Happy New Year

We wish you a very happy new year. 

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning." 

Albert Einstein.

Viralelt

Awesome site by Ian James (@ij64) where you can find short and engaging viral clips with ELT lessons planned around them.

The aim of Viralelt is harness their emotional impact to generate language in the ELT classroom. Each video on Viralelt is accompanied by 10 conversation questions and a listening activity.

Most of the activities are aimed at upper intermediate to advanced adult learners of English.

https://viralelt.wordpress.com/

On Twitter: https://twitter.com/ij64

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/viralelt

FREE ESL Christmas worksheets

iSLCollective.com, a community of language teachers from around the world who share their homemade worksheets on a free-to-use platform, provides this amazing collection of ESL worksheets connected with the Christmas period.

Visit:

https://en.islcollective.com/resources/search_result?Vocabulary_Focus=Christmas

Common Sense Education

Common Sense is the largest independent nonprofit organization committed to helping kids, teachers, and families manage media and technology in life and learning.

Common Sense Education provides high-quality digital literacy and citizenship programs to educators and school communities. Their free resources include ratings and reviews of digital tools, a comprehensive K–12 Digital Citizenship Curriculum, ready-made lesson, plans, videos, webinars, and more.

(Source https://www.commonsense.org/education/about-us)

Visit: https://www.commonsense.org/education/ 

Blog: https://www.commonsense.org/education/blog

On Twitter: @CommonSenseEd

CEFIRE de Elda. Online course: English Resources

Objectives:

- To reflect on the importance of the methodological strategies and the materials used in the classroom.

- To know and use different ICT tools for English teaching/learning in secondary schools and eoi.

- To share teaching/ learning resources embedded in the communicative approach.

- To give examples of educational experiences related to English learning using ICT.

- To suggest different activities that encourage linguistic and cultural reflection and learning through ICT.

Contents:

- Methodological aspects, didactic resources and the inclusion of cultural contents in English learning.

- Reflection on authentic materials and their use in the classroom.

- Online resources to practice the four skills: reading, listening, writing and speaking.

- Materials and online tools that encourage communication in the classroom.

- Collaborative learning tools on the 2.0 web.

Get more information by visiting the application page:

http://mestreacasa.gva.es/web/cefireelda/inscripcio

Visuals for Foreign Language Instruction

This interesting website contains hundreds of visual aids that can be used to support instructional tasks. It can be useful for ESL teachers when teaching vocabulary and grammar.

The illustrations were created as part of the Visuals for Developing Communication Skills in Foreign Language Classes (University of Pittsburgh). All the illustrations were drawn by Alec Sarkas from the Center for Instructional Development & Distance Education (CIDDE)

You can search for an image or browse the collection.

The University of Pittsburgh provides access to the digital materials on this site for educational and research purposes only. Any other use of these materials, including but not limited to commercial or scholarly reproductions, redistribution, publication, or transmission, is strictly prohibited without written permission.

http://digital.library.pitt.edu/v/visuals/

Christmas Vocabulary Flashcards

ESLforKids.net, a website by Mateusz Wawrzynowicz, an ESL teacher from Poland, provides a set of flashcards with words related to Christmas vocabulary.

A useful resource for this time of year. You can download the flashcards with or without words.

Visit:

http://eslforkids.net/2016/12/09/christmas-vocabulary-flashcards/

Buncee

Buncee is a creation and presentation tool for students and educators that enables them to easily bring together all kinds of content (buncee artwork, photos, videos, drawings, audio, and links) onto one digital canvas, making a cloud-based, shareable creation. It allows learners to visualize concepts and communicate creatively. It also provides a catalog of stock images and animations that they can add to their slides. 

https://www.edu.buncee.com/

Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlFrgfiSW0o

Using Video in the Classroom

Along with other resources, videos are a great way to help improve students’ comprehension skills.

If you are interested in the use of video as a tool for ESL teaching (why and how to use it, good practices and examples...), we recommend you read this free handbook by David Deubelbeiss, a professor, teacher trainer and tech advocate.

https://ddeubel.edublogs.org/files/2015/05/Video-In-The-Classroom-handbook-25np00n.pdf

ListenAndReadAlong

ListenandReadAlong is a very useful ESL resource if you want to improve your pronunciation and intonation. 

You can listen to stories and read along with them. Words are highlighted as you hear them, so it's easy to follow the text as you listen. 

On YouTube: 

https://www.youtube.com/user/ListenAndReadAlong/featured 

On Twitter: 

https://twitter.com/listenreadalong 

On Facebook: 

https://www.facebook.com/listenandreadalong/ 

On Google+: 

https://plus.google.com/+ListenAndReadAlong

PIZZAZ. Creative #Writing

PIZZAZ (People Interested in Zippy and ZAny Zcribbling) has been an Online Resource since 1995 from Leslie Opp-Beckman For Scribblers and Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). 

