ePals Global Community

So when I first read the term ePals, it reminded me of Pay Pal. When I went to the site, I couldn't have been more off. I loved the fact that teachers and students can use this website to talk to other students or teachers in other countries in a way that is protected since security is so important these days especially on the internet with underage children. I liked that as a teacher you have the option to sign up for a bulk registration where the whole school/district can sign up. What I would be concerned about is for the children ages 13 and under needing their parents email address and having the parents not give it or not follow through and having that student not be able to partake in a class activity using ePals. I really like the fact that there are precreated projects to use as a teacher, but you can also upload projects for others to use. It really is great for collaboration. I also like that I could find a classroom in Germany speaking either English or German. That would help students get involved with the culture even though it is in their native language if they are still beginners or have them get the change to speak in the target language if they are advanced. Another thing that I was surprised to see is that it is not just classes who are on here but some families have signed up as well. For example when I was searching through the Germany section, I saw a family of 4 that was interested in getting to know English speakers in the US. Not only would I use this in my classroom, but I am actually going to sign up my class and show the other foreign language teachers in my school and district this website. I had often contemplated the concept of having penpals with the students before but I never really found a site that I thought was reputable. But since this site has National Geographic and Truste Kids Privacy backing it up, I feel both the school and parents would trust it.

Podwhat?

The podcast that I chose to take a look at, that I would use in my classroom is "ESL Podcast 682-minor medical injuries". Although I teach German currently, I am studying ESL and perhaps will teach ESL in Germany. So when that happens, I need to be prepared with materials. I know that over here a big LOTE unit is health and wellness. So this podcast would be great to use for that unit since it discusses vocabulary that fits in with specific health related situations. What I REALLY liked about this podcast is that it offered the dialogue both spoken slow and fast with explanations in between. It also gave you the specific time of where the teacher can find each part throughout the podcast. This would be great for different difficulty levels. It also provides a script so that perhaps students could act it out later. Plus as you can see this is podcast 682 so there are probably 681 great podcasts just like this that I can't wait to explore.