Other sites suggested

Cooming soon net
http://www.comingsoon.net/trailers/

i tunes Movie Trailers
http://www.apple.com/trailers/

Blogs hosted by ESL video:
http://larosaleda-miracosta.eslvideo.com/
La Rosaleda-Miracosta College

http://tacs.eslvideo.com/
The advanced Canadian Songbook

http://www.trcs.eslvideo.com/
The Real Canadian Songbook

http://www.syoneda.eslvideo.com/

Sharon Yoneda

Sharon Yoneda's tips for choosing distractors for ESL video

ESLVIDEO TOP TEN:

Here are the Top Ten ways of choosing distractors for eslvideo.com
quizzes (not yet featured on David Letterman's Late Night Show).

Here we go Number 10: Use minimal pairs in initial, medial and final
position.

/p/ and /b/; /k/ and /g/; /f/ and /v/; / Ê/ and /Ê'/; /t/ and
/d/; /s/ and /z/, etc.

e.g.: "You were my eyes when I couldn't see. You saw ______
there was in me."

* the best
* the pest
* the mess

Choose common phoneme errors made by linguistic groups. The dental
sounds /θ/ and the / ð/ are particularly problematic for most
ESL learners.

e.g.: "I _____ the Lord for the nighttime to forget the day."

* sank
* thank
* dank

Number 9: Select distractors with discrete vowel sounds.

e.g.: "Man, I ______ like a woman!"
* fall
* feel
* fool

Number 8: Respect collocation and "chunking" of word units in
English. Cloze the articles with the nouns and for higher levels, even
strings of possessive pronouns and adjectives etc., should be clozed
together.

e.g.: "They paved paradise, put up a parking lot, with a pink
hotel and __________."

* a swinging hot spa
* a swinging hot spot
* a swinging hot space

Number 7: Select homonyms to test spelling and meaning.

e.g.: "Got to get back to the land, set ______ free."

* my sole
* my soul
* my soil

Number 6: List phrasal verbs with different prepositions.

e.g.: "They paved paradise and ____ a parking lot."

* put on
* put out
* put up

Number 5: Use different contractions for verb tenses and agreement.

e.g.: "If I had a million dollars, ______ buy your love!"

* I'm
* I'll
* I'd

Number 4: Use words with the same prefixes, suffixes or root words.

e.g.: "He was a boy; she was a girl. Can I make it any more
_______?"

* obvious
* oblivious
* obnoxious

Number 3: Choose different cases (parts of speech) of words. In the
case of nouns, the articles `a', `an' or `the'
should be included with the noun to reflect a unit or `a chunk'
of language. For higher levels, even phrases with adjectives can

be used as distracters to encourage students to see English as chunks
of words.

e.g.: "Why'd you have to go and make things so _______?"

* complicate
* complicated
* complicating

Number 2: Check for fluency in English by listing reductions in words
such as `gonna', `hafta', `gotta', etc.

e.g.: "I think I'm _______ have a son."

* going to
* goin'
* gonna

…..drumrolls and Paul Shaffer's
signature tease…..

THE NUMBER 1 WAY OF CREATING A DISTRACTOR IS:

BLOG UNTIL THE MIND IS ADDLED AND RESORTS TO SILLINESS.

e.g.: "If I had a _______, I'd ________ in the morning.
I'd ______ in the evening, all over this land."

a: humour

b. hammer

c. Hummer

With Paul Shaffer's drumrolls, I would argue that quizzers need to
move "out of the pedagogical box" and adopt a free-style form
of quizzing [within reason of course]. . After all, music is free-style
often not conforming to the standards of English mechanics and syntax.

I choose to inject the element of humour into some of my distractors if
the situation allows and there are no other alternatives. I am
pleased when my students arrive back to class the following morning
after a song assignment with a smile on their faces. They often
relate one of the strings as being funny, and therefore: memorable. Is
not retention a desirable outcome of instruction?
www.trcs.eslvideo. com does come with a
User's Beware: there are some silly moments on the site.

Enjoy.