This site uses poems and short stories as writing examples and exercises to teach creative writing and usage. It provides simple creative writing and oral storytelling activities with printable handouts for: Poetry, Fiction and Tricks. They can be used with all ages. 

Visit: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~leslieob/pizzaz.html

Grammar for Kids

Website created by Aurora Jove and Luz Pérez, teachers of English at Ponte dos Bozos State Primary School in Arteixo (Galicia. Spain).

The website is focused on the learner and on the use of ICT as a teaching tool in the ESL classroom. It provides a funny way to refresh grammar skills with lots of interactive games, quizzes, and tutorials.

https://sites.google.com/site/easygrammar4kids/

Some other amazing websites by the same authors:

Web Tools For Kids Plenty of free web applications for your blogs.

Topics For Kids Lots of online activities, word games, exercises, quizzes, songs, videos, e-books and other ESL resources.

Cookie. Learning games for young children

At Cookie, child experts and educators design interactive online games for kids. Their learning games for kids help in building skills needed for success in school. 

This website provides games, stories, videos, worksheets, arts & crafts, and a preschool zone.

Very interesting and fun for kids.

http://www.cookie.com/

EF English Proficiency Index

The EF Education First English Proficiency Index (EPI), a report which attempts to rank countries by the average level of English language skills amongst adults, has published its latest research on where English is learned around the world and quality of teaching in each country to find the places with the highest proficiency of English as a second language.

The EF EPI sixth edition was calculated using test data from 950,000 test takers in 2015. The test takers were self-selected and no demographic information was collected on them. The tests are used by the company for marketing and placement purposes (Source Wikipedia)

EF EPI Executive Summary (2016):

http://www.ef.com.es/epi/about-epi/executive-summary/

Spain Country Fact Sheet:

http://www.ef.com.es/sitecore/__~/media/centralefcom/epi/downloads/fact-sheets/v6/ef-epi-country-fact-sheet-v6-es-en.pdf

Crickweb

Website for Primary and Elementary schools providing more than 260 free educational interactive teaching resources and activities and may free to use fun kids games and activites for kids. Subjects including: Maths, English, Science, History, Geography, R.E., D.T., I.C.T, French and Spanish. 

Crickweb can be used in the classroom, as well as at home

http://www.crickweb.co.uk/

Zing

Zing is a very interesting resource by Schoolwide that provides educators, parents, and students unlimited access to thousands of authentic eBooks in English (and Spanish), both in school and at home.

What does a free account include? (Source Zing):

• Unlimited, simultaneous access to over 1,000 authentic eBooks and short digital texts
• eReader tools (note taking/annotating, highlighting, bookmarks, and an interactive dictionary powered by Collins COBUILD Dictionaries)
• Customized library-building capability
• Audio eBooks and audio eLearning
• Personalized collection-building capability (virtual book bins)
• Access to student reading logs and reading progress monitoring
• Embedded eLearning teaching points
• Web-based access (accessible anywhere an Internet connection is available)
• Robust searching and filtering functionality (by genre, guided reading level, Lexile level, theme, topic, etc.)
• Can be used on laptops, desktops, interactive whiteboards, and tablets
• eLearning assessments (multiple-choice, reading response, and constructed response) 

Zing! Promo Video from Schoolwide Inc on Vimeo.

Road to Grammar Jr

Road to Grammar Jr. provides quizzes (you can choose a topic from a large list), interactive activities (puzzles, word games...), and extra help suitable for younger ESL learners.

The website is viewable on smartphones and tablets. You can use a smartboard or projector to try it as a class activity.

http://www.roadtogrammar.com/junior/

The resource requires Adobe Flash.

(Main website for adult ESL learners: http://www.roadtogrammar.com)

Math Playground

Math Playground is a learning site created by Colleen King in 2002 for students in her classes who needed to practice math facts. 

It provides math games, logic puzzles and problem solving activities. You can find math games by theme and by grade level. It is described as a safe place for children to learn and explore math concepts at their own pace.

http://www.mathplayground.com

On Twitter: https://twitter.com/mathplayground

On Facebook: https://es-es.facebook.com/MathPlayground/

U.S. Geological Survey. Educational Resources

The USGS was created in 1879. It is the sole science agency for the US Department of the Interior. 

The USGS provides science about the natural hazards, the water, energy, minerals, the health of our ecosystems and environment, and the impacts of climate and land-use change.

It also provides educational resources (for Primary, Secundary and Undergraduate Education) and useful information about the Earth and its processes.

http://education.usgs.gov/

Anglomaniacy. English for kids

Anglomaniacy.pl is a Polish website created by Barbara Kowal with thousands of resources for kids who are learning English as a foreign or second language. They will find here lots of online activities and printable worksheets.

