3 Sitios que necesitas para aprender ingles

Hay muchos recursos en internet para aprender inglés algunos gratis otros que cobran. Algunos valen la pena y otros no. Estos tres me gustan mucho por diferentes razones.

Spanish Dict
Este sitio está muy bien si apenas estas comenzando a aprender inglés. Me encanta porque tiene muchas opciones la que más me gusto es la de Aprender inglés con videos. También me gusta que te tienes que inscribir, usualmente esto no es algo positivo, pero aquí sí, y es súper fácil y rápido. La razón que te piden que te inscribas es para llevar un seguimiento de tu progreso. Te van dando puntos por cada lección que completas. En una buena manera de motivarte y saber cuáles niveles has hecho ya. Cada nivel tiene 15 lecciones y cada curso tiene actividades para hablar, escribir, flashcards y video. Una profesora te guía por el nuevo vocabulario, y después puedes practicarlo con flashcards, escribiendo y hablando. La parte de hablar es usando un micrófono en el que grabas tu voz y compara tu respuesta con un ejemplo de la respuesta correcta (en algunas no funciona el ejemplo).

Cursos-ingles.com 
Este sitio también me gusta porque está bien organizado y tiene más niveles. Los niveles van de básico a avanzado. También tiene una sección con Business English. Tiene una área de recursos la que más me agrado a mi es la de las letras de canciones en inglés. Son videos de Youtube con subtítulos de las letras de la canción, catalogados por el nombre del cantante. En la sección de Listening tiene videos de varios temas importantes como los números, como construir preguntas y más. Y también tiene una sección de Phrasal verbs donde te da una o dos significados de la palabra con sonido para que practiques la pronunciación y unos ejemplos para cada significado. Además tiene una sección de ejercicios para practicar bastante bien. Si estas entre niveles te da la opción de hacer el curso por libre y escoger que tema necesitas repasar. Algo interesante es la habilidad de generar tablas de Conjugación. Tú pones el verbo en ingles y escoges todas las conjugaciones o la que deseas y te lo conjuga. Lo bueno es que el resultado te da la opción de sonido para que practiques la pronunciación. Y lo mas bueno de todo es que puedes conjugar frases tu introduces la frase en ingles en el presente simple y la conjugas ya sea en todas las conjugaciones en una particular que necesites.

El blog para aprender ingles 
Este blog es fantástico para aprender o resolver dudas que tengas en ingles. Si tienes dudas de gramática y las explicaciones en ingles aun no las entiendes este es el lugar para ti. Lo que han hecho es organizar varios recursos de internet para aprender inglés en este blog. Me gusta porque tiene videos que te explican muy bien la pronunciación y lo hacen todo hablando español dándote comparaciones a las palabras en español para ayudarte con tu pronunciación.

Si, ya tienes un nivel más avanzado tiene un curso gratuito para sacar exámenes para acreditar tu nivel de inglés como el PET, First Certificate y otros. Ademas tiene un sinfín de artículos todos sobre el aprendizaje de ingles organizados en orden alfabética para resolver tus dudas. Temas “como se usa la coma en ingles,” y videos que resuelven dudas como “Como mejorar mi listening” y muchos más. Tiene también una excelente sección de recursos para aprender inglés en internet.

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Wordpress Better Option for Blog Privacy

Wordpress
Since privacy is important to my English learning students I decided to look into Wordpress.  The one thing that had led me away from Wordpress in the past was that you couldn't add your own template, unless you got a paid membership which is not cheap.  If you are using it as a business blog, it would be worth it, but for your class, it's not.  Since the free templates available in WP will do for this particular blog I decided to give it a try.

I set up a new account with WP and wrote my first Welcome post, just to have something.  I logged myself out and then tried to go view the blog and I was not able to see it.  I got a message from WP that said the blog was private and I needed to be invited to the blog in order to see it.  Then  I added a user.  There are different types of users and each one has it's own capabilities.  The ones I was initially interested in were author and contributor.  An author can write a post and publish it, but a contributor is able to write a post and submit it, but not publish, which would protect me from a student writing rampantly or inappropriate things and publishing them. This was what I was looking for.

