English on the Rocks

Si tienes interés por trabajar recursos y ejercicios prácticos en inglés relacionados con la gramática, el léxico (vocabulario, falsos amigos, diferencias entre inglés americano y británico, slang...), curiosidades sobre la lengua y hasta un repertorio de canciones esta página podría responder a tus necesidades a través de sus muy diversos materiales, especialmente orientados al público de habla castellana.

En Twitter: https://twitter.com/EnglishOTR

En Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/englishontherocks

En Google+: https://plus.google.com/+EnglishOTR/posts

Canal en YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/EnglishOTR

Visita: http://www.englishontherocks.com/

The Origins of the English Language

The following TED-Ed Lesson by Claire Bowern, a linguistics professor at Yale, explores the origins of the English language in a very visual way.

Additional resources for classroom use (guided discussions, multiple choice and open answer questions) are available on http://ed.ted.com/lessons/where-did-english-come-from-claire-bowern

Timeglo.be

Developed by Misha Wagner, with the help of Joe Groocock and based on an idea by Hoagy Cunningham, Timeglo.be uses data from Wikipedia and Dbpedia to show the location of over 20,000 historical events on an interactive 3D globe. 

You can search for events by date and by key words. More detailed information on Wikipedia is also provided, 

This resource lets you explore the history of the world in a very visual way. Very interesting tool for History teachers in CLIL programmes. 

https://timeglo.be/

Improve your Writing (University of Bristol)

Interesting resource with explanations and exercises intended to form a comprehensive guide to using English grammar and avoiding common writing mistakes.

Each point of grammar has an explanation and a related exercise or exercises. The explanation sections contain several examples.

The website also includes a section about ways of improving your writing style.

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/exercises/grammar/grammar_tutorial/index.htm

The Academic Phrasebank

Designed primarily for academic and scientific writers who are non-native speakers of English, the Academic Phrasebank is a general resource for academic writers provided by the University of Manchester. It aims to offer examples of some useful phrases which might kick start your writing and thinking.

The phrases are mostly content neutral and generic. They are organised according to the main sections of a research paper or dissertation (Referring to Sources, Describing Methods, Reporting Results, Discussing Findings, Writing Conclusions).

Other phrases are listed under the more general communicative functions of academic writing (Being Critical, Being Cautious, Classifying and Listing, Compare and Contrast, Defining Terms, Describing Trends, Describing Quantities, Explaining Causality, Giving Examples, Signalling Transition, and Writing about the Past).

http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/

Energy Kids. All about energy in English

Energy Kids is a student-friendly website hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The site includes a variety of information and activities about energy organized in several main categories: What is Energy?, Sources of Energy, Using & Saving Energy, History of Energy, Games and Activities, for Teachers, Related Links, Energy Calculators, and a Glossary.

It also includes a teacher guide which provides energy lessons that use the website as a resource. The guide provides Language, Arts, Math, Performing Arts, Science and Social Studies extension activities by age levels.

(Source: Energy Kids)

Don't miss it:

http://www.eia.gov/kids/index.cfm

Writefull

Writefull is an app that provides feedback on your writing by checking your text against databases of correct language. The databases used are Google Books, Google Scholar, Google News, and Google Web. 

You can use Writefull in any writing tool from MS Word to Gmail. Simply select a piece of text, hit the short-key to activate the Writefull popover, and choose one of its options. 

http://writefullapp.com/

 

Tutorial:

http://writefullapp.com/tutorial.html 

Writefull on Twitter: 

https://twitter.com/writefullapp 

On Facebook: 

https://www.facebook.com/writefullapp/ 

Blog: 

https://medium.com/@Writefullapp 

More information about Writefull in Spanish by Juan Diego Polo: 

http://wwwhatsnew.com/2016/05/19/nuevo-writefull-aplicacion-gratuita-que-te-ayuda-a-escribir-bien-en-ingles/

National Geographic. Teaching Resources

The National Geographic Society, a nonprofit scientific and educational organization dedicated to exploring our planet, protecting wildlife and habitats, and helping assure that students in K-12 are geographically literate, offers teaching resources, units, lessons, activities, guides, and educational games for K-12 teachers.

Resources are grouped K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12 and can be filtered to streamline searches.

http://nationalgeographic.org/education/teaching-resources/

Education blog:

https://blog.education.nationalgeographic.com/

On YouTube (Young Learners)

https://www.youtube.com/user/NGLYoungLearners 

On Twitter: https://twitter.com/NatGeoEducation

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/natgeoeducation

On Google+: https://plus.google.com/+NatGeoEdOrg/about

LitCharts

LitCharts is an online site from the creators of SparkNotes.

It provides literature guides for more or less 300 literary classics. Its charts can be viewed online and downloaded in a PDF file. Each chart presents a bulleted-list-style summary of every single plot point in the book side-by-side with analysis and color-coded themes for each point. The interactive data visualizations of books are awesome.

http://www.litcharts.com/

Blog: http://www.litcharts.com/blog

On Twitter: https://twitter.com/litcharts

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/litcharts

App on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/litcharts/id867311750?mt=8

Gif Lingua

Interesting site based on animated GIF images as a good resource to provide visual contents for English language learning.

