Self-Study Log

Name: Gabriela Josefina Castillo Baéz

Each week during the PALSS course, you will be exploring at least two websites on your own. One should be for improving your own listening or speaking skills, and one should be a resource you may want to use for teaching listening or speaking in your own English classes. You should explore two different websites each week and write your reflections about them here in your Self-Study Log. Comments should be in note form (not prose) and brief (less than 100 words) but thoughtful, useful and substantive. This will help you keep track of what was useful for you so that after our course ends, you can use this document as an ‘English Tool Kit’.

Please type your assignments into the correct boxes on this same document each week. Just save to this document to our wiki in Blackboard, updating it each week. Do not create a new document each week. Take a look at the rubric in our Blackboard course site for information on how this will be scored. Each week’s self-study log is due on Saturday at 11:59 PM (Oregon time).

Website URL for your own improvement in Listening or Speaking:

Comments:What did you learn?

How can this help you improve your listening/speaking skills?

Website URL for a Listening or Speaking resource to use in your

English classroom with your students:

Comments:Can you use this for your class? How?

Week 1

http://www.voxopop.com/ This site is fantastic to practice my listening and my speaking. I listened to different people introducing themselves and giving their reasons to record their voice in this

http://americanenglish.state.gov/resources This site has many different resources for listening in English. It has stories, songs, VOA activities and podcasts. I listened to a story and a

site. One of the most common reasons was to improve their speaking which I think it is a good idea.

When I was listening to people from different countries I could notice different pronunciations and some of them were difficult to understand.

Here, we can create a talkgroup or participate in one.

I also listened to people in the section “Most active users” and I could listen to people who had different audios where they could record a kind of journal which I think is a great idea

traditional song “railroad” and I also listened and worked on VOA activity and Listened To a VOA podcast

There are beautiful stories such as “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry. The stories are in PDF format and MP3 audio. I could observe that in this site the stories, and songs have classroom activities.I could use the stories with my students to practice their listening and speaking by asking them to retell the

too to practice our fluency, vocabulary and pronunciation. Actually, I have started my own journal but I used http://vocaroo.com/ for this purpose because I had problems with java program.

story or to share in pairs what they liked the most from the story.

Depending on the level the students could read and listen to the story or just to listen to it and retell it.

Week 2

http://www.npr.org/templates/listen/ This site is very interesting. I explored this site and I listened to some news on a program called “NPR Hourly News Summary”. I listened to news related to the attacks in France by terrorists and they also talk about some conflicts in Syria. I also listened to an interview with Jennifer Aniston about

http://www.esl-lab.com/ This site is kind of a listening Lab. This site is classified into different sections such as: quizzes, learning tips and vocabulary lessons among others. Each section has different topics and each topic has pre-listening,

her new film named “cake” which is about a woman who suffers a lot of pain. I heard she is a co-producer in this film too. There are audios about stories and programs of music which I liked very much.I think that listening to this kind of sites where I could listen to news, is a good chance to have practice and train my ear to understand. Sometimes it is difficult to understand and I have to play it again but that’s the way it is.

while-listening and post-listening activities. Each section also is divided into the levels easy, medium and difficult. There are vocabulary and grammar activities where students could check their responses independently. It also has a grammar lesson with simple explanations about an specific grammar point with exercises to check understanding. These exercises are focused on real use of the language.

I think that I can use this site with my students to reinforce a specific grammar point by asking students to listen and practice with them for homework.

