Ajarn Donald's Fantastic Free Resource Sites

Fantastic Free Resource Sites

Thai schools are in desperate need of overhauling. Low wages, shortage of qualified teachers and budgets that have been reduced to the same amount as I receive for my allowance from my wife. I'm here to share with you the free resource sites that I've personally checked out. I have checked out more than 5,000 sites with at least 80% being directly related to educational resources. The remaining 20% would be sites that are considered secondary to educational resources. More about this topic in a future blog. Let's start with what Thai students fear the most, speaking and listening. What does 200,000,000,000 mean? It really amazes me because this number represents a rough figure of what the largest company in the world (Google) is worth today. It also represents the number of times when my former students used to approach me in the mornings, and I would then greet them (good morning, how are you today)? All Thai schools, principals and teachers would seem very satisfied if they could get every student to reply (I'm fine, thank you and you).

My First Pic Goes to Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab




Mr. Randall Davis has gone through great lengths and spent countless amount of time putting together a huge sites (actually several sites) devoted to listening and speaking. I must say he is one of my personal favorite educational professionals who aims to make a difference in the lives of ESL/EFL learners.





Moving Right Along About.Com Need. Know. Accomplish. About: Need. Know. Accomplish.

On this site it's like having all the answers to anything and everything that you can possibly need/want to know.
This site is owned by The New York Times Company. The ESL/EFL section is run by Mr. Kenneth Beare.
On the main site you will find information and resources for many other things like health. Science, History,
world events an much much more. This site is truly a teacher's gold mine.






Let's Not Forget the Little Ones Kidzui is a browser that allows kids to surf the Internet freely and safely. The Safe Browser For Kids On the Internet

This browser will need to be downloaded but it is highly recommended that you do it especially if you're teaching
the younger age children age 5-11 or so. Actually this site can be used by older kids like myself 50-years young and still learning. Also you would like to share this info. with your students if by chance you don't use it in the classroom.
Students can use it at home to help them with their homework, play games both educational and non-educational games,
watch movies and so many more cool things all for free in a safe environment. This site was created by hundreds of teachers and parents.






I Call This the Nasty Hangover Site John's Word Serch Puzzles Word Search Puzzles

Again you can access several sites here. This is a great site to print something quickly and then make a billion copies
especially if you're recovering from the night before.






Now How About Some Conversations Conversation Questions for the ESL/EFL Classroom ESL Conversation Questions

This is really a great site to get a conversation started in the classroom. It has many topics to choose from. Depending
on how many students are in the class, I used to let one student choose the topic for the next class (works great in private language centers). Here you will be able to access other sites as well. Be sure to click on the Jokes in English for the ESL/EFL Classroom tab.







Well that just about does it for this month.
While I rated 5 Fantastic Free Resource Sites, you will actually have access to many more sites if you look for all the different links on each Page. Please take a few moments of your time and tell me your opinion about my pics. If you have any questions or any request please feel free to ask away. Don't be a stranger and don't be shy. Thanks a lot for reading. Why not bookmark this before you forget? Please share this with anyone who you feel can use this information. September's Blog will be one you shouldn't miss. At this time I'd like to take this opportunity to wish all mothers here a safe and Happy Mother's Day this Friday 12/08/2011.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Kids 1 Interactive Digital English Course

English-Attack! Thailand For Education