Resources for EFL teachers

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Comment by Holly Dilatush on October 2, 2017 at 12:15pm

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

Comment by andrew aker on April 22, 2014 at 10:19pm

Hi Effie, what specific challenges are you facing now?

Comment by Effie Vlachou on October 11, 2011 at 4:29pm

I have been teaching English at secondary and tertiary  level and could use some help. I am only a newbie to web2 and really amazed at the possibilities....

Comment by Fiona Luna on April 29, 2011 at 10:57am

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.

Comment by Mark Waghorne on April 29, 2011 at 9:57am

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.

Comment by Erika Podlovics on April 28, 2011 at 8:53pm

Hey Mark, 

 

Thanks, I'm gonna start a discussion on this so that the conversation can continue and others can add :)

 

erika

Comment by Fiona Luna on April 27, 2011 at 4:02pm

Hey, I am new to this site. I am a science teacher and next year I will be working in a fully bilingual middle school in Sweden. Their science lessons are to be done in English. All the students are EAL, for a number English will be their third language. So I am looking for tips on 1) how to assess their level of English when I first meet my new classes and 2) any content specific help for English language learners.

Comment by Mark Waghorne on April 27, 2011 at 2:13am

This is a link for a relatively new NING for ESL teachers:

 

http://aplanet-project.org/

Comment by Mark Waghorne on April 27, 2011 at 2:07am

Hi Erika,

 

This is a selection of target language that works well in a debate:

 

AGREE.doc

DEBATES.doc

 

Comment by Erika Podlovics on April 22, 2011 at 7:22pm

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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