USA LEARNS.ORG
I. INTRODUCTION
U.S.A learns is a free web-based site. It was created by the U.S Department of Education as an important project with a very specific purpose: to help adults that are not fluent in English to improve their literacy and life skills having free access to the web site.
The web site contains three different parts:
- A very beginning course called “First English Course” where there are 20 sequenced units that contain topics such as numbers, colors, clothes, family among others.
- “Second English course” is an intermediate course that contains 17 units. It was created for more advanced English learners.
- “Practice English and writing” is a course to practice reading skills through stories and comprehension checks.
U.S.A learns has simple directions and free accessible instructional materials, video and type activities, animated introduction and help screens. The activities in this web page are evaluated through quizzes.
II.HOW TO USE IT?
To use USA learns is relatively easy. It does not have cost. The users will need a computer with technical requirements like a fast broad band internet connection, web browser with the flash plug-in, sound and video card, speakers and headphone.
However, some activities need to use a microphone but it is optional; users can continue if they do not have a microphone. To use the microphone is recommended for speaking practice, the use of microphone is not an obligation. Furthermore, if users want to print some of their activities, they can do it. The only limitation of this site is that a chat room is not available for users.
III. TEACHING TOOL.
USA learns can be used inside the classroom or outside of it, since it is an excellent tool for teaching. In the first level, teachers may teach topics such as introductions, understanding lesson, directions, spelling, first and last names; through listening, reading, typing, matching games and other activities.
This web site will be an interesting and effective teaching tool; it even has a teacher’s guide that shows the way to begin and continue the English course. That guide contains all the units with the topics that students will see during the process. Teachers can also create an online class adding the students’ addresses in order to check the process and the scores of each learner.
IV. USEFULNESS FOR THE SCHOOL OF LANGUAGES AT UNIVERSIDAD DE ANTIOQUIA.
This web page will be really useful for the community of the school of languages because students can improve their pronunciation, vocabulary, and their listening, reading, speaking and writing skills. It is useful to face life English skills and to see how they can teach English in the future. On the other hand, teachers can use it to see how to improve the way they teach and to do the activities mentioned before.
V. CONCLUSION
Users can see that U.S.A learns contains a lot of activities made not only to help immigrants in the United States, but also to learn and teach English in an open, free, easy, interactive and effective way.
VI. COMMENTS
- Good! USA learns is a great free resource for learning English! (YouTube)
- Excellent site. Teachers can use it and integrate it to their curriculum. Teachers can sing up a class. (isaacsenglish YouTube)
- It Is really good web page. It’s absolute free.(evenoi48 YouTube)
- Yes! I discovered this web site by chance yesterday and I feel myself very lucky to find it…..great web site! Thanks so much! (akaenigma YouTube)
VII. BIBLIOGRAFIA
www.about.com
Written by
Wilmer Carvajal
Ana Peralta
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