| http://www.cilt.org.uk |
| This website
is amimed at anyone involved in teaching languages. CILT is the Centre for Information on
Language Teaching and Research. This website is well worth a visit, offering a variety of
resrouces including lists of recommended resources for teaching French, German and Italian
to primary school pupils. It also provides links to research documents on language
learning, some links did not work! There are also useful lists of cd-roms available. This
is simply information based however, no comments or opinions on the particular usefulness
of each cd-rom is given. There is also accessto downlaodable information sheets. Rating:
8/10 |
| http://www.vtc.ngfl.gov.uk |
| This site is
very well designed, with clear links and a valuable resource to ICT teachers. I did find
it a bit dry though! There are lots of information sheets to download. It may be aimed
more to secondary school teachers. It's quite technical in its detail. Things like
"20 Ideas that Work" are excellent lesson ideas for ICT. As a link off this I
found the website "Premiers pas sur Interent". This is an excellent website for
both teachers of French and their pupils. It can be found at http://www.momes.net. Rating: 9/10 |
| http://tomwilson.com/david/case |
| This website
is aimed at Language teachers though some parts are directed at pupils. The essence of the
site is the application of new technologies to the teaching of MFL. It is a very clear and
well laid out with no major use of exciting graphics to slow things down. It does not take
long to get through the content as the site is quite small. It offers some nice step by
step lessons for performing tasks such as copying text and photos from the web.
There is a nice link to a French family's homepage. Rating : 7/10 |
| http://www.eso.educ.uva.nl/bild |
| This is the
European Schools Project (ESP) web-site. It consists of a databas of projects carried ut
and currently in train in a variety of countries including Japan, Sweden, Czech Republic,
Belgium, Spain, Denmark, Netherlands, Slocakia, Finalnd, Slovenia and Italy. There is lots
of interesting advice given eg. you can see a list of themes being covered such as food,
animals, Vickings, Granny's Kitchen, fairytales, holidays ahoy, playing happy families.
The database can be searched by project title, school and person. There is a from for
applying for a project and useful tips on how to fill it out. The web-site is all in
English and contains links to all afore-mentioned countries for access to a more
comprehenisve list. Like the http://www.bild-online.dk
web-site, it explains the outline of an excellent framework under which to conduct and
e-mail partnership, called "An Image of the Other". Both schools organise
e-mails based on 10 topics. Different opinions are given and need to be worked out between
schools. Clear advice for all concerned is given. At the end the children should be able
to write back with a final image of their partner based all the information they received.
Rating 10/10 |
| http://www.bild-online.dk/index |
| This
colourful attractive and user-friendly web-site is written all in German, although there
are links to English language sites. It's for teacher to ehlp introduce shcool e-mail
projects using German. The aim is to bring classess together to work on German as a
foreign language (DaF). It includes examples of childrne's and teahers' comments,
reactions, some letters sent, tips on managing a sproject, mailing lists to apply for a
partner school, application form to receive mater for project work such as worksheets for
children and teaches based on "An Image of the Other". Rating :9/10 |
| http://www.ourworld.compuserve.com |
| This web-site
is easy to read although it leans toward american slang. It contains ideas for designing
and producing a web-ste, including reasons why we should publish one, publishing rules,
publishing wizards to download and a link to a basic HTML primer. There is very useful
material informatively and interestingly presented, but by no means exhaustive. It could
be accessed by student (webmasters) as well as being useful for teachers. Rating 4/10 |
| http://www.dlc.fi/~pohalone/kompassZ |
| This is a
web-site by an individual teacher of German and English who is also an author of German
lesson books for children. It is written in English although may not be of use to teachers
who are not teaching German. There is information on Germany and a Comenius Project and
also information on European festivals and traditions which may be of interest. Rating
4/10 |
| http://www.stir.ac.uk/scilt |
| Maintained by
the Scottish Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research, this site contains
useful links to other language sities such as Human Languages Pages, BECTA, Lingu@NET , where a variety of resources relevant to German,
Italian, Spanish and French language teaching can be accessed. It list available
publications and their prices such as Foreign Languages in Primary Schools Evaluation
Report, Modern Languages in Primary Schools, Piloting Assessment of Achievement Programme
((AAC) in Modern Languages etc. Courses are detailed also, such as one abroad for the
teaching of German in primary schools. E-mail and contact forms are included in the site.
