Halloween Teaching Ideas and Resources

 The spooky, scary Halloween festival is just round the corner! These are some activities and ideas which came to my mind after reading The English Raven Halloween lesson materials design challenge. Are you ready to invite your students to plan your school Halloween party?

                         Open publication - Free publishing - More halloween

Activity D2

What activities would you like to organize and participate in at the school Halloween party?
	Halloween Recipe Contest
	The 50 Word Fright Contest
	Traditional Halloween Games
	Costume Contest
	Who Wants to Be a Millionaire: Halloween
	Spooky Halloween Storytelling Night
	Jack O'Lantern Workshop
pollcode.com free polls

More ideas and activities:

•  50 Word Fright (scary stories). 
• Read the story and put the section in order - It's teachers magazine.
• Halloween ideas - The British Council.
• The Best Websites for Learning about Halloween by Larry Ferlazzo.
• 18 Educational Apps for Halloween by Shelly Terrell.
• Halloween resources - ESOL Courses.
• Halloween recipes - They Draw & Cook.

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Verbling - Let's practice English with native speakers in real time

The Internet has revolutionised not only the way people communicate but also the way we learn foreign languages such as English.

Gone are those days when learning how to speak this language in a non-speaking country was quite challenging. The only contact we had with English was through music, books or our teachers. There were like twenty-five, thirty students in my class so we did not have the chance to practice.

Nowadays everything is much easier and there are a lot of online alternatives to language classrooms to improve our oral skills. A long time ago Karen Schweitzer and I wrote about some online language learning communities we can join in to practice English with native speakers:

• 10 Learning Communities for ESL Students
• Language Social Networks. Don't Stop Learning!

However, this year a new site, Verbling, has been launched. Verbling is a free live video service for chatting only available in English and Spanish at the moment, since it is in its beta test phase. Nevertheless, they will expand the possibilities soon.

Two of the great features of this new online language learning site, compared to other alternatives, is that it includes video and you can instantly connect to a partner. You do not need to spend time looking for a partner to practice since once you join the site, the system match you up to a parner taking into account your skill level and interests. Then you start chatting in one language around a topic for five minutes and halfway through the session a timer tells you to switch off to the other language. In this way both people get practice. All you need is a microphone, a webcam and an email address.

What is not so good about the site is that it does not include the option to disconnect the webcam just in case you do not want other people watch you. However, on the other hand, I think the webcam is a great option because it allows us to see the other person's reaction to our words, grasp new vocabulary easily and so on. And, finally, it would be great as well to have the possibility to choose your partner's gender and age.

The site is not meant for under 13.

More information about Verbling:

• Verbling wants to be a next-generation language learning service
• Verbling helps you learn language through live video chat

Más información sobre Verbling en español:

• Trueque de lenguas
• Cómo hablar inglés con nativos gratis y de forma instantánea. ¡Verbling!

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BAAM GAME

Games are a great way to learn and motivate our students. I knew about this one just some weeks ago when I was looking for a cinema game on the internet to finish my didactic unit on Films and Passive Voice. I could not find the game but David Deubelbeiss from ESL Classroom 2.0 gave me the clue to create my own one.

Furthermore, you can use the template and adapt it to any vocabulary, conversation topic or grammar point you can imagine. If you like the idea, you can download the templates or other teachers' BAAM games from the following website. The idea is very simple and I think it really motivates students to take part in.

BAAM! Cinema Trivia Game

View more presentations from Inma Alcázar.

All the pictures on this powerpoint are not my property. They have been taken from different sources. Therefore, if any picture is under your copyrights please, send me an email and I will remove it within 48 hours.

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Do you glog? Reinventing Posters with Glogster Edu

Posters have always been considered a valuable resource to stimulate students' creativity as well as an opportunity for teachers to know what students' have learnt. Do you remember when we created posters using a cardboard, crayons, coloured pencils, pictures taken from magazines, and so on?

