Lesson ideas and Resources for ESL / ESOL

Sites
10 Ways to Support English Language Learning With The New York Times: This link offers a ton of options for lessons. A
great resource to really spend some time checking out.
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/10-ways-to-support-english-language-learning-with-the-new-york-times

http://www.eslgold.com One of the best sites for ESL help for teachers, online quizzes for students, and resources.

http://www.eslflow.com This site ranges from the beginner to advanced and includes tons of ready-to-print worksheets.

http://academicenglishcafe.com/default.aspx Excellent site.

http://www.eastsideliteracy.org/tutorsupport/ESL/ESLIdeas.htm even though this site says adult tutoring, it has lots of
ready-to-print activities for ESL students.

http://www.eslprof.com/handouts These handouts cover a broad range of writing / grammar issues.

http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com a new lesson plan each day at two different levels.

http://www.flashcardmachine.com Flash Card Machine This is an excellent tool for students to use in all their subjects.
Create your own list of words to create and provide link, or student can search for ones already in the database or make
their own. The best part--they can download directly to their iPod.

Blogs
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org not just for ESL resources, good all around

http://eflclassroom.ning.com/index.php great place to add discussions or ask questions

Tips to Success in the ESL classroom

This list is annotated from http://www.eslmania.com/teacher/esl_teacher_talk/41_Helpful_Tips.htm

Get catalogs and free examination books

Ask to get on publisher’s mailing lists to receive their catalogs. Many publishers offer "examination copies" of certain
titles to teachers who might be adopting a text for their classes. Email the publishers to ask for these copies.

Use your media specialist

They can provide additional resources and services for you and your students.

Always keep 3x5 cards on hand

There are millions of language activities you can do with plain 3x5 cards. Some of their uses include: flash cards,
concentration games, matching games, word order practice, pair work, information-gap activities.

Save time by copying less

We need to think about saving time and resources in preparing for classes. Instead of copying ten exercises, copy one
and think of ten activities you can do with it.
Have students write you a letter
To find out if students are learning, not getting lost and whether they understand what is going on, ask the students to
write you a letter about what they've learned, what they are confused about, and what they still want to know. Students
love getting a personal response, and it is well worth the time.
Use "right brain" activities
Try to incorporate rhythm, music, drawing, imagination and visualization into your lessons.

Unscramble the letters

As an end-of-class activity, write a scrambled word on the board (for example, the word 'secretary'). The students try to
see how many one-letter words, two-letter words, three-letter words, etc. they can find. They can do this in groups or as
a whole class. This is a good vocabulary builder and can last from 5 to 45 minutes.

Question cards
Another filler activity is to keep a recipe card box filled with 3x5 cards handy. On these cards write a variety of questions
that are appropriate to challenge the students' thinking or knowledge. Whenever you have a few minutes, pick a card
and read it to see who can answer first. As cards get recycled, students get reinforcement. Use in transition times to
help them stay focused.

A reading journal
Encourage students to read by having them keep a journal of what they're reading and what they think about it.
Reading newspaper articles is a fabulous way for your students to increase their vocabulary – they'll learn new words,
idioms, and expressions.

Articles and lessons for use with ESL students

How to Teach ESL with Newspapers
By Dave Kees
From: http://www.eslmania.com/teacher/esl_teacher_talk/Teach_with_newspapers.htm

It is not easy to find authentic newspaper materials that are at an accessible level for students and interesting as well.
Krashen always recommended reading materials that were L+1 or at a level just slightly above the student's level which
causes the student to have to "reach" a little.

I have scoured the Internet for years for such things. Something I like is from a column called "The Boss" in the NY Times.
They have a simple life story of a top boss. Typically the story touches on things about the person's childhood, school,
influence of parents, first jobs and the lessons of life.

They are also success stories and lots of students have some hopes to be successful in life and find these stories
interesting. At the bottom is an example of one of "The Boss" stories that you can find in the NY Times.

