7 Must-Listen Podcasts for English Language Teachers Podcasts are a great resource for English language teachers interested in professional development. Teacher trainers on TESOL courses and by Directors of Studies can use podcasts as part of their CPD (Continuous Professional Development) programme for their teaching team. What are Podcasts? Podcasts are audio files, which can be uploaded to your phone, tablet, mp3 player, laptop or desktop computer and listened to at any time. They are basically radio programmes which can be listened to at home, at work, in the office, on public transport, in the car, in the gym, or while going for a walk or a run. There are a number of podcasts available for English language teachers, for novice teaching and experienced professionals, and I will list a number of them in this post. Some of them are only about teaching English while others deal with the broader fields of SLA (second language acquisition) and language teacher education. 7 Great Podcasts for English Language Teachers The TEFL Show teaching
Crossword puzzle maker The Crossword puzzle maker is used to make simple crossword puzzles. It turns out that good crossword puzzles of the type found in newspapers are fairly hard to generate, and require a pool of lots of words, not all of which are used. This program puts all of the words you specify (no more, no less) into a simple crossword puzzle. The puzzle that is generated will remain on this server for about two months. If you want to ensure that you have a copy of the generated puzzle, make sure you save a copy. If you want help with international characters, you can call up an Alphabet chart to use for cutting and pasting letters that are hard to type. The first part of this is for you to enter a list of words and clues. Once that part is done, hit the Make Puzzle button for a puzzle which incorporates your words. As the number of words you put in the puzzle, increases, the wait increases exponentially.
The Scribble Project English for Kids, ESL, EFL Kids, Young Learners and Beginners Resources - eslkidslab.com Spent but enriched In this activity, students play an online digital game (in pairs or alone at home) and then focus on the lexis related to money. I've never liked online games, apart from Airport Madness 3 and Airline Manager on Facebook - my childhood fascination with airplanes is probably to blame. I would even make snide remarks about people who do like them, such as: "My life is interesting enough I don't need online games" or "I have imagination, thank you. I don't need to escape into the realm of fantasy". However - now this may sound platitudinous - it all changed when I took Graham Stanley's online course "Language Learning Using Online Digital Games" on SEETA (South East Europe Teachers Association). One game I particularly liked, called Spent is aimed at raising awareness of the poverty issues in the USA. The activity outline below is an adaptation and extension of Graham's original idea which can be found on his blog Digital Play. While-playing Students play the game in pairs.
mrspicasso's art room KoalaText - ESL - activities - worksheets - reading comprehension Select your Lessons Family MY FRIENDS 50 graded units divided into 5 levels of 5 different language families. > School > Family > Description > Timetable > Routines RECOMMENDED AGES9-13 FORMATS MY WORLD 77 graded units divided into 7 levels of 11 different language families. 60 references for students and teachers divided in grammar and vocabulary lists. Recommended Ages Ages World Friends Starters Dialogues References Listening Definitions Videos Grammar Level 0 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 NUMBEROF UNITS 77 50 58 48 60 80 33 84 60 27 ABC Arcade Fun By kylemawer Level: Primary Language Focus: Alphabet Skills Focus: Pronunciation Game: Alphattack This game is used to practice and consolidate the pronunciation of the letters of the alphabet. Bombs drop from the sky and need to be stopped before they destroy the city. Pregaming Activity Lower levels To do this you need to have a data projector, a computer with internet access and Flash player installed. As the bombs start to fall look at the screen and call out the letters. Higher levels To do this you need to have a data projector, a computer with internet access and Flash player installed. Gaming Activity In the computer room sit two learners (A and B) to a computer.
ArtisanCam - Home Calendar: Days and Months Collect all kinds of calendar even if they are old to help out during the lesson. Use a real calendar to show the day and months of the year. The calendar helps understand numbers up to 31. Have them say their birthday and look up the date in the calendar and say what day it is on the present year. I made cards to help ordering the months of the year and the days of the week. Link : Game: Go to Month. Teacher: January! Question and answer cards. Activity 1-You can place the question cards in a bag or facedown in a pile on your desk. Activity 2- Divide the class into groups . Teacher: the first letter is J and the last letter is Y. The students look through the cards and guess the word. Students should learn the ordinal numbers for telling dates. Also use the ordinal numbers cards to order the days and the month such as, 1st day of school is Monday, the first month is January.
kyle mawer - Walkthrough games Also called point and click games or point and click adventure games. Point because you guide your mouse around the screen and click on elements in the game environment in order to collect or manipulate objects. The objects and clues that can be collected, help the gamer to interract with other elements of the game and /or progress to a 'higher' stage within the game. The emphasis is on solving problems and puzzles. What is a walkthrough? "a walkthrough is a document which attempts to teach a player how to beat or solve a particular game. Using a walkthrough game in class If you are using a walkthrough you have just copied off the internet then you have to be careful about a few things:That the level of language is a challenge to your class but is not so far in advance of your class as to render the text too difficult to understand. If while playing the game a learner comes across a noun that they don't know I always ask them to look the word up in google images. Reading Writing Speaking