The “Punctilious” website offers a big amount of information, but I think that at some points that is not very practical for the teacher, for instance when we do not have all the time we wish to prepare a class, and we need something that goes more straight to the point we are aiming to.
The listening websites we have had a look at in class have been very revealing to me since I did not know anything about them, and therefore could not give them any use. “PodOmatic” is very useful because it gives us access to a very wide variety of podcasts we can listen to in our classes, as well as the possibility to “Become a follower” of the podcasts we are more interested in and then receiving updates when they publish a new episode. It is also interesting the language courses they offer, that can be also used in our lessons for specific purposes. Besides, it allows us to record and publish our own podcasts, a very good way to practice and improve our students’ pronunciation, as well as ours. The “National Geographic” website is also a very helpful source of listening material, with the advantage of the videos included. I think this website is very attractive, not only because of the topics and the videos, but also because it is authentic. Moreover, we can use the news items included in the “Daily news” section and practice reading. On the other hand, I do not think I would use the “TVonline” web because I think it is very difficult to find something interesting and once you do, it would be very time consuming to give our students the instructions to find it by themselves. Neither found I the “focusenglish.com” very helpful because it only offers us a very limited range of sentences, although it is also true that we can take examples from it and use them to complete other exercises. To end up with the listening section, I will comment on “qualitytime-esl” website, which is the one I found most interesting. It offers a wide variety of listening exercises for pre-intermediate or intermediate students we can easily use in our classes. They have three sections; My English, in which we can practice some helpful everyday topics of basic spoken English, such us introducing ourselves, or “small talk”. Another section is the “5-minute-TOPs” which is based on famous lyrics and quotes from well-known songs to practice structures. So they state the structure and give us different songs or quotes we can use to practice it. Besides, on this website we can also find some of the scripts of the podcasts.
The last websites I am going to comment on are the reading websites. I have been looking at the three reading websites we have in our list and I believe the three of them are very good. I think the “ESLmonkey” is for lower level students and the other two for higher courses. It is very helpful the fact that two of these websites contain listening activities so that we can offer our students a more complete lesson with a more intensive practice of the four skills.
On the right hand side column I have included these links and some more.
Marian Hidalgo
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