Week 3_Skill-building Websites for Oral/Aural Skills and Saving Bookmarks

Three years ago, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I had to switch to online teaching and learning. Initially, I believed that screens might hinder conversation and create a barrier to face-to-face communication. However, after completing this module, I came across several valuable websites recommended by both my classmates and my instructor. Given the importance of finding effective tools to improve my students' oral and aural skills, I have put together a list of apps. I plan to try them out in my teaching to see which ones work best for my class. This list includes options beyond Youglish and Flip, which I already use regularly.

1/ Podomatic:

• Usage: Create speaking portfolios on topics like the environment, tourism, and culture. Students create accounts, make weekly podcasts, and compile them for assessment.
• Suitable for: High schoolers and university students with at least an intermediate level of English proficiency.
• Enhances: Technology, creativity, communication, speaking, scripting skills, content creation, and audio editing.

1. 2/ Ello:

• Usage: Improve listening, speaking, vocabulary, and grammar skills through audio, video, transcripts, and quizzes.
• Suitable for: Working people and students in grades 4, 5, and 6.
• Enhances: Listening, speaking, vocabulary, grammar, role-playing, and rewriting conversations.

1. 3/ TED-Ed:

• Usage: Enhance listening and speaking skills through educational videos and discussion questions.
• Suitable for: All levels of English learners.
• Enhances: Listening, speaking, critical thinking, creativity, and presentation skills.

1. 4/ BBC Learning English:

• Usage: Listening, speaking, and pronunciation exercises with videos, worksheets, and transcripts.
• Suitable for: Various levels from A1 to C1.
• Enhances: Listening, speaking, note-taking, dictation, stress, intonation, and chunking skills.

1. 5/ Voice Tube:

• Usage: Watch videos with exercises for all proficiency levels to improve listening, vocabulary, and pronunciation.
• Suitable for: Students at all levels.
• Enhances: Listening, vocabulary, pronunciation, and overall learning experience.

1. 6/ Daily Dictation:

• Usage: Practice listening and vocabulary skills through dictation exercises.
• Suitable for: Intermediate level or above learners of all ages.
• Enhances: Listening, vocabulary, understanding spoken English, and context-based learning.

1. 7/ Elsa Speak:

• Usage: Practice pronunciation using vocabulary lists created by the teacher.
• Suitable for: Non-native English speakers of all proficiency levels.
• Enhances: Pronunciation skills.

1. 8/ Twee:

• Usage: Generate warm-up discussion questions, comprehension questions, and summary tasks based on videos chosen by the teacher.
• Suitable for: All students, depending on the chosen videos and question types.
• Enhances: Listening comprehension and understanding of video content.

In the second part, I explored bookmarking tools, specifically Symbaloo and Diigo, as suggested by my lecturer. After trying both websites and discussing them with my peers and instructor, I found that each has its strengths and weaknesses.

Symbaloo stands out for its visual organization using tiles, making it easy to navigate and visually appealing. Additionally, users can customize their dashboard with themes and backgrounds. However, it lacks features like tagging and annotating, which are available on Diigo.

On the other hand, Diigo allows users to annotate web pages, highlight text, and add sticky notes, facilitating active reading and research. It also enables collaboration by allowing users to share bookmarks and annotations with others. However, I encountered frequent lagging issues with Diigo, which was frustrating.

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