Notes for Teachers Using the English Room

NOTES FOR TEACHERS

The English Room is a free resource for students from around the world to learn English. It has been designed for our own students at Sriwittayapaknam School in Samut Prakan, Thailand. But we are happy for other schools to use this resource for free.

OBJECTIVES:

1. Learn English
2. Follow instructions and commands
3. Learn computer skills

Students can use the English Room website by themselves at home, but it works the best in the computer lab where they have an English teacher guiding them. Our objectives are not just to teach and evaluate the English language. We are also teaching the students to listen and follow commands in English. In just a few weeks, we noticed that our students became much better at paying attention to what their teacher was saying. More so than in the normal classroom. In the computer lab, if they didn’t listen and follow commands, then they couldn’t take part in the activities and play the games.

The website has been designed so that there are two or three columns on most pages. So, the teacher will say, look on the left, look in the middle, and look on the right. She will also say things like go to the bottom and go to the top. If there is a link she wants them to click on, she will ask first “Can you see…?” It is important that the students reply, “Yes, I can”. And then, “Are you ready?” With the reply, “Yes, we are!” And then finally, the teachers will say “3… 2… 1…. CLICK!”. If a student clicks on the link too soon, the teacher will tell that person to click back and then she will do the countdown again. It is important that the students listen carefully to the teacher and follow all of her instructions.

The English Room website is also good for students to teach them basic computer skills. The youngest students using this website are only five years old. So they have to practice typing English, learn how to click on links, click the back button, scroll down and up, click in field boxes to enter data, delete mistakes and much more. We have found that after using the English Room for only a few weeks, the students become very computer literate. At this young age, repetition and consistency of commands is very important.

Many of the tests on this website are based on vocabulary and topics from the Let’s Go books. However, there are also many independent grammar tests too. The following are links to the major pages on this web site.