About ESLPAL.com

Mission Statement

To provide a user friendly Internet based platform which people from every corner of the world can use to communicate and improve understanding through the use of one common language.

The Developer

ESLPAL.com, is being developed by Bill Boyd in his spare time. He is currently teaching seven days a week in two different locations, so he doesn't have much time for developing the site and including all the wonderful ideas he has for it.
(To see a list of features he plans to be included go here.)
Bill aims to make this site into a truly international ESL learning and development site, which is accessible to students, teachers and schools regardless of their financial circumstances. Accordingly, Bill would like to make everything available to everyone for free. Unfortunately he won't be able to provide the best possible service and include the range of features he plans, if he doesn't make some money from the site. This is why 'google adsense' ads are placed prominently throughout the site. He is trying not to charge the user for using the essential features of ESLPAL. However, for those that can afford to donate towards the future of ESLPAL and the development of the worlds leading dynamic ESL integration system, there is a 'paypal' donation link on the left hand side of most pages.

History

ESLPAL.com has been online since the 20th of December 2006, and is hosted by www.redbarrack.com.

ESLPAL.com, started as an idea when Bill noticed the frustration that many ESL students have, when trying to use the Internet to do anything!
This, along with his experience of using the Internet for teaching research and recourses, gave him the idea that 'it could all be made a lot easier if everything was available in one place', in a user friendly environment and for a reasonable fee. (free)
To see how he plans to achieve this, read on

Pre-Launch Features

Forum, this is an extremely powerful communication platform and has been designed is such a way as to provide an 'unstructured learning environment', while encouraging users to ask more questions and provide more solutions. This is done by simply making it necessary to post a minimum number of post in order to advance to the next level of posting. Teachers and schools are able to access all levels upon meeting certain criteria which will help to promote themselves and ESLPAL.com.

Jobs, having to post jobs, search and apply for them online provides the basic necessities for schools and teachers, which results in there being schools and teachers for the students. ESLPAL provides a basic service for this at present. When funds are available this service will be upgraded to the latest in recruitment services.

Resumes, at this stage you can only create your resume and then save it to your own PC, if you like you can then upload it to your 'profile' or to the main upload page. see 'launch features' for future plans.

Quiz, there is currently a simple quiz that doubles as a user registration guide. This is a great way for users to become familiar with ESLPAL.
See 'launch' features for more about quizzes.

CB gallery, CB stands for Community Builder, this program is being developed and refined at present, but you can upload pictures and other content to your profile.

Messages, this works like a buddy system where you can ask for someone to accept your messages. a great way to quickly say hello when you see them online.

Downloads, need worksheets, lesson plans, curriculum, syllabus? this is all there for you, and if you want to upload anything of yours and add it to the recourse then go ahead, you can choose to make it public or not. It can be used to store stuff for yourself if your in a cafe and need to save something, just save it here!

Blog and Articles, these are available but not very user friendly at the moment, they are great if you have something you want to publish online and have them copied to other sites and distributed in newsletters etc.

Launch Features

Fully automated Job posting and resume database, including listing by country and search resume service.

FAQ list to provide answers to all essential functions and advanced usage, complete with screen shots and links to relevant quizzes.

Automated article submission portal, with features similar to article dashboard. Authors will be able to have their content published by potentially thousands of ezine publishers from this one location.

Quizzes, which include the use of audio and video, providing practical exercises which will help users become more familiar with ESLPAL and its many uses while learning some English computer language.

Artificial intelligence ESL robot; a synthetic teacher that will chat with multiple students in a verity of countries simultaneously, this will be an ongoing project.

Virtual classrooms, a platform where schools and individual teachers can conduct online instruction to individuals and small groups, complete with audio visual aids.

A fully stocked library of ESL recourses; for teachers, schools and students.

A regular newsletter, which can be used by all members as a ‘trading post’, it will contain a classifieds section where all users can look to buy or sell any product or service. (like a local trash and treasure). A summary of recent additions to the library and forum posts will also be available in another newsletter as well as world news regarding ESL in general.

Future Direction

It is intended that much of the future direction of ESLPAL will be dependent on its users, their needs and desires. Having said this, Bill is considering the need to expand the networking ability of ESLPAL by including partnerships, affiliates or other such methods of expansion. He welcomes any and all input from interested parties either via the forum or PM service at ESLPAL.com.