Sheppard software

Sheppardsoftware is a large website for learning English. The slogan is: We make learning fun! If you can live with all the Ads on this site it is free but if you wish to have a Ad-free version it will cost 300 dollars a year. Here is what this site contains.

There is much information on start site. I looked at the version with Ads and sometimes it is hard to tell what an Ad is and what is not. To understand and work with this page you need quite some
time. It is easy to get lost. The start page is divided in two parts with place for Ads in between. On top you have the following choices:

· Animals for kids
· Preschool & Kinder garden
· Math Games
· U.S Geography Games
· Animals, Articles & Quizzes
· PreK & K Animals
· Science Games
· Language Art Games
· World Geography Games

Under each category use find many options so I have chosen two categories to take a closer look at. Under the Ad space you find following categories:

· ChemistryQuizzes
· HealthGames
· AnimalGames for Kids
· BrainGames
· HistoryQuizzes
· Nutritionfor Kids
· PaintActivities
· USA4 Kids
· Seasonsfor Kids
· Puzzels

Since I want to work with English for younglearners (beginners) I have choose two categories to look at. The first one is PreK & K Animals. Here youget to know different types of Animals. The types are: Ocean , Jungle, Forestand Farm Animals. For each type you can do five different exercises :

· Look: here you watch a little cartoon movie with a speaker voice (a child). The language is clear and easy tounderstand for beginners and the movie helps to clarify the meaning of
difficult words.

· Create: here you create your own setting for example of the ocean. You chose how many crabs and whales you want in your ocean setting. The same speaker guides you through how it is done. This is also easy for beginners to understand.

· Play: here you play a guessing game in what animal the speaker describes.

· Learn: Pure and simple vocabulary learning

· Find and count: here you have to find and click onthe animal the speaker asks for. There is more than one so you have to count them as well.

This category I found useful for beginners to listen to spoken English and follow simple instructions. The pupils also get to meet vocabulary in different shapes such as spoken, written and drawing form. I have the opportunity to have children on my own and I tried this one out on my son who is 9 years old. He liked it a lot and has marked it as a favorite onhis computer. As a teacher I would use this category as a listening exercise.

My next Category to dig into is Language Arts Game and it isreally another word for grammar. This category also contains different options such as:

· Grammar tutorial: here you learn the differencebetween nouns, verbs and adjectives in a fun and easy way.

· Verbs in space: this is a game were you punch downall the verbs in space. If you punch at another word it will be marked with a red cross.

· Adjective adventure:in this game you put a fly on the spider with an adjective on it. If it
is right the spider eats the fly and if it is wrong a red cross marks it as wrong.

· Noun explorer: in this game you feed a fish with anoun written on it with a worm. Again, if it is wrong the cross appears.

· Comma Chameleon: in this game you mark where you should put comma, question marks, full stop and so on.

· Magical Capitals: in this game you mark where you are suppose to have capital letter. When you put it at the right place a speaker tells you the rule that goes with it. It also appears in written form on your screen.

This category describes the difficulties with English grammar in a clear and understandable way. To understand and use Language Art Game you have to know quite a bit of vocabulary. As a teacher I would use this source to help the pupils learn the difference between words. Maybe I would play some of the games together so they could help each other to know what the
tricky words means. They could also work in pairs with these games. I tried this one on my son to but it was much too difficult for him. He barely managed to figure Grammar tutorial out but after a while he did.

Other considerations when using this resource is that it covers all ages and it is rather big and in my point of view kind of messy in the lay out . It is like I said in the beginning very easy to get lost
and not finding your way back. On the positive side I think if you put some kind of effort and time in to learning how this website works you will probably find many useful ideas here. Another thing is that it is covering reading,writing, listening and understanding English.

here is the link to this website: http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/