Useful Links and Resources

On June 11, 2020, I was interviewed by Jason Levine (aka Fluency MC) as part of the Featured Teachers series, which is sponsored by the American TESOL Institute. We talked about many issues related to my online teaching career, including the importance of integrating skills and stating objectives that are both attainable and worth attaining, particularly in relation to pronunciation.

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Pronunciation App and Teacher Resource

Blue Canoe

Blue Canoe is a self-study app that helps non-native speakers improve their spoken English. There’s a heavy emphasis on pronunciation. The exercises and videos teach why stress and vowel sounds are so important in spoken communication. There’s a speech recognition feature, so you get feedback on what you can do to improve. The app guides you by giving you a short study plan each day. The people who designed Blue Canoe are all teachers with experience. They developed the Color Vowel® System, which is a helpful way to understand and remember new sounds by noticing their colors. Your brain learns to associate sounds with colors, and this will help you say vowel sounds correctly in words. The app also teaches you a hand-movement technique to help you become more aware of stressed syllables. If you’d like to work on your own awareness and accuracy with word stress and vowel sounds, you can use the app as a learner. You can also get a lot of teacher resources from Blue Canoe and even more from their sister company, colorvowel.com, which focuses on teacher education. You can learn techniques for teaching and practicing pronunciation with your students. They offer free bimonthly workshops that go beyond teaching pronunciation. You can visit their site colorvowel.com. Please use my affiliate link to sign up. iOS users can use this link. Android users may use the code JENNIFER20. (Disclosure: As an affiliate, I earn commission from sales.)

Sites for General Language Practice and Reference

ThoughtCo.com (Formerly About.com)

Kenneth Beare provides explanations and interactive quizzes for learners at all levels. Topics range from general grammar to Business English. The site could be a recommended resource for your students.

Activities for ESL Students

This site offers a very large collection of exercises at all levels for grammar and vocabulary. There are bilingual quizzes, too. I’ve recommended the exercises to my private students for additional practice in the past. This collection has contributions from many different teachers.

Englishpage.com

Useful collection of interactive exercises with text tutorials. Student forums are offered, too.

ESLVideo.com

This site offers video-based quizzes for ELLs that make us of authentic commercials, music vids, and more. Recommend the site for independent study or use existing quizzes (beginner to high-intermediate) that tie in to your lesson plan. Take it a step further and create your own quizzes. The site allows you to build your own quizzes and share them with your students. Even better – you can see your students results on your teacher’s account.

Real English

Mike Marzio is the founder of this project, and it’s an interesting, unique, and valuable resource to use both in and out of the classroom. The range of speakers will expose students to varieties of English. The intelligent editing makes the authentic speech comprehensible to learners. Quizzes on the Real English site are categorized by grammar level.

USA Learns

Initially funded by the U.S. Dept. of Education, this site is an amazing resource for beginners and intermediate students studying independently. There’s also potential for this site to supplement classroom instruction. Videos and readings could be worked into your lesson plans as homework. If you tutor one-on-one, consider registering to set up courses and track student progress.

Sites for Listening Practice

Elllo

The selection of recorded conversations is large enough that you can choose speakers and topics that match you learners’ needs and interests. Just forewarn students that sometimes there are typos in the transcripts, but all is forgiven since the site is such a treasure.

Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab

Many teachers are familiar with Randall’s wonderful work, which he has generously been sharing for over a decade. On his well-maintained site, you’ll find a large collection of listening quizzes for general and academic study at all levels. The quizzes come with transcripts.

TED

TED stands for Technology, Education, and Design. TED describes itself as “a nonprofit dedicated to ideas worth spreading.” The project that provides a resource for English language teachers and learners is the award-winning TEDTalks. Many high profile people, such as Bill Gates and Michelle Obama, have given a TEDTalk. Topics range from innovations to the environment. Their YouTube channel TEDTalksDirector features these inspiring lectures. Closed captions and translated subtitles are available on their site.

Sites for Grammar Reference

Azar Grammar Exchange

Here you will not only learn by reading well-written grammar explanations, but you can also post questions and comments. Do you have a tricky grammar question? Just register and start a discussion on that topic. You can see the latest threads here. The greatest treasure is probably the archive of Grammar Q&A Messages. The keyword index facilitates your search. Kudos and many thanks to Rachel Spack Koch for moderating the forum and maintaining the archive!

Guide to Grammar & Writing

This is a non-profit site with great information for teachers and plenty of material you could recommend to students.

