Open CALL Resources for the 4 Skill Areas

Introduction:

In Curt Bonk’s book, the World is Open, he details the vast potential and current uses of open and high-access technologies for learning.  Whereas the use of the term “open” began with software development, it is now connected to much more.  Open is used to refer to many types of easy to access and free to use resources from software to academic journals to learning objects. “Open” is as much of a philosophy as a business plan.  

In this talk, I use the term “open” to refer to any number of free, freemium (free + premium), and Creative Commons resources.  Not all of these resources are entirely free, but the options I will detail are free (at least to teachers).  I feel that access to and support for these resources are important not only because they do not cost teachers/students a lot to use, but also because the philosophy is at the heart of education.  Education should be education for all and not only those who can afford it.

Below, I will talk about accessible, open resources that can be used to aid instruction of the 4 skills areas, some can be used best in the classroom and others as homework/self-study.  All of these will require your creativity and knowledge of your students in order to best be applied to your particular circumstances.  

Only a view of the ones I will talk about are Korean companies (though more than a few have Korean interfaces).  One thing I always suggest to teachers it to try to engage your students where they are at, rather than trying to lead them where you would like them to go.  If there are local services similar to those we will talk about today, I would like to hear about them from you and I encourage you to consider using them with your students.

Reading:

The Web was invented for text and there is no lack of reading material out there.  Teachers can use the Web as their library.  Everything from news to books to folk tales can keep you and your student busy.  In addition, there are a few resources that have advantages that paper materials don’t.

• News

• Breaking News English (http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/): Specially made for ESL students. Short news items to read and hear.
• Google News (http://news.google.com): Great selection of news items from across the Web.
• Voice of America Special English section (http://www.voanews.com/learningenglish/home/): Authentic news items picked especially for language learners. Stories can be both read and listened to.
• National Public Radio (NPR)(http://www.npr.org/): This is a U.S. public radio station with many different audio programs from news to music to food.  All of which, can be listened to online.
  

• Books

• Google Books (http://books.google.com/): Large collection of free books as well as the ability to search millions of books.
• International Children’s Digital Library (http://en.childrenslibrary.org/): Online library featuring children’s books
• Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/): Huge collection of eBooks.
  

• Comics

• MangaReader.net (http://www.mangareader.net/): Free, online manga in English.
• MangaFox (http://www.mangafox.com/): Free, online manga in English.
• Online Comics (http://www.onlinecomics.net): Listing of online comics.
  

• Karaoke

• KaraokeParty (http://www.karaokeparty.com): This is an amazing karaoke site. You’ll be shocked how good it is.
• EFL Classroom 2.0 Kids Karaoke Korner (http://eflclassroom.ning.com/page/kids-karaoke-korner): Nice collection of children’s karaoke songs.
  

• Blogs

• ESL Blog (http://www.infosquares.com/eslblog):
• BBC Learning English Blog (http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/communicate/blog/teacher) 

Listening:

The number of services focusing on audio and video content have exploded in recent years.  As Internet speeds increase, we get more of our entertainment online.  In addition to TV shows and movies, there are also services that provide instructional materials and pronunciation aids to complement the A/V.

• Lesson sites

• Listen a Minute (http://listenaminute.com/): Large collection of listening texts with transcripts and instructional activities.
• ELLLO - English Listening Library Online (http://www.elllo.org/): This is a great site with lots of recording, transcripts, and instructional materials made for language learners.
• Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab (http://www.esl-lab.com): One of the oldest listening sites on the Web. It’s not flashy, but it does have many recordings with listening comprehension quizzes.
• English Conversations (http://englishconversations.org/): Contains a variety of listening texts and transcripts.  This site as a good variety of natural conversations.
  

• Podcasts

• ESLpod (http://www.eslpod.com): Extensive collection of free podcasts with available learning materials (cost for some features)
• Grammar Girl (http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com): Great podcast on issues of grammar aimed at native speakers, but great for learners as well.
• The Daily English Show (http://a4esl.org/tdes): Great collection of video podcasts complete with transcripts.
  

