Useful Resources
Resources for course participants
This table includes a list of all materials and websites referred to in the course, as well as additional resources that you may find useful.
| Title | Topic; Type of Media |
Description |
| Teaching Listening, Speaking, and Pronunciation | ||
| Authentic Assessment Toolbox | assessment, rubrics; online article | A long, comprehensive article that discusses assessment and rubrics. |
| Classroom Assessment: Creating a Rubric | rubrics, assessment; online article | Another good article about how to create rubrics. |
| Creating a Rubric: Tutorial | rubrics; online article | A very handy article about how to create a good rubric. |
| Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials | listening, authentic material; article | Good 5-page article that also discusses how to incorporate authentic materials into a lesson. |
| Dictation as a Language Learning Device | listening, dictation; article | Good, shorter article that describes various types of dictation activities and describes how to use orthographic text dictation, which is similar to a spelling test. |
| Elements of Effective Instruction: Listening Comprehension | listening, speaking; article | A 4-page general article about teaching reading & writing; it also includes information about graphic organizers and scaffolding. |
| The Employment of CALL in Teaching Second/Foreign Language Speaking Skills | CALL, speaking; article | Long, scholarly article about using computers to enhance the teaching of speaking. |
| The Forum | EFL teaching journal; website | An online US Department of State journal filled with articles written for and by EFL instructors. |
| Learning English Pronunciation | pronunciation; website | A short article that includes some strategies on how to study and teach pronunciation. |
| New Perspectives in Teaching Pronunciation | pronunciation; article | A longer, scholarly article about teaching pronunciation |
| Note-taking | note-taking; online article | This article contains general information about note-taking strategies. This website also includes links to other strategies such as time management, test-taking, organization, etc. |
| Note-taking Strategies | note-taking strategies; website | This is a website that contains links to many specific strategies about note-taking. |
| Practical Aspects of Using Video in the Foreign Language Classroom | listening, video; article | Good short article with useful information. General article about why teachers should use video in the classroom and how to do it. |
| Some Techniques for Teaching Pronunciation | pronunciation; article | A short article with exercises in teaching pronunciation. |
| Strategies for Effective Lesson Planning | lesson planning; online article | This is a general, non-scholarly article that contains some good theoretical information about lesson planning. |
| Suprasegmentals: Pronunciation Practice for Your EFL Classroom | pronunciation; article | A short article that discusses on the stress-timed quality of English. |
| Teaching Listening and Speaking (Richards) | listening, speaking; article | Fairly lengthy article describing best practices in the teaching of listening and speaking. |
| Teaching Listening, Speaking, and Writing | listening, speaking, writing: article | Short, general article with a section about the teaching of writing, also. |
| Test Your English Pronunciation | pronunciation, quiz; website | a short, fun quiz to test how much is know about pronouncing some common words. |
| Using Music in the Classroom | music; article | The author of the article discusses several aspects of using music in the classroom and some language activities that incorporate music. |
| Why Suprasegmentals? | pronunciation; article | This short, readable article discusses the importance of teaching suprasegmentals. |
| Writing Objectives | objectives; online article | This online article discusses how to write an ABCD objective. |
| Writing Objectives Using Bloom’s Taxonomy | objectives, vocabulary; website | This website has an extensive list of verbs used when writing objectives. The verbs are classified according to Bloom’s taxonomy. It also has a lot of information about objectives. |
| Scaffolding and Graphic Organizers | ||
| Graphic Organizers | graphic organizers, printable; website | This website contains free, printable handouts, activities, and graphic organizers |
| Graphic Organizers for Listening Comprehension | graphic organizers, handouts; website | Good source for examples of several graphic organizers. |
| Scaffolding | scaffolding; articles | Longer, scholarly article about scaffolding. |
| Scaffolding Academic Learning for Second Language Learners | scaffolding; article | Shorter article about scaffolding with a reading, writing focus |
| Scaffolding for Success | scaffolding; article | Short, general article about scaffolding. None of the links work. |
| Scaffolding Website | scaffolding; website | This is a website with links to several articles about scaffolding. |
| Assessment, Rubrics, and Error Correction | ||
| Authentic Assessment Toolbox | assessment, rubrics; online article | This is a lengthy article about a variety of assessment tools, but the major focus is on rubrics. |
| Classroom Assessment: Creating a Rubric | rubrics, assessment; online article | Another good article about how to create rubrics. |