Week 3

http://esl.about.com/od/conversationlessonplans/ This site caught to my attention. I explored it and I found many interesting things. There is a section which gives some tips to improve listening comprehension and vocabulary skills. Its title was: “How to use DVDs to improve your English”. I learned that it is better to work in many short sessions (about 20 min) focusing on one scene

http://blabberize.com/main/ I liked this site very much. I had seen this kind of images with mouths which move as they were talking, but I didn’t know it was available for everyone and free. I found this site from the blog:“Best sites to Practice Speaking.Here, we can upload an image which can be an

each time than one long session. The materials we need is a pen or pencil, paper and a dictionary. The suggestion is to listen to a scene six times; five times in English and one in our native language. The first times we should watch the same scenes is without subtitles and taking notes of phrases and a short description of it. In general I think it is a great idea to improve listening comprehension and vocabulary. I think I will try it. There were other tips but this was the one I liked.

animal, the photo of a person, the picture of a famous person from History, etc. We can place mouths to the image which move in a funny way and speak our voice. I tried it and it was not very difficult. There are steps that you can easily follow. These are some steps: Pick an image you can browse from your computer, place mouths, and pick a sound. I think this is a great idea to lower pressure in students who feel nervous

when they speak.

Week 4

http://www.pronuncian.com/Podcast/Default.aspx? This site is very interesting. It has several sections. It has episodes and podcast which focuses on particular and difficult English pronunciation issues. I think this site is helpful specifically for intermediate and advance levels. I chose some episodes and the explanations are very clear. I worked on some episodes where I could read along while I was listening. It gives an explanation of how to pronounce some words with certain group of letters as patterns which not always apply to the same

http://www.soundsofenglish.org/pronunciation/index.htm

I liked this site because it looks attractive for the students. Its site design looks very simple and interesting. This site is very interactive too. There are activities where a learner listen to a minimal pair and choose from a group of words and submit their answer to get graded immediately, which I think is excellent for the students; to get prompt feedback. It also has a section called “word

pronunciation. It explains and gives some tips to pronounce and then below it has groups of words that I repeated after. I liked this site because I can review and check my pronunciation and in this way I could teach my students better. It also has a section to learn how to stress syllables and words. I will definitely use it to foster my teaching pronunciation skills.

stress” where it explains clearly and gives tips too. I liked this site because it has audios and open without any problem. I would like to use this site with my students and ask them to do a specific exercise for homework or in class when teaching a specific pronunciation.

Week 5

http://video.mit.edu/ I liked this site very much. It is about many interesting topics, all related to science, technology, biology, etc. I have always been interested in topics related to History,

http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/ I think this site is excellent. I had been looking for a site I could suggest my students to practice their listening skill. They usually

technology, etc. I would like to use this site to improve my listening and my vocabulary. Also, I think, this site could help me to get prepare and certify the language. I watch a video about how the raindrops splash down on leaves, spread pathogens among plants. The video has subtitles and it can be fixed to a slower speed. Although it had the subtitles I tried to listen to it without looking at them. What was very helpful to understand what was said were the images. The quality of the videos was awesome Of course another

have listening exercises but they are not enough or real. In this site, students can have access to news in different levels and 5 different speeds. There is also a section called “Lesson page” with exercises such as matching, filling in the gaps, surveys, free writing, etc. which I think are excellent. Another idea I could think of is that it is a site which my students could visits to then take every week a self-study log. The

advantage of this type of sites is that I could learn a lot about science which is very fascinating. I watched the video several times so I could understand more what they talk about.

topics may be interesting to them. Besides they can learn vocabulary.

Week 6

http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/ I explored this site and I saw it is very original. It is possible to download the app in our mobile or ipod or ipad. However it costs about 39 dollars. I think I’ll buy it but not now. Anyway, I liked the graphics and the short videos that open in a small window next to the graphic which by the way is interactive. There is a section called:

http://www.real-english.com/reo/index.asp I liked this site because it focuses on communication. The site’s name is “Real English” and the lessons are supported by short videos depending on the level. I explored only English for beginners because I am currently teaching this level; there are

“Phonetics: The Sounds of American English” where it opens a window which is divided mainly between consonants and vowels. I explored both sections. I had some difficulties to distinguish the difference between the monophtongs of the words farmer and earth. They are very similar. In conclusion I think, it will help me to study phonetics and phonology and teach my students better pronunciation.

other levels though. Each level is divided into different lessons and each lesson is divided into exercises. There is a video to introduce the topic and then in the exercises the video is presented in segments to review each phrase. I tried the first two lessons and I did the first exercises. What I liked the most is that it explains the way native speakers pronounce and we can record and compare our pronunciati

on with the original. I could post the link to my students to ask them do this as homework and review what we saw in class.