Interactive Video Quiz Maker

iSLCollective.com

iSLCollective has a robust collection of resources for students and teachers. The site is actually a platform where teachers can both use and contribute materials. There are PowerPoint presentations and visually engaging worksheets. You can click to view the profile of each teacher who has published content. The most creative tool is the interactive video quiz maker. There’s a video tutorial, but the process is so user-friendly, that you can jump right in and quickly turn any YouTube or Vimeo video into a quiz, using a variety of question formats. The finished product can play in different modes, depending on how you choose to share it with your students.

Miscellaneous Sites for Teacher Reference

ESLnotes.com

“The English Learner Movie Guides” Raymond Weschler has compiled a list of films he recommends for English language instruction. His notes are helpful in choosing a film or recalling what a film is about. Each guide is a time-saver for classroom teachers and includes a plot summary, list of characters, and teaching notes (e.g. discussion questions).

Off2Class

This is a go-to site for lesson content backed by a student management system. The lessons include teacher notes, and you can annotate and edit them in real time with your students. The lessons can be used for face-to-face tutorials or online lessons. There’s also a free ESL placement test you can use for new students. Learn more about the co-founder, James Heywood, on my ELT blog.

BookBildr

A desktop tool that allows you to design custom books complete with images from the public domain. Download a PDF of your book or print it in one of several different formats. PDFs are affordable. Discounts are offered when ordering print copies in bulk. Think of the possibilities, for example, a volume of student stories or a prize for a writing contest!

The Idiom Connection

This resource has explanations and interactive quizzes on idioms. I prefer to list this as a teacher’s resource rather than one for students. As the teacher, you can select which ones and how many to present within the framework of a single lesson.

The World Clock

When I began to teach private lessons online, I quickly learned about the necessity of using a time zone converter. Always double check the time difference!

Online Teacher Training and Professional Development

Foreign Language Teaching Methods

The University of Texas at Austin has compiled professional development modules for foreign language teaching. From grammar to assessment, they cover the essentials. Through video and text, different teachers address 12 aspects of teaching.

TESOL

TESOL has a number of certificate programs, including Principles and Practices of Online Teaching Certificate.

Electronic Village Online (EVO)

The CALL Interest Section of TESOL holds 5-week professional development workshops every year starting in January. The sessions are free and open to all practicing teachers. TESOL membership is not required.

New American Horizons Foundation

This collection of adult ESL training videos was recommended within one of the TESOL interest sections I belong to.

TEFLVideos.com

A well-made collection of videos that offers practical advice on teaching EFL in the classroom.

TESOL Professional Spotlight - Video Interviews

Sharon Tjaden-Glass has created a wonderfully rich video series on her YouTube channel featuring various teachers working in different contexts. A range of highly relevant topics are addressed. I was fortunate to contribute as an online teacher.

Textbooks and Other Offline Materials

50 Activities for the First Day of School Burns, Walton.

This an affordable addition to your toolkit. Keep these easy-to-use activities at hand. They’re great as ice breakers or warm-ups on any time of the year.

Accurate English: A Complete Course in Pronunciation Dauer, Rebecca

I learned a lot by teaching from this book when I was a classroom teacher. My copy at home is from 1993, but I still keep it in my library.

English Pronunciation Made Simple Dale and Poms

A pronunciation textbook with CDs. Easy to follow because it’s well organized. This was the first printed material I worked with as a teacher in the pronunciation classroom.

How to Teach English Harmer, Jeremy

This is an easy read with solid and practical information for new teachers. Even experienced teachers would enjoy and benefit from Harmer’s discussion of English language teaching. He also has a blog that’s worth visiting. (See the link in my own blogroll on WordPress.)

Principles of Language Learning and Teaching Brown, H. Douglas

There is a lot of essential information packed into this book. I recommend it for any teacher who needs to bulk up on theory.

A Student’s Grammar of the English Language Greenbaum and Quirk

An oldie but goodie. I love the copy a colleague passed on to me. I often use it to solve tricky grammar questions. At times there’s probably more information than students actually need to know, but it helps sort everything in a teacher’s mind.

TESOL Press

TESOL has quality books for ELTs. These are peer-reviewed books. The Classroom Practice Series is especially helpful. One of my favorite publications by TESOL Press is Language Teaching Insights from Other Fields, edited by Christopher Stillwell.

The Week: The Best of the U.S. and International Media

My favorite magazine for teaching and personal use.