Much time has passed since then and with the revolution of technology we have "discovered" many useful tools which can make learning more engaging for our students. Don't our students spend most of their free time at their PCs? So, why not combine the effectiveness of web 2.0 tools to give them more autonomy to create their own projects in which they will be the speakers, the writers, the editors, and the introduction of interesting topics our students are interested in?

If you are curious to find out how technology tools can enhance your teaching and involve your students in their English learning process, you should use Glogster Edu:

• It allows teachers and students to create digital posters.
• It is free.
• It is safe.
• You can add pictures and graphics from the Internet or from your own computer.
• It is possible to add videos from the Internet or from your own computer.
• You can record your own voice, so it is perfect to record an interview, a speech, a recitation of a poem or a song.
• You can write your own texts to express yourself.So, Glogster Edu is wonderful for creative projects but also for reflections on cultural and social topics.

I honestly think this is one of the easiest tools I have worked with and the possibilities to incorporate it in the English class are endless. In addition to this, as Glogster Edu was created with an educational purpose in mind, it ensures that all the content students view is appropriate. You can supervise our students' projects as well and both you and your students can comment on each other's glogs, print them and embed the glog in your classroom blog or wiki.

What are you waiting for using it?

TUTORIALS:

• GlogsterEdu Video Tutorial by Copiague Middle School.
• GlogsterEdu Tutorial by Traci Blazoski (Google Docs).

GLOGSTERS CREATED BY TEACHERS:

• To introduce yourself to your students by Sean Banville.
• To show your students's works - Ozge Karaoglu's kindergarten students telling their stories.
• To create your own digital portfolio by Ozge Karaoglu.
• To introduce grammar tenses by Sunrise651.
• Lesson Plan on Food for primary students by Sunrise 651.

GLOGSTERS CREATED BY STUDENTS:

• Advantages and Disadvantages of Mobile Phones by xoxoMadzxoxo.
• Helping Family by s9sy2gh.
• Portfolio by Nurin Adlina.
• Create an interactive cookbook (Webquest final task) by Rubilime.
• Greatings from the World Project
• A Trip to London - Maria Markaki's Class.
• The Airport Project by Mireia Molina (4º E.S.O.)

TEACHERS' NETWORKS:

• Education Glogster - Ning Network.

MY STUDENT'S GLOGS
Ángela -6th Primary


Laura - 1st ESO


Lucía - 1ºESO


María - 5º primaria

MY GLOG

This is a Glogster I created myself as an example for 1º Bachillerato students' project at the end of a didactic unit dealing with Rudyard Kipling, conditional sentences and the situation of people living in developing countries. The purpose of this project was that students wrote their own poems based on Rudyard Kipling's poem If and recorded them, and wrote a short biography of Rudyard Kipling.

.

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CUADERNIA - an educational materials generator

It has been almost two years since I started writing this blog and it is incredible how much I have learnt from many great teachers I have met on the net. Writing was not easy at first. What could an almost new teacher say? However, I have enjoyed a lot having "this little window" to share what I have learnt, my educational worries and tips to introduce technology in the classroom. After a long busy year without time to update the blog, I am back to introduce you a valuable tool to create educational digital books, CUADERNIA 2.0.

This fantastic free authoring tool, created by Oscar Guerrero Sánchez and his team Entornos Innovadores, is at teachers' disposal in the website of the Education Department of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain). Up to now, it is only available for Windows and is offered only in Spanish language. I hope there is an English version, as well, in the future so that teachers from all over the world can benefit from it.

Cuadernia is really easy to use, even for those teachers who do not have much computering knowlege, and it has real potential for helping to make our lessons more engaging and dynamic. You do not need to be a genius to create complementary material for your English lessons, you just need to know your students' interests, motivations and needs to generate activities which are relevant for them. Many times course books include many general topics and they may be useful for English teachers who teach in a big city, for instance, but not for teachers working in a village. This is just one of the reasons I believe that creating our own material or adapting it is worthwhile.

One of the tools you can use to create your own materials is Cuadernia 2.0 which allows us to create 21 different kinds of activities using a background, text, flash images, pictures, videos as well as speech bubbles, augmented reality objects and some free applications to change your archives to different formats.

