Week 04 – 1: Skill-building websites for reading/writing skills and technology-enhanced lesson plans

Readings

1) Three extensive reading activities for ESL/EFL students using e-books (Mei-Ya Liang)
The lesson is consists of three parts using e-books such as choosing books, reading and sharing books, and evaluating books. Class procedures are simple but organized. Although this lesson is basically focused on reading, it starts from reading and passes through speaking-discuss the story elements, asking questions, and retelling the story-and ends with writing the final report. Also students can be involved in higher-order thinking by evaluating books and convincing other people in a logical way of their conclusion. This lesson aims at EFL high school or college students, so it is not applicable to my students. However, while reviewing this lesson plan again, I think it could be modified in EFL elementary English course if teachers set the goal lower comparing in ESL situation.

2) Using technology to assist in vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension (Andreea I. Constantinescu)
Andreea’s paper was focused on the relationship between vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension. She emphasized that reading and vocabularies are closely related and they are interacting with each other. Andreea also said that multimedia is an interactive and computer-based and multimedia gloss brings meaningful effects on vocabulary development and reading comprehension. And text+picture annotation is the best way to recall vocabulary for reading comprehension. Moreover, four teaching principles are suggested in this paper. Lastly, she said instructors have to pay attention to the potential benefits of technology-enhanced language class.

Skill-building websites for reading/writing/vocabulary:
-Lauri’s ESL Website (http://fog.ccsf.cc.ca.us/~lfried/) – multi-skill website
-Learn English (http://www.learn-english.co.il/) – building vocabulary
-a4esl.org (http://a4esl.org/) - vocabulary and grammar quizzes

Sources:
-Three Extensive Reading Activities for ESL/EFL Students Using E-books (2004)http://iteslj.org/Lessons/Liang-ExtensiveReading.html
- Using Technology to Assist in Vocabulary Acquisition and Reading Comprehension (2007)http://iteslj.org/Articles/Constantinescu-Vocabulary.html