“I don’t like the way it sounds,” my student proclaimed after listening to a recording of himself. I had to tell him that I felt the same way about mine.  It’s a little weird to put your voice out there. It can be so much more personal than the written word. But I want to talk about how much more powerful the spoken word can be.

So why do I say that? Because after a certain point in school, some people say fifth grade, students traditionally need to “read to learn.” In other words, they need to be able to read well in order to access the knowledge of math, science, history or even English. By using podcasts, products like Read Please (a software that reads text aloud) and other audio, we are allowing low-level readers to access high-level information. For example in my class, Mario was able to listen to his peers’ stories and edit them for content, which developed his writing skills, without having to struggle with the reading. But even better than traditional oral input, these high tech options allow students to go back and relisten to difficult/complex parts of a reading and make sure they understand what is being said. In essence, students get to learn more content. While this won’t specifically enhance their reading skills, it will build their understanding of the world. Then, they have more to build on when they read.

On the web, audio can be put in everywhere. It is good for directions and introductions, like on my class website. It can help students understand what to do without requiring them to understand written directions. So for all the teachers out there working with low-level readers or building web content for ESOL students, don’t forget audio. It is priceless!

While it’s taking a fair amount of time, many educators are coming around to the idea that students can learn valuable skills from each other while interacting online, even in social networks.

The Economic Times reports that according to a new 6-month study by the University of Minnesota that watched the online behavior of students from 13 high schools in the Midwest, social network users were found to learn lessons in technology, creativity and “being open to new or diverse views and communication skills.”

How about that? Sharing ideas can encourage learning.

A student-empowerment movement is happening. Learners are becoming more reliant on their peers and less reliant on their teachers to disseminate information. Sure it’s valuable to have an English language teacher help correct grammatical mistakes, but it can be just as helpful when a friend shares that the most important phrase he learned on a recent budget trip to New York was “Where can I get some pizza?”

Teachers are an important educational resource but students often do a better job sharing real-world experiences. What sounds more engaging – memorizing how to ask directions or listening to a friend tell the story of how she misunderstood a bus driver and instead of riding to San Diego, she ended up in Las Vegas? A little bit of context goes a long way.

It’s no big secret that rhymes help people remember things. Kids can learn using nursery rhymes, so why not ESL students too? Perhaps that’s what EnglishToday had in mind when they set out to produce a series of video limericks to help you learn English.

It’s a valiant attempt, but rhyming is harder than you think. Sure you’ve got “right, tight; lefty loosie” useful mnemonic devises, but rhymes aren’t usually that convenient. You commonly have to compromise meaning or word choice pretty heavily in order to get the job done.

This limerick about Maggie the Millipede is one of the best ones. I had to double check if it was already an existing limerick, but I think it’s original.

Some of the limerick videos are just this very, very British man talking into the camera in funny hats, which is pretty endearing. They did a good job of structuring these for YouTube. The meat of the video (the limerick), is at the beginning and there’s a bunch of silly stuff afterward in case you want to keep watching.

The only problem here is that the limerick is almost a tongue twister and is actually pretty tough to follow (Is “nobbled” a common word in the UK? I had to look it up. Spell check doesn’t even recognize it as a word.). This one about a three legged cat is pretty tough as far as English vocab goes as well. But the extras after the limerick are hilarious. I burst out laughing when clip art started landing on the cat’s back near the end.