Due to problems with the video camera, I have as of yet been unable to upload the teaching videos from Wednesday. Hopefully I'll be able to upload them tomorrow.
For now, your blog assignment is to explore the web resources that may be most helpful to you as a TESOL professional. To do this, google around and find some different activities that you might use as part of a lesson, either to go along with your mini-lesson or that would fit in elsewhere in your project. Or, some pages that may not be as relevant for your project, but that you feel would be really helpful to you if you were actually teaching an ESL/EFL course.
As a comment on this post, list at least 5 different helpful websites that you found, and give a brief explanation of why you found that site to be a good one. What kinds of resources does it provide? How might you use them? Is the activities on this site appropriate for all ages and proficiency levels, or only for some? In other words, why might you recommend this site, and for what purposes?
Note: We will discuss this blog assignment and some of the results that you are finding, on Monday, at which point I will add a second step to this assignment. Overall, the entire blog (both this part and the additional part added on Monday), will be due the following Monday (March 7), by classtime. You may choose to go ahead and post the first part now, or to wait and do the whole thing once you have the second part of the assignment.
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Some helpful websites I have found along the way include the following:
ReplyDelete(1)http://iteslj.org/Lessons/ (EFL/ESL Lessons and Lesson Plans from The Internet TESL Journal – contains articles, lesson plans, and teaching techniques – beginning to advanced – site organization is a plus)
(2)http://www.cal.org/caela/tools/program_development/prac_toolkit.html (CAELA practitioner toolkit for adult ELLs – Part II Activity is worth checking out for its lesson planning formats and activities to promote interaction and communication in classes)
(3)http://iteslj.org/links/ (TESL/TEFL/TESOL/ESL/EFL/ESOL Links maintained by The Internet TESL Journal – as of 11/09/10 there were 10,148 registered links)
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4)http://waze.net/oea/ (Oral English activities – 28 spoken communicative English lessons on a variety of topics that can be integrated into almost any lesson where you want to focus on oral English fluency – beginning to advanced)
(5)
http://www.tefl.net/esl-lesson-plans/index.htm (A range of ideas and activities that can be adapted for all levels; contains worksheets, games, and articles)
(6)http://www.eslmania.com/ (A site for adult learners and teachers – lots of “bright ideas” for teaching ESL)
(7)http://youth.net/cec/ceclang/ceclang-elem.html (Mini-lessons designed for elementary grades, but easily adaptable for ESL classroom use)
(8)http://www.eslflow.com/esllessonplans.html (Good teaching with pictures ideas – beginner level)
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ReplyDeletehttp://www.manythings.org/pp/
ReplyDeleteCindy shared this website with me. It’s a great site to find help with minimal pairs such as /eat/ and /it/. It not only gives you as a teacher a list of words to go with various kinds of troubled minimal pairs, it also has an interactive quiz to go with it for the learner to practice his/her skills. Or if the teacher wants to keep it in the classroom, then quiz could be used as a model of how to give a listening assessment in class. The website itself is probably more suitable to jr high and up age groups, but the ideas within it can used for even very young children with some modifications.
http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/cat/
This site was also shared with me by Cindy and it gives a grand list of idiomatic phrases along with their definitions separated by category. It could be used for any age level so long as the teacher is mindful of the targeted age when choosing which idioms to teach.
http://www.uebersetzung.at/twister/en.htm
This is a great site to find a collection of English tongue twisters. Since tongue twisters are fun at any age I would say that it’s appropriate for all ages but the teacher should consider the learner’s age when choosing which ones to use. Tongue twisters are a great way to aid in bettering your students’ pronunciation.
http://www.school-clip-art.com/
This site has an abundance of clip art images grouped by category. Since ESL learners need visual aids at any age this can be a handy resource for all ESL teachers no matter what age you are teaching. The site even tells you how to save the images for both mac and windows users. For those who are excellent with technology, this site can help enhance power points or for those who are not as computer literate, these images could always be blown up and printed out. Images can be used to let a learner know exactly what you are talking about while speaking, or used to create games for students trying to learn new vocabulary. For instance, if the images were printed out and put on popsicle sticks or blown up, then when a teacher is reading a story the kids can be interactive by holding up their image when the word is mentioned, which is a great informal assessment.
http://www.eslcafe.com/
This site has a lot for both teachers and students. I like the link “idea cookbook” which then takes you to a set of links based on what you want to teach. Or under the “for the students” heading there are links that could still be used by the teacher such as phrasal verbs. The phrasal verb link is more of a dictionary for phrasal verbs and could therefore be a self-study guide for older learners, or teachers could draw from it and teach specific phrases to practice in the classroom. There are also links to podcasts and books that could help a teacher become even better. This site has a lot to offer but I would caution that you know what you have in mind before going there, otherwise you might be overwhelmed and lose track.
