educational technology materials
...ard: Teachers and students can stick things on boards-pictures, posters, announcements, charts, etc. this is especially useful if they are metallic boards so that magnets can be used. Cuisenaire Rods These are small blocks of wood of different lengths. Each length is a different color. The rods are featureless and are only differentiated by their size and color. Simple they may be, but they are useful for a wide range of activities. For example, we can say that a particular rod is a pen or a telephone, a dog or a key so that by holding them up or putting them together a story can be taught. All it takes is a little imagination. The rods can be used to demonstrate word stress too: if one is bigger than the others (in a sequence representing syllables in a word or words in a sentence). It shows where the stress should be. Language Cards: Many teachers put a variety of cards and posters around the classroom. Such posters can have notes about language items on them, or be a collection of ways of apologizing or inviting, for example. Sometimes, with new groups, teachers get students to write about themselves on a card and put their photograph next to what they have written so that the class all knows who every one is. Students can also make presentation posters of projects they have worked on. In multi national classes, for example, many students enjoy providing short guides to their countries. Dictionary: One of the mainstays of any language ‘researcher’ is the dictionary. There is nothing wrong with bilingual dictionaries (or electronic translators) of course. When they work well they provide just what the students are looking for. But all two often they fail to show students how words are used in the foreign language, providing simple answers for what is, in affect, considerably more complex. Sometimes, for example, a word in the L1 may have six or seven equivalencies in the L2; if these equivalencies are just offered as a list of words they provide the students with no information about which one to choose-and when. Sometimes there are restrictions on the use of a word in L1 which do not apply in the L2.Unless these are given, the information is not complete. MLDs(monolingual dictionary),whether in book form, on CDs or available in the Internet, are those written in only one language(in these case English).Although most ‘general’ dictionaries are, of course, monolingual in this sense, the acronyms tends to be used to describe dictionaries written especially for language learners, and that is the sense in which we use it here. They also give examples of the words in phrases and sentences so that students get a very good idea of how they themselves can use this word. One of the more important features of many of the current generation of MLDs is that their definitions are written in a language which is itself simplified. Students at beginner level will usually find MLDs too difficult to use because the language in the definitions will be way ago their heads however careful the lexicographers have been. Such people may well rely on their bilingual dictionaries. But from somewhere around intermediate level, students will find the info that MLDs contain invaluable, as be shall see in the following examples in this section. Depending on the particular word being defined (and e...