The English Corner

Looking for a virtually inexhaustible resource for ESL conversation questions? Well, look no farther than here. Our good friends at The Internet TESOL Journal have a large database of questions. They are alphabetically organized by topics such as – annoying things, tipping and major American holidays.

The wonderful people over at ESL Gold have a page that is dedicated to Phrases for Conversation which are broken down into the following levels: Low Beginning, High Beginning, Low Intermediate, High Intermediate & Advanced. What makes this site stand out above the others is that it provides audio. The speakers are native North American speakers and they speak slow enough for the ELL (English Language Learner) to pick up on what they are saying, but not so mind numbingly slow that you want to bang your head against the wall.  Also, you can tell the narrators are some what professional because the inflection is in the right place, even if it does sound somewhat forced on some of the examples. This would be a great site for Chinese teachers of English to brush up on their English skills, assign as homework or use as part of a language lab.

I grew up in Ohio and let me tell you we are football crazy there. I kid you not. It is all about the football. I remember many crisp autumn evenings at the football stadium in my hometown, freezing my rear end off. But, it was fun. My best friend’s dad was the football coach. I went there to socialize and she, well, she went there to root the team on. Now that my son is a teenager, he is all about the football too.

With that being said, I have posted  a few links for nostalgia’s sake.  So, if you are stuck in a foreign country and there is no American football to be had, why not get your football fix by dedicating a thematic unit to (wait for it, drum roll please) FOOTBALL!

Okay let’s kick off with a link to the NFL…

Click here to go to a link to the National Football League (NFL)

Click here to view the inspirational movie trailer for The Blind Side

Click here for a site that gives lots of biographical information and includes clips from Fox and other sources, including the transcripts.

Click here for a link to an National Public Radio interview  describing how Michael Oher is the “perfect” position of left tackle.

Click here for a link to the New York times article called, The Ballad of Big Mike.

Click here for a concise rundown of the basics of football.

Click here for a copy of a printable worksheet.

Click here for a link to a talking point worksheet that asks the question, “Is Football a Waste of Time?”

Click here for a link to another Football worksheet.

Click here to go to a link  to an online grammar quiz focusing on the noun record and the past simple and past participles of win and lose.

Click here for a fictional conversation full of sports idioms.

Click here for a link to page that describes an American Football ESL game.

I love using movies to each English, but they can be too much – you know – too long, to boring, yadda, yadda, yadda. The Genki English guy, Richard Graham, has a suggestion. Use movie trailers. What a fantastic idea! He suggests using the Apple movie trailers. Good choice in that the movie trailers on the Apple site are offered in HD. http://www.genkienglish.net/usingmoviesinclass.htm

Below is the link to the trailer site. There is a veritable smorgasbord to choose from. It may not be such a bad idea if you want to mix things up and/or kill some time. Or, if you get a positive response from the students you could do it as a regular thing, turn it into “Movie Monday.” It doesn’t have to be on a Monday, but you get the idea.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/

You could do a bunch of different activities along with it, like:

• transcribe it and have the student follow along as a simultaneous listening and reading activity
• create a close activity from the transcript focusing on specific grammatical items, such as contractions
• introduce new vocabulary and idioms
• assign a movie trailer to be viewed cold (their choice) as homework. They have to view it and write down one new vocabulary word and find the appropriate definition to share with the class. (Homework – I know not the most popular choice, but this is not too difficult to do.)
• have students perform it as a readers theater script
• is there a song with lyrics involved? Assign small groups to sing the song to the class as others in the group act it out.

For example, Invitcus http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/invictus/ can be used to teach about Nelson Mendela and apartheid. If you’re a Rugby fan then “forget about it!” You could springboard a mini-unit about the game, history, rules, etc; Maybe you could get a Rugby club going with the students? Do you think they would go for that? I don’t know, but my teenage son would be totally into that (he plays’ American football – which is kinda like Rugby except with armor, right?)

