TEACHING ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

TEST YOUR LEVEL OF ENGLISH

Go to this website English Level Test- http://www.englishjet.com/english_courses_files/test_level.asp

On the left hand column choose the level you think you are and take the test. Education World® : Technology in the Classroom : ESL Lessons for students www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech074.shtml

Teach parts of the body and the terms left and right in this simple children's song The Hokey Pokey

http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/lyrics/hokey.htm

TEACHING HOW TO USE A DICTIONARY

# Dictionary guide words: How do they guide us?

www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/2850

Students have difficulty locating words in a dictionary. This lesson will allow students to learn how to use guide words in a dictionary to ... “Who/what are examples of guides?”. The students will respond orally to these questions. ...

# Education World: All About Words: Dictionary Activities! www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/lesson/lesson206.shtml – 8 lessons for using dictionaries! ... Students use library or online sources to create time lines about Noah Webster

# Lesson 6 - Tuples, Lists, and Dictionaries www.sthurlow.com/python/lesson06/ Example: the names of the months of the year. Dictionaries are similar to what ... Most of the time we use lists, not tuples, because we want to easily ...

# Dictionaries www.tcl.tk/man/tcl/tutorial/Tcl23a.html For example, to retrieve all elements of a dictionary in alphabetical order, based on the key

# Free Printable English Worksheets www.tlsbooks.com/englishworksheets.htm Please be familiar with our Terms of Use before using any worksheets from this site. ... Rhyming Words worksheet a - think of rhyming words for the words provided ... Free 7-day trial of customizable vocabulary lessons to teach words

# Dictionary Skills - eThemes a 26 page PDF file ethemes.missouri.edu/themes/1351 - United States - There is also an example on how to look up a word in a dictionary and ... This 26 page PDF file includes explanations of how to use a dictionary. ... Scroll down to find lesson plans for dictionary skills

# ABC Order -- Guidewords and the Dictionary donnayoung.org/english/research/guide-words.htm You should go over the parts of the dictionary every time you use it for the ... Be patient and explain what they are during each lesson that you teach ... The guidewords are in red in the example below. # C# Station: C# Tutorial Lesson 20 - Introduction to Generic ... www.csharp-station.com/Tutorials/Lesson20.aspx The C# Tutorial - Lesson 20: Introduction to Generic Collections - Learn how to work ... Here's a code example of how to use a List: ... The Dictionary example will work with instances of the following Customer class: ... # Elementary Test Prep:ELA 4 (Grade 2)-Use a dictionary to learn the ... studyzone.org/testprep/e2topic.cfm?TopicID=301 Use a dictionary to learn the meanings of words ... Writing Original Imaginative Text: Sample Lesson ... Using a Dictionary to Get Word Meaning ...



TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG CHILDREN

Teaching Resources, Children's Book Recommendations, and Student ... View lesson plans, booklists, and educational products for children grades Pre-K to 12. Classroom materials include online activities for kids, printables, ... www2.scholastic.com/

TV programs for children

http://www.4kids.tv/watch

# Book Review: “Teaching Young Language Learners” : PROSPECT Blog 1 Nov 2010 ... In response to this need, the book, Teaching Young Language Learners, gives you ideas ... and includes her own comments about who the book is suitable for. ... teachers with an interest in teaching English to children. ... prospectjournal.ucsd.edu/blog/?p=626



HANDY WEBSITES FOR TEACHING ESL/TEFL AT A HIGHER LEVEL

Here is one of the best TEFL sites out there http://www.tefl.net/

ESL, using PowerPoint presentations in ESL teaching Using PowerPoint Presentations to teach ESL. www.english-4kids.com/usingppt.html

# Review: How to...Teach English with Technology Teach English with Technology - review for ESL or EFL teachers. ... for new and different ways of involving students using technology in the EFL classroom, ... www.tefl.net/.../how-to-teach-english-with-technology.htm

# Using the Internet to teach English for Special Purposes (ESP) to vocational ... using technology in esl · esl teaching techniques · ESL lesson plans ... esl.about.com/od/businessenglishlessons/a/bizinterwrite.htm

# Using Technology in the ESL Elementary Classroom . www.njtesol-njbe.org/handouts/TechnologyClassroom.pdf

Technology in Australian classrooms



In Australian rich, fee paying, private schools, every student has their own lap top which they bring to the classroom and their teachers tell them to open their laptops to begin the lesson. Of course they also use text books. Government schools are just starting to provide laptops to the Year 9 students. One day they might get notebooks.Other schools have computer rooms where the teachers book them in for research/creative writing/graphics/maths games/language learning etc. Teachers often show powerpoints in these rooms to demonstrate some aspect of the subject. Students prepare powerpoints themselves as oral presentations to the rest of the class. Then some school have interactive whiteboardssmart boards where the teacher with the use of his/her laptop can show students a lesson from the internet and students can go up to the smart board and tap it like a keyboard to answer questions. There are also class sets of books for various subject areas. Teachers show DVDS relevant to their subject areas. Very few schools use blackboards and chalk. Mainly whiteboards and whiteboard markers are used to explain the lesson's objectives or show how to work out maths problems. Students who can afford it, bring their own laptops/notebooks to classes instead of carrying huge folders for each subject.