The software is available in three different versions - an online version, a downloadable version for your PC or laptop and another one to save it in your USB. If you decide to use the online version, you have to take into account that it is not possible to save the digital version directly. You will need to export it to your PC to be able to save it and finish your digital book later.

Lorena Pinillos Chávez has published an easy to follow tutorial (20 pages) that shows you how to use Cuadernia. However, you will find a more complete tutorial (81 pages) in the website of the Education Department of Castilla-La Mancha.

Some of the main advantages which Cuadernia offers are:

• It provides an attractive learning environment for students.
• It is not just a tool for teacher to create their materials and share them with other teachers, but also a collaborative tool for students. Have a look at "Estrategia pedagógica con Cuadernia" by Eva M. Perdiguero Garzo.
• It includes a broad range of resources to assist in the autonomous use of the programme (tutorials, videotutorials in Cuadernia Youtube Channel).
• It includes a forum where teachers can express their opinions about the software and help to its improvement as well as a facebook group.
  In the Educative Digital Objects Library (Librería ODEs) you will find some didactic units not just for the English Class but for other subjects as well.

What I do not find so easy using this software is:

• Inserting the digital books in a blog.
  
  
• using other types of formats, you need to change them using the applications offered.

You can download some EFL materials created with Cuadernia:

• English (Primary).
• E.O.I (Official Language Schools in Spain).

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English Pronunciation Resources for Students and Teachers

Given the many different places that "native" English speakers hail from, there is no such thing as perfect English pronunciation. That said, knowing how to pronounce words is an important part of learning any language. If you are struggling with pronunciation or know a student who is struggling, the following free resources may help:

SpokenSkills - SpokenSkills offers many different resources for ESL teachers, language professionals and students, including vowel sounds, consonant sounds, audio and video clips, and listening comprehension podcasts.

Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary - This online learning dictionary from Merriam-Webster provides 15 free sessions of perfect pronunciation exercises for ESL students. Each session includes practice with words, phrases, and sentences.

New English File - This Oxford University Press site offers pronunciation practice for beginner, elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate, upper-intermediate, and advance

d level English language learners. Students in each level can check their pronunciation of English sounds against audio files and play games to reinforce learning.

Fonetiks - Fonetiks offers comprehensive pronunciation guides for nine different varieties of the English language. Other site features include an online English dictionary with instant sound, minimal pair practice, an interactive reading course, a list of words that are difficult to pronounce, and a pronunciation guide for names of people and places.

Inogolo - Inogolo is an online American English pronunciation guide for ESL and EFL learners. The guide includes pronunciations for the names of people, places, and things.

Howjsay - Howsjay is a talking online dictionary that contains audio pronunciations for more than 130,000 English words and phrases. If the word you are looking for is not contained in the dictio

nary, you can post a question about the word on the site's comment board.

English Interactive - English Interactive links to a wide range of sites that offer English pronunciation practice. Other site features include interactive vocabulary practice with audio and conversation resources.

American English Pronunciation Practice - Charles Kelley, a textbook writer and ESL enthusiast, created this page for ESL and EFL students who need pronunciation practice. The page includes listen and repeat videos, tongue twisters, and game-like minimal pair practice using Flash and MP3 files.

Write Back Soon - Radio Lingua Network provides several different podcasts for English learners, including this phrasal verb podcast known as Write Back Soon. The podcast series consists of eight archived episodes that help ESL students understand and practice phrasal verbs.

Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab - This online listening lab is great for students who need speaking, listening, and pronunciation practice. The lab provides short listening quizzes and activities for beginner and intermediate students as well as videos of long conversations and interviews for more advanced students.

Phonetics Flash Animation Project - This online project from the University of Iowa features animated libraries of phonetic sounds of English. An animated diagram, description, and audio file of the sound being used in context are available for each English consonant and vowel.

KanTalk - Created specifically for English students who need spoken English practice, this online community offers a space to practice conversations and share recordings and videos.