Hooray, Heather. I also love Dave’s ESL Café. For those of us who like to look at job openings, Dave’s has a wonderful listing of what ESL teaching jobs are open in the U. S. and internationally.
ReplyDeleteOther sites that I like include a couple of fun sites. www.eslholidaylessons.com has already been discovered by several of us in connection with an earlier blog assignment. It does, however, have a whole list of fun ideas. I’m also been looking at www.musicalenglishlessons.org as a source of fun classroom exercises based on songs. All exercises are organized around a specific song. Exercises include both form-focused and meaning focused exercises. Artists range from Annie Lennox to Puff Daddy, so lots of different interest levels could be reached with these exercises. I’m looking forward to trying the old Beatles standard, “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” with a beginner-low intermediate class.
On a more serious note, I use two sites that require paying for them. I’m a member of TESOL and you can post a request on one of their many group e-mail pages and get lots of expert advice back. Try www.tesol.org and check out the entire organization. I’m going to their annual conference in New Orleans during Spring Break week. Another paying site is www.esllibrary.com. It is very helpful for a variety of items, including lesson plan examples.
Finally, Purdue has something going called the Purdue Writing Lab. The Purdue Owl, which is part of that lab, has really helpful writing resources and instructor materials. Especially relevant is the ESL lab. Try them out at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl.
www.hbavenues.com
ReplyDeleteThis website is a resource for our ESL students from the district curriculum. It supports the lessons and themes presented in class. Students can use it as a review or a study guide as we move through the curriculum. It has vocabulary, pictures and activities that students can access from home to enrich their learning in the classroom. I chose this website because it works hand-in-hand with our district curriculum and enhances the students understanding and offers to enrich their learning.
www.funbrain.com
This website is chock full of fun games to play. They have reading, word and math games. Students can use this site to work on many different skills. It also has a spot where teachers can create quizzes and have students take them. I chose this site because it offers a fun yet educational games to enhance learning.
www.softschools.com
This website has grade specific activities and for all subject areas. There are games, worksheets, quizzes and more on this site. I chose this site because it covers science, math, social studies and language arts from kinder through 12th grade making it a site an entire family could utilize and help with school related topics.
www.iknowthat.com
This website is for grades PK – 6th. It offers games and activities in all content areas. The games offer visual support for the ESL student. It also has a teacher guide where I could teach a lesson and then create an activity or game and assign it for homework or use as an assessment. I chose this site because it is interactive and allows me to utilize it as lessons and then use the site as reinforcement and practice.
http://www.juliethompson.com/science.htm
This website is full of interactive science games. It has pictures to help with vocabulary development and to build background and schema for science concepts. It utilizes power point presentations and Inspiration so that students can use technology to learn difficult concepts. I chose this site because it is user friendly and helps to solidify difficult science concepts by making it fun.
http://www.5minuteenglish.com/
ReplyDeleteThis website has a section that allows esl students to post questions they have about English which allows us to reflect on what may be difficult for our students. This is also a good site for students to go to take practice quizzes in various sections they need or want practice in.
http://www.manythings.org/
This site has about 100 ESL videos available. It also has reading available that comes with voice over. So if the textbook doesn’t come with a cd this can be a good site for listening activities.
http://www.usingenglish.com/teachers/lesson-plans/
The forum section has thousands of threads for asking teachers questions. This could help us with error prediction. This site is good for both the student and the teacher. The teacher section has about 200 lessons available that is separated by course level. This could be good of an assistant teacher in an EFL context to have a pocket lessons available just in case if the head teacher doesn’t show or it can be good to have an available lesson or activity to fill in the remainder of a class that went too fast. This site also has plenty of test for the teacher to give and the student to practice.
http://www.eslflow.com/
This site has picture based lessons. In class some people mentioned it was good to have pictures to go along with meaning. This site also describes some fun game activities for the student. This site is good for the beginner to the intermediate.
http://esl.about.com/od/englishlessonplans/English_Lesson_Plans_for_ESL_EFL_Classes.htm
This site has a section that provides different activities and class suggestions based on multiple intelligences.
I found these, all of which are new to me:
ReplyDelete(a) rong-chang.com - This one may require payment for some content, but a lot is free. It's a "pointer" website to a lot of resources, and I like the organization a lot: easy to find what I'm looking for on this site. It's focused on adults, and has pointers (URLs) to all sorts of exercises, quizzes, as well as very practical topics (immigration test questions, for example). I think it would be useful for me as a teacher in looking for activities for my students AND in looking for information to develop myself as an instructor in the future.
