English as Second or Foreign Language Primary and Secondary Education - Exercises, Web based Materials, Workshops and links for Teaching and Learning,

http://www.isabelperez.com/

About this site

This site has been developed and maintained by the Spanish Secondary English teacher Isabel Pérez Torres.

I started with it as a way of motivating my own students. I do not get any money from this and the site is funded by myself and that will be the case as far as I can manage.

The experience can be summarised on the one hand as the result of researching and making use of the materials from the Internet , and on the other, of designing and developing of resources and materials to be published on the Web. All this in a main context of Secundary Education, although the site can also be useful in other levels (primary and higher education) and languages.

History of the site

In 1996, I started to develop and design a web page for the English department of my school, IES Sierra Mágina in Huelma, Jaén. I mainly included Hot Potatoes exercises and links.

In 2000 I moved to another school, IES Isaac Albéniz in Málaga. I increased the use of construtivist activities such as WebQuests or Blogs to take advantage of authentic materials, as well as some workshops for the teachers.

In the last years, this site has been enriched by the collaboration of several colleagues who develop materials in my workshops or send me some of their exercises through the Web. So, this site has become a place to share ideas and resources and keeps the site alive and myself working on it.

There are 4 main blocks of materials:

Methodological materials, related to CALL: workshops, resources, etc. Materials developed by the students: writings, email projects, etc. Specific materials designed and developed by myself and by some teachers attending my workshops: treasure hunts, the Happy Verby, Gang, Hot Potatoes exercises, etc. Link pages to all kind of selected resources.

The site wants to present an eclectic approach and means to integrate all possiblilities offered by the use of the computers in the classroom. The approach is also varied in terms of subjects and of culture, social and personal values.

Two prizes have been won in relation to this work:

Prize to the didactic unit "The Happy Verby Gang", in 2004, given by the Consejería de Educación de la Junta de Andalucía.

"The European Label for innovative projects in language teaching and learning" in 2005 , prize given by the European agency and the Spanish Ministry of Education.

The following documents have been written in relation to the experience of developing this site and the use of technology in the classroom.

Internet como recurso para el aula de inglés: e-mail, publicación de proyectos, creación de materiales, etc.

Estrategias de aprendizaje a través de la Red: Webquests y otros proyectos interactivos y de colaboración.

Some more articles that are already online.

Pérez Torres, M. I. 2005. Diseño de Webquests para la Enseñanza/Aprendizaje del Inglés como Lengua Extranjera: Aplicaciones en la Adquisición de Vocabulario y la Destreza Lectora. Granada: Servicios Editoriales de la Universidad de Granada. [CD-ROM]. (Ph D. Thesis In press)