Those of you who teach English to technicians all know this precious resource providing dozens of machines with animations and good explanations to describe how various systems and machines work. I use it a lot with my BTS and recommend it for my TPE ( Engineering Sciences in English). The teachers of engineering science often find it too general, but it is a good starting point for the students and provides useful diagrams and animations.
http://www.howstuffworks.com
What’s more, since September, Marchall Brain, the author, has started adding videos which are really well made and useful, and complement excellently the written pages. The topics are mainly technical, but not only, so they are perfect for oral comprehension training sessions for all students around level B1.
Here is an overview of all the things you can find on How Stuff Works:
How engines, hybrid cars, GPS, joysticks,bicycles, water basters, grenades, nail guns work
http://www.howstuffworks.com/engine.htm
http://www.howstuffworks.com/hybrid-car.htm
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gps-phone.htm
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/joystick.htm
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/how-to-repair-a-bicycle.htm
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/water-blaster1.htm
http://science.howstuffworks.com/grenade.htm
http://home.howstuffworks.com/nail-gun1.htm
The Empire State Building
http://science.howstuffworks.com/empire-state-building.htm
The site also deal with cultural events like Christmas and Halloween
http://christmas.howstuffworks.com/christmas.htm
http://people.howstuffworks.com/halloween8.htm
and now provides city guides:
At the moment, are available : Miami, Denver, Atlanta, Houston, Philadelphia, Vancouver, Dallas, Portland, Montreal, Toronto, Charleston, Orlando, Phoenix, Austin, Seattle, Boston and Nashville. As an example, here is ***Chicago, with a video and several pages. There is no script, but if your students have read the pages, they will have all the keys to follow the video without problems and enjoy the pictures : you can even see the river dyed green on St Patrick’s Day!
http://www.howstuffworks.com/chicago-city-guide.htm
And there are lots of other topics : just type what you are looking for in the search box, or choose in the menus. The front page offers a good overview of the diversity of the topics: Ninja, online trading, fiber optics, blue tooth, Dark Vader, …
http://www.howstuffworks.com/
