Here’s a list of online resources I’ve either…
a) used in the last year
b) observed other teachers use
c) been told about very recently and am about to try out
Why? I feel like doing a tech vomit today.
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teach English
Using Stories Without End
Here’s a quick follow-up to my review of Stories Without End (Taylor Sapp, Alphabet Publishing).
As you may have read, I thought this was great resource which could be easily adapted to my own context. Here is an example of how I adapted one of the stories.
The resources as they are include a few lead-in questions related to the story content, a bit of vocab pre-teaching, the story, and some creative follow-up tasks.
I bulked these out a bit and created the following sequence around the text called ‘Spooky House’ (in which some kids are deciding whether or not to enter a scary looking house). This was for A2/B1-ish level. I taught it at Primary (without the grammar bit) and also Secondary (full content). Worked well for both.
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RIP LTC Eastbourne
I’ve heard that it’s the end of the road for LTC Eastbourne. I haven’t come across an announcement from the school itself (now a Twin Language Centre). I’m only going on contact with staff, past and present.
I’m gutted.
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Review: Work It Out with Phrasal Verbs
Phrasal verb resource books you’ve used… GO!
Okay, so there was a good one on the bookshelf at LTC called ‘Illustrated Phrasal Verbs’. Me and Sketch used it so often that the student’s book fell apart (only one copy – a conference freebie), then we had to photocopy pages from the teacher’s book and tipex out the answers to make gap-fills. When I think back, the illustrations were sometimes ambiguous, and we were all too often test-teach-testing it. Not always the most effective.
Apart from that, well… There was ‘Test Your Phrasal Verbs’ (so so) and Phrasal Verbs in Use. Although more of a self-study resource, its concise explanations were great for teachers too. All controlled practice though, not a classroom resource really. Well, sparingly.
Here’s a welcome addition to my (admittedly limited) phrasal verb teaching toolkit – Work It Out with Phrasal Verbs, from Prosperity Education. It’s a neat teaching resource (aimed at B2-C1 level students) written by Billie Jago and Monica Ruda-Peachey.
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All reviews from ELT Planning
Russ Mayne suggested I should have a post or page listing all my reviews. So, here it is.
It turns out there are quite a few. As always, all views are my own and these reviews are highly subjective!
Before the list, some highlights…
- According to my ratings, the best training courses I’ve taken have been Spoken Grammar by Ken Paterson (Udemy) and Evaluating Digital Materials by Pete Sharma (Itdi.pro). The PGCEi modules come in next.
- There are a lot of resource sites ranked 4.5/5. In a battle of the video-based lesson platforms, Fluentize triumphs over Ready to Run.
- My highest-rated book is Silly Shakespeare for Students from Alphabet Publishing. Second place was Great Writing, which was great to teach from.
- These don’t include resources I’ve reviewed in a roundabout way. For example, my posts on PronPack are kinda like a review really, same with the Phonology for Listening and some other posts.
- Bear in mind the review date. Sites might change, books might have a second edition, I might understand more about a topic now, etc.
- A special mention for Eli Publishing, Alphabet Publishing and Marek at TEFL Equity Advocates, who went out of their way to send physical copies of their books to Thailand for review.
Note: the * shows that at the time I didn’t give the resource a 5-star rating, so I’ve added it now.