Facebook profile posts information relevant

> to English language teachers here: > http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/LAKMA/174262842626271. >

> British Council Lithuania > Facebook profile > posts information for general public on projects, programmes, > products and > events here: http://www.facebook.com/BritishCouncilLithuania?v=wall



HOW TO TEACH THE WORDS " LEFT" AND " RIGHT" TO CHILDREN

This simple song is a great way to teach the 2 words " left and right"

You put your right foot in You put your right foot out You put your right foot in And you ~shake~ it all about.

You do the Hokey Pokey And you turn yourself around That's what it's all about!

Here's the site with the music and words www.stinalisa.com/HokeyPokey.html

POPULAR LESSONS

My students like practical lessons, like giving instructional talks to the class. Some have cooked various dishes, others have shown how to look after pets , e.g. lizards, puppies, kittens, birds etc. Some have even demonstrated how to build a model airplane/kite. Other popular lessons are making short 5 minute movies after writing their own original scripts. We all learn from each other.



NEW BOOKS FOR TEACHING ESL

English Writing skills A and B by Jenny Dove Includes how to write the following: Film & book reviews, feature articles, diaries, cloze tests, formal essays and speeches, opinionative letters etc

Learning English with Literature by Tony Shaw

Includes 3 novels and units of work using Bloom's Taxonomy

Student Speak by Helen McKessar All of the above books are published by User friendly Resources in Australia, New Zealand and the UK www.userfr.com email; info@userfr.com

Contact details; New Zealand phone; 0508-500399

Australia phone; 1800553891 UK phone; 0845-6880199

E-Journals for teachers

• http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JVME/V21-1/Seeler1.html
• http://www1.doshisha.ac.jp/~kkitao/online/www/journal.htm
• http://e-flt.nus.edu.sg/v1n12004/chamot.htm

SOFTWARE PROGRAMS FOR LEARNING ENGLISH Italki member Soulman also suggested the following software programs for learning English:

http://www.oup.com/elt/global/products/headway/

http://www.oup.com/elt/global/products/englishfile/

You can find different software focusing on different skills, so try this one for improving listening skills:

http://www.esl-lab.com/

Includes ESOL student activities: exercises in vocab, writing,listening,reading comprehension and punctuation.

TEACHING ABOUT THE WEATHER USING CLAPPING SOUNDS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYXiUIX6cWE

TEACHING ABOUT COLOURS AND FEELINGS ABOUT THEM

Put some large sheets of colored paper around the room just as high as the students’ height. I used yellow, white, green, blue, red, and black but you could use other colors as well. Include a marker pen for every sheet of paper.

Make the students stand in front of the colored-papers and tell them to write whatever they think when they see that color. They can write emotions, personal memories, or anything associated with that color. Every few minutes, you call out “SWITCH” and the students should transfer to another colored-paper. Repeat the process until all students have written in all of the colored-papers. Afterwards, tell the student to go around the room and read what everyone has written on the papers.

As a whole class, you analyze the common emotions or memories that are reflected by a color. You will notice that Black usually shows negative feelings of fear and loneliness, while Yellow commonly express bright and positive feelings. Red could be associated with both negative and positive as it could represent either death or love.

Have the students discuss why the community mentioned in the novel doesn’t have or doesn’t want colors. This activity helps them understand the power of colors and the emotions they bring to a person. These emotions are not known in “the community”. I often leave the sheets of paper hanging on the walls for some days because my other classes are curious and also want to add their own ideas.

For the last 10minutes of the class, I instruct the students to write in their reading journals about the activity and how it relates to the novel.

Because “The community” also doesn’t have music, this same activity could also be done with musical selections instead of colors. Student will write their emotions, feeling, and memories based on the music played.

