Longman dictionary in Firefox

As you all may know, Firefox has a search box on its tool bar which is generally set to Google. However, there are many search providers. If you click on the arrow next to the Google icon you can add to that list by clicking on Manage Search Engines (administrar botones de busqueda) at the bottom of the list. This will lead you to a dialogue box and there you have to click on Get More Search Engines (obtener más motores de búsqueda). You will be taken to the Firefox add-ons website. Look for the add-on for the Longman dictionary. Click on Add to Firefox and that’s it.  You will be able to search the Longman Dictionary via your toolbar.

Hope you find it useful!

Online Visual Dictionary

I have just come back from my holidays and surfing the net I stumble upon this wonderful new online dictionary. It is full of wonderful and very telling pictures.  Apart from that, the pictures are labelled with terminology in up to 6 languages. It is very useful for those moments in which we cannot match the words with images or the other way about.

If you are more interested in collocations than in images, I have also something for you: The Oxford Collocations Dictionary is online. It is worth giving it a look.

Hope you find it useful. Have to go and unpack. See you later!

Now you can also “Listen to You Tube”!

If you don’t have access to a computer or to a DVD in your classroom and you would love to use you tube videos in your lessons, HERE IS THE SOLUTION FOR YOU! Listen to You Tube is a webpage that allows you to convert YouTube flash video to MP3 audio. This service is fast, free, and requires no signup. All you need is a YouTube URL, and the software will transfer the video to their server, extract the MP3, and give you a link to download the audio file. Very easy and very useful indeed! Enjoy it!

Lesson Plan: World Financial Crisis

If you haven’t heard recently about the financial crisis, you are definitely not living in the Earth planet. Every newspaper, magazine, television programme and the like is dealing with this issue. Everybody seems to be an expert in economy nowadays, or at least they would like to be. As our classes do take place in this planet, why not take this popular topic to the classroom? There are plenty of articles, videos and recordings about it somewhere there on the net. There are even lesson plans! For example, if you have students from higher levels a good option would be this ready-made lesson plan from In Company website.

However, it is very difficult to find an article suitable for lower levels. After surfing the net for a long time, I have finally discovered one written by CBBC Newsround and prepared with it a lesson plan: cash_crisis. It deals with the current world financial crisis using very simple language making it accesible for language learners. It is also a good revision of verbs related to money.

Hope you enjoy it and don’t forget to leave as a comment if you happen to use the lesson plan or if you have more ideas to deal with the topic.

Lesson Plan: 9/11

Today is another anniversary of 9/11. When such schocking things take place, we tend to remember them as if it was yesterday. For that reason, you may start the lesson by asking your students “what were you doing on 9/11 2001 (when the twin towers fell)?”
There is a very good explanatory video available in Brain Pop for free during September. You will also find a quiz your students can do after watching the video.

You may also watch the trailer of the movies United 93 or World Trade Center and have a class debate on films based on true events.

Here you have some questions you might want to use during the discussion:
1) Have you seen United 93 or World Trade Union?
2) If not, do you want to see them? Why (not)?
3)If so, what did you think of them? How well do they evoke the horror of the events of that day?
4)Do you think it is right to ake a film about such events?

If you want, you can share your point of view on this issue in the comment section. Feel free to add any other idea to make this lesson plan more appealing for our students.

Lesson Plan: Madonna’s 50th Birthday!

It’s Madonna’s 50th birthday on Saturday 16th August, why not celebrate it in the classroom with this lesson plan (see attached file below) ?

You can start by asking students to guess whose birthday is it on the 16th of August by doing a reading activity based on Madonna’s biography. Then, to revise the past simple form of verbs, students can be asked to complete the song by Madonna “Drowned World (Substitute for Love)” with the verbs in the correct form. Finally, they will listen to the song to check their answers and do some comprehension questions.

Here you’ve got the video of the song. It is great fun for the students to watch it, instead of just listening to the song. Apart from that, it acts as a visual aid to help them understand the song better.

Hope you like it. My students loved it. If you have any other ideas, don’t hesitate to share them with us.

drowned-world-by-madonna.

A Quick Search Engine for ESL sites

Surfing the net I have found this useful tool and I would like to share it with you. With ESl Search for English as a second Language you will be able to find ESL related information in a fast and easy way. As it is powered by google it is very reliable. It is great because it only searches sites about learning and teaching English as a second language. Apart from that, it is extremely easy to use. Just as you use any other search engine: type your search word into the box and then click search. And there you’ve got plenty of results to start looking at. Hope you like it and find it useful!

Motivating but Tough Lesson Plan Based on a Song by Gorillaz

I have prepared this lesson plan based on the song “Fire Coming Out of a Monkey’s Head” by Gorillaz, because one of my students asked me to. However, I have to admit that I ended up enjoying the song a lot (thanks Fernando!!!!). It is a very cryptic song, full of hidden meanings. It is hard work trying to find out its true meaning. Yet, it is also great fun, very engaging and motivating. Here goes a video of the song and at the end of the post you’ll find a copy of the lesson plan. Hope you enjoy it.

Leave us a comment sharing with us your experience with the song and your interpretation of it.

lesson_plan

How to Find New Interesting Websites!!!

It’s been a long time since my last post. I’m sorry but I’ve been extremely busy. Well, in fact,  I’m still busy but I’ve found a great resource online that I would like to share with you. If you are a fan of web 2.0 (just like me), and I’m sure you are. If you are always on the lookout for great new webpages, blogs, and so on and so forth. You will cherish In Suggest as much as I do.

In Suggest is an online tool that helps you find new websites based on your personal taste. You will just have to enter the addresses of your favourite websites, and you will instantly get recommendations for new ones. It is also possible to do the same with images from flickr and also with… your bookmarks in delicious (remember that I’m sabridv in delicious, if you would like to be part of my network)!!! It’s amazing. I’ve already tried it out and found lots of interesting sites related to esl, efl and tefl.

EXTRA BONUS: To make up for all the time I’ve been away from this blog, I will share with you another resource I’ve found using In Suggest. Esl pod tv is a great podcast for learners and teachers of English as a foreign or second language. There you will find short video clips and mp3 sound files which are available to download from the site as podcasts. The lessons are aimed at students with an intermediate to advanced level of English and are also supplemented by online interactive exercises. In addition there are PDF files of lesson plans based on the podcast materials that teachers can use in the classroom.

Hope you find it useful and don’t hesitate to share with us the wonderful resources and webpages you’ll find using In Suggest.

How to Share Files in Twitter!!!!

Don’t think that it is something complicated. In fact, sharing your pics, word documents, power point presentations and others with your Twitter friends is at one-click distance. It is extremely easy with this new application: Tweet Cube. “Tweetcube allows you to share files on Twitter. Blast out your images, videos, music and more with just a couple of clicks.” Apart from that, it is 100% FREE!!! The only drawback is that you can currently upload only 10 mb. However, you can upload as many files as you want. Take into account that the files will be deleted after 30 days. Hope you enjoy it. And remember, if you want to start following me, I’m sabridv at Twitter.