Use what's already there - if you can find it..

Betty - one of the wonderful teachers at Lalor LLC - spent a fair bit of time creating some activities in powerpoint, that let her students match images with audio. But then she found this website "English Guide" (dot org), and decided it was much better to use resources that someone else had already made.

"They have everything," she exclaimed delightedly. Every theme and topic you could want for low-level English as a second language (ESL) learners.

What a good point this teacher has made! Why spend hours creating learning materials, when there are existing resources out there already?


Please give us some feedback in the comments below - what are the best internet resources you use for teaching ESL?

Exploring online surveys

We had such a great group session in February. I love it when - in spite of the session plan - people make it really clear that they're interested in something different.

From the teacher survey I'd sent around, it seemed that people were most interested in digital storytelling and recording student voices.

So we started the session by looking at this teacher survey, a combination of online form and spreadsheet containing the results. And boom! People were suddenly interested in the possible classroom application of this kind of software.

So the big question is now: how to use online surveys to connect with adult learners in an ESL or literacy classroom?

Your mission, should you choose to accept it

Create a learning activity for your students, involving some kind of online survey.

• Demand as much support as you need, 
• and be ready to tell your colleagues what happened.