ELT Practitoner's Guide

Duolingo is a widely popular free web and mobile application for learning foreign languages. Language enthusiasts can explore and practice more than 22 languages through Duolingo . According to Wikipedia sources, with a nearly five-star rating, this tool has over 200 million users worldwide. The application is downloadable to desktops, android and iOS smartphones. The green owl sends you nice reminders via email once you register yourself for a language. It motivates you every time you complete a level of the language tree. In simpler terms, its all about learning by doing. Here is a YouTube video on how Duolingo actually works: This tool offers scheduled practice for learners and based upon the frequency of practice and retention, learning becomes spontaneous. The  basic idea behind portability of such an app is informal autonomous learning, anywhere, anytime. The game like learning space constitutes of exercises such as fill in the gaps, building sentences from word

Wordsift is an useful site to create graphical images of words. Wordsift not only makes the words look prettier than other word cloud generators such as Wordle , Tagxedo , it constitutes many different options which make it a compelling tool for ELT students to learn new words and their different contextual meanings. No doubt it can make you the smartest teacher in the school who can manipulate learners' thoughts using quick and easy-to-create digital images.  I have created this colourful word cloud using Wordsfit and it amazed me when I found out that each word, if the cursor hovered around it, says it frequency in the text from which it is drawn. You might be wondering what is the basic premise of a word cloud? It is an image made up of words where the the size of the word indicates the frequency of it occurence in the given text. For instance, the word 'vocabulary' has occured in the text 11 times, which is the highest, therefore, the word is sized the biggest

Vocaroo  is an online voice recording tool with simple options for saving and sharing. It can certainly add a new dimension to your classroom teaching. There are a number of tasks you can accomplish using Vocaroo: you can provide oral feedback to your students, ask them to record their speech, give them simple home tasks for example, reflecting on a chapter they have covered in class and share their recorded thoughts via online platforms.These are just some instances.  We teachers can always  be creative in assigning purposeful tasks to our students and Vocaroo is here to support our teaching aims. Features of Vocaroo Vocaroo is giving you the chance to record your voice online for free. isn't it amazing? The layout you will see in the first place is not that eye-catching, neither for you nor your students. But once you start playing with its features, I am sure, you will realize how it can be an asset to your classroom. Some other interesting features of Vocaroo are dis

Padlet Post your notes, ideas on Padlet Padlet is a web based canvas for constructing and collating ideas or information creatively. It is colourful and simple; students will be very enthusiastic to explore such a tool in class. To put it is easier words, it is more like sticking notes on a virtual wall. Padlet gives you an open canvas - the onus is on the users (You, the teacher or your students) on how they add content, materials, multimedia elements to it.  The padlet homepage usually looks like this. The number of padlets you will create or join will show on this page. Padlet offers some great options for you to organize your ideas on the canvas. It can be a grid, a stream (like facebook news feed!) or like a shelf. You can check the preview and choose the style your prefer. You can also ask your students about their preferences. After all, they are the ones who will lead the activities on Padlet. Why  would you want to use Padlet? Padlet allows you to -

problem-solving task is an important feature of 21st century classrooms What is H5P? H5P is an open-source interactive content creating site. It is an abbreviation of HTML5 Package. The website allows users to create, design and share collaborative content using a range of content starting from games to social media. The gaming and quizzes involve problem-solving skills which is an important aspect of today's teaching and learning process.  List of contents in H5P Blended Learning H5P supports blended learning in a very smart way. Blended approach to learning emphasizes on multiple ways to deliver knowledge to students.  It combines classroom learning with online activities which give students the control, pace and time to work independently. In terms of pedagogy, it supports autonomous and experience-based learning through simulated activities online. Furthermore, students develop pro-social skills by participating in online interactive tasks. These tasks e