HOW TO INVOLVE ALL STUDENTS IN YOUR LESSONS

As I am a high school English teacher, here is just one example of a lesson I have listed. Other lessons would take the form of grammar exercises/tests, debates about current issues. Watching & discussing relevant films/ documentaries. Analysis of media articles, assignments with a choice of questions using Bloom's Taxonomy on different aspects of novels/ poetry, short stories etc. Time in the computer rooms and library is also allocated for research. It depends a lot on your school's resources of course. Here's an example of a lesson involving all students:

1.Explain what the lesson is going to be about. Example : themes of a novel 2. Set a task for students to work in pairs of groups of 4change the groups each time Example: Give each group a different theme to explore. 3. Give the students 10-15 minutes discuss & complete the work. They can write their answers on a big sheet of paper which can be displayed in the classroom after a lesson. 4.Each group reports their results to the rest of the class. 5.The students then work individually on the next task you set. Example: Plan and start writing an essay about which 2 themes they thought were the most important in the novel and why. Use quotes and examples from the novel in their essays. 6. Before the end of the lesson, recap what you want them to do, for example finish their essay by a certain date or do more research about the characters in the novel.



DIFFERENCES BETWEEN AMERICAN AND BRITISH ENGLISH

American and British English pronunciation differences: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_pronunciation_differences

American and British English differences: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_differences

List of British words not widely used in the United States: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_words_not_widely_used_in_the_United_States

List of American words not widely used in the United Kingdom: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_words_not_widely_used_in_the_United_Kingdom

List of words having different meanings in British and American English: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_words_having_different_meanings_in_British_and_American_English

Spelling differences between American and British English: http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwesl/egw/jones/differences.htm

THE PASSWORD GAME

This lesson is based on the "Password" game show.

The class is divided into two teams (middle school children tend to especially like it when boys have to play against girls). First, each team has to choose two players: a giver and a receiver. Then the game is played as follows: The giver first thinks up some word, and then tries to make the receiver guess it by giving him/her one word clues. Givers and receivers are changed if the giver is out of ideas as to how to make the receiver guess the word, and the receiver is changed after s/he had guessed two words wrong.

During the course of the game, children discover that words with opposite meanings (e.g. "Blue" for "Red") work well as clues only when said with a questioning intonation ("Stooooop?....." for "Go"), and that it is very useful to know a lot of synonyms (words with similar meanings).

This game is so popular,you have to watch the noise level!



Countable and Uncountable nouns in English.from Italki member Sophie

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/esl/eslcount2.html

http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/nouns-un-countable_2.htm "Practical English Usage" by Michael Swan, Oxford University Press (entries Nos 148 & 149

REGULAR AND IRREGULAR VERBS contribution from Sophie

http://www.englishpage.com/irregularverbs/irregularverbs.html

http://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/regular-verbs-list.htm

"Teach Yourself (Languages)" or "Colloquial (languages)"?

An Italki member found 2 good websites (see below) by chance, to their surprise, one series of course books (Teach Yourself) actually contains 63 kinds of languages, and it involves much more languages than "Take Off In" that published by Oxford bookshop. I even found some uncommon books such as "Gulf Arabic", "Modern Persian", "Modern Hebrew", "New Testament Greek", & so on. Besides, the other series (Colloquial) also has many kinds of languages. You would have to decide which series is better for your students 【Teach Yourself (Languages): http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/RVEd29f61b1267444b0b231be763d547941,,.aspx Colloquial (languages): http://www.routledgelanguages.com/books/browse】

www.verbwheel.com is a website recommended by Italki member Munier for learning about verbs and nouns.

Take a Tour of the Italki website and see how this site can help you and your students learn English!

http://www.italki.com/static/tour_italki.htm

My students love my 'Thank God it's Friday'quiz. I run it like a Trivial Pursuit quiz but all the questions are based on what we learnt in class during the week. For a 50 minute lesson I invite the students to submit 2 questions each before Friday's classes, eg What is a proper noun that is the name of the capital city of France? or What is the verb that describes a style of running? I have 30 questions. The class is then divided in groups of 4-5 with a sheet of paper and 1 pencil/biro. When I read out a question, the groups have to quietly figure out the answers and write them down. The group with the highest score after I mark the answers is allowed to leave class 5 minutes early next lesson. Sometimes I have a bag of lollies. The students don't think that they are actually doing any work , but they are revising and consolidating what they have learnt that week.This lesson works with any course or age group that you teach.

STORIES BASED ON PICTURES, CARTOONS OR PHOTOS.

Show the class two or three newspaper photos without the words.Then the students should try to understand them and describe briefly what they think has happened.2-3 sentences Afterwards one of the pictures can be turned into a true or a creative story or maybe a news report. This way, students learn more about the news, such as a new economic policy or world/ local events . If it's a cartoon, it can become a humorous story or poem. I think it's another way to learn English and builds vocabulary and writing skills.

