The Best Resources, Articles & Blog Posts For Teachers Of ELLs In 2013 – Part Two

Supporting English Language Learners In Content Classes

Having English Language Learners Use Cellphones To Identify High-Interest Vocabulary

Readers of our book, The ESL/ELL Teacher’s Survival Guide, know that there’s a lesson plan in it helping students learn the qualities of a successful language learner and that they do a self-assessment as part of it. Part of that lesson includes use of The Best Videos Illustrating Qualities Of A Successful Language Learner.

Now, Marisa Constantinides has created a quiz called Are You A Good Language Learner (completely separate from our lesson), which would be great to give to students. And the EFL Smart Blog has turned Marisa’s quiz into an interactive one that could be taken online. It’s an excellent activity to use on its own or as part of our lesson plan.

Kate Kinsella has a collection of hand-outs to assist in academic language instruction. I’m adding it to The Best Websites For Developing Academic English Skills & Vocabulary.

The Best Ways To Modify The Picture Word Inductive Model For ELLs

English Language Learners Using Screencast-o-matic For Folktale Presentations

Literably Is An Excellent Reading Site — If Used With Caution

Vicki Hollett published the 35th ELT Blog Carnival (formerly known as the ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival) and it’s a great one focusing on Teaching and Learning with Video. Teachers from around the world have contributed posts.

English Agenda is a site from the British Council which offers a wealth of language-teaching research and online professional development. I’m adding it to The Best Ways To Keep-Up With Current ELL/ESL/EFL News & Research and to The Best Places For ESL/EFL/ELL Teachers To Get Online Professional Development.

Skills Practice | Using Storyboards to Inspire Close Reading is from The New York Times Learning Network, and shares a reading strategy that I think would be particularly useful to ELLs. I’m adding it to The Best Resources On “Close Reading.”

Teaching English at the British Council features a “blog post of the month” from English teachers throughout the world. It’s a great collection.

Focus on portfolios: 4 advantages of alternative assessment is by Adam Simpson. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning About Effective Student & Teacher Assessments.

Maximising Learning in Large Classes and Teaching Large Classes are both from The British Council. I’m adding them to The Best Resources On Teaching Multilevel ESL/EFL Classes.

Using Freire & Fotobabble With English Language Learners

The Best Ideas For Using Games In The ESL/EFL/ELL Classroom

Terrific New Videos: Using English “Sister Classes” From Throughout The World In Our ELL Geography Class

Making Instagram Videos With English Language Learners

Writing bingo is a very creative lesson plan from Sandy Millin. I’m adding it to The Best Websites For K-12 Writing Instruction/Reinforcement.

I must have my head stuck in the sand, because I had never heard of “A General Service List: the most important words for second language learners of English” until Wendi Pillars sent a tweet about anew version of it. It looks pretty useful, particularly the interactive exercises on Quizlet.

The 21 Luckiest People In The Entire World is a pretty amazing GIF collection from BuzzFeed. Show these to English Language Learners and have them describe what they are watching, perhaps alternating with the Back-To-The-Screen exercise I use with videos (read about it here).

Tellagami is neat iPhone/iPad app that lets users quickly create virtual characters that can speak audio that’s been recorded or use text-to-speech. I’m adding it to The Best Sites To Practice Speaking English and to The Best Sites For Beginning iPhone Users Like Me.

The Benefits Of Learning Languages is an excellent lesson plan from Film-English. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning The Advantages To Being Bilingual.

David Deubelbeiss at EFL Classroom 2.0 published the 34th ELT Blog Carnival (also known as the ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival).  It’s theme is “Best Lessons,” and teachers from around the work have contributed posts.

Jimmy Fallon Comes Up With A Great Game For English Language Learners

“Lyrics Videos” On YouTube & English Language Learners

The Teaching English – British Council Facebook page. This site is relatively new to me, but it’s certainly not new to many others since it has well over 1,000,000 “Likes”! Ann Foreman does an extraordinary job inviting and sharing resources from teachers throughout the world.

The Best Three Sites On The Web For ESL/EFL/ELL/ELT Teachers

Alex Case has put together a list of his most popular blog posts/shared resources from the TEFLtastic blog.

ESL Teacher Interviews: Larry Ferlazzo comes from Kaplan International, and you might find it interesting. Even more interesting, though, is the interview they did with my friend, colleague, and co-author Katie Hull Sypnieski a few months ago.

David Deubelbeiss has what I think is a great idea on how to make multiple choice questions more learner-friendly and effective.

The Best Infographics About Teaching & Learning English As A Second (or Third!) Language

Carissa Peck published the 34th ELT Blog Carnival (also know as the ESL/ELL/EFL Blog Carnival) and its focus is on teaching/learning pronunciation. It’s so good that I’m adding it toThe Best Websites For Learning English Pronunciation.

“Rewordify” Is One Of The Most Unique Sites Out There For English Language Learners & Others

Using Tech to Teach English is the title of a new guest post I’ve written over at the International Reading Association’s blog, Engage.

Adam Simpson posted about The BBC Motion Gallery, which has zillions of short clips. It’s particularly useful to teachers outside of Great Britain, since they are viewable in the United States and elsewhere. Most other BBC video clips for education are blocked for viewing outside that country.

Place Pulse is a site from MIT that shows you two Google Street View images from around the world, and then asks you to “vote” on which one looks “livelier”; “safer” or any number of other comparative adjectives (you can switch them by clicking on the question mark).

It’s an intriguing way to teach comparative adjectives to English Language Learners, as well as having IB Theory of Knowledge students explore perception.

I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Gaining A Basic Understanding Of Adjectives.

Using Music and Songs in EFL Classes is the theme of the 33rd ELT Blog Carnival, and it’s a good one!  Eva Buyuksimkesyan has gathered contributions from English teachers throughout the world on the topic, and it’s so good that I’m adding it to The Best Music Websites For Learning English.

Chaplin & Keaton Silent Movies For English Language Learners

Yet Another Good Piece For Students On Learning & The Brain

I think it’s pretty clear that English Language Learners are a pretty low priority as far as implementation of the Common Core Standards are concerns, and Californian’s Together have put together a prettygood toolkit explaining those problems.

Of course, one potential benefit of being a low-priority is that we teachers of ELLs, and our students, might be left alone, but I’m not counting on that.

By the way, look for what — if I say so myself — is an excellent article on ELLs and the Common Core that my colleague Katie Hull and I wrote for ASCD Educational Leadership.  It will be appearing there in a few months.

50 Ways To Use Images In The ELT Classroom is from David Deubelbeiss. I’m adding it to The Best Ways To Use Photos In Lessons.

Breaking News English, the popular site used by thousands of English teachers around the world, has now begun providing each lesson in multiple levels – from beginners to advanced.  And I thought Sean Banville, the site’s creator, was busy before! I wonder how much sleep he’s getting now?

Perhaps this has been available for quite awhile, but I just noticed that Jossey-Bass makes the first chapter of our ESL/ELL Teacher’s Survival Guide available for free.

Just go to this link and on the right of the page it lists three excerpts. Excerpt 1 is the entire first chapter. Excerpts 2 and 3 show the index.

Of course, you can find tons of other free resources from the book here, too.