Busuu - Busuu is an international language learning community for people who want to practice English and other languages with native speakers. The site's integrated video-chat-application makes it easy to chat with anyone you meet on Busuu.

SharedTalk - SharedTalk is a free Rosetta Stone community that provides both voice and text chat for members who want to practice their language skills online.

Livemocha - Livemocha is a popular online language learning community that supports six different languages, including English. Students can use the site to find language partners, user-made videos, and other ESL resources.

AddLang - AddLang makes it easy for students to practice pronunciation with native English speakers over Skype. Students can also practice their English with other AddLang members using MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, and AOL Messenger

UsingEnglish.com - The English Language Discussion Forum on UsingEnglish.com has a special section just for students who want to discuss questions related to pronunciation, phonetics, and other aspect of speech. The forum also offers an "Ask the Teacher" section for students who need additional help.

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about pharmacy technician certification for PharmacyTechnicianCertification.com.

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PLAYCOMIC, more than a simple comic creator

It has been a long time ago since I wrote my last post, due to lack of time. However, today I found an incredible comic creator tool which I would like to share with you. It is called PLAYCOMIC and it has been designed and created by Antonio Muñoz Germán in order to help stu

dents to develop their writing and oral communication skills in English and in Spanish.

There is a great amount of characters and backgrounds students can choose from, so the possibilities to create different kinds of situational dialogues is almost endless. They will be able to create their own comic strips, finish one of more than 40 stories included, transform a comic into a narrative and viceversa, fill the balloons with their own dialogues and add as many pages as they want to.

Teachers will benefit as well from this software since it includes a didactic guide with a series of methodological principles, as well as educational suggestions for different kinds of activities using comics, and a detailed guide to learn how to use this tool.

Well, I hope you find time to explore and try this tool with your students because it is really worth it.


If you want to know more about how to integrate comics in the classroom, I recommend you to see S. Hendy presentation. She suggests different ideas to integrate comics within the curriculum.

Tap Into The World Of Comics #2:Comic Version

View more presentations from S. Hendy

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10 Learning Communities for ESL students

Participating in an online language learning community is a good way for ESL students to improve speaking and writing skills. The average community provides language partners to chat with in addition to other learning tools. Here are 10 online learning communities that can be joined for free.

EnglishForums.com - EnglishForums.com is the world's largest EFL/TEFL social network. Students can use the site to learn English, meet new people online, and ask questions about grammar, vocabulary, letter writing, and essays.

SharedTalk - This Rosetta Stone site is a free language exchange community. Visitors can learn and practice English with various language partners via voice chat and text chat.

Unilang - Unilang is an online language learning community with many different free language resources. Members can learn, discuss, and practice English and other languages with Unilang's text and voice chat.

English, Baby! - This English language learning community makes it easy to learn English with downloadable audio lessons and other learning materials. Community members can also use the site to find pen pals and language partners.

Hello-Hello - Hello-Hello is a good place for ESL students to find native speakers to practice with. The site also provides free English lessons developed in collaboration with the ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages).

Mixxer - This free educational website was created for language learners who want to practice their writing and speaking skills with other people around the world. Mixxer users can write a blog post and have their writing corrected or chat with other users via Skype.

MyHappyPlanet - ESL students can practice their language skills with native speakers on MyHappyPlanet. Other site features include free videos and English lessons.

Parlo - Parlo is an interactive language learning site that provides free resources in addition to fee-based courses. The site is a good place to find pen pals, music from the English-speaking world, and diagnostic tests to determine your skill level.

xLingo - xLingo is a language exchange community for people who want to learn and practice English and other languages. The site makes it easy to find a language partner and build skills with free online flashcards.

LearnHub - This site offers several online learning communities for ESL students. LearnHub visitors can join an existing community or become a community leader and start their own.

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online degree reviews for OnlineDegreePrograms.org.

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20 Free Online Libraries and Reading Rooms

Reading online is a great way for students to practice and improve English reading skills. There are many free libraries and reading rooms that allow you to read books, articles, historical documents, and reference materials online. Here is a list of 20 online libraries worth exploring:

The Free Library - The Free Library by Farlex features over 5 million articles and books that are viewable online. The site provides literature for business, health, humanities, law, recreation, science, communications, entertainment, social sciences, and general interest.