HOW TO USE THEM & THE PROBLEMS WITH PRE-TEACHING

There are a couple approaches involved in reading. I don't recommend "pre-teaching" the vocabulary from the text as
many course books do, notably "New Concepts" (which is actually a very old concept course book being written in the
1960s and only receiving superficial modifications just recently.)

Although pre-teaching sounds like a practical idea it is very boring for the students. Good teaching allows an element of
mystery and curiosity and the thirst for knowledge. Good teaching provides the salt first and then the water. The good
teacher gets the student to search his memory, his personal resources in his recollection, and draw on what the student
already knows to apply to the problem. Good teaching also gets him to personally recognize what he doesn't know
which causes him to be curious and want to learn it.

So typically, before letting the students look at the material, get them to talk about what they know about some of the
points in the story.
Pre-teaching sort of digests the text for the student leaving little mental exercise beyond simply trying to remember
what he was told a couple minutes ago. Encourage the students to guess the meaning of what they don't understand.
You'll find, in a text as below, that there are a few words the student may not know and may not really need to retain.

GUIDING THE STUDENT'S VOCABULARY ACQUISITION

I think it was H.D. Brown who talked about the Active Vocabulary, Latent Vocabulary and the Unknown. Some
vocabulary the students encounter is destined for their Latent Vocabulary, words that will be important for them to be
able to read or recognize when they hear them but are not necessary for them to be able to produce them on the spot
like their Active Vocabulary. Some words they may only see once or twice in their lifetime and could well do without
ever learning them. So equal stress should not be made on all words that students will encounter. Some words should
be pointed out more than others because they will be more useful for students.

I've always said that language learning is like packing a suitcase. You've got to choose what you will likely need and leave
the rest behind. Our students don't have an unlimited capacity to retain everything and that's one place where the
teacher is most needed. Decisions about what to teach are as important as decisions about what NOT to teach.
It is not a sin to finish a reading exercise with the student not understanding 100% of the words. The teacher has to
remember that sometimes English is a buffet. The student does not need to eat everything but he should eat enough to
grow.

In the sample text below the intermediate student might need to acquire vocabulary like: headhunter, recruiter,
certified, pulled me out of school, over the course of my career, I was No. 2 for eight years, early on.
However, this following vocabulary may not be as important to retain in the student's Active Vocabulary: Amgen
(company name), squadron commander, adventurer, overstate, hammered people, flight physical, class of ship, at the
top of his lungs.

Still, the student could be encouraged to guess some of these and should be encouraged to find that he can figure some
of these out without a dictionary. He may be able to figure out: adventurer, overstate, hammered people, class of ship.
Some words the student can easily forget without serious damage to their English competency like: Admiral Hyman G.
Rickover (name).

AND SPEAKING?
Of course it is an ideal time to do some speaking after all the time invested in reading the text. There is a lot of
vocabulary covered in what they just read and some speaking can help to consolidate it and allow the student to test his
understanding and usage of it.
If my goal was solely speaking and I wanted to use a text I'd use a very short one. "The Boss" is too long for that purpose.
But if we used a long text for something else then let's roll into a speaking exercise. Here are a couple ideas that could
be done in pairs or small groups:
* Students could be asked to talk as if they were the characters. In "Say It" fashion, they could do a short monologue
explaining themselves and what happened and why they felt the way they felt and adding in made-up details and parts
of the story.
* They could try to isolate various aspects of the story such as the lessons of life and people of influence and discuss
those. Then they could follow up with their own personal lessons of life and people of influence.

Use interesting news articles

Shoppers 'set their own prices'
A supermarket reportedly let customers pay what they liked for their shopping after a
thunderstorm knocked out the cash tills. The Mirror says the Asda store at Monks Cross in
North Yorkshire was soon packed as word about the give-away spread. Bosses reportedly let
people guess their shopping bill rather than make them wait for power to return. Manager
Colin Storey said: "It was worth it to keep our customers happy."
The question is not IF vocabulary should be taught but HOW. Those of us who adhere to more communicative
approaches believe it should be presented in an authentic way that interests and engages the student. We believe that
once the interest is aroused it will allow vocabulary to be retained much better.
After reading the above story the students will be very interested in understanding: thunderstorm, knocked out, cash
tills, packed, give-away, worth it.

