Beware of overseas teaching scams

An important issue to be aware of when looking for English teaching jobs is the existence of scams.  Susan Taylor guest-posted an excellent article on this topic on Kalinago English.  The highlights:

Beware of jobs that:

• require upfront payment
• look too good to be true
• have questionable websites
• use poor English

For more details, click on the link above to read the entire article.

Another good place to look for scams in on Dave’s ESL Cafe international job forums.  They have country specific forums which often discuss the realities of a specific location.

Graphic Organizers and English Language Learners

Graphic_Organizers_and_ESL_Students

I’ve published a fair amount here on graphic organizers – it’s no secret I’m a big fan of using them with ELLs.  Thought I’d share  a helpful powerpoint created by the Pittsburgh Public Schools on the topic…

Stages of Second Language Acquisition

Judy Haynes, of Everything ESL, a great article explaining how the states of second language acquisition appear in children.  If you’re having a hard time determining what level the students you are working with are at, this article would be a helpful place to start.

“Don’t insist on English”

Longtime English teacher in Dubai Patricia Ryan discusses her perspective in a TED talk on language death and the question:

Is the world’s focus on English preventing the spread of great ideas in other languages?  

This is a significant question with which English language teachers must grapple.  What are your thoughts on her perspective?

Technology tools for teachers

Here are my newest favorite web-based tools that are a HUGE time-saver and help to teachers:

Jing:  Jing is a tool that lets you capture any image you see online.  It’s very helpful for creating worksheets and classroom activities.  Once you capture an image, you can also write or draw on it. It also lets you capture movies.

Evernote:  Ever surf the web and find interesting articles/resources only to later think, “Now where did I see that?”  Evernote is an online filing cabinet that lets you organize and categorize anything at all!  Michael Hyatt just published a fantastic article on “How to organizer Evernote for maximum efficiency” that’s worth filing in Evernote!

For even more ideas on webtools for English language teachers, see Sandy Millin’s article Easy Technology for the EFL Classroom.

Graphic Organizer for overall reading comprehension

Here’s another graphic organizer based on Bloom’s Taxonomy to help students deepen their understanding of main ideas when they’re reading.  See the first graphic organizer in this series here.

Online dictionaries for language learning

While dictionaries have always been crucial in the process of language learning, online dictionaries are introducing a whole new world of accesible information!  Complete with forums, idioms, thesauri, and even encyclopedias in a variety of languages, these sites are a one-stop shop!

Here are a couple of my favorite that are particularly useful for English language learners:

The Free Dictionary

My favorite feature of The Free Dictionary is it’s industry specific dictionaries – it has medical, legal, and financial dictionaries.

Word Reference

Don’t let it’s plainness fool you – this is a powerful tool!  With dictionaries in 15 languages, this is great for a multilingual class.  It’s language forums are also very useful in dialogging about word meanings with native speakers.

Top Website: Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day

This guy’s blog is absolutely fabulous!  He posts about everything in ESL, but particularly about top websites.  One particularly helpful page is the “Most Popular” tab – he posts everything from ‘The best websites for learning about MLK” to “Helping students develop self-control.”  Larry’s won quite a few awards and is an ESL teacher in California.  He also runs an English website for English language learners.

Best Flashcard resources for ESL students

Flashcards are a great tool for language learning, and can be used in far more interactive ways than simply flip and recall.  Why spend money on pre-made flashcards if you have paper and a printer?  There are some GREAT websites that offer free flashcards for English language learners.  Here are a few:

ESLFlashcards.com.  All flashcards are free and come in 3 sizes.  Art looks like clip-art.   The site offers over 2900 flashcards!

ESL Flashcards for Kids.  Flashcards come in different sizes, with and without the word describing the picture.

Creative ways to use flashcards with ELLS

Flashcards can conjure up images of boring, repetitive, kill-and-drill activities.  However, they don’t have to be used this way!  Flashcards are a GREAT tool for the esl/efl classroom, and can be used quite effectively cooperative and interactive learning.  Here are some ideas:

• Around the world:  A classic competitive game which keeps students on their toes!  Follow basic directions here for around the world, except substitute vocab for spelling.  Show students flashcards to elicit the word in the target language.
• Conversation starters:  Pass out flashcards and have students discuss the pictures with a partner.  Have them ask and answer questions about the picture.  This could be a timed activity where pictures are rotated and students discuss new pictures as they go around the class.
• Memory: Have students match word to picture.
• Writing prompts:  Give each student a flashcard and have them journal, freewrite, or brainstorm about the picture.

Like these ideas?  Here’s a whole HUGE list of more!!!