What about Where The Wild Things Are? This story is a children’s classic. I remember reading it to  my son when he was a little guy. http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/wherethewildthingsare/ Can you get your hands on the book? This would be a great one to teach the kids.
Here is a random list of resources that can be found on the net:

• http://www.fantasyjr.com/where-the-wild-things-are-lesson-plans-and-movie-news/
• http://www.lessonplanspage.com/LAWildThingsStoryElementsK2.htm
• http://newteachersupport.suite101.com/article.cfm/teaching_with_where_the_wild_things_are
• http://www.nwf.org/BeOutThere/parentsguide.html

This lesson incorporates math and science

• http://www.easyfunschool.com/article1293.html

Students create their own wild things

• http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/early/Jeryl-Wild.htm
• http://www.ibiblio.org/mturner/seawell/legos2/susan/wildthings.html

Character development lesson

• http://www.scetv.org/education/ntti/lessons/2005_lessons/character.cfm

Beginning, middle, end

• http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/early/Jeryl-Wild.htm

Sequencing monster

• http://www.eduref.org/Virtual/Lessons/Language_Arts/Writing/WCP0033.html

What about A Christmas Carol? Another timeless classic.

• http://www.apple.com/trailers/disney/achristmascarol/
• http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=238
• http://www.learningtogive.org/lessons/unit10/lesson3.html
• http://ulsterballet.org/acc-lesson.TeacherGuide.pdf

and let’s not forget the ppt’s!

• http://languagearts.pppst.com/dickens-christmascarol.html

Then there is Amelia. http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox_searchlight/amelia/

Is she dead? Is she alive and living with Elvis on a deserted island?

lesson plans

• http://www.idahoptv.org/ntti/nttilessons/lessons2002/taylortatten.htm?CFID=566417&CFTOKEN=24829627
• http://teacherlink.ed.usu.edu/tlresources/units/Byrnes-famous/Earhart.html

Even if you don’t have the series, you can still glean nuggets that you can use in class.

• http://www.patriapress.com/earhartre.html

biography

• http://www.ellensplace.net/eae_intr.html

Forensic evidence – create a discussion – is she alive or dead? Let the students decide based on evidence provided by the following sources and then present their position to the class.
Is she alive? http://www.irene-amelia.com/index.html
Is she dead? http://www.nndb.com/people/943/000026865/

There’s lots of rich material to choose from. It can be used year after year once you put the lesson together. So a little bit of work will pay off in the long run.

I ran across this on You Tube and thought it was really good.  It is a bowling game that requires the students to knock down colored pins. The vocabulary words are divided up into colors that correspond to the pin’s color. One team rolls the bowling ball and then the other team has to say a sentence using the words that are organized by color. I know it sounds confusing, but watch this to see how it is done.

Click here for a link to an article at ESL Focus about using ESL games to motivate  adults. At the end of the article she offers 10 tips.

More ESL games
http://www.teflgames.com/games.html
http://www.stickyball.net/games-and-activities.html
http://www.manythings.org/e/easy.html
http://teachingenglishgames.com/
http://eslplayground.com/

Click here for a cute Alien zookeeper game.

In China it appears that the notion of literacy centers are a foreign concept. It is imperative that students bound for the United States get a firm grasp on the concepts that are often reinforced in the literacy centers. These skills are critical to academic success in America.

A literacy center is basically a small group where the students practice a specific skill/activity. it is important to teach the concept first, then let the students have fun at the literacy center.  A certain amount of time is given (usually about 20 minutes for native speakers – I’d extend that for English language learners) to complete the activity and then they move on to the next center or station or the next lesson (depending on how your class is structured.)

This is how I would do it:

Introduce the concept with a ppt. Then have small groups of different activities that work on the same skill. The concept is primary designed for elementary and middle school kids, but I believe you can adapt it to suit the needs of college students.

Click here to go to  a page that has several resources that will give you a better idea of what a literacy center is all about.