(b) a4esl.org - This is a collection of quizzes of all sorts for ESL learners. Nice features: you can find quizzes for EFL learners in a variety of native languages. I like the amount of quizzes and the easy organization of the website, which seems to have lots of content. The focus is more structural (grammar and vocabulary) than functional, but this seems like an excellent resource to visit if a particular point of grammar, say, needs more drilling or examples. I can see this as a fine resource for the teacher who can project the content onto a screen for all students to see and answer simultaneously, or in groups.
(c) esl-lab.com - These are advanced audio conversations in English that come with comprehension quizzes. The English is very American and colloquial. I think these might be challenging for students, but they would really help listening comprehension. At first, the student listens to an audio for comprehension, and questions below check that comprehension. Later, the student can repeat the audio but read along with the script. I think this sort of exercise would be very good for students who want to improve listening comprehension and are willing to work independently to do so. As in an instructor in a computer-lab setup, these exercises would be good, too, for individual or group work.
(d) dailyesl.com - This is a collection of readings (written and accompanying audio of the reading), each focusing on a functional topic. The topics look well chosen, and the accompanying reading is clearly spoken. I think this would be an excellent supplement for an adult class, particularly for improving reading and listening comprehension. Although the website owner seeks to bring the readings down to a linguistically achievable level by most students, I do think teacher intervention would help with this content. Again, a resource that would be good for students who need to work on their own to supplement class learning.
(e) pumarosa.com - This is free and has a focus that I would find really useful: it's oriented toward native speakers of Spanish. It has careful, slow pronunciation of English content along with the Spanish, side by side. I can see this as a great supplement for students in community learning who would like to do reinforcement or additional work on their own. Although the website is colorful, it's basic when it comes to graphics and "fun" elements. But things like presenting words (names) and then spelling them out: this could be very useful for the Spanish speaker trying to reinforce what I have covered in class. The target student group seems to be adults or maybe down to high schoolers who are fluent in Spanish but need to develop their English.
http://a4esl.org
ReplyDeleteThis site provides vocabulary quizzes, crossword puzzles, and bilingual quizzes. Bilingual quizzes would be helpful if you teach beginners who are not familiar with English yet, so it’s hard to describe the meaning of a word using only English. The bilingual quizzes are available in 48 languages including Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, and so on.
http://www.englishclub.com/teach-english.htm
You can find ideas for classroom activities and games here. Also, they provide authentic reading materials which can be used as discussion topics in class. “This week in history” introduces historical events happened in the U.S. and I believe this would be a great material for teaching American culture as well as English. It will be nice to start each week with this topic, especially in adults’ class.
http://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/index.htm
There are various materials to teach English pronunciation and I found they are in good quality as well. You can find English tongue twisters, which will be fun to try for ESL students.
http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/
They offer daily lesson plans using current news. Each lesson plan is composed of an article, new vocabulary, discussion topics, homework and so forth and contains reading, listening, speaking and writing exercises. I think I can make an interesting class with this for adult high-intermediate to advanced class.
http://bancuri.haios.ro/listeaza.php?lang=en&s=bancuri&id=56
This site has a lot of English jokes. As jokes are often hard to understand for ESL students, you can include one or two of them every class in order to introduce American humor, as well as keep your students awake! Most of the jokes here are for adults.
http://www.englishspeak.com/
There are 100 lessons, 1000 most common phrases, and 1500 most common words in this site. They have large amount of audio contents(pronunciation of a word of phrase) that you can play in class.
(1) http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/
ReplyDeleteIt has ready to use reading and listening activities and discussion questions. I used some reading materials in the conversation club which was very helpful. It has lists of breaking news articles that can be suitable for adult class of intermediate level.
(2) www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/
It contains general & business English section, grammar, vocabulary & pronunciation section, and short drama clip ‘The Flatmates’ which is fun and instructive listening and speaking activities, etc. This site is suitable for college level students and if you modify the contents it can be used in the beginning level classes, too.
(3) http://etest.chosun.com/tpo/index.jsp?Dep1=service&Dep2=map&Dep3=tofel
TOFEL practice online site. It is very effective way of practicing taking TOFEL for the students who really want to improve their scores for TOFEL. Just follow the exam steps and explain the proper approach will be vey helpful for the intermediate and advanced level students.
