Integrating Technology in Foreign Language Instruction/ESL

I love ESLvideo! This tool takes advantage of embeddable video content, allowing a teacher to grab for example a YouTube video and incorporate that into a learning activity. The teacher finds a video in the language they are teaching, copies the "embed source" code, pastes that into their ESLvideo activity,  then writes comprehension questions about that specific video. Students watch the video and answer the teachers' questions. What a great way to test comprehension of a foreign language or English, and to keep students engaged at the same time.

MyStickies is a tool that allows users to mark-up any Web page with a virtual sticky note. After installing the extension, users press the Alt key on their computer and drag on the browser screen to create a new sticky note. Accumulated notes are stored in the user's account page with a link back to the originating web pages. A foreign language instructor could create a single account in MyStickies and send students to different foreign language newspapers or online publications. Students could then use MyStickies to translate the written foreign language into English. Finally, the teacher could access all student notes via the account page, and as long as students sign their notes, assess their individual performance.

Foreign language and ESL instructors can use iTunes or other RSS aggregators to subscribe to foreign language podcasts, helping their students with listening comprehension. Some instructional podcasts are available, providing recurring lessons on different topics. For example, BBC podcasts can be found through the iTunes podcast directory including the following ESL podcasts: 6 Minute English, Grammar Challenge, Talk About English, and Real English. I was recently looking for podcasts through iTunes on Spanish and found four: Insta Spanish Lessons, Notes in Spanish, Spanish Arriba's Podcast, and Spanish Phrase of the Day.

The BBC provides these extensive resources on Learning English, including many interactive exercises for students to practice skills (e.g., crossword puzzles). Lesson plans are available for teachers at the bottom of the home page.

The Flat Classroom Project unites schools in different parts of the world and uses Web 2.0 communication tools for students to discuss Friedman's book, The World is Flat.

Social networks have gotten some bad press in education from sites like MySpace and FaceBook where users post explicit content and the random predator is captured lurking in the background. While safety is a concern, there are education-related social networks like VoxSwap that allow users to communicate with others in a language they are learning. Practicing conversational skills with real persons may help to promote engagement and motivation.

This instructor at a university in Japan has leveraged multimedia production to help his students learn English. Remember earlier in the semester when we talked about constructionism or learning a topic by preparing media-rich presentations for consumption by others?

eduFire is a site that links students learning a foreign language with live tutors over the internet who they can watch pronounce words and interact with. There is a fee charged for this service, but there might be a way to get students in different countries interacting in a similar way in support of one another. What two-way audio-video tools might allow this?