Apps
2020 Teacher Tapp (Rating 3.8/5)
2020 Studycat (3.5/5)
2020 Learn Thai Duolingo-style (*4/5)
2017 ELSA Speak Pronunciation App (*4/5)
2017 British Council Apps (*Rating probs averages out at 4/5 but this one is a bit vague)
Online resource sites
2020 Read to Run (*Rating 3.5/5)
2020 EAL Hub (2/5)
2020 NILE Membership (*4.5/5)
2019 Wordwall for vocabulary games (*4.5/5)
2018 Fluentize video lessons (4.5/5)
2015 Newsmart (4.5/5) RIP ☹
Training courses/modules/providers
2020 PGCEi Module 2 (*4.5/5)
2020 PGCEi Module 1 (*4.7/5)
2019 Spoken Grammar (5/5)
2019 Evaluating Digital Materials (5/5)
2019 NILE Tech-assisted Language Learning (4/5)
2019 NILE Materials Development (4.5/5)
2018 ELT Training Library from Language Fuel (4/5)
2015 How to Teach IELTS (*4.5/5)
2016 Dyslexia and Foreign Language Teaching (4.5/5)
Books
2020 Routledge Handbook of Teaching English to Young Learners (*4/5)
2020 Rosenshine’s Principles in Action (3.9/5)
2020 How Global Capital is Remaking International Education (3.5/5)
2020 Barry Reinvents Himself (4.325/5)
2020 Silly Shakespeare for Students (4.9/5)
2020 The Learning Power Approach (4/5)
2019 Play for the Planet (4/5)
2019 A-Z of ESOL (*4.2/5)
2019 Teaching English as a Lingua Franca (4.5/5)
2019 Egghead (3.5/5)
2019 Loving London (4.5/5)
2019 Vocabulary in Pictures (*4.2/5)
2018 Stories Without End (*4.5/5)
2018 ELT Lesson Observation and Feedback Handbook (4.5/5)
2018 Great Writing (4.6/5)
2018 Her Own Worst Enemy (4.5/5)
2017 Successful Group Work (*4/5)
2017 Community Classroom Builders (*4/5)
2016 Incredible English (*4.3/5)
2015 Punctuation..? (*3/5)
Other
ELT Publishing Professionals (*4.5/5)
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Monetizing your teaching blog
WordAds… ah, go on then.
I didn’t want to make money from my blog. I had my reasons for that, which were basically…
- I’ve always felt bad, kinda guilty about the idea.
- My content is random and rambling – I couldn’t see it as a way to generate income. I’m surprised people read this stuff tbh.
- I didn’t want money to change my content. As it stood, I wrote what I wanted, when I wanted. I was worried that monetizing might lead me towards more clickbait.
- etc
What changed?
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Varjak Paw Kahoot! (EAL)
Here are a couple of game-based resources you could use for EAL learners reading Varjak Paw. Our Year 4 students have really enjoyed the book (I did too, although I didn’t like the ending!).
Anyhow, here’s a Kahoot! to play at the end of the book:
Before reading, I found it useful to prime learners for some cat-specific vocab that might pop up!
Cat related words (one of my more random Wordwalls)
I anagrammed that one too, see here.
Also, here’s a hangman of terms from earlier in the book, things like Contessa, humiliation, fireplace, insect, guard, etc. I found that guessing these prompted some discussion, so you could use the activity to teach phrases for probably (It could be… Maybe it’s… It’s definitely….!).
Keywords: World War Two events
Just a quick review resource for EAL learners. Our Year 9s were studying key events in WW2, including:
- Dunkirk
- Evacuations
- The Blitz
- Rationing
Here are a couple of Wordwalls to help with reviewing the events / keywords related to them.
World War Two events key facts
You might find them useful. Wordwall activities don’t seem to show up in Google searches so sharing some useful ones here might be best.
New teacher induction
I had to induct a new teacher at school once. They were fairly new to teaching and unfamiliar with our in-house product at the time (called myClass). I thought that listening to me ramble on for half an hour about how to approach the planning would be boring. So, I decided a one-page ‘try it like this’ would be better. And a tad less condescending*. Here was that one page.
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Review: The Routledge Handbook of Teaching English to Young Learners
This review of The Routledge Handbook of Teaching English to Young Learners by S Garton & F Copland (Eds) first appeared in IATEFL Voices Issue 276.
This handbook provides an overview of teaching English to young learners across a wide variety of international contexts. The editors state that this 540-page volume outlines the key issues in young learner teaching and offers a ‘plausible research agenda moving forward’. It achieves this for the most part, although there will inevitably be gaps given the scope of the book. (more…)
