World AIDS Day 2015

World AIDS Day is held on the 1^st December each year since 1988. This is one of the eight official global campaigns marked by the World Health Organization and an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, show their support for people living with HIV and mourn those who have died of the disease.

Education plays a crucial role to raise awareness of the AIDS pandemic. You can find here a list of resources on AIDS that can be useful for the ESL/ EFL classroom.

UNAIDS Factsheet (2015):

http://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/media_asset/20150901_FactSheet_2015_en.pdf

UNAIDS Infographics:

http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/infographics

NAT.org.uk:

http://www.nat.org.uk/Publications/Teachers-resources.aspx

http://www.nat.org.uk/Publications/HIV-Awareness-Materials.aspx

TES:

https://www.tes.com/article.aspx?storyCode=6296522

Education Scotland:

http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/resources/w/worldaidsday.asp

TeacherVision:

https://www.teachervision.com/illness-and-diseases/hiv-and-aids/teacher-resources/6594.html

Larry Ferlazzo:

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2009/09/27/the-best-web-resources-for-learning-about-hiv-aids/

AIDS.gov:

https://es.pinterest.com/aidsgov/

HIV/AIDS Educational awareness:

https://www.pinterest.com/liaac/hiv-aids-education-awareness/

CATIE Talking to Kids about HIV/AIDS (booklet)

http://librarypdf.catie.ca/PDF/P25/22195e.pdf

Study Jams (Math)

Fantastic built on Flash resources provided by Scholastic that cover elementary mathematics topics (numbers, addition & subtraction, multiplication & division, fractions, decimals & percents, algebra, geometry, measurement, data analysis, probability and problem solving).

These resources consist mainly of videos and interactive activities.

http://studyjams.scholastic.com/studyjams/jams/math/index.htm 

TED-Ed lessons

Amazing opportunity to find original TED-Ed lessons (the result of the collaborations between expert educators, screenwriters and animators) and customized lessons created by adding teachers' or website visitors' own questions, notes and resources.

Topics include: Arts, Business & Economics, Design, Engineering & Technology, Health, Literature & Language, Mathematics, Philosophy & Religion, Psychology, Science & Technology, Social Studies, Teaching & Education and Thinking & Learning.

You can filter the lessons by content, level, and duration of the video.

http://ed.ted.com/lessons

An example:

http://ed.ted.com/lessons/why-sitting-is-bad-for-you-murat-dalkilinc 

Smarty Pins

Smarty Pins is a browser-based game developed by Google that test your knowledge on geography across a number of categories: arts & culture, science, sports & games, entertainment and history & current events. You have to answer by placing a pin on a map.

You start each game with a bank of 1,000 miles/ 1,609 kilometres. You can lose miles/ kilometres for answering incorrectly and or taking too long to answer. The game subtracts the number of miles/ kilometres you're off by for each answer.. Fast, correct answers earn extra miles/ kilometres to keep the player’s journey going longer. When your bank hits zero, it is game over.

You can share your scores via Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

https://smartypins.withgoogle.com/

As simple as addictive.

SchoolTube

K-12 moderated video sharing platform, specifically designed for students and teachers. It was created by Andrew and Carl Arizpe and initially sponsored by The National Geographic Society.

In the United States the website is used by more than 60,000 schools and is endorsed by the most influential education associations.

Video topics include environment, science and technology, food, journalism, etc. Students and teachers are allowed to find all videos shared from their schools by using a search engine. Videos portraying violence, vulgarities, sexual situations, and copyrighted materials are prohibited from publication. To that end, students cannot upload a video until a teacher says it appropriate to publish.

http://www.schooltube.com/

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

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

Ozdic.com

When teaching a new word it is important to provide some of its most common collocations. There are many online tools which fulfill this purpose effectively. We will mention one of them.

Ozdic.com is an amazing and very useful dictionary that helps English learners write and speak more natural-sounding. It contains over 150,000 collocations for nearly 9,000 headwords. Examples of how the collocations are used in context are provided.

