An ESLPod Experiment
I just discovered this very cool web service called Shared Copy. It allows you to make notes on web pages and share them with others. I tried using it and I think it may be useful for what we do here at ESL Podcast.
I took a news article from today’s Voice of America website and highlighted (made a different color) in yellow certain difficult words. Then on the side I put the definitions of these words so you can get some help if there is a word you don’t understand. It is even possible for you to go on to the page and put your own comments or questions (although in this first experiment, I turned the comments option off).
The article is about the subject of yesterday’s post, the sex scandal involving Governor Eliot Spitzer of New York. Take a look at it here and tell me what you think.
~Jeff
March 12th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Great idea!!!
Thanks Jeff
Greetings from Galicia, Spain
March 12th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Awesome, I really liked it.
This is a great way to learn vocabulary, I’m an ESL student and I have been learning new words with this method.
Would be greater if we could get a notice each time a new note is made.
Jeff, Lucy and all ESL Podcast Team, thank you for the great work.
March 12th, 2008 at 10:20 am
That’s great Jeff, I like it a lot.
March 12th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Dear jeff, in Europe we are permissive with the private life of the people.Hi’s doing a good work? That’s the matter.The problem it’s with his wife, and seems that she is right with him!
I love your web because I’m improving my English a lot.
Sincerely Jose Luis
March 12th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Well, this is wonderful innovation!
I used to read voanews.com from time when I heard about this site (on ESL podcast of cours:), and I admit; their vocabulary is al little to diffrent for me… Except of “special english learning” (great thanks to them for doing this work!). And at least, now, I can read articles from main site without looking on my dictionary
Jeff, Lucy - thanks for your job on eslpod.com!
March 12th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Very good idea. I want more
Oliver from Germany
March 12th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
It is a very good idea especially with raunchies american news. I hope that is the first issue of a long serie.
Congratulation
Thank you very much Jeff
March 12th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
It’s awesome. Good job, Jeff.
March 12th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Thank you Jeff.
You really deserve a very big van.
March 12th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Great!!!!!
Good Job, Jeff
March 12th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Thank you Jeff
I can’t thank you enough. You really do a lot to help us. I appreciate that.
Nancy
Syria- USA
March 12th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Good news for all of us, Jeff!
Thanks a lot!
Maggie from China
March 12th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
I am beginer.
I found it is very good!
March 12th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Hey,
this is awesome!
Is it possible to talk here about the topic???
Is in the USA illegal to go to a prostitute, because it isn’t at all in the Netherlands, here in Amsterdam is the famous ‘red light district’ where many tourists come for.
Or does this ‘ring’ just mean one illegal prostitutes group but they aren’t all illegal?
Anyway, we had the same scandal two years ago, but the funny thing was, it was the father of a guy who was in my class…
He did the same as Elliot Spitzer, but he had also 3 children. I can not really get out of this article if Elliot has got children.
Greetings Loe, Amsterdam
March 13th, 2008 at 1:22 am
Go ahead, Jeff. It is a great idea!
March 13th, 2008 at 1:55 am
Quite helpful. Thank you and go ahead.
March 13th, 2008 at 2:39 am
Oh you always have a great ideas thanks its usefull.
Ahmed Basel
Iraq
March 13th, 2008 at 2:48 am
I´m starting to use ESL today and this new experience with SharedCopy it´s incredible!
Congratulations!!
March 13th, 2008 at 3:03 am
I think it is very useful method learning English.
Whenever we read the English news article , it is hard to read.
If you are translating this news articel, it should be help to learn English…^^
March 13th, 2008 at 4:34 am
I deeply love it.
March 13th, 2008 at 5:25 am
Great find, that really comes in handy
March 13th, 2008 at 6:53 am
It’s really pretty comfortable to read articles in that way! Thank you for good idea! Also, is it possible to involve some British vocabulary by using UK sites? Perhaps bbc.co.uk?
Because British English is quiet different from American English. It’d be great for foreign people live in UK or travel there, just like me.
Anyway, thank you for Podcasts, it’s the best way to learn English ever! I love them!
March 13th, 2008 at 9:46 am
It´s very nice to read articles in that way…. I liked too much…thank you!!!
March 13th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Dear Jeff,
It’s a wonderful idea. It’s amazing how much you are greatly imaginative to help us for improving our english.
A lot of words you highlighted are not in my dictionary and I would have no way to understand their meaning (without your explanations).
Many thanks to Lucy and you (and all your team, of course) for all your efforts. Take care.
Pierre
March 13th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
good stuff Jeff!!
Kind regards
Sebastian, Germany
March 13th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
¡Bravo!
Pablo
March 15th, 2008 at 8:37 am
How amazing voice.It is my first time to into the websie,good well done.
Gill from Taiwan.
March 15th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Very interesting and useful idea, with you is really a pleasure to practice english. And thanks for talking of America to the rest of the world, we all should know each other better and the world would be surely a better place, guys thanks again for your job.
March 16th, 2008 at 12:06 am
I tried to get the original page by clicking on the corresponding link in the green box but I found a quite different article on the same topic. Why?
March 16th, 2008 at 5:35 am
It’s really a great work Jeff… Thank you.
March 17th, 2008 at 8:28 am
Thank you for all of your wonderful feedback! I will do more of these soon.
Please note that Voice of America sometimes moves the stories to a different part of their website after a day or two, so sometimes the original article will not be there (or a different article will be on that page). However, you can still read the SharedCopy version. If you want to read the articles without looking at the vocabulary, just click on the first box in the top, right corner to minimize (shrink, make smaller) the yellow box.
March 19th, 2008 at 1:24 am
Greate!! This way to communicate with us could help us to learn to munch vocaboulary and re-write and article. Thanks Jeff for this contribution!!
March 19th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
AWESOME!!! this is a very very good idea~
now i could understand the standard american newspaper more
^_^ thanks jeff~
March 23rd, 2008 at 9:18 am
Hello, Jeff and ESL Team
Congratulations for your new idea. I’ve been a few days disconected from your website and today I find your link to “Voice of America”. As Tiago Conejo said, it would be useful if we knew when a new note is add.
Thank you again.
March 24th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
It’s nice to discover that governors are also humans
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Dear Jeff, this is an excellent idea to use this internet service to improve ESL Podcast! It is good because it enables bad-English readers to understand meaning (new words, phrasal, grammar rules etc) on real language on internet (not only of simplifier text). If service like this have an importance than it is very important for this kind of learning sites like ESL is.
(And I think, your taste to find good story or object in podcast or blog is very nice).
HALT! Who goes there-friend or foe?
This message is generated by me in moments of heavy boredom.