English for Wizards

Online ESL cornucopia

By John Moore

Karin's ESL Party Land のサイト。文法や読解力を試すテストが難易度別に載っている

Teaching English should be an easy business - the teachers get paid, but the students do most of the work.

On the other hand, ESL teaching can be a very tough job, too. I wonder how many English learners in Japan know what ESL stands for. In case you don't know, that acronym means "English as a Second Language."

The Internet is a gold mine for ESL teaching materials. Even if you are a student and not a teacher, you should take some time to browse through these Web sites. After all, good students practically teach themselves, right?

There are many sites that simply list links to other ESL pages. Take a look, for example, at A Grand List of Bookmarks for ESL Students (www.geocities.com/informalenglish/bookmarks.html). The list is organized into handy categories, including, vocabulary, listening, idioms and test preparation. Click on any of the links introduced, and you will go to another Web site that should provide the real English-learning material for you.

Actually, you have to be careful about links pages. Some can be helpful, but often the links are old and don't work anymore. Some links pages just lead to more and more links pages, and you never get useful content at all!

So here's a suggestion for some actual ESL learning you can do online: Go to Karin's ESL Party Land (www.eslpartyland.com). First click on the purple "Students" button, and then choose "Quiz Center" at the top. You will find dozens of easy online quizzes on different subjects.

My son Peter tried the quiz called "At a Party: Personal Pronouns." After he clicked on a gray button next to a question, he could immediately see the result in the white blank. This test was too easy, though. Peter got 100 percent.

How about some listening practice, then? Let's go to Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab (www.esl-lab.com). Here you can find a hundred or more practice lessons, each with a little comprehension quiz. After doing a quiz, you can immediately see your score and the correct answers.

You need to download the free Real One audio player to hear the listening lessons. Go to www.real .com, and make sure to download only the free Real One player - not the various other things that cost money.

I was especially happy to find Randall's Listening Lab on the Internet, because I used to work with Randall S. Davis in Yokohama about eight years ago. Now he's in Utah. Hi Randy!

Shukan ST: Aug. 15, 2003

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