A website as an ICT resource – LearnEnglish Kids (British Council)

The resource I have chosen to tell you about is British Council's user-friendly website LearnEnglish Kids, which is designed for children who are learning English as a second or foreign language.

You can find the website here:

http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/

On LearnEnglish Kids there are five main sections:

• The game section, where you will find online activities and games about numerous different topics. You can play games just for the fun of it, like "Take That, Teacher" where you collect points by hitting teachers with paper aeroplanes, or you can play language games that are more obviously focused on language learning like labeling pictures, quizzes, finding words in puzzles and practise spelling in English.
• The listen and watch section, where you will find videos and online activities that are designed to practise listening skills, as well as songs and animated stories especially written for children. To make it easier to find songs and stories that are suitable for your class, every song and story has a level tag stating if it is "easy", "medium" or "not so easy". You can also find rhymes and tounge twisters here, and you could even record yourself saying them.
• The read and write section, where you will find worksheets that you may download and use in the classroom. This section also contains a feature that is called "word of the week", where a new word is introduced by a short video every week (as the name implies). A sub-section called "Your turn" in this section is designed to encourage children to contribute to the site by writing about different things that catches their interest.
• The make section, where you will find online activities that allows you to create your own stories or for example design your own superhero. Here you can also download crafts worksheets and watch videos of children making some of the things described in these sheets.
• The explore section, where you could watch an introduction video how to use LearnEnglish Kids and where different things can be found on the site. You can also find links to other websites that are suitable for children learning English.

In order to use LearnEnglish Kids you need a computer connected to the Internet and the freeware Adobe Reader that easily can be downloaded from this adress:

http://get.adobe.com/se/reader/

How teachers and pupils can use LearnEnglish Kids

For teachers, LearnEnglish Kids really can be an invaluable source of material to use in the classroom. The great number of topics to choose from could work as an inspiration to create whole themes, but you can of course also search for exercises that are suitable for just one particular lesson. If you want to use a story or a song you can choose if you want it to be texted or not, and you can also control the speed by pausing (for songs) or clicking the "next"-button (for stories). Most of the stories and songs also have following worksheets that you may download and use with your pupils, as pre- during- or post-tasks. If there are many words in them that are new to the pupils you could prepare them before the viewing.

Because of the varied content of the site you can use it with pupils aged 7 to 13, but of course you have to adjust your chioces to your own particular group of pupils and their current level. Something that works with one group of children might be too hard or childish for another one, even if they are in the same age.

To create your own user account and become a member of the site you need to be 13 years old or younger. If you want your pupils to use LearnEnglish Kids by themselves there are a couple of house rules to go through (regarding their expected behavior on the site) before they sign up. You don't have to be a member to use it though, but if you are you are allowed to post comments and create your own avatar. The possibility to write and post comments is something I really like about this site, because it provides a great opportunity for pupils to use their new language in an informal way and interact with children all around the world.

When the pupils have been introduced to the site they could use it at home, playing the games or listening to the stories of their own choice, whilst they are learning at the same time.

Other considerations when using LearnEnglish Kids

If you want to play songs and stories in front of a larger group you should have the computer connected to a projector, to make sure that all pupils are able to se everything. And if you want your pupils to use the site on their own there is, of course, the issue about the number of disposable computers.

Another thing to have in mind is that you should have a clear learning purpose when you are using this site in your teaching, so it doesn't become just an emergency solution when you want to keep your pupils occupied.