Kalinago English: for-learners

This is the 2nd part of a the H-2-L-E series which contains a sheet you'll be able to share with your adult English language students so they can become more autonomous learners.

Did you know that there are some absolutely fabulous channels on YouTube which students can use to practice English?

In this sheet I will focus on some of the ones geared specifically at Adult English Language Learners.

Here is a quick preview of the ones that I often share with my own students:

Jennifer ESL: http://www.youtube.com/user/JenniferESL

Viewed over 1 million times, Jennifer's 144 videos range from teaching grammar to common expressions, phrasal verbs, American slang. She offers help with pronunciation and even basic grammar and understanding prepositions.

Mister Duncan http://www.youtube.com/user/duncaninchina

This slightly nutty professor has made over 50 videos viewed 750,000 times and topics range from small talk topics, talking about cars or technology and general life issues like discussing health. Some are serious reports, some are just plain odd!

Soxo Exchange http://www.youtube.com/user/sozoexchange
An extraordinary channel consisting of people simply pronouncing common words and phrases slowly and carefully, showing learners how to do it themselves.

Learn English with Steve Ford http://www.youtube.com/user/PrivateEnglishPortal
Quirky Teaching English series of linked stories- soap opera style... however interjected with serious lessons and good clear explanations.

Business English Videos for ESL http://www.youtube.com/user/bizpod

Wide ranging videos perfect for Business English learners. They cover diverse topics including grammar, business letter writing, email tune-ups and more. The channel also includes specialized topics e.g IT and Computing, Legal and Financial vocabulary.

Do you know of any other good Youtube channels aimed at teaching English? Share the information with us if they are sites which you and your students really enjoy learning from.

Miscellaneous extras:
In the spirit of not being judgmental... this, *blush* site is not at all for everyone but as some guys might have fun passing on the link to males they teach, I'll turn in the other direction while I give it to you - no... I'll say oh heck, it's tacky but good and she is teaching vocabulary... it's just her way of sharing knowledge!
Um... 278 million views.
http://www.youtube.com/user/hotforwords ((Not listed on the master sheet though)).

Finally, if you teach kids or your students have them, this is a lovely site of very simple songs.
http://www.youtube.com/user/SuperSimpleSongs

Best,
Karenne

Learning English through YouTube

p.s. if you found this post useful, you might also like

Best videos for teaching Business and ESP English
Jamie Keddie's blog (youtube clips + lessons)
Jamie Keddie's site (lesson plans to take into classes with you)
Claudio Azevedo's blog (movie clips + warm/follow ups)
Pronunciation Site at the University of Iowa, see Neil Barker's blog for details.

image credit: www.norcalblogs.com/watts/images/youtube_tv.jpg

This is part of a new series (H2LE) with information you'll be able to share with your adult English language students.

Have you had a chat with your students about learning English by reading blogs?

While they're aren't that many blogs specifically aimed at English language learners here are a few of the one's we really like:

Anne Hodgson's: http://annehodgson.de/
Toby Crawley's: http://bite-sized-english.com/
Markus Brendell: http://www.der-englisch-blog.de/
Neal Chambers': http://www.englishspark.com/en/blogs
Berni Wall's: http://www.gapfillers.co.uk/
Nik Peachey's : http://daily-english-activities.blogspot.com/
Jeffrey Hill's http://jeffreyhill.typepad.com/english/
Clare Whitmell's: http://www.theenglishweb.com/
Chiew N Pang's http://acliltoclimb.blogspot.com/
Sue Lyon Jones': http://esolcourses.blogspot.com/
Dominic Cole's: http://alittlebutoften.blogspot.com/

I also feed in Sean Banville's Breaking News http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/

And sometime next quarter I will restart my own How to Learn English (more on that soon).

What I do

I feed these blogs into my students' Ning using a Google Reader widget.

To view current entries in my widget, see here - to grab the same one for your students, click here - to create one of your own, simply join Google Reader (free) and add the blogs you and your students like, then go to

Settings
Folder and Tags
Add clip to your website

What they do

As I mentioned above, these blog urls feed into our site so whenever my students have completed a task and are awaiting for the others to, or they've participated in a forum discussion and are awaiting answers on that or they've just completed a blog post... but their neighbour is still adding photos to hers, then I encourage a hit the blogs while you wait approach...

The interesting thing is, without me ever telling them to, some continue to visit the links outside of class-time :-) and have commented!

(sighs, proud teachermommy)

What do you do?

Do you know of any more blogs specifically aimed at English language learners? What are your general thoughts about these? My links are aimed at adult learners (because that's what I teach) however feel free to mention ones aimed at younger students for my other readers ;-).