Click here for the best description of literacy centers/learning stations I can find on the net.

Lots of links to inference activities
http://www.emints.org/ethemes/resources/S00001681.shtml
http://www.emints.org/ethemes/resources/S00001679.shtml
http://www.ehow.com/way_5279281_inference-activities-middle-school.html?ref=fuel&utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=ssp&utm_campaign=yssp_art
http://wvde.state.wv.us/strategybank/MakingInferences.html

Lots of links to main idea activities
http://www.brainpopjr.com/reading/comprehension/mainidea/grownups.weml
http://www.ehow.com/way_5438549_main-idea-cards-student-activities.html?ref=fuel&utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=ssp&utm_campaign=yssp_art
PowerPoint links to reinforce the concept
http://languagearts.pppst.com/mainidea.html

Links to fact VS opinion activities
http://www.emints.org/ethemes/resources/S00001407.shtml
http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/resources/educational/lessons/secondary/broadcast_news/bw_fact_vs_opinion_lesson.cfm
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/4017

Click here for strong VS weak opinion – It was tough finding useful stuff on this one.

Links to author’s tone activities
http://www.pampetty.com/tone.htm
[url=http://colegiobolivar.edu.co/apenglish/Documents/Tone Exercise.doc]colegiobolivar.edu.co/apenglish/Documents/Tone Exercise.doc
infusion.allconet.org/Power Points/TonePurpose.ppt

Links to author’s purpose activities
http://lesson-plans-materialssuite101.com/article.cfm/authors_purpose_lesson_plan

Click here for more author’s purpose activities.
Research skills – I couldn’t find what I was looking for…but the type of things I would do here would be to cut out or print out a label, a classified ad, an advertisement, a pie chart, or bar graph (something that contained written and visual information.) Then the students have to find the information to answer questions and then answer another question that requires them to write about it.
Dictionary skills - http://www.rhlschool.com/research.htm

More Useful Stuff
Persuasive writing lesson – goes along with fact VS opinion
http://www.atozteacherstuff.com/pages/495.shtml

More ppt’s that will help you reinforce the skills.
Click here for a list of Powerpoints that will reinforce these skills and more!

Take your time and sift through these resources, I’m sure you will find something useful. Please report any broken links. I like to keep thing updated. Thanks!

I used this website a lot when I was teaching reading. I mostly used the graphic organizers, but there is a lot more to this website than that. They have teacher forms, games, certificates and quote posters too.

Click here for the Internet TESOL Journal’s list of ESL games. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you will find about 7 more pages of goodies to explore. If you like what you see, you may want to click here to go the game index.

I just stumbled on this website. You have to register to access the free games. Looks like a huge site with lots of resources. It has a job section and a forum too. I haven’t really checked it out myself, but maybe if you have the free time you could. Please let me know what you think.

Click here for Teach English in Asia’s game page which is broken down into skills and approximate ages.

Click here to go to a website that contains a list of more useful resources.

Click here for printable card sets, and board games.

I taught intensive reading to middle school kids. By intensive reading, I mean, the kids were flunking the FCAT (a state standardized test.) We taught to the book (and what I mean by teaching to the book – we had pacing guides that were enforced) and then we would do literacy centers once a week or so. Which were small group activities based on the thematic content and the FCAT skill the unit was focusing on.

Examples of FCAT skills:
main idea
comparison and contrast
sequencing
research
words and phrases in context
strong VS week argument
analysis
synthesis
evaluation
inference
point of view of the character
author’s tone
author’s purpose

Pucker up Baby

When Life Hands You Lemons, Make Lemon Aide

Pucker up baby!

This idiom means:
If something goes wrong or sour (such as a relationship turning bad or loosing a job) then try to turn it in to a positive thing. For example, if you loose your job, then use your free time to earn a degree or start a new business. So, if life hands you a lemon, pucker up baby and make some lemon aide!

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