martes, 31 de mayo de 2011

Useful ICT Tools for Language Learning and Teaching

This blog is a compilation of information reports on internet sources that might be useful for EFL students and teachers. The compilation was made by a group of students from the English Written Composition, level II taught the semester 2011-II at the School of Languages Universidad de Antioquia with the guidance and support of their instructors. Its purpose was to create a forum through which knowledge about useful sources for learning and teaching English could be shared with other students and instructors in the Foreign Language Teacher Preparation Program. To create it, students from the two English Written Composition courses worked in pairs, reviewed different sources, extracted from them information that they considered important, designed conceptual maps and outlines, and wrote multiple drafts. The product is a series of 13 information reports  on internet sources as varied as Hot Potatoes, Lyrics Training, Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab, Starfall, USA Learns, Skype, Voxopop, Cramster Web Writing Tool, babbel, BBC Learning English, Busuu, and Yappr. Although not perfect in their lexical, grammatical and textual features, since they were written by students who are just beginning their language acquisition process, the reports contain useful information about the history of these sources, their main features, their usefulness and limitations, and some final remarks about how they can be used by students and instructors from the program.