READ, TRY AND SHARE.: Warning! Untrustable websites DO exist!

Hi there, this is our new entry. We would like to share with you our website review.

To do this we took into account some criteria that helped us to see whether the web pages were reliable and valuable resources to teach or not. Some of the categories we took into account to do this were reliability, responsibility, objectivity, appropriateness and currency among others.

We want to clarify some points so you understand what we are talking about: We analyzed two websites, Handouts Online - http://www.handoutsonline.com/ - and BBC learning english - http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/. Both are sites where you can find resources to use to teach in ESL/EFL classrooms, you can print and then photocopy them. In the case of Handouts online login and payment is necessary if you want to download more worksheets than the ones the web page offers you as free user. Both sites are administered by a corporation and allow you to send the authors an email if you have any doubts.

Reliability/Responsibility: you have to take into account who the author/s of the web page is/are, is there an email to contact the people in charge, is there information about the author/s qualifications?, do you have to pay to use the materials they provide?
Objectivity: the level to which this web page is oriented, if you can adapt the materials or not.
Appropriateness and relevance: is the material offered appropriate for the level you are teaching? Is it easy and clear to work with it?
Currency: do you know when the page was last updated? are there links outside the page? do they work? can you access them anytime you want?

When talking about orientation, the BBC only works with Lower Intermediate, Intermediate and English my way levels. It also has many categories to work with-home, arts, tv, etc. On the other hand, Handouts is oriented to teachers who teach High School, College or University students. To finish we would like to say that only in BBC you can see when the page was last updated and which the last activity they shared is.

What have we decided about these pages? Both are reliable and very useful resources, besides in one of them you have to sign in and pay to access the content, but on the other free samples are available and they are interesting. As a recommendation you can go and take a look at them, and if you need material to work with your students don’t hesitate to download the worksheets that they offer to you. Let us know if you try any of them and if it works for you!