| Creating a Rubric: Tutorial | rubrics; online article | A very handy article about how to create a good rubric. |
| Error Correction: A Traffic Light Approach | speaking error correction; article | Very good, short article about speaking and error correction. |
| Guide for Educators | rubric resource; website | This website had many, many rubrics that you can download and use. |
| Rubistar | rubric creation; website | A very handy website that helps you create rubrics. This site must be joined to use. |
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Teacher Resources, Teaching Aids and Lesson Plans
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| BBC Pronunciation Tips | teacher resources, self-study; website | There are a video, quizzes, lessons, etc. on this website that are all focused on pronunciation. |
| BBC Video Collection | video; website | This website contains the BBC’s nature collection. There are many high-quality videos. |
| Breaking News English | lesson plans, activities, reading, audio tracks, quizzes – everything a teacher needs; website | Contains lessons, activities, quizzes for listening and many other activities. Lots of topics. |
| Conversation Lesson Plans for English Learners | lesson plans; website | This site contains several lesson plans for conversations; it also has a link to a page that contains many more. |
| English, Baby! | teacher resource, self-study; website | This site must be joined. It contains resources for self-study for both teachers and students. |
| ESL Galaxy – worksheets and board games | activities, handouts, teaching aids; website | This site has links to many, many board games and activities. |
| Listen and Write | teacher resource, self-study; website | This website contains dictation exercises. It can be used by both students and teachers as a self-study tool. |
| National Public Radio Podcasts | listening; website | Huge library of National Public Radio (American English) pod casts on a variety of topics. |
| Office of English Language Programs – Listening Resources |
listening and speaking teacher resources; website | This site contains a list of a variety of listening and pronunciation websites. |
| One Stop English – Integrated Skills Lesson Plans | integrated skills, lesson plans, activities; website | This site contains lessons plans for integrated skills; there are also activities and handouts. |
| One Stop English – Listening Lesson Plans | listening, lesson plans, activities; website | There are many lesson plans, activities, and handouts for teaching listening on this website. |
| One Stop English – Pronunciation Exercises | pronunciation, activities; website | This site contains activities, and handouts for teaching pronunciation. |
| One Stop English – Speaking Lesson Plans | speaking, lesson plans, activities; website | Although not always written up as formal lesson plans, this site contains many speaking activities and worksheets. |
| Phonetics: The Sounds of American English |
self-study, teacher resource; website | This websites show areas of articulation and how to pronounce consonants, vowels, and dipthongs. |
| Pronuncian – Pronunciation Podcasts | teacher resource, self-study; website | This website contains many podcasts about how to teach pronunciation and how to pronounce American English words. |
| prə-nŭn’sē-ā’shən – Pronunciation Links | teacher resource, self-study; links of website | This is a long, long list of links to many pronunciation sites. There’s a little it of everything there! |
| Sounds of English – Pronunciation | teacher resource, self-study; website | This website contains teaching tips and exercises for teaching pronunciation including word stress, stress and intonation, and how to pronounce specific words. |
| Teaching Conversation Strategies Through Pair Taping | conversation; article | Useful and general information for working with conversation groups. |
| Teaching Pronunciation | teacher resource; website | This website contains many handouts, pronunciation activities, and teaching tips. |
| Voice of America – The Classroom | video, other activities; website | This site has videos, lesson plans, articles, and activities. Can also be used as self-study. |
| Voice of America – Learning English | short videos; Facebook | Contains a series of short videos on Facebook. |
| Voice of America – Special English | videos, reading | There are many, many videos on a variety of topics. |
| Self-Study | ||
| BBC: Learning English | self-study, audio, video; website | Authentic and classroom material, with resources designed for teachers. This includes audio, video, and more. |
| BBC – Pronunciation Tips | self-study, teacher resource; website | There are a video, quizzes, activities, and lessons on this website–all focused on pronunciation. |
| BBC Video Collection | videos; website | This site contains videos from the BBC nature collection. These are high-quality, interesting videos. |
| Breaking News English | self-study, multiple activities, listening, reading, answer key website | Choose from over 1000 interesting topics, each with a reading, audio file, and many activities. Most activities are for classroom/group use. Includes answer keys. |
| Conversation Lesson Plans for English Learners | lesson plans; website | This site contains several lesson plans for conversations; it also has a link to a page that contains many more. |
