British National Corpus

What is it?
British National Corpus (BNC) is an amazing concordance tool that consists of 100 million words of English written texts and spoken transcriptions, sampled from a comprehensive range of text types. In fact, it is one of the most important corpus in the field of linguistics. This tool is really great because it can be used to learn about aspects that we did not know about a particular word. We can also check our understanding about the word's meaning with the help from BNC. Moreover, BNC also provides several options, for instance, to know if a word can collocate with other set of words; and we can also check whether it is grammatically right in some specific context or not. To search for a word, we have to type the word or phrase in the search box. After that, the result will show up to 50 selected examples of the use of the word.

Suitable for:
I believe that this tool is suitable for secondary school and college/university students of all levels.

Activity Suggestions:
BNC can be used in the classroom for vocabulary enrichment among the students. Additionally, it will be a great help for the students to find the right collocation, especially to assist them in writing process.

The Link:
http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/



Advantages:

1) It is absolutely free! No sign-up required, just type the words, and it will do the job straight away.

2) The example of the use of the words are authentic. It is good for the students since they can use it the their daily lives.

3) The students will be able to learn the correct use of words using this tool, thus it will be very beneficial for them, especially for their writing.


Disadvantages:

1) It is too complicated since a lot of features and options are offered.

2) The layout is too plain and it is too wordy as well. I guess it would not work in attracting the students.

3) There is no audio file available for each word. This means that the students could not be able to learn the correct pronunciation of the words.

While BNC serves as a great corpus tool, I think that it should only be used once in a while during the learning process since I am afraid that the students will get confused seeing too much information provided in BNC. However, it is still up to you - the decision is yours.

Listen and Write

What is it?
Listen and Write is a dictation tool which is a very interesting online application that enables you to listen to audio clips and dictate them at the same time. The audio clips provided are taken from radio and news website such as BBC, and they are always updated around the clock, around the country and around the globe. In other words, the audio clips are always about current events. Furthermore, there are also short clips from a movie, or YouTube videos hence making the tool more interesting to use. Therefore, Listen and Write can be very useful to be used either in the classroom or as a homework, or both, since it could promote the students' listening and writing skills, as well as helping them with the correct pronunciation of the words they might not know.

Suitable for:
This tool is suitable for all learners of all levels and ages since there are different levels that can be chosen according to the students' language proficiency. However, the teachers might have to think twice if they were planning to use this tool for primary school students as the easiest level might be too difficult for them, thus making the teaching and learning process unproductive.

Activity Suggestion:
Listen and Write could be a substitute for a homework. By doing this, the students will be trained to learn on their own.

The Link:

http://www.listen-and-write.com/

Advantages:

1) New vocabulary. This tool will be very helpful to the students in introducing new vocabulary that they are exposed to, while doing the listening activity. Not only that, as they engage in the activity, they will be able to know and learn the correct pronunciation of the words they listen to. Therefore, using Listen and Write as a tool for listening activity not only enhance students' listening skills, but also give opportunity for them to practice on pronunciation and spelling.

2) Interactive and fun. The students might not enjoy doing the normal type of listening activity since it can be dull and boring sometimes. Thus, I believe that Listen and Write could make the students become excited to do listening activity because it is interactive and they would enjoy the task and have so much fun doing something new. And it comes with a bonus as well - it's free!

3) Autonomy. This tool is useful to be used as a method to train and increase the students' autonomy. The teachers have to encourage them to use this tool in their free time. This is because the students will be able to learn on their own at home, and slowly, it will help them to be autonomous.

Disadvantages:

1) Sources. This tool enables the subscribers to upload their own audio and/or video clips. Therefore, some of the audio/video clips comes from invalid, unauthentic sources. Thus, this is not a good thing for the students since they might possibly exposed to audio/video clips that are not good, hence affecting the learning process.

2) Limited access. Schools in rural areas seldom provide facilities such as computers and internet access, thus making learning through technology impossible.

3) Facebook. This tool somehow can be a distraction for students since it has a Facebook application stamped on the website. Facebook seems to be an addiction to youth these days. Thus, this application can distract the learning process since it is clearly visible to the students.

Although there are some disadvantages about Listen and Write, I still believe that with some control, this tool could benefit the students a lot. Therefore, if you would want to have more details regarding this cool tool, feel free to visit Russell Stannard's website:

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/listenWrite/index.html

Lyrics Training

What is it?
Lyrics Training is another funky tool which can be used to improve students' language proficiency through music and song lyrics. This tool provides an enormous amount of music videos that can be used for classroom activity. The lyrics provided underneath the video is incomplete, and it is the students' job to fill in the missing words. If the students get confused and could not guess the words, then the video will stop playing. Also, there's a feature where you can replay whichever lines you want, especially where the students are getting stuck. Not only that, there are three levels that can be chosen, which are Beginner, Intermediate and Expert.

