Are you looking for some useful resources for teaching elementary school EFL/ESL students?
Perhaps you want to know how to use Interactive Whiteboards or just need some resources for them?

Well, I have what you need - and FREE!

On the "Teach" link go to "Teaching Help" and you will find both.

Under EFL/ESL elementary resources I've listed the best 65 sites for:
video, stories, reading, e-books, music & song, activities, games, writing, lesson plans, vocabulary, spelling, dictionaries, quizzes & puzzles, speaking & pronunciation, phonics & ABCs, community sharing, rhymes, colouring, animation & cartoons, test writing, printables, flashcards, presentations, screen-casting, brainstorming, audio & sounds, collaboration, stickies, podcasts, posters, search tools and a complete LMS (learning management system). Many are also suited to interactive whiteboards.

Under IWB/Smartboard resources I've listed the best 48 sites for:
training & tutorials in mastering smartboards, games, lesson plans, presentations, activities, spelling, reading, comics, worksheets, phonics and writing. The training sites have videos that will step you through everything you need to know to use IWB's effectively in class.


 

Principled Possibilities - Ideas for Teaching is a unique publication representing the summation of four years of graduate study, and my own experiences, discoveries, experiments and successes over eight years of teaching throughout Asia and the Pacific. Uniquely the book includes: - a wide selection of academic papers, conference and training presentations, and curriculum and planning documents, - links to websites and other resources for exploring the topics further and contacting the author, - ideas ranging from working with absolute young beginners to adult and upper-intermediate level students, - discussions of current challenges and controversies in teaching, - approaches to online and computer-assisted learning, and - suggestions in the field of English language teaching.  


Here is the full introduction to give you some more details:My transition from office work to education was a late one, and came about more by accident than design.

Having successfully trained as a classical musician, I realised that performance opportunities would be limited at my age, so it seemed that music education would be the most logical progression. Having successfully trained as a teacher, I discovered that music teaching opportunities would also be scarce, apart from those occasionally arising in outback Australia.

At the suggestion of a friend I decided to dip my toes into the field of English language teaching by working at a winter camp in Shanghai, China. It was the joy of that experience which sparked my desire to work and travel further.

Several training courses later I began my new career, at first in Australia with children and later with adults from Europe, South America and Asia. From there I have experienced life in the Sultanate of Brunei, Malaysia, South Korea and Taiwan, where I am presently located.

While there is much material available in the field of EFL (English as a Foreign Language), I feel that my own experiences, discoveries, experiments, successes and failures over the last eight years in a variety of settings, with children to adults, and with absolute beginners to upper-intermediate students, are worth sharing with others.

The present book, therefore, includes academic papers, conference and training presentations, and curriculum and planning papers to assist fellow educators. Many of these were developed in the context of formal tertiary training in Queensland, Australia, and refer to issues and cases from that location. Nevertheless, they are equally relevant in other English-speaking contexts.

There are also links to my Internet-based materials and websites where electronic versions of many resources included here may be found for the reader’s convenience and further exploration.

I don’t look on this publication as the final authority on all matters of English language teaching, but as part of the ongoing professional support and discussion so vital to our dynamically evolving and collaborative field. This is why I encourage readers to continue the conversation with me and others using the links given throughout.

I wish to conclude this introduction by expressing my appreciation to fellow teachers, colleagues, university staff, and members of my personal learning network who have either directly or indirectly assisted in formulating my ideas and refining my approaches to teaching. Their originality, contributions, and occasional criticism, are all deeply valued.


How can you get this book? Click on the Lulu link on my home page, or go directly here.

I posted this today on English Classroom 2.0 in response to a teacher who was having trouble tutoring a boy who only wanted to talk about his favourite cartoon character in Chinese. Perhaps something in my reply might be helpful to others having similar problems.
"Hello Cynthia,

It seems there is a more fundamental issue here - WHY are you tutoring him? If he doesn't want it, then you should speak to his parents and determine whether they are the ones that want him to learn rather than the boy himself. As they say "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."

If you really do want to persist with him, and assuming what you are offering meets his needs and is of interest to him, then I'd suggest you start pretending you don't speak Chinese, and refuse to talk to him in anything other than English. Since he is in Grade 6, there's no reason he shouldn't be able to follow you if he's already had a few years of lessons at school.

You could use the cartoon as a talking point - but only in English. Ask him questions about what happens, the names of characters, what they look like, their personalities/interests/friends etc, some of the stories. Once you have some answers from him, you can use these to build up his vocabulary e.g. feelings, colours, hobbies, actions, etc. You may be able to put together some basic stories using the characters for him to read and, in time, he might be able to write his own stories. Later it may be possible to introduce other cartoons or folk tales etc. that have similar story lines. He could subsequently write to an English-speaking friend (pen pal) about his interests and build a broader range of conversations from there. If you have Internet access there are lots of resources to create your own cartoons or better, for him to do so.