Testing Privacy
To test it I invited one of my users from one of the Gmail accounts I don't really use anymore. I received the invitation and when I clicked on it it told me that I needed to sign in with my WP account.  Oops I didn't have one.  I clicked on the Register link and it gave me a screen to enter a User and some basic info, then on the right hand side I saw that it asked if you only wanted an WP, but not a blog to click, so I did.  This took me to a screen where the only thing I had to do was create my user name, a password and Voila! I had a WP account.  I went back to my email clicked on the invitation link to Accept.  I was taken to a Dashboard screen where I saw loads of information.  A bit overwhelming, I might say, for many students.  But I saw that they listed 2 posts so I clicked and saw the title for my original post.  I went over it and saw that my only option was to view. I could not edit or delete or anything else as a contributor.  If I clicked on Posts link in the left hand side menu I could get a pull down menu that gave me the option to create a new post.

So if some of your students are brave and tech savvy you can have them write their assignments and submit them to you.  If they are not, I have decided to have them write them in Word, email and send them to me and I will post them for them, because the bottom line is the class is to learn English and the blog is just an addend to support them, not to give them more work.

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Bloggger for English Class Not Really Private

Blogger
Well after having spent time trying to figure out how to make my English class Blog on Blogger private I came to find out that it's not really private.  In the settings, as I wrote on Setting up a Blog... you can make the selection so that only readers you enter are able to read your blog.  Well, in reality in Blogger it is not really accurate.  The truth is, is that people who happen to land on your blog will be able to see it, read it, but they won't be able to make comments.  Yes it is important that they can't leave comments if they are just a passerby, but why even let them see it and navigate the blog if it is supposed to be private.

See Wordpress a Better Option for Blog Privacy

Restricting your Blog’s readers isn’t as secure as you thought

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Go For Your Dreams

Source: justfindit4u.com via NextStepU on Pinterest

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Opportunities for Blended Learning

I like this infographic because the idea of doing a Blog and Wiki came from trying to explore blended learning. I think there are a lot of possibilities for blended learning. Education is changing. People's living situations are not what they used to be. People are looking for educational opportunities outside of their neighborhood, town, country and blended learning offers options that were not available before. But as this infografic states it has to be planned out. Like anything in education it has to be about the learning.

I have many university students and even some of my adult students who have a difficult time getting to the classroom, but who are very interested in the class for these cases I have been pondering about blended learning.

Source: digitallearningnow.com via Frédéric on Pinterest

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Teachers Are Using Blogs and Wikis

35% Have students and/or instructor-run blogs  22% Are involved in creating or maintaining Wikis.

From trying out both,so far, I have gotten a lot more out of the blog than the wiki. It makes me wonder why more Teachers are using blogs than wikis? What has your experience been with Blogs or with Wikis?  

Source: degreesearch.org via Alicia on Pinterest

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Work Vocabulary

Exercises and Games

catch on	(v.) become popular; understand
come up with	(v.) to think of; to produce.
an idea / a plan / a suggestion etc.
cut back on	(v.) reduce
figure out	(v.) find the solution to (a problem or question) or understand the meaning of
find out	(v.) get to know or become aware of, usually accidentally
get ahead	(v.) succeed
give up	(v.) stop maintaining or insisting on
go under	(v.) go bankrupt or out of business
hand in	(v.) submit work or school work
lay off	(v.) dismiss, usually for economic reasons
pass over	(v.) bypass (as for a promotion)
set up	(v.) make ready or suitable or equip in advance for a particular purpose or for some use, event, etc
stick with	(v.) not change something / stay near someone / not be forgotten / continue with something difficult or unpleasant
take off	(v.) leave; remove clothes
get away	escape potentially unpleasant consequences
get back to	respond to a contact / respond when you know the answer / start doing something again after an interruption
get by	come to terms or deal successfully with
get into	become involved or interested / become involved in something bad or criminal / be accepted or admitted / become or be accepted as a member / start a habit or way of acting or behaving / be small enough to wear something / criticise
goof off	waste time doing nothing important
got behind	to lag or linger behind
opportunity in disguise	an opportunity that is not readily seen as so
come around	change one's position or opinion
have butterflies in stomach	to be nervous
so to speak	in a manner of speaking

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