For Everyday English: Learningchocolate VS LanguageGuide

link: Learningchocolate    

  link:  LangugaeGuide

What are they?

Both of these two websites provide large mount of vocabularies that we often encounter with in the daily life. The vocabularies in different categories are usually nouns to represent certain objects or  sometimes numeral when describe time or numbers. Both tools support pictures and various languages for learners, which means learners can learn the words in different language expression from the pictures, their mother tough or other language they have already mastered. They also provide the pronunciation of each word and offer several practices or tools for learners  to remember the words. I think they are designed for beginners or people who would like to live in the target language community.

However, there are lots of differences between these two tools. First of all, although they have very similar catalog which may overlap which each other, both of these two tools still have very unique catalog that do not exist in the other's, which means if we want to learn as many words as possible, we can not use one instead of the other. Secondly,  in term of exercises, langaugeguid offer two options: quiz mode and showing spelling, whereby you can freely choose whether to learn or to practice as you like; also, you can save the word into your account in which you can create your own word list. However, learningchocolate provide a more systematic process of learning vocabulary in a flash whereby learners first recognize the words by pictures and pronunciation and then practice the words in match-up, fill-in and dictation activities; theses activities are still based on the picture and pronunciation which learner have been experienced before the activities. Moreover, learningchocolate offer a series of useful links for further learning or teaching.

Therefore, I recommend learners and teachers can give the priority to  LearningChocolate while languageguide can regarded as a supplemental materials.

Why and how can it be used in Language Learning?
As they are websites for practicing everyday English, so it is of great significance for beginners and people who wants to live in the English community.

learners can self-study in both websites because they are easily operated and totally free. Alternately, if for children, teachers can divide the whole class into several groups and ask each group to choose whether learningchocolate or englishguide, then students in the group will study the same catalog in these two tools and finally exchange what they have learned with the group who use the other tool. Teachers is the organizer of the task.

Limitations:

• just available for beginners
• learners possibly do not know how to use the words when they are not nouns
• exercises are a little bit boring for learners which can not arouse their interests. (pictures can motivate learners to study the words which possibly offer effective input , however, exercises seem to be the repeat of the 'input' may fail to achieve the effective output which may reduce learners' motivation)