This is another end-of-year “Best” list.

I’m adding this  list to ALL END-OF-YEAR “BEST” LISTS FOR 2020 IN ONE PLACE!

You can find previous editions of this list, along with all “Best” lists related to ELL instruction, here.

Here are my choices:

The Core Knowledge free PDFs are great for ELL Social Studies teachers! And you can find them all here. They cover many of the key elements of any World History or U.S. History curriculum. Each PDF includes both teacher lessons and the student book. However, the teacher lessons are in portrait view but the student book isn’t – you would have to go to something like the free PDF go to “rotate” the student pages so they wouldn’t have to bend their heads to read them online.

HERE’S OUR CHAPTER ON DISTANCE LEARNING WITH ELLS & IT’S FREE TO DOWNLOAD (NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED!)

HERE’S THE VIDEO OF THE KEYNOTE I GAVE AT THE VIRTUEL CONFERENCE TODAY: “WE WILL FIND A WAY OR MAKE ONE: OVERCOMING COVID-19 CHALLENGES FACING ELLS & THEIR TEACHERS”

David Deubelbeiss has revamped the excellent Teaching Recipes site.

Teaching ELLs Online: How to Develop Students’ Language Skills is By Beth Skelton, Lydia Breiseth.

Distance learning and English Language Learners is the headline of my latest British Council post. It includes a slideshow I used at a recent professional development session, along with a video of a student panel that spoke at the same training. You can see all thirty of my previous British Council posts here.

Colorado’s emphasis on phonics in reading could hurt English language learners, advocates say is from Chalkbeat. I’m adding it to The Best Articles & Sites For Teachers & Students To Learn About Phonics.

BOOK EXCERPT: “READING & WRITING WITH ENGLISH LEARNERS” is by Valentina Gonzalez and Melinda Miller.

SIX ACTIONS I TAKE TO MAKE SMALL GROUPS WORK IN MY VIRTUAL CLASSES

THIRTEEN INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES & WEB TOOLS TO SUPPORT ELLS IN DISTANCE LEARNING

HOW WILL PROBABLE BIDEN/HARRIS ADMINISTRATION IMMIGRATION POLICIES AFFECT THE NUMBER OF ELLS IN SCHOOLS?

SIX WAYS THAT NEWCOMERS CAN INTERACT WITH ONLINE TEXT

FOUR WAYS TO SUPPORT ELLS WHO WERE ABSENT FROM CLASS

Case studies, insights and research is an impressive collection from The British Council. I’m adding it to The Best Ways To Keep-Up With Current ELL/ESL/EFL News & Research.

50-State Comparison: English Learner Policies is from Education Commission of the States.

Transforming the Resources You Have into Accessible Formats for All Students is an excellent post by Carmen Nguyen. It’s related to The Best Places To Get The “Same” Text Written For Different “Levels” and I’m adding it there.

“PEAKSAY” IS LIKELY TO BECOME A “GO-TO” SITE FOR LANGUAGE TEACHERS

THE BEST ONLINE LEARNING GAMES TO PLAY DURING DISTANCE LEARNING – SHARE YOUR ADDITIONS!

HOW COULD I HAVE NOT KNOWN THAT GOOGLE OFFERS FREE A.I. POWERED FEEDBACK ON THE PRONUNCIATION OF ANY WORD?

HERE IS HOW I’M ASSESSING ELLS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SCHOOL YEAR – WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

What Is the Affective Filter, and Why Is it Important in the Classroom? is by Valentina Gonzalez.

Here’s a gold mine of writing frames Idaho’s Education Department. Aisha Ansari shared it on Facebook. I’m adding it to The Best Scaffolded Writing Frames For Students.

Peaksay Pronunciation Game has users repeat phrases and uses AI to “grade” its accuracy. I’m adding it to THE BEST SITES FOR ONLINE PRONUNCIATION FEEDBACK – DO YOU KNOW OTHERS?

What are Thinking Routines? is from The Barefoot TEFL Teacher. I’m adding it to PROJECT ZERO’S “THINKING ROUTINES TOOL” IS AN EXCELLENT RESOURCE.

Speaky Reads  looks like a very useful site for language learners, and it’s free – for now (it looks like they might charge in the future. It has a library that appears for now to be comprised of literature in the public domain (hopefully, that will expand). You choose a text, and then have a few options. You can follow along as it reads to you . You could also record what you just read and compare it to the recording you just heard (it would be really wonderful if it used Artificial Intelligence to assess the pronunciation – see THE BEST SITES FOR ONLINE PRONUNCIATION FEEDBACK – DO YOU KNOW OTHERS?).  Finally, it offers a “dictation” mode, where you listen to the reading and fill-in the blanks (you can adjust the number of blanks). I’m adding it to The Best Sites For ELLs To Practice Online Dictation.

Questions about subtitles and language learning is from Adaptive Learning In ELT.

The Immense Potential of English Learners and Their Realization of College and Career Readiness is by Susan Pimentel.

Distance Learning: Improving Instructional Interactions in Guided Reading Lessons is from Timothy Shanahan. It has some good ideas for ELLs and everyone else. I’m adding it to The Best Posts On Reading Strategies & Comprehension – Help Me Find More!

Here’s a great infographic from the Office of English Language Acquisition, National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition (NCELA). You can find the full PDF version here. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning The Advantages To Being Bilingual:

 

Quite a while I ago, I posted about the great work of Claudia Leon and Margaret Montemagno, and the ideas they shared about teaching ELLs at this NY Times Learning Network post, How to Use Interesting Photos to Help Students Become Better Writers. Claudia has shared some of the student handouts used in that lesson, and she’s given me permission to post them here. They’re great! I’m adding them to The Best Ways To Use Photos In Lessons.