Imagine one teacher asking this: "Students, remember the ten words we learned on Monday?" or "Students, remember
the story about the supermarket that let customers pay what they want?" In which case will the students best be able to
retrieve the words and use them in a proper context?

Of course, the teacher should create some opportunity for the students to use the words they learned. Perhaps they
could talk about what they would do if they were a manager or customer in that situation or if they were a business
consultant examining it.

People have a natural curiosity and motivation to learn things. As Andrew Littlejohn, author of Primary Colours and
Cambridge English for Schools, said when he visited us in China, "It is not the teacher's job to motivate the students - it's
the teachers’ job to not de-motivate them."

Resources to have in the classroom for ESL students:

 Flash Cards
 Picture dictionaries: The Oxford Picture Dictionary: English-Spanish Edition (English and Spanish Edition)
By Norma Shapiro, Jayme Adelson-Goldstein
 Newspapers
 Scholastic magazine
 Side by side readers (classroom text with easier versions)
 Dictionaries
 Basal readers for all levels
 Classroom map to locate where students are from
 Books and/or travel brochures that relate to students’ background
 Create a file of ready-to-use handouts to reinforce particular skills
 Provide a handout of webistes for them to do extra time. Here are some that offer quizzes and games.
http://www.english-test.net/esl/learn/english/grammar/ii065/esl-test.php
http://www.grammar.cl/Games/This_That_These_Those.htm
http://funeasyenglish.com/american-english-grammar-demonstrative-pronoun.htm
http://www.eslgamesworld.com/members/games/index.html
http://www2.gol.com/users/language/games.html

Quick games / lessons to use

Although these games are typically for beginners, you can adapt most of these activities for a range of levels.

Back-to-back
To encourage use of descriptive words, two students sit back-to-back. One is given a picture, the other a blank page and
a pencil. The first student must describe the picture so the other student can make a drawing that will match as closely
as possible to the original.

Last Letter
The last letter of the word must be the first letter of the next word.
You will need a ball, but a screwed up piece of paper is fine.
The teacher throws the ball to one student and says a word, such as "dog".
The student must reply with a word starting with "G," such as "girl".
When answered, the ball is thrown back to the teacher and it is then thrown to the next student, who continues. (cont)
The sequence may then be (for example): girl, look, king, go, octopus, student ... and so on.
You can have the students throwing to each other.
i.e., student A = "Cat," throw to student B = "Today," throw to student C = "Yes," etc.
Depending on their level, they can create complete sentences. The words must make sense together.

Fast Words
The class is arranged into rows. The first person in each row is given a piece of chalk. The blackboard is divided into
sections. No more than six teams.
The teacher calls a letter and the students must write as many words as they can beginning with that letter, in the
allocated time. Their team-mates can call out hints, but be warned, this is very noisy.
Next, the second member gets the chalk and goes to the board and the teacher calls out a new letter.
The team with the most correct words is the winner.

Word Association
The teacher starts the game by saying a word, such as "Hotel".
For example:
Teacher: Hotel
Student A: Bed
Student B: Room
Student C: Service
Student D: Food
Student E: Restaurant
Student F: Chinese
As you can see, any association is ok.
If the student can't answer (5 second limit) he or she must stand up. The last student seated is the winner.
If the association is not obvious, the student is asked to explain the association.

Oral Charades
Write occupations and emotions on slips of paper: one each per student. Have students draw papers from a hat (or two)
and have them describe the emotion and the job on the papers WITHOUT using those words.
The rest of the class must guess the emotion and the occupation,
e.g. "Happy Postman," "Frustrated Teacher."etc

Warm Up and Ice Breaker

Have the students line up by alphabetical order. DON'T help them. DON'T organize it. They must ask each other their
names and figure it out together (In English). Then you check it.
Other variations. Line up by Birthday, Language, Distance from School, Size of family. Avoid obvious things like physical
size, weight, hair color, etc...

