EUROCALL Review Recommends ESOL Teacher's Unique Website

Susan Alyn, US

Susan Alyn graduated in 1997 from the University of South Florida's College of Education with a Master's degree, and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. In addition to ESOL, she is certified to teach Elementary Education and Art. Susan has taught students in primary and secondary, as well as adults in adult continuing education, and credit courses at Valencia Community College and the University of Central Florida, both in Orlando, Florida, USA. She has published in HLT before. Email: 2sja@pobox.com, www.inspirationlane.blogspot.com

EUROCALL, a leading European and world-wide organization of educators and researchers involved with computer-assisted language learning, or CALL, seeks innovative technology practices and strives to disseminate CALL materials. Two times each year they also publish an online newsletter, the EUROCALL Review. This past fall these educators and researchers liked what they found at my site, "Inspiration Lane," and publicly recommended it.

"Inspiration Lane" is not yet a year old, but has attracted considerable attention from educational professionals interested in enhancing language learning with technology. I created it from a blog format, turning a blog into an online, classroom magazine for all levels of ESOL [English for Speakers of Other Languages], ESL [English as a Second Language] and EFL [English as a Foreign Language] classes. It contains my original writing and instruction, as I'm a currently certified ESOL teacher in Florida, USA. It's also unique because content automatically changes daily. "Inspiration Lane" was initially recognized on the web site of a world-wide, American-based CALL organization, CALICO [Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium], located at Texas State University. Several months later, readers of Humanising Language Teaching were also introduced to this web site (see HLT's Publications section, May 2007).

The EUROCALL Review editor and current president of EUROCALL is Ana M. Gimeno, Professor, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Spain. She states the purpose of the EUROCALL Review in her online welcome message at the EUROCALL website as follows:

"EUROCALL is highly committed to facilitating knowledge transfer through special interest meetings, annual conferences and staff mobility arrangements, as well as disseminating theoretical and practical findings through its two publications, the [biannual] EUROCALL Review and the biannual journal ReCALL, published by Cambridge University Press."

EUROCALL has been a professional association since 1993, and was launched with support from the European Commission. Its offices are located in Ireland, at the University of Limerick's Department of Languages and Cultural Studies. EUROCALL's membership roster currently extends to over two dozen countries, with more than 80 corporate members and hundreds of individual members.

You can see my site showcased in the EUROCALL Review as its "Recommended Website" now through February 2008, at:
www.eurocall-languages.org/news/newsletter/12/index.html

"Inspiration Lane" is located on the web at:
www.inspirationlane.blogspot.com

It is my sincere hope that what's happened to me may help to inspire other ESOL teachers to create web sites that teach in innovative ways using technology, with the aim of making language learning a more joyful experience for students everywhere. And, of course, if you haven't tried my site with your students, please do! Students have been very enthusiastic about "Inspiration Lane." In the near future, I will share with you my own teaching experiences with this site.

Please check the What’s New in Language Teaching course at Pilgrims website.