Author: myanez

New Post Notification Emails

myanez

Our email notifications on new posts on the Teacher’s Blog have changed. Our previous method no longer worked and we’ve switched to a new plugin.

  • If you were previously subscribed, you will automatically start receiving the new emails.
  • If you have not yet subscribed, please do so by following the instructions in the Welcome Post .

There are a few recent Blog changes to tell you about but rather than bombard you with multiple post notifications, this post will link you to the other new (or recent) posts that you should know about

Blog Blast #6

myanez

Blog Blasts have been on hold during the summer and then delayed due to problems with our post notification emails. But we are BACK!

This Blog Blast is not on the English blog but instead about the Job Skills & Opportunities Blog. Its structure has slowly changed over the last few months.

  • Our category links on the right hand side bar have been reorganized to follow a career path exploration
    • Know Yourself- Self Assessment
    • Explore Careers Options
    • Skill Development Links
    • Workplace Skills Development
    • Searching For a Job
    • Applying For a Job
  • We have additional categories for 
    • Workplace Rights
    • Volunteer Opportunities
    • Financial Skills Development
    • Job Related ESL Activities 
  • We continue to post any job fair or events that may help our students but we have dropped listing specific job postings (too labor intensive and hard to keep accurate).

Please take a look at the Job blog and let your students know what is available there!

Check out the new Digital Literacy Guide Link

myanez

The Maryville University’s Digital Literacy: A Comprehensive Guide to Modern Education Technology was recently added to the Central Blog’s  Computer and Technology links.

It has links to  MANY digital literacy resources, recommended apps for students, and Online learning tools & resources.  It’s a good resource for any computer  training you may want to give to your students. 

 It  also has a link to  DigitalLearn.org which has short but detailed presentations designed to teach users how to do specific actions online.  These videos can be VERY useful in your classroom. I’ve used the online health information to teach my students how to access MedlinePlus. Check out these examples:

They also include PDFs of the complete presentations so you may just take out sections you like as handouts.

Convocation Info

myanez

There is a new page “Convocation -2019” under the Great Workshops category that captures some of the information shared in our recent meeting. Please check it out and send me any more links or information that should be shared from those sessions. 

Relating to that session, I’ve added links to:

Around Raleigh

myanez

The Central Blog has a great page called “Around Raleigh” that can be very useful in our classes at this time of year. With pleasant weather finally arriving and spring break around the corner, it’s a good time to let our students know the variety of interesting attractions in Raleigh.  It’s also perfect for a practical  Around the Town lesson.  

The Around Raleigh page lists previously published Civics blog posts that describes museums, parks, pools and so much more.

Take a look and you won’t be disappointed!

Graphic Organizers for Your Lessons

myanez

In the recent ELPS Professional Development session, there was some discussion of graphic organizers. They can be part of the support and scaffolding that teachers supply to students. Many graphic organizers are used in various academic endeavors so it is important that students get familiar with them. 

The Teacher’s Blog has a new link category on the left  sidebar called “Web Tools- Graphic Organizers.” Please take a look and you may find the perfect template to use as is or one that you can customize for your lesson.  The first link for Teach-nology is of special interest because  within the list of graphic organizers is a link to 

If you can recommend any other useful graphic organizer to add to the blog ( or as an app to our IPads) please send me an email or leave a comment here. 

Blog Blast #6

myanez

The next category in our series of getting to know the English Blog is “Pronunciation”, an area that our students struggle with. They can use these links to help them with making specific sounds, discriminating between sounds (using minimal pairs for example), reductions and stress tips.

  Let’s look at  the highlighted external links:

We are always looking for more good student sites for this difficult subject . If you have any that are not listed, please add a comment and let us know.

Wonderful Series of Speech Videos Perfect for Our Students

myanez

A thanks to Elizabeth Reed for introducing me to a series of videos that can be easily used in our classes. 

Take a look at the “English Speeches with Big SubTitles”  – it has inspiring speeches ranging from Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I  Have a Dream” to Will Smith “How to Face Fear” to  Jack Ma Alibaba’s “We Never Give Up” and many more.  Videos range from as short as 2 minutes to about 1/2 hour.  Each has clear, large subtitles that help our students follow the speech easily.

Here is an example: 

A link to this video series has also been added to the Video category on the left.

Blog Blast #5

myanez

The 5th category in our series of getting to know the English Blog is “Listening”, a topic that includes songs and who doesn’t like music?  This category is focused on practicing listening skills through natural dialogs, dictations and song exercises.

  Let’s first review the highlighted external links:

  • Real English  –  lessons with videos showing random people on the streets from different English speaking countries talking.  
  • Randall’s Listening Lab: Many of you know this site has hundreds of short audios. Choose your level and topic. Listen to a conversation. Take a short quiz to see how much you understood. You can do more vocabulary exercises, too. Great to use in the classroom too!
  • Daily ESL is a new spin-off from Randall’s Lab. It helps students build their speaking skills  through Conversation Starters centered around every day topics.
  • Dictation Finder – index that  makes it easy to find a dictation topic you like at the right level for you.
  • Talk English – has over 900 short audio /video lessons around every day conversions, business dialogs and grammar structures.
  • Learn English Through Songs –  Each video explains the vocabulary in the song
  • Lyrics Gap Exercises   and Lyrics Training both have hundreds of popular songs with pre-made exercises at easy,medium, hard levels.  Listen up and fill in missing words in the song lyrics.

We have two page of more links here – one focused on songs  ….Song Links and the second on any other type of listening activities    ….More Listening Links. Please look through some of the links on these pages to see what is available.