Images are arranged into categories: Pronunciation, News, Music, Videos and Levels 1-6. Have a look at a section called Books. You will find many extra supporting materials.

http://giflingua.com/

Gif Lingua on Twitter: https://twitter.com/giflingua

Gif Lingua on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/giflingua

Gif Lingua on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJyfx_kTGYbw-JMt-bwULOA

MOOC Open eTwinning

Today, May 5 registration for this new 5-unit MOOC on eTwinning, the first offered in English by INTEF, is officially open.

The eTwinning action, launched in January 2005, is an initiative of the European Commission that promotes school collaboration in Europe through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) by providing support, tools and services for schools.

The MOOC concludes on June 29. All the participants who complete it succesfully will be issued a digital badge that can be stored in EducaLAB's backpack.

Pay attention to the MOOC's hashtag on Twitter: #twinmooc

MOOC's group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/openetwinning/

More information:

http://mooc.educalab.es/courses/INTEF/INTEF166/2016_ED1/about

ChemWiki

The ChemWiki is a collaborative approach toward chemistry education based on an open access wiki environment to supplant conventional paper-based books and an effort to supply chemistry knowledge to the community. It's development is currently directed by UC Davis Professor Delmar Larsen.

The ChemWiki provides students and teachers with an explanation of the core, textmaps, wikitexts, homework, worksheets and visualizations. The materials covered include: organic, inorganic, physical, and analytic chemistry.

http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/

Colorín Colorado

Colorín Colorado is a US bilingual website in English and Spanish serving parents and teachers of English language learners in grades PreK-12. It receives major funding from the American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association.

Colorín Colorado provides free multimedia materials on bilingual education (videos, toolkits, activities, articles...) and advice to parents and schools.

On Twitter: https://twitter.com/colorincolorado

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ColorinColorado.org

On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/colorincolorado

http://www.colorincolorado.org/

World Press Freedom Day

The United Nations General Assembly declared May 3 to be World Press Freedom Day or World Press Day to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press.

Press plays an important role in ESL & EFL learning. The following interactive resource will help your students know about the problems that jounalists face when doing their job.

The World Press Freedom Index ranks 180 countries according to the level of freedom available to journalists. Published every year since 2002 by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the Index has a growing influence as a tool that reminds governments of their duty to respect the right to freedom expression.

https://rsf.org/en/ranking

Excellence Gateway

The Excellence Gateway is now the Education and Training Foundation’s resources portal. It provides online access to interesting resources for everyone working in the education and training sector. 

You can search and browse for over 6,000 resources, register and store your favourites.

http://www.excellencegateway.org.uk/

Earth Day. Educational resources

April 22 is Earth Day, an annual event, that is intended to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's natural environment. Earth Day was first celebrated in 1970. This celebration (in more than 190 countries each year) is now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network.

You can find information about the history of Earth Day on:

http://earthday.envirolink.org/history.html

A collection of educational resources for teaching about Earth Day:

Natural Education Association:

http://www.nea.org/tools/lessons/earth-day-curriculum.html

Teachervision

https://www.teachervision.com/earth-day/teacher-resources/6612.html

Free Technology for Teachers

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2013/04/10-educational-resources-for-earth-day.html#.VxTLlDCLSUk

ScienceNetLlinks

http://sciencenetlinks.com/collections/earth-day/

The Kid Should See This

Growing library of smart and cool not-made-for-kids but perfect for them videos. They can be watched in the classroom or at home. 

This collection of videos can spark questions and inspire exploration, conversation and additional research for all ages. 

More than 2.400 videos grouped into topics (science, technology, space, animals, food, DIY, music, animation, and art) for curious minds curated since 2011 by Rion Nakaya.

http://thekidshouldseethis.com/

ELT Resources on Pearltrees by Verónica Alconchel (@Veronica_elt)

Pearltrees is a visual and collaborative curation tool that allows you to organize, explore and share any URL, as well as to upload photos, files, notes, etc. It is a very useful tool when collecting and sharing learning & teaching resources for ELT students.

This amazing collection by Verónica Alconchel Pertejo, an ESL teacher from Zaragoza, will help you find the best resources organized by categories.

http://www.pearltrees.com/valconchel#l427

Don't forget to visit her blog:

http://myenglishbackroom.blogspot.com.es/

Also on Pinterest:

https://www.pinterest.com/valconchel/

World Health Day

World Health Day is a global health awareness day celebrated annually on the 7th April. The theme for 2016 was Beat Diabetes.

Here you can find a complilation of World Health Organization (WHO) infographics. WHO is a specialized agency of the United Nations that is concerned with international public health established on 7th April 1948. It could be a good idea to use them in order to promote health messages through visuals in the classroom.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/infographic/en/

More resources on WHO mediacentre.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/en/

Philosophers in the Schools Program

The University of Washington's Center for Philosophy for Children developes this program dedicated to introducing philosophy to K-12 students by using chindren's books and activities to inspire explorationof life's essential questions.

On their web site lots of resources are available:

Over 100 lessons plans for using literature to introduce philosophy:

http://depts.washington.edu/nwcenter/lessonsplansdiscussquestions.html

Games and exercises:

http://depts.washington.edu/nwcenter/lessonsclassroom.html

Philosophy with Young People (Blog):

http://philosophyforchildren.blogspot.com.es/

Links to interesting sites about philosophy for young people:

http://depts.washington.edu/nwcenter/