Ozdic.com is based on the 100 million word British National Corpus.

http://www.ozdic.com/

Holiday lessons

Holiday lessons provide a fun way to learn about culture and history for ESL or EFL students. The following collection of links will help you find teaching resources and ready to use lesson plans for a wide variety of holidays and celebrations.

• http://www.eslholidaylessons.com/
• http://www.educationworld.com/holidays/
• http://lessonplanspage.com/seasonalthemes-htm/
• http://busyteacher.org/classroom_activities-vocabulary/holidays_and_celebrations-worksheets/
• http://www.eds-resources.com/edholiday.htm
• http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/collection/celebrating-holidays-classroom
• https://www.classwallet.com/holiday-classroom-resources/
• http://k6educators.about.com/od/holidaysandspecialevents/
• http://www.eds-resources.com/edholiday.htm
• http://www.mrdonn.org/holidays.html

Píldoras estadísticas… also in English

Pequeños vídeos del Instituto Nacional de Estadística en los que se explican conceptos de uso relativamente frecuente relativos a la estadística. 

Los vídeos tienen una versión en inglés que puede serviros para introducir vocabulario específico pero de uso cotidiano a la hora de ofrecer datos sobre un país o una comunidad.

http://www.ine.es/explica/explica_pasos_pildoras.htm

Thanksgiving

Gracias al increíblemente útil blog Free Technology for Teachers, una vez pasados los miedos de Halloween, hemos tenido noticia de un recurso que aborda otra celebración importante en América del Norte (Estados Unidos y Canadá): el Día de Acción de Gracias (Thanksgiving Day).

The First Thanksgiving es un material audiovisual muy atractivo para conocer a través del inglés el origen de la celebración y sus raíces. Descubrir las tradiciones y la cultura nos ayuda a conocer también la lengua de las comunidades que las consideran parte de ellas mismas y de su historia y a comprender mejor a estas comunidades en su contexto. 

http://www.scholastic.com/scholastic_thanksgiving/daily_life/ 

VideoANT

VideoANT is a University of Minnesota project, a web-based video annotation tool for mobile and desktop devices. You can use VideoAnt to add annotations or comments to web hosted videos. Its use is very interesting in the language classroom. Teachers can provide more information alongside the videos they use and the commented videos can be embedded in other websites.

https://ant.umn.edu/

How does it work?

Halloween Teaching Ideas on Pinterest

Within these 10 links you will find on Pinterest a selection of resources related to the issue of Halloween and its educational potential.

https://es.pinterest.com/jvanthul/halloween-crafts-ideas/

https://es.pinterest.com/happyteacher/best-of-halloween-kindergarten-first-grade/

https://es.pinterest.com/deals_3bd/halloween-recipes-crafts-education/

https://es.pinterest.com/joanneogs/education-halloween/

https://es.pinterest.com/hhhomeschool/free-halloween-printables-educational/

https://www.pinterest.com/rachelfriedrich/halloween-teaching-ideas/

https://es.pinterest.com/pizzazzerie/halloween-party-ideas/

https://www.pinterest.com/reallyrachel/halloween/

https://es.pinterest.com/smarttech/halloween-lesson-activities/

https://www.pinterest.com/aecarter24/halloween-k-2-special-education/

Divernic

¿Os imagináis que los personajes y juguetes favoritos de vuestros niños y niñas les enseñaran inglés? Eso es lo que pretende el canal de Divernic en YouTube. Una forma de aprovechar el gancho de protagonistas de sus series y películas favoritas.

Para acceder:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzbjbyFF-80PC5kDuY-pqKg

Un ejemplo para que os hagáis una idea:

Kidsnowit (educational movies)

53 free educational movies for students. Each movie introduces them to the topics and the key concepts that they will be learning about and ends with an online quiz. In order to successfully complete each online video, movies must be watched and quiz questions must be answered with 80% or higher accuracy.

You will find interactive movies about: Astronomy, Biology, concepts, Chemistry, Geology. History, Language arts and Math. New free movies are added each month.