• Video sites

• YouTube (http://www.youtube.com): Of course, the biggest of all video sites has to be in your teacher’s toolbox.
• English Central (http://www.englishcentral.com/): Remarkable site that has videos with variable speed listening, captioning, pronunciation evaluation, and more.
• Movie Segments to Assess Grammar Goals (http://www.moviesegmentstoassessgrammargoals.blogspot.com/): This is a blog that matches movie clips with grammar instruction.
• ESL Video.com (http://www.eslvideo.com): Videos with short comprehension quizzes.
• dot Sub (http://dotsub.com/): Videos can can be subtitled in many languages. If it is not in the language you want, you can do it yourself.
• Real English (http://www.real-english.com/): Good collection of videos with a focus on grammar (not direct instruction) and vocabulary/topics.
  

• Radio

• TBS eFM (http://tbs.seoul.kr): Local Korean radio programming in English.
  

• Stories

• MeeGenius (http://www.meegenius.com/): Stories read by professionals along with the text.
• Repeat after Us (http://www.repeatafterus.com): Children’s stories narrated by volunteers.
• Online Audio Stories (http://www.onlineaudiostories.com/): Small collection of narrated stories for children.
  

• News

• Breaking News English (http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/): Specially made for ESL students. Short news items to read and hear.
• Voice of America Special English section (http://www.voanews.com/learningenglish/home/): Authentic news items picked especially for language learners. Stories can be both read and listened to.
• National Public Radio (NPR)(http://www.npr.org/): This is a U.S. public radio station with many different audio programs from news to music to food.  All of which, can be listened to online.
  

• Sounds of English

• The Speech Accent Archive (http://accent.gmu.edu/): Great collection of different English accents.
• One Stop English - Phonemic Chart (http://www.onestopenglish.com/upload/public/attachments/37/osephonemicchart.swf): Listen to the sounds of the English language.
  

• Dictation

• Listen and Write (http://www.listen-and-write.com/): Great site that has listening texts and dictation.
• Chuala (http://www.chuala.com): Spoken dictionary with pronunciation recording and comparison.
  

• Text-to-Speech

• iSpeech (http://www.ispeech.org/): Easy to use service for turning text into speech.
• Read the Words (http://www.readthewords.com/): Simple, text box entry, TTS.
• Text-to-Speech (http://text-to-speech.imtranslator.net/): Simple text-to-speech service, though it can be difficult to navigate around all of the advertisements.

Writing:

As with reading, writing is a natural match for the Web.  Gone are the days when you had to write HTML code to publish online.  These days, it’s as easy as using your word processor...in fact there are online word processors like the one I wrote this handout on (Google Docs).  Put writing is more than just static text now; it is interactive.

• Comics/Animation

• Make Beliefs Comics (http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/): Nice, simple comic creator.
• The Super Hero Squad Show (http://superherosquad.marvel.com/cyoc): Marvel comic characters comic strip (or book) creator.
• Devolver (http://www.dfilm.com/live/home.html): Easy way to make an animated movie with text scripts.
• Go!Animate (http://goanimate.com): Great animation service that enables you to both use text as well as voice. Sample
  

• Blogs

• Blogger (http://www.blogger.com)
• WordPress (http://wordpress.com)
• Tumblr (http://www.tumblr.com/)
• Posterous (http://www.posterous.com)

• Microblogging

• Twitter (http://www.twitter.com)
• Me2Day (http://me2day.net/): This is a Korean microblogging service owned by Naver.
  

• Chat

• NateOn (http://nateonweb.nate.com/): The most popular Korean chat client.
• Meebo (http://www.meebo.com): This service enables you to log into many different chat services at once.  It also lets you add chat to your Web pages.
• Facebook (http://www.facebook.com): Quickly becoming one of the most used chat clients.
  