For teachers it could be a useful site for further informationand resources. Rating 5/10 |
| http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/languages |
| This
attractive excellent site is colourful, looks modern, have very clear and accessable links
and certainly invites one to stay. It offers activities in French, German, Italian and
French. I investigated the French activities. There is a very basic starting level,
excellent for primary school children, which has activities on ten topics of conversation.
The activities are presented in a choice of Audio, Video or Transcript. An attractive and
challenging feature is a game where a student proceeds by answering questions presented in
a multiple choice format and is then congratulated at the end for having conducted a
successful conversation. Well worth a visit. Rating 10/10 |
| http://www.linguanet.org.uk |
| Lingu@net - Becta - Virtual
Language Centre. An advisory and resource for foreign language teaching and the relevant
backup resources. Excellent content on a two tier menu - the content is very wide and
touches language teaching on all levels. If anything the site is two wide but careful
navigation gets the researcher to the exact topic needed. The site is backed by Cilt
(Centre for Information on Language Teaching) and the resources offered are of the highest
authority.Navigation is complex but the extent of the topic demands this in order to cover
all the various facets and resource areas. Buttons and hotspots are clearly marked and
easily understood so that the destination is reached easily and quickly. Menu lists are
not cluttered.The advice and material offered are exactly as required in the specialist
areas. This site is a comprehensive treatment of the topic with resources available for
the different age levels and activity area. In some ways the site is too attractive in
that it has so much on offer and one can become easily distracted. Linguanet offers
resources in software,an interactive website, radio and tv broadcasts and literary
publications. This is assembled in a very long list which would print easily and include
all. There is a list for each language at the the three school grades and an adult level.
Excellent treatment of the topics. The case studies make this much more than a resource
site. The experience offered from other schools show the problems, pitfalls and
challenges. Site is easily available and comes through quickly with a very clear menu and
no distracting animations. I found this site easy to manipulate once the two tier menu
system was understood. This is an exhaustive site and covers all that any professional
would need to know about resources in language teaching. With this site alone a teacher's
needs would be comprehensively catered for. Rating 10/10 |
| http://vtc.ngfl.gov.uk/resource/linguanet
|
| CITS - Curriculum
Information Technology Support.This site contains five main areas ; Background in IT
and Languages,Teacher Entitlement,Pupil Entitlement, Case Studies, Training Activities,
information Sheets. Five clear cut areas as outlined above covering comprehensively
teacher and pupil needs, practical displays of activities, evaluations, training needs, IT
experience needs. A good readable attractive guide to IT. Acknowledgements refer to a wide
group of participants and consultants which gives a site strong validity. Navigation is
simple and in each of the five areas there is a secondary menu which further develops
teacher/pupils skills making the introduction to IT more attractive to the beginner.
Access to the site was difficult to find through Becta. Otherwise navigation was clear,
the buttons very relevant and the clearly and attractively presented. It gives insighful
background in the teacher and pupil areas and the activities presented make are
non-threatening. They eliminate the mystique around IT. For the teacher who wants to
develop IT further the secondary blue menu brings one into areas such as website
development, project development. Access was difficult. The access line was through Becta,
then CITS and finally to MFL. MFL on its own is difficult to find because of similarity to
football leagues. A practical busy teacher's aid is the availability of a download button
on each practical case study and activity page. The Information sheets give a wealth of
ideas and practical classroom activities and examples which could be utilised as a
handbook of effective workable options. An exccellent site which I found complemented the
resources available in Linguanet. Rating 9/10 |
| http://www.becta.org.uk/technology |
| This is the Becta
Educational Software Database. Its a very extensive database on all topics relevant to
education and language teaching. I put in a seach for "primary French" in the
Languages link and this search produced nineteen results. It also allowed for a search of
cd-roms which produced seventeen cd titles. There was access from the result to a review
of the software and details of cost etc. I found this a fast and efficient way to access
titles and documents. Rating : 9/10 |
| http://ericir.syr.edu |
| This site will be familiar
to teachers. It has excellent links on all things educational and would be of great
general interest to teachers. It has a good Question & Answer service and a hugely
extensive database, maybe too extensive in the bewildering number of results produced in a
search. It was very informative but not specific enough to the aims and objectives of
SIP21. Rating 7/10 |