Visit:

http://www.kidsknowit.com/interactive-educational-movies/index.php

4 Online Slang Dictionaries

Slang consists of a constantly changing lexicon of non-standard words and phrases in a given language. It is usually associated with a particular group and plays a role in constructing its identity. It should be avoided in most types of writing (academic research papers, essays…) as sometimes, the use of certain expressions can be unfamiliar to the ordinary reader. 

Nevertheless, slang is part of language and, of course, it is important to understand English speakers.

Below are examples of four online slang dictionaries:

• A Dictionary of Slang http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/index.htm by Ted Duckworth. Online dictionary of slang from a British perspective.
• The Online Slang Dictionary http://onlineslangdictionary.com/ Dictionary of slang words, neologisms, idioms, aphorisms, jargon, informal speech, and figurative usages edited and maintained by Walter Rader.
• Slang Vocabulary http://www.slangsite.com/ American slang.
• Dave Sperling's ESL Slang Page http://www.eslcafe.com/slang/list.htmlv American slang.

Tips for British English Pronunciation by English Jade (engVid)

Proper English pronunciation can be a big problem for some ESL learners. Learn 8 tips that will help you pronounce English correctly.

Cursos en línea de inglés. Convocatoria

Se ha publicado la Convocatoria de la Dirección General de Innovación, Ordenación y Política Lingüística para la realización de cursos en línea de inglés dirigidos al profesorado de enseñanzas no universitarias.

Podéis consultarla y descargarla desde este enlace:

http://www.cece.gva.es/per/docs/sfp/convoc/2016/ANG/ConvIng2015_mod2.pdf

Solicitud de inscripción:

http://cefire.edu.gva.es/sfp/index.php?seccion=convocatoria&id=207&usuario=invitado

Plazo de solicitud de inscripción del 2 al 19 de octubre.

Listado provisional de solicitudes admitidas: 26 de octubre.

Lexipedia

Lexipedia is an online visual semantic network with dictionary and thesaurus reference functionality. Lexipedia presents words with their semantic relationships displayed in an animated visual word web. Lexipedia supports English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish languages. (Source: Wikipedia)

You can hoover with mouse over words to view their definition, hear right pronunciation and usage within a sentence.

Each word type has it own color on the chart: nouns are red, verbs are orange, adverbs are green and adjective are blue.

Lexipedia is a useful tool in any classroom setting. It is an excellent place to increase your student's vocabulary and work understanding.

http://lexipedia.com/english

FluentU

FluentU is a database of translated and subitled YouTube videos that helps you learn English (and other languages: Chinese, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Italian) in a very realistic way. 

The video is automatically paused when you move your mouse to the subtitle area. It also offers an hover over dictionary for any words you don't know. 

Resources are classified up by level and gender and you can study the vocabulary from them in a built-in flashcard system. 

You can sign up for free. 

Visit: http://www.fluentu.com/ 

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

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

On Google+: https://plus.google.com/+Fluentu/posts 

English Language and Culture blog: http://www.fluentu.com/english/blog/ 

On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id917892175

SchoolScience.co.uk

Free website to enrich teaching and learning in science brought by The Association for Science Education (ASE) SchoolScience.co.uk is sponsored by industrial and research partners  who provide free on-line science resources for teachers and students. 

This site is free for all users and promotes both resources created for this site and external resources from around the world. (Source: http://www.schoolscience.co.uk/about)

http://www.schoolscience.co.uk/home

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

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Schoolscience-162695503806576/timeline/

Simple English Wikipedia

When you learn a language reading can also be very helpful. You can learn vocabulary in context, texts that you read show you new expressions that you can use when you write, you can learn at your own speed, etc.

Sometimes the level is too high and you should read something simpler. Simple English Wikipedia is a subdomain of the regular Wikipedia It uses simple English words and shorter sentences. It is for everyone. That includes children and adults who are learning English.

You can find more than 115.000 articles on Simple English Wikipedia.

It seems like a great idea.

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page