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This is a group for EFL teachers needing and wanting to share resources.
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Latest Activity: Oct 2, 2017
Started by Holly Dilatush Oct 2, 2017. 0 Replies 0 Likes
Hello all, I see that this group has been quiet for awhile, and thought I'd join/stop by to see if I might wake it up! :) It's easier and easier to learn of resources these days, and I believe/hope…Continue
Tags: word-booster
Started by Kerry Lynn James Aug 11, 2011. 0 Replies 0 Likes
Hello all, I am new to this site, and this group, but wanted to get your opinion on this subject. I give private lessons to a student who is originally from Romania who would like to improve his…Continue
Tags: teaching, education, pronunciation, ESL
Started by Erika Podlovics May 1, 2011. 0 Replies 0 Likes
Just wanted to move the conversation aside so that if anyone else wanted to contribute any resources or comments on using debates to get students talking, researching, exploring, and passionate about…Continue
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Hello all, I see that this group has been quiet for awhile, and thought I'd join/stop by to see if I might wake it up! :)
It's easier and easier to learn of resources these days, and I believe/hope we're all getting a bit better at limiting how many tools / resources we invest time into working with.
I am curious about which might most fall into the category of "tried and true" for you?
Are you more inclined to pay for resources now than you were 5 years ago? (I am, to some extent, though I still love the freebies.)
I don't use diigo nearly as much as I used to (used it several times a week for years, now don't; not entirely sure why?)
I teach primarily online, with a Ning site.
[I worked for English Cafe for years before they went offline in 2012. I founded/started my own site, lewwwp.com the day English Cafe closed, ran it from Feb. 2012 through Dec. 2016.]
Some major health and personal challenges left me unable to work for many months. Now I'm essentially retired, but what does that mean in this day and age?
I've started another Ning, 7H, much smaller scale, simpler than LEWWWP (Learn English With a WorldWide Perspective) was. 7H is entirely free. You're welcome to visit and certainly welcome to join if so inclined.
I collect/share resources there: https://sevenh.ning.com/discussion-topics/Resource+Lists
Thanks to Nik Peachey, I've been exploring word-booster.com
I find myself using https://www.powerthesaurus.org/ a lot, too.
https://theconversation.com/us
and
http://www.thetimesinplainenglish.com/
are other favorite resources recently
Hope to learn with/from you,
Holly
Hi Effie, what specific challenges are you facing now?
The students come from a very diverse range of backgrounds so will have had various amounts of experience with English before they get to me (I will be teaching 6th and 7th grade) depending on which elementary school they went to (and in which country as not all students are Swedish). The school does half its classes in English and half in Swedish. I will not be responsible for assessment before they are placed in class and I should have at least numerical information about things like reading and comprehension test scores. But I know data only tells half the story and am really just thinking about those first few lessons really and giving the students some activities to gauge where they are at and how much help I will need to give them with things like lab instructions. And just get to know them as people too.
As I am expected to learn Swedish myself, I thought it might be a nice idea to get them to create me some Swedish/ English labels for classroom and lab items in the first lesson. And make up some class rules because I have lots of pictures and sentence starters for that kind of thing.
Hi Fiona,
Will it be your job to assess their English before they are placed into classes? If so, you will need help devising a placement test. I'd assume their English would be atleast of an intermediate level, but even this grouping can contain a vast range of abilities. If you can get me some more info, I'll try to give you some pointers.
Hey Mark,
Thanks, I'm gonna start a discussion on this so that the conversation can continue and others can add :)
erika
Hey, those are some really fun resources!
One of my favorite activities to do with intermediate to advanced students is to create a series of classes called "The Great Debate". We go through what a debate is, what makes good debate topics, how a debate is conducted, and do some smaller practice debates. We then finish off with a big final debate that brings together all we have learned.
I like to use this database for debate questions - http://www.idebate.org/debatabase/topic_index.php as I feel like many of the topics can be made to relate to any country and will mean different things for different nationalities and age groups.
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