Vocabulary Builders

When you mention the words "parts of speech" or "spelling vocabulary" do your students get that glazed over look in there eyes? Hopefully those days are soon over. There are a couple of engaging interactive websites that not only support your curriculum but are fun to use.

Elementary to Secondary teachers here is a educational website designed to build your students English vocabulary. Vocabulary.co.il is a fun educational website created for the purpose of building ones reading, phonics, or English language skills. They offer free online word games which are specifically designed to motivate students to learn by having fun while practicing spelling, phonics, and vocabulary.The vocabulary games include an online word search, crossword puzzle, and hangman (hangmouse). It focuses on having the student make connections between words and ideas and between words and pictures in order to build vocabulary skills. As you know those connections make the process of building vocabulary skills faster and more efficient.

Vocabulary.co.il is not only for the general education teacher but ESL teacher as well. It has vocabulary games dedicated to the ESL student. They range from common foreign language phrases to specific vocabulary lists, including numbers and colors.

SpellingCity.com is a terrific site to enhance your students spelling skills. Their slogan is, "SpellingCity.com has transformed spelling practice from a chore to something fun and it's free". The best part of this site is that the students can enter in their current spelling list to practice and then test themselves. It also has corresponding handwriting worksheets for the Dolch word lists. The downside to SpellingCity is that to fully utilize all it has to offer teachers need to buy a membership.

Parents and students are able to use both of these website effortlessly. It is ideal to use for a school to home connection because you can suggest certain educational games for the student to play that corresponds to the curriculum you are currently teaching.

BBC Languages

World Language Teachers, 


Do you feel like you're always looking for a good way to invovle the parents but maybe give them "a little more" so that they're more interested in learning the language, as well? Or maybe your students' parents really want to help with homework but don't understand a grammar concept or correct pronunciation. Look no further! BBC Languages  gives the parents these concepts in "Plain English". In other words, they don't have to sit in an hour-long class to "get it". 


With BBC Languages, students and parents can work together to not only reinforce their knowledge of the language, but also includes beginner courses for parents who want to "catch up" to their beginner or intermediate student. It would also be great to use for students and parents when they tell you they're going on vacation to a country that speaks a language other than English. 


BBC Languages provides not only grammar concepts and correct pronunciation in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Portuguese, and Chinese but also includes audio and video such as a conversation between two students in Madrid, which helps reinforce certain important words, such as greetings and good-byes. It gives you the weather in different cities in the language, along with a beginner program called 'Steps' that allows learners to take a free class for 12 weeks and then BBC gives them a certificate for their achievement. 


One really cool aspect is that BBC Languages offers what they call a "Quick Fix" which offers important, emergency vocabulary and phrases in 36 different languages. 


All in all, BBC Languages is a great resource you can give to parents to help them with their student's learning as well as brush up on their own language skills! 

Quizlet - Vocabulary & FlashCard Games

Are you looking for a way to get your parents involved at home, without it being a big hassle? Want students to practice vocabulary in their spare time, but need it to be a very specific vocabulary list? Using Quizlet, you can search for flashcards made by other users, create your own flashcards for class and at home, and even share everything you create with your fellow educators and more importantly, parents! it's incredibly easy to get started, just a quick and easy (and of course, free) registration and then you are on your way! Quizlet takes the hassle out of studying for vocabulary quizzes, practices world language vocabulary, and even can make it engaging! It automatically creates games such as Scatter, where you have to drag words and definitions on top of each other to make them disappear, and (my personal favorite), Space Race, where you write the word or definition before the word races off the screen. It's easy, automatic and free! 


It is a great way to utilize this with parents who are having a hard time finding time to study vocabulary sets with their students. Just create, send, and watch magic happen when your students tell you how "FUN" it was to "STUDY". ( The words "fun" and "study" have never been in the same sentence before now!) Needless to say, if you want to engage even the parents and really get them involved, Quizlet is definitely a great way to get started!