Good luck with this challenging student,"

When reading a recent post by Karenne Sylvester called "Which came first: time or tenses?" (at http://kalinago.blogspot.com/2010/11/which-came-first-time-or-tenses.html) I thought it would be fun to see what sentences looked like without changing the form of the verb, but simply using modifiers or qualifiers to suggest the tense.
The table seen on the left (with some inspiration from http://www.athabascau.ca/courses/engl/155/support/verb_tenses.htm) is my attempt to answer that question.
What I'd like to know from readers is: when you look at these sentences, can you understand what is being said? In other words, ignoring the verb form, does the sentence communicate the intended time reference?
Having written them myself perhaps I'm too close to tell, but it seems to me that simply using the basic form of the verb (infinitive without the "to") does work. In each case the reader or listener, after getting over the initial shock, ought to be able to determine when the events were taking place relative to time.
When it comes to fluency and comprehension, it begs the question of whether we are sometimes too hard on our English learners who produce utterances like these, when we actually DO know what they mean.

Hi Jason,
The idea I got from this was that unplugged approaches work with beginners as well as with those having more language.
I also found it interesting as a potential approach with EFL beginners overseas, if only we could convince schools to give up their precious (badly written) student books & workbooks.
Where it is more difficult for you is not having a common L2 among your learners, making a co-teacher arrangement useless. Where it is simpler for you is being in an English-speaking country where students are exposed to the language outside of class.
It sounds to me that you are definitely on the right track with these students, offering them what they need and want. You've also got me thinking about how a similar approach might work here in Taiwan elementary schools. Are there more sample sheets that you have developed under the "English Trees" concept?
You don't mention many specific ways of eliciting language from students. I assume, though, you might have considered student art, gesture, facial expressions, acting out, bringing in photos or realia as other possibilities.
Please keep up the action research, as good ideas are always welcome.
Thanks,
Greg.
Posted today at http://jasonrenshaw.typepad.com/jason_renshaws_web_log/2010/11/a-simple-approach-to-trees-in-the-beginners-section-of-the-orchard.html

Hi Jason,

As someone at the "coal face" I'm really enjoying the to-and-fro debate about "dogme" or "teaching unplugged".

I must agree I don't like the name "dogme" - it reminds me too much of a dog (mongrel) or of being in church. Also, I think "unplugged" is a bit negative - like something has been removed. I'm not sure what other term would be better though. Perhaps "open teaching", "liberated teaching", "selective teaching", "responsive teaching"???

Also, as you say, trying to convince government authorities, administrators, head teachers and parents that it's not necessary to use a coursebook, or to use it selectively, is an uphill battle.

The reality is that some in the EFL world are simply happy with what they know, or feel they are too poorly paid to consider it worth their time changing, or are put off by the likely negative response from above that an "unplugged" approach would induce.

I am not one of them, by the way!

While I don't always stick to the coursebook, at elementary school level I tend to devise other activities (like TPR or skits or story telling) which, though unplugged, aren't exactly spontaneously emerging from the ebb and flow of classroom talk, since that is necessarily limited by young learners' minimal exposure to, and training in, English. So, I use the framework of the coursebook with its specified curriculum, but decide in what ways I will address the content.

I suppose what I am doing is learning about the interests and experiences of students over a period of time working with them, and the indirect feedback I receive from trying particular activities, to build into the design of future lessons. Is that "emergent"?

Finally, I agree that those who have engaged in this debate could well now start consolidating resources, and putting together ideas and practical examples which would help us in the situations in which we teach, such as young learners, and large classes. After all, that probably represents the situation of most ESL/EFL teachers.

Please keep nudging us along.
Posted today at http://jasonrenshaw.typepad.com/jason_renshaws_web_log/2010/10/a-call-to-arms-on-both-sides-of-the-unplugged-fence.html

Hi Jason,

I would echo your feelings about the differences between EFL and ESL students, though in EFL elementary schools I've found respect and motivation levels are as high as in ESL ones, though for different reasons. I agree that this changes when students move to high schools.

I think this stems largely from three factors, namely (a) minimal consequences for low performance (you don't need English to survive in your home country), (b) the influence of the local culture and (c) management of language programs by EFL speakers in educational administrations.

As an addition, I would also mention that teachers' own circumstances vary considerably from EFL to ESL situations. Living in one's own country with all the support networks, home comforts and L1 administrators makes it easier to survive and thrive. Here in Taiwan (and when I worked in Korea) I'm officially an "alien"! and at times it really feels that way.

Nice post, Greg.

Posted today at http://jasonrenshaw.typepad.com/jason_renshaws_web_log/2010/10/esl-versus-efl-is-there-a-difference.html