Suitable for:
This tool is suitable for all learners of all levels and ages since there are three levels that can be chosen which are Beginner, Intermediate and Expert.

Activity Suggestions:
The teacher might want to use Lyrics Training by starting with a Sing-Along session with the whole classroom. After that, the students could be paired up and work on other songs. To make it more exciting, the teacher could make it into a competition where all students (in pairs) have to compete with each other to get the highest mark, providing that the video is chosen by the teacher.

The Link:

http://www.lyricstraining.com/

Advantages:

1) It's fun! And free too! Everybody loves music, so, using something as fun as Lyrics Training will attract students' attention towards the learning process. They will be able to learn the language in a way that they enjoy the most - through music.

2) Abundance of material. With thousands of music videos available on this website, the teachers would not experience any difficulties of having a lack of materials. With loads of materials, it is possible for the teachers to come out with a theme for each lesson such as theme of Love, Humanity, and also Encouragement. By doing this, the teaching and learning process will never be the same, it will be very interesting.

3) Variety in terms of language skills and learning styles. While engaging in the activity, the students could enhance their language skills, especially listening as well as writing skills. This is because they have to listen carefully to be able to fill in the missing words in the lyrics. With this, they could also learn to pronounce words correctly as they listen to the song. Besides that, learning this way will also provide variety in learning styles as the students are exposed to a new method of learning, rather than doing the exercise in a traditional way. Lyrics Training also trains students to learn autonomously.

Disadvantages:

1) The thing with technology is that, there will always be a scarcity of facilities in rural areas. Therefore, it is hard for the students in the rural areas to be able to use computers in the language lessons, let alone to get the internet access.

2) Foul language in certain songs, make it inappropriate to be exposed to the students. As a matter of fact, foul language is treated as a common thing today, especially in a song. However, not all songs contain this type of language, and it is the teachers' job to screen each song they choose to make sure that the song is 'clean' and suitable for the students.

3) It might be too fun for the students, and it makes them forgot the aim of the lesson, which is to learn the language through songs. When this happens, the students will become too engaged with the songs and they might not consider other things, other than enjoying themselves with the songs.

So, it is up to you whether to use this tool or not in the classroom. Nevertheless, I believe that the students will be benefited a lot from Lyrics Training. If you want more details about this tool, do visit Russell Stannard's page:

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/lyrics/index.html

Dvolver

What is it?
Dvolver is a website where you can make a cartoon comic strip type movie online using pre-made graphics. There are a lot of characters available to choose from, with several background music as well. The students will have to create a conversation between the characters that they chose to create a short movie.

Suitable for:
This movie maker is suitable to be used for students of all level, aged between 7 to 17. The students have the freedom to write in Dvolver creatively, depending on their language level.

Activity Suggestions:
Teachers can use this tool in the classroom, for example, by asking the students to work in pairs, to stimulate communication between students . Besides that, it can also be done as a homework for the students so as to train them to learn language autonomously.

The Link:
http://www.dvolver.com/moviemaker/index.html





Advantages:

1) It is fun, thus the students will be more enthusiastic to learn the language. Not like the usual dry and boring, paper-stuff-exercise, the students will be more excited to participate in classroom activity using the technology. Furthermore, it is free!

2) Dvolver provides context for the students, in which the students themselves choose which one they prefer. Therefore, it will provide freedom for the students to work on their creativity. Besides, the context provided will guide the students to choose and identify appropriate words and expressions to be used in appropriate context.

3) It will help the students to improve their communication skills. They will engage in a lot of discussions with their pairs while creating the movie, hence enabling them to enhance their communication skills.

Disadvantages:

1) Not all schools, especially those in the rural area provide the facilities, either the computers or the internet access, for the students.

2) The students might become too engaged with the technology, hence ignoring the Teacher Talk. Thus, they might miss some important information or instruction given by the teacher.

3) Time consuming: It is quite hard for the teacher to monitor all of the students at the same time.

Regardless the disadvantages that I have mentioned above, I still believe that Dvolver is a very useful tool to be used as an activity in classroom since the students will learn the language not by rules of grammar, but by being spontaneous while engaging in the communication activity as they 'connect' themselves with Dvolver. Therefore, if you need more help and details about Dvolver, you can dig into Russell Stannard's website:

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/volver/index.html