• Pen Pals (email)

• ePals (http://www.epals.com/): Find pen pals.
• InterPals (http://www.interpals.net/): Find pen pals.
  

• Discussion Forums

• Yuku (http://www.yuku.com): Create your own discussion forums.
• Tangler (http://www.tangler.com): Create your own discussion forums.
• UsingEnglish (http://www.usingenglish.com/forum): Very active language learning discussion forum.  Learners can ask questions and receive answers from other participants.  Many are high-quality responses.
• English Club (http://www.englishclub.com/esl-forums): Very active language learning discussion forum. Learners can ask questions and receive answers from other participants.  Many are high-quality responses.
  

• Collaborative Writing

• Wikispaces (http://www.wikispaces.com): Good wiki. Popular with teachers.
• WetPaint (http://www.wetpaint.com): Good, easy to use wiki.
• Google Docs (http://docs.google.com): Online word process that allows for collaborative writing and well as sharing documents to select peope and as public Web pages.

Speaking:

There still aren’t too many ways to practice speaking online, but the offerings are growing.  The Web is now our telephone, answering machine, and the place where we publish our own audio and video recordings.  

• VoIP

• Skype (http://www.skype.com): The largest telephone company in the world. Skype allows you to speak with others around the world using audio, video, and text for free (if both are using the computer program).  This is a great service for getting foreign speakers into your classroom.
  

• Voice Chat

• Group voice chat

• Voxli (https://voxli.com): Allows you to speak to 200 people in one voice chat room.
• TalkShoe (http://www.talkshoe.com): Can join public discussions or start one of your own.

• Messenger clients with voice chat

• Gtalk (http://talk.google.com)
• MSN Messenger (http://explore.live.com/windows-live-messenger?os=other)
• Yahoo! Messenger (http://messenger.yahoo.com/)
  

• Podcasts

• Voxopop (http://www.voxopop.com): record a question for students and they can all leave an audio response.
• Blip.tv (http://www.blip.tv): Watch or record and broadcast your own video.
• Ustream (http://www.ustream.tv): Broadcast live video.
  

• Misc

• English Central (http://www.englishcentral.com/): Remarkable site that has videos with variable speed listening, captioning, pronunciation evaluation, and more.
• VoiceThread (http://www.voicethread.com): Students can create or respond to pictures, audio, or text presentations.

Social Networks:

Social networks help us to contact and communicate with people who share our same interests.  From general social networking sites to ones that specialize in language learning, there are more opportunities than ever to connect with like-minded people.

• Facebook (http://www.facebook.com): The largest general social network in the world.
• LiveMocha (http://www.livemocha.com): Social network focused on learning with some instructional content and a number of instructional and communication functions.
• italki (http://www.italki.com): Social network focused on language learning.

Open Courseware:

Do you want to take a course from MIT or Berkely?  Many people who never would have had the chance to do so can now get at least a little bit of that experience.  Open courseware is a movement that began a few years ago.  Universities and other organizations began offering there course materials online.  The quality differs from school to school and course to course, but there are an incredible number of courses that you and your students can benefit from.

• MIT Open Courseware (http://ocw.mit.edu): Large collection of MIT courses complete with syllabi, lecture notes, and even some lectures and other class materials.

• Listening, Speaking, & Pronunciation

• Open Courseware Consortium (http://www.ocwconsortium.org/): Great way to search through available courses from many universities. The quality and materials differ greatly, but there are a lot of good resources here.
• Open Content.org (http://www.opencontent.org): Another great way to search through many universities’ offerings.

* Additional annotated list of tools available at: http://tinyurl.com/knou-webresources (Halloween theme), http://tinyurl.com/connectionsworkshop (Connections Workshop)

* Interesting list of 100 websites for teaching/learning: http://www.onlinedegree.net/100-essential-2-0-tools-for-teachers