Just a Minute
Divide the class up into teams. Have one student on one team come up to the front of the class and give him/her a piece
of paper with about 7 words on it centered around a theme.
For example, you could have 7 words that start with M, or several words that are parts of the body.
In two minutes (let the other teams watch the clock for you), the student with the paper must try to get one of the
students on his/her team to say as many of the words on the list without using the word itself.
The challenge here with a class full of students who all speak the same language is keeping them from giving hints in
their native tongue. Usually, the other teams are vigilant about policing this for you, but when they are lazy, you'll have
to lay down the law on your own.

Teaching the Class

Ask your EFL students to take the class on a field trip. Present to the class interesting information about their home
country, culture, and setting.
Use self-help books
such as "Chicken Soup for the Soul" by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen.
Students pick up the language with feelings, not grammar. Important to not only to learn language, but also to have a
better understanding about life. It's easier to solicit shy students to talk.

Post-it note Game

Preparation: On several Post-It notes, write in large letters a single word of recently learned vocabulary.
The activity is easiest with simple nouns, though more advanced students can play it with any vocabulary.
Method: Students are put into groups of 3 or 4; 1 student is the 'subject' and sits facing the others.
Place a Post-It note on the forehead of the subject who then 'becomes' that item of vocabulary but,
not being able to see the note, does not know what they are.
To find out they must ask the other students in the group who can answer with reasonably helpful replies.
The activity is best played with a class who know each other well.
The teacher should be responsible for distributing the items of vocabulary as sometimes discretion should be shown in
assigning vocabulary to students.It is a fun activity ideal for a few minutes at the end of a lesson.

Hot Seat
With hot-seat, a student seats with his/her back to the board or to the teacher. The teacher displays a word or a flash
cards. Other students describe what is one the card to enable the student guess what it is. For higher level students
teachers can make hot-seat more challenging by writing a number of TABOO WORDs on the board. For example if a
teacher shows the students a flash card of say a HAIRDRESSER. Taboo words could be words likes CUT & HAIR. Students
cannot use these two words to describe hairdresser.This forces the students to find other ways of describing the word
without the taboo words. Taboo words are most often words that can easily make give away the word of the flashcard.

Freeze!
Bring picture cards or word cards to class which you want to practice. Refresh the students’ memory of the vocabulary
on the cards. Pre-teach the words: “Stop” or “freeze” and make them know if they hear that, it means they cannot
move. They must be still.
Next, tell students they are going to play a game. Ask students to sit in a circle. Put the cards face down in the middle of
the circle. Tell them they will pass the ball around the circle very quickly until you say “stop”. Warn that no student can
hold the ball for more than two seconds. As the ball is being circled around, the teacher randomly shouts “Stop”.
The student who is holding the ball when you shout “stop” cannot pass it to the next. S/he remains still with the ball. Ask
the student to pick up a card from the pile of cards facing down. The student reads or tells the other students what is on
the card. Depending on their English level, s/he makes a sentence or more with the word on the card.
Ask questions to prompt weaker students. If the student cannot make a sentence(s), s/he should hand the card to
another student to help, or simply ask any student to help. Then the game continues until the cards are finished.
Variations: You can make it more competitive by giving points to any student who makes a sentence with the card or
word which is picked up.

SWAP
Students sit in a circle. Prepare some word or phrase cards and put them up side down in the middle of the circle. When
teacher says SWAP, students have to stand up and run to another seat(change seats). The teacher tries to find a seat
also. There will be one student standing. That student will have to pick up a card and use it to make a sentence. After
that the game proceeds until you sense they have gained much speaking practice in the lesson focus of the day.

Running Dictation
General Rules: Divide class into teams. In each team there is a reader and a writer. Paste texts (usually short text) at the
back of the class. Tell each the readers of each team that they will run to a text, read and memorize a part of it. As
quickly as possible they will run back and dictate the text to the writer in their group. The writer writes while s/he goes
back to read more text. The group that finishes writing their text first wins.
Runners (readers) cannot write the words. They must dictate what they read in the text to the student writing. They
cannot help in the writing but they can tell him/her how to spell words. The team that finishes first wins.