Screencast-o-matic is an web based screen recording tool which is applicable for all processors including Mac and Chromebook. It is an easy-to use tool to online lecture capture, oral feedback, task based learning and online tutorials What is screencast? Before you use any such digital screencasting tool like screencast-o-matic, it is wise to know what is meant by the term screencasting and how we, as educators might use it in our teaching context. Screencasting is transmitting information through recording your own computer screen. As you navigate through your screen and talk, the screencast tool keeps on capturing oyur screen and voice. You can also use your webcam to build a more personalized form of screen-casting, if you like. It is even easy to create  and share multimedia presentations by screen-casting. This is a screencast tutorial created by me using Screencast-o-matic.  Many other online tutorials on Screencast-o-matic are out there, but I recorded my own

Tubequizard is a great tool for intensive listening practice through videos. It has a bank of ready made quizzes on pronunciation practice, grammar, vocabulary in contexts and many more. All quizzes are based on YouTube videos of movies, songs, political speeches and a lot more. Not only that,  learners' language proficiency level (i.e. A2, B1, C1 etc.) can be chosen before you think of the type of practice (i.e. vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar for listeners, grammar in context etc. ) and categories (i.e. business, entertainment, film & animation, information technology etc. ) you want them to practice. Tubequizard promises autonomous learning in a very creative and interesting way. Student can engage in self-practice through this site and internalize grammar, vocabulary or pronunciation on their own by decoding.  Students  usually go through  the process of trial and error  when involved in autonomous learning and the activity design in Tubequizard essentially supports

A word cloud on stormboard As teachers we all know how essential it is for students to brainstorm and generate ideas before they attempt to write any piece of writing. All we try to do, in a writing class, is to guide students to use mind-mapping or spider webs to plan their ideas! But have we ever thought we could engage our students in an online collaborative platform where they can freely construct and share their open thoughts and ideas through innovative 'sticky notes' ? Yes, Stormboard has made it possible for us! Let's find out how it can enrich our experience of teaching writing! Stormboard and its outstanding features Stormboard is a cost-effective virtual whiteboard that allows students and teachers to collaborate both in class and at home. Students can generate and share ideas either individually, pairs or groups and come up with conclusive points. What is the most attractive feature of this tool is the chance to post sticky notes or 'stick

Dear fellow teachers! I know many of you always think how you can make your teaching more interesting and innovative. Sometimes you even struggle to find a suitable way of making that happen and frustratingly get back to your normal teaching practices. Well, unleash yourselves from now on with  this amazing online collaborative learning tool,  VoiceThread! With a variety of creative options, this tool promises you a wonderful online teaching experience. After you start using it, I won't be surprised if it eventually turns into your best buddy in teaching. What is VoiceThread? Voicethread  is a free online resource that can be used to make learning more interesting and motivating for your students. No matter in what levels your students are or what you plan to teach them, you can confidently rely on many different options that VoiceThread could offer you! In what ways can teachers use VoiceThread? Teachers can utilize this collaborative tool in numerous ways. Assessi

About If you are an enthusiastic teacher who loves using games in classrooms to energise your students and improve their learning, well,without any second thought, sign up  for  Triptico Plus  ! In case you haven't heard of Triptico - i t is  an online interactive teaching tool  consisting of a v ariety of resources that can instantly make you creative in designing short quizzes or games for your students. I am sharing a s hort YouTube video which will give you an  idea on how Triptico can be used to create interesting games for classes: Triptico allows you to c reate and save games for future classroom use. The resources available in this tool are divided into four categories namely, timers, tools, selectors and quizzes. Some of the popular games under these categories include, bingo, text spinner, find ten, student group etc.  Click o nto any game you find  suitable and go to 'open resources' option to customize the template. Each resource

Scott Thornbury's A-Z blog https://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/ provides a wealth of information on a range of ELT topics for interested readers of the field. As the title suggests, the blog is literally a one-stop forum covering nearly 200 concepts, all synchronized in an alphabetical order. Scott Thornbury's A-Z blog homepage User-friendliness Useful website links The blog is user-friendly particularly because of its unique dictionary-like index. Although the list can be tedious and overwhelming sometimes, a quick glance at it gives a clear idea of what topics the blog mainly covers. Readers can also open-up several browser pages of different topics at the same time using the hyperlinks. In addition, readers have been provided with a host of useful links at the right side section named 'Common Handy Websites'. This can be a very useful quadrant for practitioners who are interested in getting a detailed understanding of some areas of professional