University of Delaware
Memorial Hall 034

Grant Wolf

Thursday 06-29-2006


INTERNET RESOURCES FOR TESL/TEFL

How to work on this post:
-Read the introduction carefully.
-Keep in mind the challenging question in bold blue every time you log into a website.
-Explore one of the recommended websites every two or three days.

Introduction: (by Kassem Al Tarras)

This workshop by Grant Wolf might be the most important one in this training course for the following simple but crucial reasons:

• It is the key to log into the websites we need.
• It facilitates how to directly hit what we seek on the internet with minimum waste of time among the huge stuff available there.
• It is what we really need as a resource for our workshops, presentations, lesson planning…etc. We have tons of ideas piled over there.
  

I would like just to remind you that what you need is for sure available on the internet but the question is how you can reach it and are you going to capture it on time?
The challenging question is what useful stuff you can add to this incredibly enormous source (the internet) and how you would allow people who need it to simply reach it. It is supposed that we have been internet explorers for sometime but now we need to be also bloggers and share some helpful ideas with other professionals around us or maybe overseas. Remember that the world is a small village but please mind what you are doing in this village.

During the workshop we discussed the importance of the internet as a resource for both teachers and students, how do we use it and what are the obstacles of using it. Then we went into a brief tour of some useful websites. I explored them and selected the most important ones. I hope I satisfied your needs. Please spend enough time exploring them and enjoying them because they are really enjoyable.

Note that phrases and lines in green are not originally in the handout but I added them.

A. Comprehensive Resources for TESL/TEFL
Dave’s ESL Café. Dave was one of the pioneers to use the internet. The “Mother”of all ESL/EFL websites, for students and teachers:
http://www.eslcafe.com/search/index.html
Internet TESL Journal. A free monthly journal, offering a wealth of practical ideas for teachers.
http://iteslj.org/
B. On-Line Discussion Groups:
A discussion forum for students, through the famous Dave’s ESL Café site: http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/student/index.php
C. Authentic Language Content-based sites that ESL/EFL teachers have found useful.
Content-based sites for reading, discussing, problem-solving, etc. (uses authentic language, generally designed for young native-speakers of various grade-levels):
http://www.ohiou.edu/esl/project/history.html
Ready-made, news-based high-interest lessons designed for literacy instruction.
Includes both listening and reading, with full text as well as abridged text.
http://www.literacynet.org/cnnsf/
D. On-Line Activities, specifically for TESL/TEFL students and teachers
Hundreds of on-line games and activities for your students: (You can develop them to be a drama activity).
http://iteslj.org/games/

ESL Independent Study Lab: http://www.lclark.edu/~krauss/toppicks/toppicks.html

A Free, Easy Authoring Program for Teachers: Filamentality If you are really ambitious you can have your own website.http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil

Phonetics: A state-of-the-art animated visual and sound resource from the University of Iowa. This website might be very important regarding oral intelligibility.
http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/#

This is one dedicated solely to everyone’s favorite. . . prepositions!
http://www.englishpage.com/prepositions/prepositions.html

This is one dedicated solely to everyone’s favorite.
www.englishpage.com

E. A small sampling of fun and varied websites for you and your students to try (great motivators!)

Amazon.com Activity. In this website you will learn about one of the largest and most famous stores on the Internet. You will learn how to navigate the site and how to search for products:
http://iteslj.org/guides/amazon.html

Jokes for TEFL. Teachers often use jokes in the ESL/EFL classroom to teach culture, grammar and vocabulary.:
http://iteslj.org/c/jokes.html

F. Just for Kids

Sesame Street Coloring pages, for learning the alphabet.
http://www.sesameworkshop.org/sesamestreet/coloringpages/

IATEFL Young Learner’s Interest Group Site. This is a huge, annotated list of resources for teachers of children. Definitely worth the time to explore. (Note that it is color-coded by age group). http://www.countryschool.com/ylsig/

Phonics and Stories on Line. Many to choose from, with sound and simple animation for various elementary grades. It is useful for Story Telling.
http://www.beenleigss.eq.edu.au/requested_sites/sounds/

Big Books on-line. Pictures, texts, and sound with simple animation for kids. It is useful for Story Telling.
http://www.lancsngfl.ac.uk/curriculum/literacy/lit_site/html/fiction/bigbook.htm

H. Independent Exploration: HOMEWORK!

During the next week, spend some time exploring and playing with the Internet resources we’ve looked at today. Choose your favorite one and think about how you might use it in your classes. Then send me an email at gwolf19@yahoo.com Tell me the address of the website, and briefly, how you will use it in your teaching. I will compile all your suggestions and send them to the entire group, for your mutual enjoyment and benefit.

Websites added to the handout by Kassem

http://www.englishclub.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/index.shtml