Week 7

http://www.voanews.com I liked this site very much because it has a wide variety of news. I listened to the news about The Oscars event. The news title is: “Hollywood Gears up for Sunday’s Oscar”. I listen to this twice and I could understand that here they mentioned several nominees and in different categories, such as best actor, actress, director, supporting roles, best movie, etc. One of the

http://www.eslvideo.com This site is perfect for my students. It is a site with videos of trailers where it is tested the listening with some quizzes. It doesn’t test only the content of the video but also the images. So we have to pay attention to the whole video not just the information. I saw the trailer of the Hunger games and did the quiz.

movies they mention were Birdman, Boyhood, the theory of everything, and others. I also watched a trailer of the movie “Still Alice” the story of a woman who despite her intellect she suffers from Alzheimer disease.She was known as a very intelligent woman with a genetic disposition to this disease. I think it is another opportunity to improve my listening, besides the topics are very interesting.

At the end of the quiz you can get your score which is also important. I also watched and listened the trailer music of the movie 50 shades of Grey sung by Beyoncé. In the quiz section there were three parts: Questions, Transcript and Notes. I think my students will like it and I could also add it to the list of sites where they can access to practice their listening and write their comments on their self-study log.

Week 8

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/

I explored this site and I liked it very much. The contents I worked on were introduction, The sounds of English, similar sounds exercises and quizzes. There is also a section of videos which are very funny too. First, I worked on the section similar sounds exercises. Here I saw the different sound i: (key) vs I (pin) or differences between u as in “book” and u: as in do. Then, I watched some videos. For example, in the video sounds of English, I learned that in written English there are 26 letters of the alphabet but there are over

http://www.eslflow.com/pronunciationlessonplans.html

I liked this site better because it has very attractive exercises of word stress, stress pattern, and pronunciation as in minimal pairs. For example, in the exercises “unstressed words” show a box with words which students will choose as they listen to the teacher read the sentence and check their answers below in the same worksheet. I also liked a work sheet which actually was a quiz. It was about stress patters by

40 sounds in English. We see the difference of written English because the symbols are written between slashes. After that I tried some other videos where are located below on the same section by clicking on the chart choosing the symbol we want to know. Next, I explored the quizzes section but unfortunately, it didn’t load correctly. However, I could see the quizzes downloading them. I think I will use it to learn about the correct pronunciation of some sounds and teach to my students better those sounds.

the BBC Learning English. It also has the answer sheet. I could see there is a word stress bingo too, so I think I could adapt this game to my lessons. Anyway, I think I could use this site to work with my students to help them to develop their listening and speaking abilities and it will be very helpful for me too because I can download the exercises with their answers.

Week 9

http://www.azlyrics.com/ I explored some sites about lyrics but this one is the one I liked more. I could notice that the music in this site is very popular. It has options of full lyrics and print the lyrics. Here you can get the MP3 format and email the song you choose. I liked in this site that the songs are played automatically. At this very moment I am writing my log and at the same time I am listening to different songs because I can forward to the next song if I wish. I can choose from different radio stations such as “The revolution Smile Radio”, “Far Radio”, etc. so I think I

http://www.es olcourses.com/topics/learn- english-with-songs.html

I liked this site a lot because it has different activities such as fill in the blanks while we watch and listen to the video, which is in the same space. First I worked with the song “Here comes the song”. Below there is a small window in the same page with the video. There, right below the video, there is a section with instructions and an activity. The activity, it says, we can practice our spelling, and listening skills. The

will use this site to listen and read the lyrics and improve my pronunciation, intonation and vocabulary. Another thing about this site is that sometimes the music is interrupted by some commertials.

exercise I did, was a multiple choice exercise which gives an instantaneous feedback. There I found a Gap fill activity with the song imagine and word options above the exercise.I think I could use this site with my students as another option for their self-study log.

Week 10