English Virtual Community

The greatest benefit from living in our times is that we can share information or knowledge easier than our grandparents could. Technologies and social media applications simplify the process of sharing and provide us with an access to any person in the world. However, many people question their language skills and fluency level. Usually, it stops them from interacting with other learners. Hence, they mistakenly postpone speaking practice which predetermines sharing until they get enough background. Fortunately, there are always ways to begin a good talk even if you are a beginner. 1-Join a group of similar interests to train your speaking skills through social media channels like Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat etc. If you are a beginner, small chats with other learners or native speakers will help you overcome the fear of mistakes and prompt you to switch to longer talks.   2-Create your own YouTube channel to share useful tips about cooking, knitting, preparing cockta...

Popplet is an application for the web and iPad, where you can collect, curate and share your ideas, inspirations, and projects.  It is a combination of wallwisher, glogster and field for webspiration which offers a lot of  possibilities: users can type, draw, upload images , embed videos or draw in the virtual “post-its” called “popplets" .  Advantages: Teachers can use it for collaborative work  Popplets can be connected It doesn’t have an limit on the number of characters you can use. . At the moment   is in beta and you need to request an invite.  Here is a video explaining how it can be used.  http://popplet.com/ Related posts: http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2011/01/03/popplet-looks-like-a-winner-its-wallwisher-on-steroids/ http://2sparkley.edublogs.org/2011/01/05/popplet/

Practicing English with a native speaker or another ESL student is a great way for international students to improve reading, writing, and speaking skills. There are many different sites that make it easy for students and other ESL learners to connect online. Here are a few sites to try: MyHappyPlanet - This online language learning community allows members to message native speakers from around the world. The site can also be used to learn about the English language and culture through videos and member-created lessons. italki - italki is a great place to find ESL partners. Members hail from more than 200 countries and are always eager to discuss and practice English reading, writing, speaking/listening, grammar, pronunciation, and more. MyLanguageExchange - More than one million people practice their language skills on MyLanguageExchange. The site employs the Cormier method of language exchange which groups native speakers of two languages so that they can spend half their tim...

It is not easy to find the right time for training teachers in technology . Teachers are usually very busy teaching, marking tests, filling reports, correcting homework or preparing classes. So, Saturday mornings or some evenings are the only possible meeting time, but these are not the most popular times. Teachers – usually women – also have a family, dinners to prepare or children to look after, so virtual meetings may be an interesting possibility to solve this problem. WIZIQ is a web based education platform powered by teachers who continually improve it in response to its users’ feedback. This collaborative web conferencing environment is amongst the best online teaching solutions in the world, and it integrates the following set of online tools : synchronous (happening at the same time) and asynchronous teaching through virtual classrooms, online tests and a content sharing and messaging system. Pros : Wiziq is absolutely free of cost for teachers and students; it enables ...

Yesterday the II Session about ICT organized by Prof. Patricia Guzmán took place at Profesorado ISFD 97 in La Plata (57St between 8 and 9). This time most of the participants (mostly students) have certain knowlege of the Internet and its tools, so there was more interaction between the audience and me - more questions- since they are already using some Web 2.0 tools. This time I spoke about Collaborative Learning and gave ideas about how to use Google docs ( documents, spread sheets and presentations) and blogs in our professional life and classes. We had the pleasure of having Ticiana Neder , Pearson Education S.A. Representative SGBA among the audience. She brought interesting educational material and fantastic presents for the audience. One of the books Ticiana gave to participants was How to Teach English with Technology by Gavin Dudeney which I do recommend for all those who want to learn about the topic. I was given a Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture! Th...

Text message and chat language are little by little accepted by society and dictionaries! The British Dictionary Collins has accecpted some of these terms, such as: b4 (before), gr8 (great) , lol ( laughing out loudly). Nevertheless, the Spanish dictionary of the Royal Academy has not accepted any yet. Language is not a static system, it changes with society. We do not write the same way people used to let's say... 1500. So, perhaps we are facing a big change in writing. Don't U think so? There is a very funny game, click on this link: http://www.oup.com/elt/global/products/naturalenglish/elem/e_games/ne_elem_games_mobile01/ A new window will appear with a mobile phone. On the screen you will read messages, but they are not fully written. That is what you have to do: write the message. God luck and enjoy it!