| English, Baby! | self-study, teacher resource; website | This website must be joined; it contains English quizzes, activities, lessons, chat rooms. |
| ESL Videos and Quizzes | self-study, videos, quizzes; website | This site contains videos and quizzes for all levels of learners. Can also be used in the classroom with students. |
| Learning Strategies | learning strategies; website | Chapter 2 of this website describes learning strategies and is the most pertinent. |
| Listen and Write | self-study, teacher resource; website | This website contains dictation exercises. It can be used by both students and teachers as a self-study tool. |
| National Public Radio Podcasts | self-study, podcasts, listening; website | Authentic audio, with some additional resources for teachers. |
| NCLRC Learning Strategies Questionnaire | learning strategy questionnaire; Word document | Download this Word document to assess your own learning strategies in listening and speaking. What do you use, and how often? |
| NoodleTools: Choose the Best Search for Your Information Need | self-study, online searching; website | This site lists many different tools to use when searching for good content online. While Google does very good general searches, you may want something that is designed for current news, or children, or reliable sources, etc. This is where NoodleTools can be very helpful. |
| self-study, audio; website | Authentic and classroom audio material, with resources designed for teachers. | |
| One Stop English – Integrated Skills Lesson Plans | integrated skills, lesson plans, activities; website | This site contains lessons plans for integrated skills; there are also activities and handouts. |
| One Stop English – Speaking Lesson Plans | speaking, lesson plans, activities; website | Although not always written up as formal lesson plans, this site contains many speaking activities and worksheets. |
| Phonetics – Sounds of American English |
self-study, pronunciation; website | This websites show areas of articulation and how to pronounce consonants, vowels, and dipthongs. |
| prə-nŭn’sē-ā’shən – Pronunciation Links | self-study, teacher resources; links to websites | This is a list of many, many links to both teacher resource and self-study websites. |
| Pronuncian – Pronunciation Podcasts | self-study, teacher resource; website | This website contains many podcasts about how to teach pronunciation and how to pronounce American English words. |
| Randall’s Cyber ESL Listening Lab | self-study, listening; website | Listening lessons on many different topics with pre-listening, during listening, and post-listening exercises. These are organized by level and topic. This provides a good example of how to create audio lessons. There are some video-based lessons as well. These are designed for English language learners to use on their own or in class. |
| Real English | self-study, multiple levels; website | Everyone should begin with lesson one, no matter your English level. Contains authentic speech by a variety of native and non-native speakers along with exercises. |
| Sounds of English – Pronunciation | self-study, pronunciation; website | This website contains teaching tips and exercises for teaching pronunciation including word stress, stress and intonation, and how to pronounce specific words. |
| Sounds of English – Word Stress | self-study, pronunciation; website | This website contains teaching tip and exercises focused on word stress. |
| Voice of America: Activities | self-study, many topics; website | General English topics with vocabulary, videos, quizzes. |
| Voice of America: The Classroom | self-study, authentic material; website | Authentic and classroom audio material, with resources designed for teachers. |
| Voice of America: Special English | self-study, authentic materials; website | Authentic audio material that is designed for language learners, with resources designed for teachers. |
| Technology Tools | ||
| The Best Sites to Practice Speaking | technology tool; website | This is a blog post that contains an exhaustive list of some amazing speaking practice tools. |
| Delicious | technology tool; website | This site allows you to collect, classify, share, and save your bookmarks. |
| Free Karioke | technology tool; download | A site that offers downloads. Songs are classified by type. |
| Jing | technology tool; download | Technology tool that allows you to add a recording over a screenshot or screencasts; download to use. |
| Kariokebar | music, speaking, karioke; website | A simple and easy-to-to use karioke site. |
| Rubistar | rubric creation; website | An easy-to-use website for creating rubrics. |
| Screencast-o-matic | technology tool; use online | Technology tool that allows you to add a recording over screenshots or screencasts; use online. |
| Vocaroo | audio recording; website | Very, very easy to use online tool for recording and saving audio. |
| VokiYouTube – Voki Tutorial | student use; website | Create a speaking avatar; fun for students. |
| KeepVidYouTube – KeepVid Tutorial | technology tool; website | Website that allows you to download and keep a YouTube video on your computer. |
| VideoLAN | multi-media player; download | Multi-media player that plays video and audio; saves audio files; download to use; for Mac and Windows |
| Vimeo | videos; website | This site contains a number of high-quality videos. |