English Central
At englishcentral.com, learners can listen to a video on any of a variety of topics, read captions and review vocabulary, compare their pronuncation of the video against the original, and take a quiz; all of this in context.
Teachers can assign videos on the basis of student level, can lead students through parts that need more structure, or let students work on their own as homework.
TED
At TED.com, short talks by the world's "movers and shakers" are accompanied by summaries, transcripts with vocabulary support, and other support. More advanced language learners will find the site useful to use in English, while less proficient speakers might use the transcript in any of the over 45 languages possible.
Teachers can use the videos as a whole-class task or allow student groups or individuals to choose from among the topics and present their information to the class. Longer videos can be broken down into a series of tasks over a number of lessons.
The videos can be download as mp4 files and played on students' mobile devices.
Breaking News English
At breakingnewsenglish.com, students focus on any of thousands of news stories from around the world that are presented at levels 0-6. Virtually every kind of skill and content exercise accompanies each story.
This is one of the most thorough integrated skills sites; teachers and students can copy the idea and use local news stories to prepare their own lessons for great practice.
On this site students can easily find something interesting to them and work on the areas that challenge them in English, thus meeting engagement guidelines.
Integrated Skills
Any lesson can integrate skills, but it can take a lot of time and effort to create such lessons, particularly for a classroom with students at different ability and proficiency levels.
Integrated skills Web sites, particularly those that address the needs of a variety of learners, can help teachers engage their students around interesting topics and a wide range of language skills.
The three sites described below are some of the most popular around the world for the study of English.