5 Ways to Co-Plan When There’s a Time Crunch is by Tan Huynh. I’m adding it to The Best Resources On Co-Teaching With ELLs – Please Suggest More.

Speak and Improve is a new assessment that’s available from Cambridge. I think it could work well as an assessment tool students could use to measure their speaking improvement. I’m adding it to The Best Free Online Tools For ELLs To Use For Assessing Their Language-Level.

“WINDOWSWAP” IS A GREAT SITE FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

A REMINDER WHY IT’S IMPORTANT TO HAVE STUDENTS REPEAT WORDS – & READ TEXT – OUT LOUD

Graded listening is a radio program from the British Council that is provided in three “lexile” levels. I’m adding it to The Best Places To Get The “Same” Text Written For Different “Levels”

Illinois English Learner Handbook looks impressive. Thanks to Sarah Said for the tip.

Maximising speaking opportunities in online lessons is from The British Council. It’s part of their excellent Remote teaching guidance series.  I’m adding it to THE BEST IDEAS FOR ONLINE ACTIVITIES TO USE WHEN TEACHING ELLS REMOTELY – SHARE MORE!

When should we refer ELs to Special Education is from Tan Huynh. I’m adding it to The Best Resources On Assisting ELLs With Special Needs – Help Me Find More.

THE RESULTS ARE IN! HERE IS HOW MY ELL NEWCOMER STUDENTS EVALUATED OUR DISTANCE LEARNING CLASS

THE BEST SITES FOR CREATING NOT TOTALLY USELESS WORD SEARCHES

MY NEW BRITISH COUNCIL POST IS ON “FOUR QUESTIONS – AND ANSWERS – ABOUT TEACHING ENGLISH ONLINE”

ISLCOLLECTIVE MAKES THEIR WORKSHEETS INTERACTIVE SO STUDENTS CAN COMPLETE THEM & SEND TO THEIR TEACHER

THESE ARE GREAT! SIX FREE TOOLS TEACHERS & STUDENTS CAN USE TO LEARN ENGLISH, SPANISH & OTHER LANGUAGES DURING THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS

Teacher Wendi Pillars shares a visual illustration of the points I made in my video, “Tips for Remote Teaching With ELL Students.”

Jeffrey Garrett and Manuel Rustin host a great series called All Of The Above.

I was honored to appear on one of their episodes:

WHAT ANOTHER GROUP OF OUR TEACHERS LEARNED ABOUT TEACHING ELLS

MORE OF WHAT OUR TEACHERS HAVE LEARNED ABOUT TEACHING ELLS

HERE’S WHAT OUR TEACHERS HAVE LEARNED ABOUT TEACHING ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

THE BEST SITES FOR ONLINE PRONUNCIATION FEEDBACK – DO YOU KNOW OTHERS?

HERE’S HOW MY ELL BEGINNER STUDENTS EVALUATED OUR CLASS – AND ME

 

 

The Patchy Landscape of State English Learner Policies under ESSA is from The Migration Policy Institute. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning How The Every Student Succeeds Act Affects English Language Learners.

Here is a list of ENGLISH – SPANISH COGNATES and one of false cognates.

engageNY has tons of math lessons translated into multiple languages.  I’m adding it to The Best Multilingual & Bilingual Sites For Math, Social Studies, & Science.

ClipLingo is a free video site using “spaced-repetition” to encourage language-learning.

Immersion is a great film about English Language Learning (see A LOOK BACK: EVERY TEACHER WHO HAS AN ELL IN THEIR CLASS SHOULD WATCH THIS “IMMERSION” FILM). Melanie Bean has found a lesson plan for students using the film that I believe was created by the filmmakers.

An ELT Glossary comes from An ELT Notebook.  I’m adding it to The Best Guides To ESL/EFL/ELL Terminology.

The Microsoft Translator looks pretty cool.  It seems to be its latest version of a simultaneous translation tool.  I’m still figuring it out but, at least online, you can have a bunch of different people speaking different languages and it will turn everyone’s audio into each other person’s language with immediate text.  It says they plan to upgrade it specifically for classroom use soon.  I’ll be looking forward to seeing what that looks like.  I’m adding this info to The Best Sites For Learning About Google Translate & Other Forms Of Machine Translation.

From Deficit-Based to Assets-Based: Breaking Down the Wall One Essential Shift at a Time is by Debbie Zacarian and Diane Staehr Fenner. I’m adding it to The Best Posts On Looking At Our Students Through The Lens Of Assets & Not Deficits.

Half A Crossword lets teachers create lots of different kinds of worksheets, including bingo, sentence scrambles, and sentence corrections. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Creating Sentence Scrambles. Learn more about it at Blog de Cristina.

Supporting English Language Learners’ Strengths is a special edition of ASCD Express. It has several articles, including an excellent one from Valentina Gonzalez.

English Learners Success Forum has a lot of good resources. I particularly like their list of instructional strategies for ELLs. I’m adding it to THE BEST COLLECTIONS OF INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES FOR ELLS – HELP ME FIND MORE!

Student Centered Vocabulary Teaching (with Mario Rinvolucri) is a great interview. It shows how Rinvolucri is brilliant, as well as how he’s a bit “out there.”

Learn Alberta has many samples of ELL writing by grade level. I’m adding it to The Best Websites For K-12 Writing Instruction/Reinforcement.

These “Fact Sheets” from NCELA are a goldmine for ELL statistics. I’m adding them to The Best Ways To Keep-Up With Current ELL/ESL/EFL News & Research.