Here's something cool you can do for your students if you have a mac computer--make vocabulary CDs. (I'm sure you can do this using a PC, too, but you might have to buy a program and/or a microphone.)
I did this in a matter of about an hour, using mac's Garage Band feature. You record your voice directly onto the computer, without a microphone, by just speaking into the little built-in "microphone holes." (Not a technical term.) Then, you download the track to iTunes and burn it onto a writable CD from there. Today, I handed the CDs out to my students along with vocabulary lists so that they could read-along with my voice and practice at home.
Easy peasy. And my students were really pleased, particularly my ESL adults. I'm sure some of the teenagers will use them for target practice.
Once you get the hang of the Garage Band program, you could use it for all kinds of things. What about reading whole stories so that students can practice fluency over the weekend? Or burning background-building songs--like jazz, if you're studying the 1920s--onto a disc and recording your own intros that explain how the songs are related to their studies? You could even get the students involved and record some of their poems or reader's theatre.
The possibilities are endless!
image of karaoke awesomeness from "Lost In Translation"
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