Project Gutenberg - Project Gutenberg is the largest single collection of free ebooks on the web. Within this site, browsers can find and read over 30,000 online books.

University of Virginia Library - The University of Virgina Library provides more than 2,100 ebooks that are available free to the public. The ebook titles include classic American and British fiction, children's literature, American history books, Shakespeare plays, and other documents.

The Online Books Page - This library, hosted by the University of Pennsylvania, provides access to free books around the web. The site houses listings for over 35,000 books that are readable online.

Bibliomania - Bibliomania offers over 2,000 free fiction books. The site also features reference books, quotations, dictionaries, nonfiction, and biographies.

Baen Free Library - This online library features a number of free online digital books. The books are viewable in a variety of ways, including HTML download, Microsoft reader, Rocket ebook, and Rich Text Format.

Bartleby.com - This site provides free online readable books for reference, verse, fiction, and nonfiction. The literature on this site is searchable based on type, author, subject, or title.

Internet Public Library - The Internet Public Library offers links to catalogs of books that are free to read on the Internet as well as magazines, journals, and newspapers from around the world.

ReadPrint - ReadPrint is a free library of books for teachers, students, and booklovers. The books are completely free, easy to read online, and feature thousands of stories, novels, and poems.

Stanford University - The Stanford University HighWire Press features a large archive of free full-text journal articles dating back to January of 1994.

Free Online Books - With over 5,000 free ebooks, Free Online Books is a good place to find the books you're looking to read. This online library of books features many genres, including children's, fiction, autobiography, nonfiction, and much more.

Online Books 4 Free - Online Books 4 Free features over 9,200 free ebooks for students, researchers, or just enjoyment.

PublicLiterature.org - PublicLiterature.org offers a way for users to read a collection of public domain books, poetry, audio, and tutorials. This site also features a modern book blog with sample works form great authors around the globe.

Page By Page Books - This free online book site features hundreds of classic books that are accessible free online.

Historical Text Archive - The Historical Text Archive features hundreds of high quality articles, books, and links to a wide variety of historical subjects. Founded in 1990, Historical Text Archive is among the oldest history sites on the web.

Questia - Questia offers free book profiles, encyclopedias, journals, magazines, newspapers, and books that can be read online.

Free-eBooks.net - Free-eBook.net provides ebooks, magazine articles, and other resources for download or online viewing. The categories featured in this digital online library range from advertising to youth.

ChestofBooks.com - This free online reading room allows you to read books online. The books can be searched or users can simply browse through the titles.

Many Books - Many books provides more than 24,000 free ebooks that are searchable by author, title, category, and language.

DOAJ - The Directory of Open Access Journals is dedicated to increasing the availability of scholarly and scientific journals. The site has over 4,000 journals that cover a wide variety of languages and subjects.

California Digital Library - The California Digital Library features over 8,000 journals, databases, and other online resources. The interface is a little difficult to maneuver through but once you get the hang of it you can find links to all sorts of free online journal articles.

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online classes for OnlineClasses.org.

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Virtual Social Networking Conferences in November 2009

From November 5th to 8th, 2009, there will be an open-knowledge event, Social Networking, organized by AVEALMEC and ARCALL, two LatinAmerican associations, one based in Venezuela and the other one in Argentina, interested in promoting the use of ICT in the language classroom. It will be completely online and free, and its aim is to encourage practioners to reflect the role of communities of practice as social networks in ELT.

Many of the best ESL/EFL teachers and ELT professionals from different parts of the world have been invited:

• George Siemens -Canada
• Etienne Wenger -U.S.A.
• Vance Stevens - United Arabic States
• Nik Peachey - United Kingdom
• Charalambos Vrasidas and Maria Solomou - Cyprus
• Nicky Hockly - Spain
• Erika Cruvinel and Ronaldo Lima -Brazil
• Rita Zeinstejer and Paula Ledesma -Argentina
• Nellie Müller Deustch -Israel
• Carla Arena -Brazil
• Graham Stanley -Spain
• Jennifer Verschoor, Evelyn Izquierdo and Erika Cruvinel -Argentina, Venezuela and Brazil.