Sharon Yoneda
http://www.trcs.eslvideo.com/



Thanks to Ryan Detwiler, who asked Sharon for these tips to share in the EVO video sessions 2010

A report on using Real English – Lesson 20

Level: Starters just finishing their textbooks.
Topic: Spending money
Grammar points: “Want to” and “going to”
Vocabulary: Places and activities

Students had already worked with “want to” and before introducing “going to + verb”, I presented Real English –Lesson 20.
Objective: To expose students to vocabulary seen previously and to the use of “going to + noun”
http://www.real-english.com/reo/20/unit20.html

Students watched the whole video once and asked for 2 more times. The information in the video that helped understand vocabulary proved to be really useful since in their second view, they were already answering the questions the interviewer was asking.
After the second view they noticed and were curious about new vocabulary, just the very same words and expressions they are supposed to work with in the activities.
We went on with the activities and spent time giving more examples with the use of “heading to” and “on my way to”.
In activity 3, we can’t see the questions students are supposed to answer. (Ask Mike about this) So I used the pictures showing 3 types of transport to elicit answers for Where are they going? How are they going to get there?
In activity 4, students used their background knowledge to understand the expression “rushing to” Along the video, there were some nice negotiation opportunities regarding the use of new vocabulary. “Actually” is commonly mistaken with “presently” since in Spanish we have the word “Actualmente”. This was a good opportunity to clarify the use of this word. More examples were needed comparing “actually” and “presently”.
The only feature we couldn’t take advantage of was the “Record your voice” one. After the class was over it struck me that I could have brought my MP4 devise to do this. Better yet, I think I’m going to ask students to bring their MP4s so they can take their own recordings home. I can see a lot of fun doing this.
About speed, the only part that was a real challenge was with Passerby 5, who gives directions. I’m not sure about this but the map showing where this man is going is like a relief for students. Students’ affective filters get high when they are struggling too much when doing a task. The aids included in the video proved to be very helpful and prevented students from giving up.
Finally, watching the video with subtitles raised students’ expectations and prompted more questions for clarification and confirmation.

The class after the video, we worked with “going to + verb” . We commented on the Real English video as a warm up to refer students to their background knowledge.

Students’ feedback:
They liked the lesson, felt they had learned new expressions and had expanded their opportunities for exposure to the language.
They also think that it's important to see how English speakers say things using other expressions.
They would definitely like to have more of these lessons.

Interviews from week 1

I still need to finish watching some of the interviews. Jeff posted some links, message under Jennifer & Dave's interview / downloading problems

Interviews from week 1

I still need to finish watching some of the interviews. Jeff posted these links:
Mike & Sarah
http://webheadsinac tion.org/ node/586

http://blip. tv/file/get/ Worldbridges- EVOVideo2010Disc ussionWithMikeSa rah360.wmv

http://blip. tv/file/get/ Worldbridges- EVOVideo2010Disc ussionWithMikeSa rah843.flv

Jennifer & Dave
http://webheadsinac tion.org/ node/585

http://blip. tv/file/get/ Worldbridges- EVOVideo2010Disc ussionWithJennif erDave134. wmv

http://blip. tv/file/get/ Worldbridges- EVOVideo2010Disc ussionWithJennif erDave394. flv

Synchronous chat with Mike Marzio

It was so interesting to learn about how Mike Marzio works with his videos and the time he puts in his work. Here are some ideas that I'd like to write down in order not to forget:
- Media is not an add-on for Mike, rather a neccesity.I have to say that I've been using videos to wrap-up a lesson or to expose students to more listening/speaking practice. I'll probably continue doing this unless I find alternatives, which is why I've signed for this course.
- The criteria behind the Real English videos is an interesting one, Mike explained how he manages the language for each level and how a teacher can exploit more his videos in the classroom.
- I had heard of Hot Potatoes before, but had never done any activities using it, and that's what Mike uses in his videos. I'll give it a try as well.
- According to Mike, in EFL Lessons, there is lack of more listening before reading. It seems to be worth it to expose students to as much listening as possible before they see the written words. I I'm convinced that the visual aspect is extremely important when it comes to learning vocabulary. A teacher can avoid using L1 or giving explanations that might confuse students more, especially, the basic level ones. It is common to see in lesson plans in texts the suggestion: Pre-teach these vocabulary before your students listen or read something.
In my experience, in many cases, I've found out that the students didn't get the words in the pre-teaching part, but when they saw them in context.
- Thus, videos provide a context where a conversation is happening. In real life, we use this context to understand a message, we see and interpret face expressions and gestures. Also the environment around us plays another important role.
- In week 2, we have an essay to write and videos to watch.