I'm pleased to announce a new page on 'Teacher Greg's Education Home'.

The motivation for it came from my desire to engage the many colleagues with whom I work, in a conversation about ELICOS (English Language Intensive Course of Study) and EAP (English for Academic Purposes) programs and how they operate at my institution. Like many workplaces, the pressures of just keeping on top of the teaching have meant that opportunities for genuine discussion, sharing and reflection have become rare, formal meetings have become ineffectual, and inefficiencies have naturally arisen as a result.

'TESOL forums' will be a chance to recover lost ground, to re-ignite the discussion, and to move forward in more practical ways. It will take some effort to 'sell' the idea and overcome the hesitation of others, but I'm taking the first steps while hoping this will lead them to continue the conversation.

Those who expect moments of change to be comfortable and free of conflict have not learned their history. -Joan Wallach Scott
Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. -Maria Robinson

If you are looking for support in working with primary-aged students (or even lower secondary) of ESL or EFL, including ways of using "Smartboards", here's a great start to get you going.

I've now compiled the "best of" links for these two categories, and am pleased to offer them to you.

The first is a collection of the best 65 sites for elementary ESL/EFL students and teachers. 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.

The second is a collection of the best 48 sites for learning how to use interactive white boards, such as Smartboard, and resources to use in class with elementary ESL/EFL students. 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.These are real time-savers and are ones I've used. Many are also recommended by leading educationists in the field. 

If you click on the link below it will take you to ALL of my bookmarks, images, videos and documents at Zootool. You can search for items using keywords. Click on the resulting images to see more details of the site and tags for each. Click on the title to go to the page. 

With over 1,900 items and 900 tags you will find lots for teaching & learning English as well as many other general interest categories.

The link is: http://zootool.com/user/gregqbear/