All of them will be sharing their experiences and expertise with participants and will help us grasp abetter picture of how social networks can be used in the language teachingand learning field.
I think it will be a great experience to have the opportunity to discuss about the concepts and theories around social networks, communities of practice, the Web 2.0, experiences in the classroom, as well as about the use, advantages and drawbacks of social networking tools.
DON'T MISS IT!

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Docking at the Right Harbour

Have you ever had problems to find useful resources on the net for teaching English? Have you ever wonder what are the best ESL/EFL resources, the best Edubloggers in the English teaching field? Many times when we want to use Internet as an education tool, we get lost due to the great amount of information contained on the net. In order to avoid this, Gorka Palazio, professor of the University of the Basque Country, has developed two great sites: English Harbour and English Tube.

English Harbour, a RSS website where you will find a selection of the best content for English teachers and students. This tool captures the last posts of top English edubloggers. Therefore, you can be up to date with these teachers' experiences in the classroom and with advances in new technologies applied to English teaching. But the advantage of visiting English Harbour is not only to read interesting post written by other ESL/EFL teachers or ELT proffessionals, but also to interact with those teachers who are interested in the same topics that you are. In this way, we are contributing to create a real learning virtual community, which can be expanded Twitter. The URL of Twitter is English Harbour.

However, if you are looking for new resources, English Tube can add visual spice to your University lessons mainly. After class, your students can continue learning English at home, in a cyber café or wherever they wish, watching videos on this site. The videos, which have been taken from the major video services such as Youtube, Blip, Vimeo, Veoh or Metacafe, are organized by level (beginner, intermediate and advanced) and by skills (grammar, listening, speaking and writing).

One thing I love about English Tube is that its content is really well-organized. Besides, it is an interactive site in which students can leave their comments on the videos they have watched. I hope that this is only the first step to expand and create a bigger English Tube full of videos for primary and secondary students, as well. A great idea would be that all those useful videos included subtitles, and there was an option to show or hide them depending on the student's English level.

Expocampus 09 Palazio

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20 places to study english grammar online

If you are looking for a fun and interactive way to study English grammar, you can find almost everything you need on the Internet. There are exercises, tests, study guides, quizzes, and many other materials that make studying English grammar both simple and entertaining. Here are 20 resources to try:

Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) - The Purdue OWL offers a wide variety of exercises in grammar, punctuation, and spelling for English students. The exercises cover everything from basic grammar rules to advanced grammar understanding.

Daily Grammar - The Daily Grammar site provides grammar lessons and reviews that make it easy to study English grammar. Reviews cover parts of speech, parts of sentences, and mechanics.

GrammarBook.com - This free online site for English usage rules has fun and interactive quizzes and videos for reviewing grammar rules. This is the perfect way to learn and refresh your English grammar skills.

FlashcardExchange - The FlashcardExchange provides several pre-made flashcard sets that grammar studiers will find extremely useful. This site can also be used to create and share original English grammar flashcards.

Chomp Chomp - This free grammar site provides interactive exercises for testing your grammar knowledge. The exercises include accompanying handouts to increase retention.

Online English Grammar - The Online English Grammar site provides a list of free online tests and games for practicing grammar. Most of the grammar tests and games are designed for intermediate to advanced users.

HyperGrammar - HyperGrammar, a University of Ottawa site, has free grammar lessons with an end-of-lesson review test for testing knowledge and finding the weak spots in your grammar knowledge.

Newroom 101.com - Newroom101.com provides thousands of free exercises for writers, students, editors, and other people who want to study or review grammar.

English Exercises Online - English Exercises Online has a collection of online grammar quizzes that can be used as study aids. The quizzes are mainly fill-in-the-blank and multiple-choice and offer a guide for difficulty.