Anglomaniacy is divided into four main sections: vocabulary, expressions, grammar and printables.

Also a useful website for teachers and families.

http://www.anglomaniacy.pl/index.html

#Syria Sources in English

More than 7 million Syrians have been forced from their homes and more than 400,000 people have lost their lives in years of armed conflict, which began with protests against the government of President Bashar al-Assad and have escalated into a civil war.

This site developed by a professor in the Seattle area provides very interesting resources to deal with the issue in the English language classroom.

https://syriasources.org/

NewseumED

Headquartered in Washington D.C, the Newseum is an interactive museum that promotes free expression and the five freedoms of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States: religion, speech, press, assembly and petition. It was open in 2008.

NewseumED is a free online learning platform for teachers and students that shows the Newseum's commitment to reach all who wish to better understand these freedoms and their relationship to learning and teaching history and civics.

It provides free learning tools on media literacy, EDcollections, lesson plans, activities, EDideas, and much more.

You can register to get free, complete access to all these resources.

https://newseumed.org/

SciShow Kids

Hosted by Jessi Knudsen Castañeda, and aimed at youngsters, this YouTube Channel offers short video lessons on a variety of topics (animals, space, science experiments...).

https://www.youtube.com/user/scishowkids

On Twitter: https://twitter.com/scishowkids

On Facebook: https://es-la.facebook.com/scishowkids/

Simple English Videos

Website hosted by Vicki Hollett and her husband Jay, English teachers and teacher trainers. 

On this site you will find more than a hundred videos to help you learn and improve your English. Videos are categorized by level and theme.

http://www.simpleenglishvideos.com/

Also on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/vickihollettvideo

On Twitter:

https://twitter.com/VickiVideos

On Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/SimpleEnglishVideos

On Google+:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+SimpleEnglishVideos

CommonLit @CommonLit

Free instructional materials created by teachers, for teachers to support literacy and critical thinking development for students in grades 5-12. 

You can search and filter their collection (by lexile, grade, theme, genre, literary device, or common core standard), share it with your students, and track progress.

Tutorial on YouTube.

On Twitter: 

https://twitter.com/CommonLit

Michelle Brown Founder and CEO of CommonLit:

https://twitter.com/michelleeileen

On Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/commonlit/

On Pinterest:

https://es.pinterest.com/CommonLit/

Webpage: https://www.commonlit.org/

Science Bob

Educational resource for elementary school and middle school students with suggestions for experiments and science fair projects. It provides videos, science questions and answers, science websites...

This resource was created by Bob Pflugfelder (@ScienceBob), a science teacher, author, and speaker, whose experiments have been featured in many magazines and on TV programs.

On Facebook: 

https://www.facebook.com/sciencebob

On Twitter: 

https://twitter.com/ScienceBob

On YouTube: 

https://www.youtube.com/user/ScienceBob

On Pinterest: 

https://es.pinterest.com/source/sciencebob.com/

On Instagram: 

https://www.instagram.com/sciencebob/

Website: https://sciencebob.com/

GoNoodle. Brain breaks

GoNoodle is a free service designed to promote physical fitness and to improve self-regulation, academic performance, language skills, and more. It provides an online environment where they can choose avatars to represent themselves. This environment helps them channel their physical and emotional energy.

Hundreds of short funny videos (2-5 minutes) that get the kids active at school and at home. Very interesting for quick brain breaks in the classroom.

https://www.gonoodle.com/

An example:

MIT+K12 Videos

MIT+K12 Videos is an educational outreach media program in the Office of Digital Learning. They produce original digital media and live programming that seeks to spark curiosity and a love of learning among middle-high school students, open the door to the STEM world, and promote STEM-literacy among the general public. 

Teachers can find all of their videos available to download and stream on their PBS Learning Media page. They will find related resources, follow-up/ supplementary activities, and standards alignment for each video to integrate into the classroom. Supplementary materials can also be found on their Pinterest page.

On Twitter: https://twitter.com/mitk12videos

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mitk12

On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/MITK12Videos

Blog: http://mitk12videos.tumblr.com/ 

(Source MIT+K12 Videos)

http://www.k12videos.mit.edu/ 

ESL Phonics World

ESLPhonics World is an internet based educational tool that promotes playful learning for kindergarten, nursery and primary school kids. 

It provides free educational ESL resources: phonics alphabet worksheets, handwriting and tracing worksheets, anagram worksheets, vowel sound printables, beginning blends, ending blends, diphthong worksheets, consonant sounds and blends, ESL phonics flashcards, kids alphabet rhymes & songs, phonics video games, interactive flash games, animal crafts for kids, family crafts, colouring worksheets & pages, flashcards, short & long vowel printables, r-controlled vowel pages, trigraph printables...

http://eslphonicsworld.com/index.html

WordGames.com

Playing word and vocabulary games is a valuable part of learning English and this is a very useful resource for this purpose.

