Hallowe'en pictures

Spooky Spot the Difference and Frankenstein colouring pictures from a couple of books published by Usborne can be used as a treat on these late days of October.

On autonomous learning

At the beginning of this month, from 4th to 6th October, the 11th Nordic Conference on Autonomous Learning was held in Donostia. Furthermore, a session addressed to teachers interested in getting to know more about the issue of learners' autonomy was organised on 3rd October.

Two well-known experts in this pedagogical approach, Leni Dam and David Little took part in the event. A selection of video and slide presentations by these two lectures can be accessed from the links below:

Leni Dam´s slides on types of activities and basic tools

David Little's slides on the principles of autonomous learning and the use of portfolios

An interview with Leni Dam

Parts of a lecture by Leni Dam: on the use of coursebooks 1 and 2

Parts of a lecture by David Little: on students' motivation and engagement 1 and 2

Story Monster

ACMI Story Monster website allows students to design monsters by choosing different features (eyes, wings, body size and colour...). Once the monster is created, the student uses arrow keys and the space bar of the keyboard in order to choose a verb and a noun. A short sentence is generated and uttered.

  

The activity can be useful to work on definitions, pronunciation, or as a start for creative writing.

Use of pictures in the English classroom

This article presents some ideas about the use of photos in the EFL classroom.

Some websites to find copyleft photos:

Flickrcc
10 banques d'images libres
INTEF: Banco de imágenes y sonidos

Pronunciation dictionaries

Howjsay website provides the sound of English words in quite a quick way. Users write the word they want to listen to into a box, click on 'submit' and choose it from a list.

Dictionarist also provides a good list of English words with their corresponding pronunciation and translations to other languages.

Macmillan Dictionary (monolingual) includes audio clips showing the British English spoken pronunciation of the requested word.