English As A Second Language

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Evaluation Scale (scale 0 = not applicable, 1 = not recommended, 2 = fair, 3 = good and 4 = excellent)

Description of Content:   There are 12 selections on the CD taken from David I Say’s award winning radio stories from National Public Radio.  Each selection or session weaves interviews and narration.  The ESL/EFL student hears a varied range of American dialects.  These are real issues.  Some of the American dialects presented are Chinese-American, African American, Puerto-Rican-American, New Yorker, and middle American.

Navigation and Structure:  It is easy to navigate and users can exit at any point.

Instructional Applications:  The CD used in conjunction with the textbook in excellent.  This well-integrated combination of listening and ext offers a unique experience for the ESL/EFL student.  The interviews and the adult issues transport students from Rock Springs to many aspects of American life. 

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 Evaluation Scale  (scale score 0=not applicable, 1=not recommended, 2=fair, 3=good and 4=excellent)

Description of Content:   This program gives the student an opportunity to build vocabulary and practice pronunciation simultaneously.  Options include sound, alphabet, and text.  A person can locate words quickly by inputting all or only part of a word.  Words also appear in simple sentences to demonstrate their use.  Thirty-nine themes are available to help the student focus on one subject at a time.  A teacher in an ESL class as well as a teacher in a foreign language such as Spanish could find many uses for this program.  Its 39 themes open many possibilities, such as working on compass directions and locations, or body parts, and all of these themes can be printed easily and quickly.  With a color cartridge, the teacher could create interesting vocabulary and sentence practice for homework.  This would be especially useful if there are many nationalities in a classroom, and if they are literate in their native languages.

Another application to be emphasized is the ease that a teacher or student can pick up vocabulary and instructions in languages other than English.  Any teacher or student learning one of the 12 other languages might find this program useful.  

Navigation and Structure:   It is easy to navigate and exit at any time.  Changing from one of the 13 languages to another only takes 3 or 4 seconds.  The program is simple to operate.

Instructional Applications:   This is a useful supplement to classroom instruction for ESL students.  It is more than a dictionary; it can be a self-guided tutor for inquisitive students.

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Evaluation scale (scale score 0=not applicable, 1=not recommended, 2=fair, 3=good and 4=excellent)

Description of Content:    Dave’s ESL Café is a collection of information for students of English and teachers of English.  It contains activities, tests, explanations, idiom usage, vocabulary, and teaching ideas.  It has a chat feature where students can talk to other students or to teachers any time there are others willing to chat.  It also contains links to other sites that might be of interest to those using it.

Navigation and Structure:    There is a wealth of information on this site and also a lot of advertisement.  This can be a bit cumbersome, especially for the beginning computer user.  Also, without direction, a high beginning English student could easily get lost and not find a suitable spot to study.

Instructional Applications:    Again, this is an Internet program, so the price is right.  The only cost would be due to being suckered into some of the many ads available to you.  I enjoy looking at the teaching ideas and explanations for different grammar points or word usage.  My students have copied off idioms and practiced making sentences and dialogues using them.  They then can be the teacher and teach their new vocabulary to the rest of the class.  I have also found answers to some of my own grammar questions and the site gives you examples to use when teaching a particular point to students. 

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 Evaluation Scale (scale score 0 = not applicable, 1= not recommended, 2 = fair, 3 = good and 4 = excellent)