News in Levels

http://www.newsinlevels.com/

 

 

 

News in Levels is a so-called learning site, but it is a user-friendly news site

even though it is written all in English transcript.  Compared with my favourate Breaking News English, volumes and varieties of materials are still insufficient, but this has some benefits because all articles are divided into level 3 from level 1 for different levels of learners. The speed of the narration is also varied carefully depending on individual levels, while articles in the news taken up being wide from politics to entertainment. This site encourage the beginner to be accessible to daily events and current English language.

 

Limitations:

Only Level 3 has a video film (generally a real film). Another visual image or picture is to be provided for both of Level 1 and 2 learners.

 

Suggested Lesson Plan:

Level 1    listening, dictogloss,introduction of new vocabulary, shadowing, pair work,

                understanding of the gist, questions

Level 2    listening, introduction of new vocabulary, shadowing, understanding of the context,

                analysis of the situation which the events happened, close questions, pair work, discussion

Level 3    watch a video, introduction of new vocabulary,understanding of the context,

                 analysis of the situation why and how the events happened,  divising a countermeasure,

                 pair/group work

 

 

 

Glossary

（Resources and Materials）

 The following websites contain a lot of resources that teachers can access and use to prepare teaching materials.

 

1. Language Guide.org

 

 

http://www.languageguide.org/

 

A collaborative project to develop interactive, sound-integrated language learning resources.  8 languages are provided.e.g.English,German,Italian,French,Portuguese,

Swidesh,Dutch and Turkish.

 

Categories of Vocabulary: writing, body, food, animals, house, miscellaneous, transportation, geograph, time

 

Advantage: Students can learun a wide variety of vocabulary according to their levels (beginner/

                     intermediate/advanced). Advanced level; e.g.armpit, calf, pinki

Limitation : Good for increasing vocabulary but no interaction with peers.

 

 

 2. Enchanted Learning

 

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/support/index2.shtml

 

 

You get access to all the content of the Enchanted Learning website -- over 20,000 pages.

No banner ads! You get an ad-free version of the site plus extra printing capabilities

       (printer-friendly pages and the ability to enlarge images).

Advantage:  These materials are good especially for kids to young learners.
                     This is not a free site, but ＄20/year is still reasonable for gaining
                     these enjoyable materials.
Limitation:   Most of materials are not suitable for advanced students.
                     There is no sample sound even though it shows many animals, birds or vehicles.
 

http://translate.weblio.jp/

Weblio is a free online integrated dictionary service that can search plural dictionaries and a glossary at a time and can display promptly. It can look a search keyword up from dictionaries registered with it transversely and display an applicable item in a list form. Weblio is pronounced as [weblio]. The name of Weblio is the coined word that crossed "Biblio" (biblio) and "Web" (Web). "Biblio" means the plural form of "the book" in Greek, and it becomes the etymologies such as English "Bibliography". It includes around 650 dictionaries from business to a sign-language. Since this service is attempted for Japanese readers, all descriptions are unfortunately provided only in Japanese.

However, I happened to discover different useful usage of this tool especially for non-native English teachers. It can be used to make any text hearing to 4000 words at one time. In other words, we can easily reproduce our own texts into listening materials with native female’s voice. In the case that you have a long text over 4000 words, you can just do a same procedure as many as you need. It may be computer-generated voice, but is still like a real human voice. Even if you cannot understand Japanese, you can just copy and paste your texts in an empty box, and save the voiced date with a web file or CD.

 1) See an empty box in the left hand. 2) Copy/paste your text into it.

                                                                      3) Click 'listen' in the bottom of the box. Then you can

                                                                           see this blue audio screen.Listen and save the data.

                                                                           You can adjust the speed according to students' level.

                                                             

 

Limitations:  Japanese basis incl. Japanese ⇔ English and Japanese ⇔ Chinese

                  The quality of free translation service is inaccurate and not to be recommended but

                  the dictionary functions might be useful.