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With the changing demographics in the United States, our role as ESL teachers is constantly changing and growing. This blog is meant to provide other high school ESL teachers with ideas and suggestions for teaching our students, particularly about how to integrate reading, writing, speaking, and listening into our lessons. This is a place to share experiences and find new resources for your classroom, so please share what you have found useful from this site or from your own experiences in the secondary setting. This will help ESL teachers new and old to keep up-to-date on activities, methodologies, and issues in this field.

Thank you and enjoy!

Monday, November 8, 2010

ESL PartyLand

I recommend this site because it specifically has a section that lists thematic lessons that include different activities which are based on the theme and use elements of reading, writing, listening, and speaking.  There are several themes that are relevant to a high school setting, such as entertainment, shopping, and natural disasters.  Within each unit there are lesson plans with printable worksheets or activity cards; therefore it not only gives you a description of the activity, but also provides the materials.  I came across one link that did not work, but otherwise, the (many) links seem updated and interesting. 
             
This site has links for students and teachers, so the website could be used by students inside or outside of class to take quizzes, practice vocabulary, and learn about pop culture.  Most of the topics have conversation questions, activities, and interactive comprehension checks (multiple choice or cloze quizzes, for example).  I like that there are tabs under the student section that say Learning English as a Second Language, Why Learn English as a Second Language, and Best Way to Learn English as a Second Language.  This might be encouraging for students who are just beginning to learn English or for students who are not motivated.  Overall, this site is comprehensive in its ideas and materials.  I would recommend this site to teachers because they can find practical and relevant lesson ideas that do integrate the 4 competencies.

You can find the link in my Resources list on the right side of the screen or you can click here.

3 comments:

  1. Wow, this is an awesome resource website, I mean, with great practical resources and ideas of lessons. First I like the layout of the site. It is neat and user-friendly. Also, they have sections for both learners and teachers.
    Especially, I find very useful the "Writing Project: Student Surveys" as a possible project idea for my teaching context. And, I did some quizzes myself, and it was really fun! I bet my students will love this site.

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  2. I really like this site, thanks for posting it. I looked at some of the vocabulary activities, and I was really impressed. It not only defined the words but had some questions that helped students get a fuller understanding of each word. The activities themselves seem really fun. It seems like these would be great to use with intermediate or advanced level students, especially during a time when you want to give students a break from the textbook.

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  3. Hi,A very smart idea, when designing websites, is to overlay your Web Design Cochin on a real net browser. There are web sites that you can visit to test your design and denote a browser size. Thanks......

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