A Review of Online Reading Sites for ESL Students

Summary

In this article, the authors try to find suitable online sites for reading as supplementary material for ESL students. They choose their recommended site based on three criteria:user-friendliness, support and interactivity, and effects of media.The first category, user-friendliness, refers to the extent of usability of online reading materials.Support structure, such as dictionary, glossary, concordance and thesaurus, made available to users is the second category.The final category of evaluation criteriaincludes not only the quality of audio and video clips, but also our consideration of how well different forms of media integrate for effective learning, the reading speed of the audio clips and technical compatibility.

Among the eleven sites that they reviews, the top five sites recommended based on their students’ needs are as follows:

1. VOAnews.com
2. English Listening Lesson Library Online (elllo)
3. literacynet.org
4. Adult Learning Activities
5. onestopenglish
6. Unfortunately, onestopenglish(The Guardian Weekly )requires the students to subscribe, so the cost may be a deterrent.

Learner-Centered Methods

So arguing, Newmark (1966) adopted the view that complex bits of language are learned a whole chunk at a time rather than learned as an assemblage of constituent items. He declared that language-centered pedagogy with its emphasis on sequential presentation, practice, and production of isolated linguistic items “constitutes serious interference with the language learning process” (p. 81)

Language-Centered Methods

97and sequencing of content, and presentation with the aims and activities of

classroom teaching. As early as in 1936, Palmer, West, and their associates

selected and graded a vocabulary list, which was later revised by West and

published in 1953 with the title, A General Service List of English Words. The

list consisted of a core vocabulary of about 2,000 words selected on the basis

of such criteria as frequency, usefulness, and productivity and graded for

complexity...

CONSTITUENTS OF LANGUAGE TEACHING

METHODS

A variety of labels such as approach, design, methods, practices, principles,

procedures, strategies, tactics, techniques, and so on are used to describe var-

ious elements constituting language teaching. A plethora of terms and labels

can hardly facilitate a meaningful and informed discussion in any area of

professional activity. In this section, I attempt to tease out some of the termi-

nological and conceptual ambiguities surrounding some of the terms and

concepts used in the field of second- and foreign-language teaching.

چرا بايد انگليسي ياد بگيريم؟

شايد يادگيري زبان انگليسي مهمترين گام در ارتقاء کيفيت زندگي شما باشد.

آيا هيچ فکر کرده‌ايد که دسترسي به اطلاعاتي که ديگران از آن بي‌بهره‌اند، چقدر مي‌تواند جالب باشد؟ يا صحبت کردن با افراد جالبي که ديگران نمي‌توانند با آنها ارتباط برقرار کنند؟ يا تحت تأثير قرار دادن اطرافيانتان هر موقع که دهانتان را باز مي‌کنيد؟ و يا پشت سر گذاشتن ديگران با جهش‌هاي بزرگي که در شغل‌تان برمي‌داريد؟

شما مي‌توانيد به همه‌ اينها برسيد، اگر خوب انگليسي صحبت کنيد.......

some night

Some nights, I stay up cashing in my bad luck

Some nights, I call it a draw

Some nights, I wish that my lips could build a castle

Some nights, I wish they'd just fall off

........................

رابطه زبان وتفکر

سوالي که در اينجا مطرح مي‌شود اينست که ما چگونه مي‌انديشيم و براي بيان انديشه‌هاي خود چگونه از زبان استفاده مي‌کنيم. به بيان ديگر، رابطه فرآيندهاي ذهني تفکر و فرآيندهاي ذهني زبان چگونه است؟ آيا بدون زبان نيز تفکر امکان دارد؟ از زماني که افلاطون گفت تفکرحرف زدن روح است با خودش، و تلويحاً گفت که اين هر دو يکي هستند، فلاسفه و روانشناسان درباره رابطه زبان و تفکر به جر و بحث پرداخته‌اند. يکي ازمشکلات دست و پا گيردراين ميان اين است که، با اينکه ما همه احساس مي‌کنيم که مي‌دانيم تفکر چيست و اين واژه به چه نوع فعاليت ذهني اطلاق مي‌شود، تعريف علمي آن، کار بسيار دشواريست. شايد تعريف تفکر همان‌قدر مشکل باشد که تعريف ذهن. در اکثر کتابهاي درسي روانشناسي امروز فصل يا مبحث خاصي به تفکر اختصاص داده نشده است و معمولاً درمبحث حل مسئله (problem solving) از آن سخن به ميان مي‌آيد. حل مسئله عبارتست از آرايش تازه‌اي از مفاهيم، تجارب و دانسته‌هاي شخص به طوري که سرانجام بتواند راه حلي براي مشکلي که پيش آمده است پيدا کند........

How Girls and Boys Learn Differently

A key to helping your child do better in school is to understand how girls and boys learn differently. As a parent you probably have felt this was true. But now there’s scientific evidence that biology does indeed influence the learning process in elementary, middle and high school classes.

Michael Gurian, a noted educator and author, has shown through research that “hard-wiring and socialized gender differences affect how boys and girls learn.” Simply put, male and female brains are equal but different.......