Last week, my classes all of a sudden became more challenging.
Instead of teaching two separate classes of United States History to Intermediate English Language Learners, one double-block period of Beginning ELL’s, and one period of IB Theory of Knowledge, my schedule now looks like this:
First Period: U.S. History to Intermediate ELL’s
Second Period: Prep
Third and Fourth Period: Combined class of Beginners and Intermediates
Fifth Period: U.S. History to Intermediate and Beginning ELL’s
Sixth Period: Theory of Knowledge
It’s all going to work out fine, and I’ll certainly get some new good ideas out of it to add to my upcoming book on teaching ELL’s 🙂 (Katie Hull, my co-author and colleague, and I just submitted our 90,000 word manuscript to editors over the weekend — it will be published next July, and I’ll have time to make additions in December).
But it did force me to make some changes to my new English class blog. It now includes a list of accessible links to what, in my opinion, are the Best Sites For Beginners, Intermediates, and Advanced English Language Learners (Katie’s class of advanced students will now also use the site).
I just copied the sidebar from the class blog and pasted it here. You can find more specific reviews for all of them if you search this blog. I also included a section from the sidebar where I’ll be adding music and video sites that I’ll be using in the classroom via computer project — those sites are blocked to students, but not to teachers.
Let me know what you think — am I missing something?
Feel free to add suggestions in the comments, and also feel free to visit the class blog, which will be continually updated with new assignments and sites.
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Best Beginner Sites
- Abacadabra
- Anglomaniacy
- Bitesize Literacy
- Brainpop
- Brainpop Free
- Brainpop Jr.
- British Council Stories
- Chirbit
- Dance Mat Typing
- English Central
- English Interactive
- ESOL Courses
- Everyday Life
- GCF Reading
- Into The Book
- Kiz Club
- Language Guide
- Learning Chocolate
- Listen And Write
- Online TPR Exercises
- Professor Garfield
- Road To Grammar, Jr.
- Starfall
- Study Ladder
- U.S.A. Learns
- VOA Activities
- vocaroo
- Wordbuilder
- ABC Phonics
- Spelling City
- Web-ESL
- Reading Bear
- Focus On Grammar
- Stepping Stones Basic
- Stepping Stones VBO
- Four Stories
- Mrs. Haquet’s Interactive Vocabulary Exercises
- Mrs. Haquet’s Interactive Books
- Picture Dictionary
- Talking Dictionary
- Mrs. Haquet’s Videos
- Padlet
- Duolingo
- Skillwise Games
- ActivelyLearn
- British Council stories
- Internet Polyglot
- Epic
- E-Learning For Kids
- EduTeach
- E-Yep English Stories
- Computer Mice
- Bow Valley Readers
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Videos
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Textbook & Intermediate Sites
- A.B.E.
- Academic Vocabulary Exercises
- Academic Word Exercises
- American Adventures
- American English File
- BITS Interactive
- Cambridge Ventures Arcade
- Choose Your Own Adventure
- Engage
- English Result
- Headline Clues
- Headway
- Incredible English
- Let’s Go
- Living Grammar
- Oxford Living Grammar
- Oxford Practice Grammar
- Project
- Smart Choice
- Solutions
- Vocabulary Games
- Vocabulary Videos
- Word Ahead Study Room
- Awesome Stories
- GCFLearnFree Reading Comprehension
- English Plus
- Writing skills practice from The British Council
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Bilingual Sites
If you found this post useful, you might want to consider subscribing to this blog for free.
You might also want to explore the 760 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.
Thanks as always Larry for listing GCFLearnFree.org! Please feel free to let us know if there is anything we can ever do for you.
Larry, I noticed that many of the beginning sites use British English pronunciation. That wouldn’t work for elementary age ELLs in the U.S. especially when the lesson is pronunciation of sounds in English. I’m curious to know if that works when you teach beginning high school ELLs.
Judie,
I mention to students that some of the words and sounds might be pronounced differently, but most of our pronunciation time is spent with English Central. Plus, the thousands of audio/visual books I link to are all done in American English, so it hasn’t seemed to be a problem.
Larry
Dear Larry: Your list is amazing. I know many of these sites, but there are so many…I’ll explore all of them next weekend and be sure I’ll use them with my students.
As you know, they name you like a rock star (really) , because every recommendation I take to the classroom, I say “It’s from my friend Larry Ferlazzo” and they answer : “We know that teacher”…
Thanks for being part of my teaching practice ! Hugs from Argentina
Susana
Susana,
You are, as usual, far too kind. I’d love to hear which ones your students say are their favorites.
Larry
Really useful list. Just posted a link to it on the TeachingEnglish facebook page if you’d like to check there for comments.
Please feel free to post on the page whenever you have anything you’d like to share.
Best,
Ann
I think this web site is very interesting. they show us a variaty of topics in order to learn more about english
Bye bye
Hi Larry, wondering if you’ve looked at our website, BrainNook (www.brainnook.com). We have a ton of free basic/intermediate English games that would be helpful for ELLs. We also have features to help teachers direct their students to games that help them sharpen specific skills, and performance reports aligned to the Common Core standards.
Would love to hear your thoughts if you get a chance to check us out!
Thanks,
Abhi Vijayakar
Founder, BrainNook
Larry,
Thanks for the site. You might want to include elllo.org too. All of the content is adaptable so students can adjust it to their levels and the videos are good for beginners because they can see the speaker and read the text. Students can also download vocab files to their ipods. (Thanks for listing the site on our listening list too.) Keep up the great work on the blog.
noticed you didn’t put either Babbel or Busuu.
any particular reasons?
(just curious)
Alex,
Babbel isn’t free, and that’s one of the criteria I use. Busuu uses members to help other members learn languages, and that kind of anonymous online interaction won’t work for K-12 schools for safety reasons.
Larry
Hi Larry,
Thanks for including LearnEnglish Teens http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglishteens in your list. We were really pleased to see our Writing skills practice section get a mention. We’re currently working on new content – up to CEFR level B2 – for this section and also for our Listening and Reading skills sections too. 🙂
Best wishes, Jo (Website Editor for LearnEnglish Teens)
dnaenglish.com is great site too!