WordGames.com is a dictionary of impressive free flash word games (puzzle games, memory, matching games, crosswords, typing, word search...) 

We recommend that you visit this site. You can learn and practice a large number of areas of English vocabulary and have some fun as well.

http://www.wordgames.com/

Uptoten. Educational games

Uptoten is a learning website with hundreds of fun educational games and activities for children aged up to 10 that challege the mind, encourage creativity, help with problem solving, and stimulate memory development among other skills.

Many of them are useful to try to teach English to little kids. Games are organized by age (0-6/ 6-10) so you can find the best online games for your child.

A very good tool and a creative way to learn and practice English. 

Visit: http://www.uptoten.com/

On Twitter: https://twitter.com/uptotenkids

ABCya.com

ABCya is a free educational resource that offers online learning games for grades K-5.

All the games are free to play on PCs, a subscription is required to removes the ads. 

On mobile devices the games are not free and require a subscription. They feature six free mobile games each week and encourage children to play these games before deciding to subscribe.

Hundreds of engaging learning activities.

http://www.abcya.com/

Ahora entiendo inglés

Canal en YouTube que aporta numerosos vídeos (la mayoría tienen una duración de entre 5 y 15 minutos) con explicaciones sobre diversos aspectos de la lengua inglesa. Pensado para hablantes de español ya que las explicaciones están en esta lengua.

Puede resultaros interesante como refuerzo de las explicaciones para el alumnado, repasos disponibles en red, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/user/ahoraentiendoingles

http://www.ahoraentiendoingles.com/

Eyes on Bullying Toolkit

The Eyes on Bullying Toolkit was developed and written by: Kim Storey, Ron Slaby, Melanie Adler, Jennifer Minotti, and Rachel Katz, at Education Development Center, Inc.

This toolkit provides specific insights, strategies, activities, and resources to address bullying. It is designed especially for parents, caregivers, educators, and healthcare providers who work with children and youth in homes, early childhood programs, schools (K-12), afterschool and youth programs, camps, and healthcare settings. (Source: Eyes on Bullying Toolkit)

http://www.eyesonbullying.org/pdfs/toolkit.pdf

Factmonster.com

Factmonster.com is a free reference site for students, teachers, and parents. On Factmonster you can find facts on many subjects including sports, entertainment, technology, business, education, health... It combines essentian reference materials, fun facts and homework help.

Its content is written and edited by experts and includes an encyclopedia, dictionary, thesaurus, atlas, a homework center, and educational games.

Visit Factmonster.com on:

http://www.factmonster.com/

ProfessorWord

ProfessorWord is a free to use browser tool tha helps you learn new words while you surf the web. This user friendly browser bookmarklet can help you prepare your English vocabulary for SAT, ACT, GRE, and similar aptitude exams.

It works with all modern browsers.

For more information, visit:

http://www.professorword.com/

Upside Down

Upside Down is a site created by Elisa Bueno Brinkmann (IES Las Marinas. Roquetas de Mar) where you will learn English from the other side of the world (New Zealand). You can visit links about Geography, History, Wild Nature, society and daily life...

Many different resources are available: videos, documents, legends, photos, interactive quizzes, tips for travelling and visiting New Zealand...

http://ntic.educacion.es/w3/eos/MaterialesEducativos/mem2011/upside_down/explore_nz.htmlr

KidsThinkDesign.org

Kids Design Collaborative is a non-profit design resource dedicated to the education and inspiration of future designers. Its activities include this website that promotes design thinking and provides a showcase for kids' original projects.

KidsThinkDesign.org is focussed on children from age 9 and interested in exploring the world of design. The site is broken down into sections such as fashion, graphics, interiors, books, products, film and theatre, architecture, animation and environmental design.

http://www.kidsthinkdesign.org/index.html

Edheads

Edheads is an online educational resource that provides science and math games and activities that promote critical thinking.

http://edheads.org/

More information about Edheads (in Spanish):

http://auladigital.udb.edu.sv/herramientasweb/index.php/2016/07/10/edheads/

Hooda Math

HoodaMath.com is a free online math games site. Founded by a middle school math teacher, Hooda Math offers over 700 cool math games for kids of all ages.

http://www.hoodamath.com/index.html

On GooglePlay:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=www.hoodamath.com.hoodamathmobile&hl=es

On ITunes:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hooda-math-games/id521130906?mt=8

EnglishMediaLab

Free online English exercises, quizzes for beginners, intermediate & advanced level English learners, interactive grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation exercises, and much more... 

Developed by Kisito Futonge.

http://www.englishmedialab.com/index.html