Red Escolar
www.redescolar.ilce.edu.mx

The Red Escolar website, developed by Instituto Latinoamericano para la Comunicación Educativa (ILCE), allows teachers of heritage Spanish to offer students interesting reading on a variety of topics, even those topics outside the instructor’s ?eld of expertise. “Actividades permanentes” offers sophisticated lessons on many topics of interest; many of the lessons are accompanied by ready-to-use activities. A class plan entitled “Tlacuilos y pergaminos,” for example, includes descriptions of pre-Columbian codices as well as hands-on exercises in which students may make their own paper, Mixtec calendar, and even a folding codex. “Proyectos colaborativos” offers online discussions about almost every topic: language, mathematics, science, history, geography, civic education, art, and technology. One popular feature allows students to form teams and respond to participants from around the world on a forum. The texts are high-interest, age-appropriate (the site categorizes the lessons in “primaria” and “secundaria” and in some cases into grade levels) and the forums are moderated. Another collaborative project centers on investigation into the possibilities of technology. The “Biblioteca” section offers an online Spanish dictionary and an archive of older lesson plans. In a few cases, there is even an English version of the lessons.

EveryTongue.com
www.everytongue.com

EveryTongue.com offers an extensive collection of language examples in Real Audio format clips. As of July 2006, this site added 490 new language links. Now 97.9% of humans can hear their language via this site.

3rdpageSearch
www.code.cside.com/3rdpage

This site offers a tool for entering speci?c language characters in the search box from a table of special characters and links the entry to various search engines and portals.

Internet4Classrooms
www.internet4classrooms.com/flang.htm

This is a wonderful guide in helping teachers use the Internet effectively, with a section particularly geared towards language educators. This site offers links for K–12 teachers, assessment assistance, online practice modules, and a “Daily Dose of the Web.” French, German, Spanish, and other languages are covered. Strategies for Learning Pragmatics in Spanish www.carla.umn.edu/speechacts/sp_pragmatics/home.html Dancing with Words was designed as a “self-access” website for students to learn Spanish pragmatics (i.e., conveying meaning through communication) independently. The website is also a great tool for teachers to learn more about pragmatics themselves and get ideas for how to add more pragmatics to their classroom instruction, through a combination of independent work by students and in-class activities and discussion. The site contains a total of nine modules. Supplementary information has also been incorporated throughout the website. The modules available are: Introduction to Pragmatics (to be completed before any of the other modules); Compliments and Compliment Responses; Gratitude & Leave Taking; Requests; Apologies; Invitations; Service Encounters; Advice, Suggestions, Disagreements, and; Reprimands; and Considerations for Pragmatic Performance (a reference module).

Tennessee Bob’s Famous French Links
www.utm.edu/departments/french/french.html

Professor Robert D. Peckham, University of Tennessee-Martin shares his Francophone expertise with fellow French teachers. This site is a wonderful guide for ?nding new sites including links to French books, literature, art, music, ?lm, general culture and history of France, and French across the curriculum and in everyday life.

19th-century German Stories
www.fln.vcu.edu/menu.html

A place for lovers of the German language! Since 1994, this site has offered a growing selection of short narrative works in German from the late 18th to the end of the 19th centuries, featuring veri?ed texts from documented editions and, whenever possible, English translations. Listen to the News www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/languages/. Teachers and students may chose from 43 foreign languages to read and hear world news. Try out this great educational tool in your classroom.

Childrens Books Online
www.lonvig.dk/lucca.htm

Posted by Danish artist and designer, Asbjørn Lønvig, Children’s Books Online offers creative stories in a variety of languages. Students may choose a story and click on the appropriate ?ag, and the story appears in that country’s language.

ePals Classroom Exchange
www.epals.com

ePALS Classroom Exchange maintains the Internet’s largest community of collaborative classrooms engaged in cross-cultural exchanges, project sharing, and language learning. ePALS is also the leading provider of school-safe e-mail™, blogs, eMentoring, and web-browsing technology for the global educational market.

Japan Thru Young Eyes
www.shejapan.com/jtyeholder/jtye/001/index.html

“Japan Thru Young Eyes” is set up on a website by English classes at Kanda University of International Studies and Bunkyo Women’s Junior College and their instructor. It is an experiment in using a learner-centered and taskbased approach to learning English. The project aims to present Japan as it appears in the eyes of young people living in Japan today. Even older aspects of the culture can still be viewed afresh. Tokyo, as one of the most active centers of modern-day Japan, is the focus of attention in Young Tokyo. A Japanese language version is available at www.shejapan.com/jtyeholder/jtye/jindex.html.