(4) honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/teachtip.htm#assessment
Huge amount of teaching tips list. One of the icebreaking tips was very useful for my first class of conversation club lesson. You should check the site from time to time for planning your class.
(5) http://www.towson.edu/ows/index.htm
I think it is a helpful site for increasing accuracy for students. Parts of speech, usage, sentence structure, and exercises are included in the site. It can be used in a beginners’ class for a short introduction of parts of speech.
I just made a post on here that I now am unable to see. This is a test
ReplyDeleteThe websites that I used while preparing for my lesson are:
ReplyDeletehttp://esl.about.com/
I like this website and use it sometimes when I need to find some easy materials and approaches, or just find some answers to questions. I think it’s very user-friendly and provides the materials that can be quickly accessed and easy to use.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9kDHZbYpPk
This is the link to the ESL videos on giving directions that I used. I think that they did a great job making them visual (showing the maps) and funny, I recommend everyone to watch this one and the other ESL videos that this author has posted.
http://www.dallasalert.com/ddallasmap.pdf This is an amazing map that I have used. I think such map if shown in a big format can create the atmosphere that the students are actually walking through the downtown themselves, since the map is not “flat”.
http://www.eslhandouts.com/worksheets/giving-directions-speaking-game/
I took my two-way-info-gap maps from this website, and I think they did a great job making them. I am glad I had ready-to-go handouts, as it would be very time-consuming to make them myself.
http://www.mapquest.com
This website was relevant to my lesson and my project. Overall, I think it’s important to use real-world authentic websites for the ESL classes and adapt the assignments appropriately and not necessarily just do the activities adjusted for the classroom. So, I would recommend using this as a resource if you do a lesson on giving directions. I also wanted to share my HW assignment that I have created for my lesson that teaches students how to use MapQuest, but did not know how to upload a file here. Sorry. Ask me if you want it, I will e-mail it to you.
Ok my post on Monday never showed up on here for some reason and now my hard drive in my laptop crashed so I don't have my book marked websites so... Here's another try and some off the top of my head.
ReplyDeleteTo agree with several of my classmates, Dave's ESL Cafe is a very, very useful site for students and teachers.
http://www.eslcafe.com/
I really like the activity generator on this site. It could be very useful for classrooms of younger children so that they will begin to associate English words with images rather than as a translation.
www.esl-kids.com
I think that the bilingual quizzes on this site could definitely come in handy.
http://a4esl.org/
About.com has a page with some really helpful links to things like printable worksheets, curriculum, and more.
http://esl.about.com/od/englishlessonplans/English_Lesson_Plans_for_ESL_EFL_Classes.htm
This site is not actually for ESL, but I found it useful when creating my kindergarten mini lesson
http://www.nchealthyschools.org/lessonplans/k/
1) http://www.eslmonkeys.com/teacher/lessonplans.html. This is a neat search engine for ESL/EFL lesson plans. You can search by topic, skill level, age, and/or keyword, so its resources are appropriate for a variety of ages and proficiency levels. If you hunt around long enough, there are a lot of roleplay and life-skills oriented lessons!
ReplyDeleteFor example, I liked this one about preparing for a job interview: http://www.eslmonkeys.com/teacher/lessonplans_d.php?id=105.
While searching for helpful resources, I kept an eye out for those that included some of Grant Goodall’s ideals about transcultural competence. I was really excited to find these two conversation or reading comprehension lessons that are specifically tailored to help Chinese L2 English learners better understand American culture (especially since my L2 is Chinese and I want to teach there.)
a. http://www.eslmonkeys.com/teacher/lessonplans_d.php?id=34,
b. http://www.eslmonkeys.com/teacher/lessonplans_d.php?id=32
2) http://www.usingenglish.com/handouts/ This is a nice place to find handouts and quiz-style worksheets, categorized by specific parts of speech or grammatical rules. They seem to be appropriate for beginning to intermediate English learners at the least.
3) http://www.learnenglishfeelgood.com/esl-printables-worksheets.html. I like the handouts on this site, similar in format to those on usingenglish.com and organized by which grammatical form you want to teach. They are appropriate for beginning to advanced English learners, I think.
4) http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/index.html. This site posts extremely detailed, practical, and communicative lesson plans based on current news stories. I believe these lessons would also effectively encourage transcultural competence on hot-button issues. I think the resources here are more appropriate for college-age or adult English L2 learners with intermediate to advanced proficiency, who have some prior awareness of global and political issues.
5) http://www.teflclips.com/ This site is a fun resource for video clips to include in our lessons. The clips include detailed, communicative activities in case you even wanted to base an entire lesson around one clip. It has a variety of clips for different interests and ages.