Oxford University Press - The online practice grammar guide from Oxford Press University features free online practice tests for basic to advanced studiers. The tests make it easy to figure out the grammar skills you have perfected versus the skills you still need to improve.

The Online Grammar Guide - This free online study guide is specifically designed for advanced English users. The guide, created by Jack Lynch, covers all grammar subjects from A versus An to Who versus Whom.

SpeakSpeak - SpeakSpeak provides advanced English grammar practice exercises for learning or studying grammar. Simply review the exercises and take the online tests to find out what skills you need to review.

English Grammar Exercises - These online exercises were written by an English teacher at College Claparede to provide grammar practice for advanced students.

Guide to Grammar and Writing - The Guide to Grammar and Writing features interactive quizzes and overviews for advanced English grammar study. The site also contains college level vocabulary lists and quizzes.

Quizlet - This free online flashcard site features 74 pre-made flashcard sets for studying English grammar. Users can use the flashcards to learn, familiarize, and test terms and usage.

Cengage Learning - This online study center features practice tests for learning and reviewing English grammar rules. Within this site users will find free practice tests for everything from apostrophes to subjects and verbs.

Learn4Good - Learn4Good, a free English study and exercise site, features grammar practice for SAT, PET, FCE, CAE, and more. The site lists and explains some of the more difficult grammar concepts and allows you to put your knowledge into practice with review tests.

Nonstop English - The Nonstop English site features advanced exercises for ESL students who are preparing for the TOEFL.

Activities for ESL Students - This site for ESL students provides a large collection of self-study grammar quizzes. Users can simply browse through the quizzes and pick the level that will challenge them.

The Tower of English - The Tower of English is a site created for ESL students to study and learn every aspect of English.

This post has been written by education writer Karen Schweitzer. She writes the Business School Guide for About.com and has been serving as an advisor to Business School as well. She also writes about online courses for OnlineCourses.org.

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SpellQuizzer - Help your students master their spelling

Today, I was contacted by Dan Hite, a corporate software developer, who talked to me about his useful educative programme for Windows, SpellQuizzer. SpellQuizzer helps students that need help learning their spelling and vocabulary words and it has very nice features.

SpellQuizzer was not designed with any one spelling curriculum in mind. In fact, it should compliment virtually any spelling curriculum since you create your own custom spelling lists. Teachers can enter their students spelling words into the software and record them by speaking into a microphone. After that, the students can listen the recorded words and type them. The software has a built-in spellchecker that recognizes both US and UK English spellings.

Another great feature is that the spellchecker warns the user when creating a spelling list if they enter a word that appears to be spelled incorrectly. Because of this safeguard it's reasonably safe to let students create their own spelling lists guided by the curriculum they are working on. If the teacher or parents creates the lists in SpellQuizzer, it's always a good idea to try to make the sound recordings amusing for the child. Funny phrases or voices make this tool funnier for the child and help to keep them engaged.

There is a video demo you can watch, click here. Besides, you can also find a page of free downloadable spelling lists with audio recordings for use with SpellQuizzer, click here. Finally, you can belong to the community web site which has discussion forums and a place where SpellQuizzer users can upload and download one another's SpellQuizzer spelling lists, click here, I mean, SpellQuizzer users can easily export and import SpellQuizzer spelling lists to share with other SpellQuizzer users. Because of this members of homeschool groups can share their lists rather than everyone having to record their lists individually (assuming everyone is on the same curriculum).

This software is not free, it costs $29.95 to download the software, but the creator has generously offered Sharing Learning readers the opportunity to get a free copy of the software to the first five people who contact him referring to my blog. To get your free copy of SpellQuizzer fill out the contact form, click here. Be sure to mention that you are a Sharing Learning reader and educator and use an email address associated with an education institution when requesting a free license. You have also the opportunity to download a 30 days free trial to know how the software works. After this time, you have to pay for the service. It costs nothing to try out SpellQuizzer and once you have purchased you can still request a full refund if you are not completely satisfied during the first 60 days after purchase.

I don't earn any money spreading this information, I'm just passing along this information for teachers who are interested in getting this useful software with their students or children.

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