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