HOW TO TEACH A SECTION OF A GRAMMAR OR VOCAB BOOK eg PART 8

Microsoft PowerPoint is an excellent presentation tool. The approach is to look at the material and pick out the central theme of the chapter. The title of part 8 should be close to the central theme. This will be the theme of your class.

Create a slide for this central theme. You will then tell your audience that you will be explaining this during the presentation.

You will also say that the presentation will take 15 minutes and will finish with a 5 minute question period.

You start by explaining the context of the chapter in relation to the rest of the book (from beginning to this point).

Then you identify the key points in the text that support your central theme. You need a slide listing thee key points (no more than 3-5 points per slide).

You need to give examples (no more than one example per key point). Then you sum up the key points (summary slide) and tell audience what you just explained (use different words to repeat the central theme and how you showed the key points relate to the central theme).

You ask if they have questions. plan it so you ony have time for 12 questions before you run out of time for the presentation.

If a student is giving the presentation, It would be good if he/she works with 1-2 of their closest friends in class and prepares some questions for them to ask. This is good crowd control and prevents people from asking you questions to trip you up.

When the last of your planned questions are answered, tell the class what they need to prepare for your next class.

TIPS FOR MEMORIZING VOCABULARY

Here are some tips for enlarging and remembering vocabulary.

Vocabulary can’t always be understood just from a dictionary definition.

In order to really understand a new vocabulary word, you need to know how to use it in a variety of contexts.

Just knowing a vocabulary word enough to recognize it later on is not sufficient enough to memorize it. Your really need to know what the vocabulary word sounds like and how it is spelled.

You must know the vocabulary word visually and phonetically.

For the visual part of the vocabulary word look at the spelling, close your eyes and say the spelling out loud, then open your eyes and check that you spelled it correctly.

For the phonetic part of the vocabulary word, read the vocabulary word, look away from the page and say it out loud, then check that you have said the vocabulary correctly.

If you can learn the vocabulary word both visually and phonetically, you know the vocabulary word really well. This is most important.

Once you know the vocabulary word really well, you need to connect that vocabulary word to what you already know. Use 'post it' notes to stick the word onto objects in your home.

You need to turn the vocabulary word into a memorable image in your imagination.

Consider what the new vocabulary word reminds you of that can be easily visualized.

Try to pick the first thing that comes into your head because when you re-encounter the vocabulary word you’re likely to think the same way again. Try drawing a picture or symbol next to the words



Here is some vocabulary which will be useful for you to start new paragraphs with in your formal writing, depending on what you are writing about: 1. In addition: moreover, further, furthermore, besides, likewise, also, too, again, in addition, equally important, next, first of all, finally.

2.Contrast: yet, however, still, nevertheless, however, on the other hand, on the contrary, after all, at the same time

3.Comparison: similarly, likewise, in like manner

4.Purpose: to this end, for this purpose, with this object in mind

5.Result: hence, therefore, accordingly, consequently, thus, thereupon, wherefore

6.Time: meanwhile, at length, immediately, soon, afterwards

7.Place: here, beyond, near, opposite to, adjacent to, on the opposite side

8.Summary: in brief, on the whole, in short, in other words, to be sure, as has been noted, for example, for instance, in fact, indeed, in any event

MORE IDEAS FOR THE ESL CLASSROOM

You can begin a lesson with something that helps your pupils become more familiar with new words, grammar rules or writing skills. The warm-up can be a simple game, or a song with a catchy tunes so that the students remember it the whole year, or using different pictures or flashcards, posters so that your pupils will be in touch with the real world. Try to vary your teaching, don't make your English classroom a boring place where ideas are repeated. For example, if students have to learn different animals' names and where they live, you can use animals' pictures in the first session, using funny drawing of animals on the board in the second session, then interesting videos/DVD's about wild life in the third session. When you vary the way you teach, the learners will be interested and make progress.

Finally, using teamwork in the classroom encourages all students to participate, work together and cooperate with each other. Examples: 1)Role play: when the students write dialogues, and conversations together and act them out in front of their classmates. 2) short story/poetry writing and reciting competitions 3) debating teams 4) making mini-projects or films.

For learning English Category Grammar Level A1: Beginner Second language English Created Oct 21, 2008 05:57 Views 4206 Share:

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  Mandragora 6 month(s) ago

  Wow!! There is a lot of valuable information here! I like this, I'm going to try this resources... Thanks

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  nana 6 month(s) ago

  Nice ideas posted here
  thanx :)

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  Jas Kaur Teacher 6 month(s) ago

  Lots of good websites that I will ne checking out for my own learners. I will also try sone ot the ideas presented here.

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