Sites for games and other ESL Diversions

I believe that games are great to incorporate into lessons because they raise the interest level and motivate students to learn English. I am sharing a handful of sites that I found. Please feel free to add to this list!

http://www.eslgamesworld.com/members/games/templates/index.html

This site offers a variety of ESL powerpoint game templates that you may adapt to fit into your lessons. The site also offers samples along with tutorials on how to play the game. I especially like Jeopardy which is a great way to practice vocabulary. This site also has free printable boardgames as well as various card games.

http://www.eslflow.com/games1.html

This article has a variety of communicative icebreaker games, grammar games, card games, and even a pronunciation game which focuses on word stress.

http://www.myseveralworlds.com/2007/02/13/esl-games-survivor/

I thought this is a great spin off of the traditional spelling bee. It's called "Survivor". I could see my students having a lot of fun with this and it doesn't have to take a lot of time.

http://www.mes-english.com/games.php

This site features a number of different games that could be suitable for pre-teens. I liked Big Town and Grammar Casino (although I would adapt Grammar Casino to fit their more advanced level).

http://www.esl4kids.net/games.html

This site has quite a few creative game ideas which could be suitable for most age groups. I really liked Thwibbledy-Thwap, Sentence Scramble, and Sorry. The first two are great for vocabulary building.

Useful Speaking and Pronunciation Sites

Blabberize

http://blabberize.com/

This is kind of silly but I the students in my context would have fun with it because its kind of like making a puppet where they can upload an image of an animal, cartoon character, or famous person and record their voices to make them talk. They can also listen to the ones that others have done.

The Art of Storytelling

http://voicethread.com/#home

This site gives students the opportunity to record a story based on a work of art at the museum. Students can also listen to stories that other students have created. This works a lot like creative writing, but it's creative speaking. Students could record a story about the same picture, then they could vote for the funniest or most creative.

Speaking avatar

http://www.voki.com/

This site is a free service, which allows you to create your own talking avatar. Students can customize their avatar and add it to an English blog. Teens could have a lot of fun with this.

Oral English Activities: Resources for Teachers

http://waze.net/oea/

These activities have been rated by other teachers and they are presented in order of popularity. This site divides activities into general (in which there is no particular theme and may be easily integrated into any classroom lesson), adaptable (where teachers can adapt the activities to suit a particular theme), and themes (such as food and drink, recreation, health, home, etc.) I liked the communicative crossword activity and the one question survey activities.

Speaking games for kids in Asia

http://www.teachenglishinasia.net/efl-esl-games/middle-school-efl-esl-games

This web site is full of speaking games that would be suitable for middle school students. The three kingdoms game looks like it would be a good activity to get students talking.

Reading and Writing Sites

Here are some great sites that will help teen EFL students hone their reading and writing skills. Let me know if you have any others to add to this list!

1.) Topics An Online Magazine for Learners of English

http://www.topics-mag.com/back/issues.htm

I especially liked issue #21 because there are 6 readings about wearing uniforms. All of my students have to wear uniforms everyday so they would be able to relate to these articles.

2.) 5 Minute English

http://www.5minuteenglish.com/reading.htm

This is a great site that offers stories on a variety of topics and include reading comprehension questions. They are mostly at the intermediate level. One reading that I would use for my adolescents in Korea would be "Night Study Becoming Par for Course in S. Korea". This article consists of 10 sentences. Each sentence has one grammatical error and the students are to identify the error. This story is about the growing obsession of education in Korea and how tired students get while pouring over their books. This would relate to my students since they are enrolled in an English after school program.

3.) The Learning Network: Teaching and Learning with the New York Times

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/

I love this site!!!! It features recent news items which are suitable for students 13 years of age and older. There are opinion polls that allow students to comment on issues in the news. This is a great way to practice writing skills authentically. There are also daily news quizzes and cloze exercises to aid in reading comprehension.

4.) ESL Monkeys

http://www.eslmonkeys.com/student/storyroom/storylist.php?cat=long%20story

This site features an English story reading room that would benefit teenage EFL learners. I especially liked the story titled, "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," which is about a 7th grade boy and how he deals with school and home life. Through this story EFL teens are able to gain insight into teenage life in the U.S. I think this is a great way to introduce them to the target language culture.

5.) Sticky Ball.net Resources for the frustrated teacher

http://www.stickyball.net/writing.html

This is a great site that has worksheets and activities to help hone writing skills, which are essential for students who wish to take TOEFL. This site includes quite a bit of material that focuses on transitions, sentence patterns, and essay writing.

6.) Writing Prompts

http://www.pearsonlongman.com/ae/marketing/sfesl/generaltopics.html

This site features a list of writing prompts that are suitable for middle school students.

Resources for Listening

Here are a few sites that I would recommend to help young learners improve their listening skills in English. Enjoy!

1.) The first site I recommend is one that allows young learners to learn English through the media, namely with movie clips. This site offers movie clips along with listening comprehension questions. (The Bee Movie, Shrek 2, and Mean Girls clips would be suitable for this age group.)

http://www.learnenglishfeelgood.com/eslvideo/index.html

2.) Another site I would recommend is ESL Wonderland. This site has a Halloween listening activity where students can listen to a chain story, which is fitting for this time of year! While they listen they can fill out a cloze (fill in the gap) assignment. Another listening activity that I liked was the Waste and Recycle exercise. http://www.eslwonderland.com/activities/index.htm

3.) A third site that I would recommend is the English Lesson Listening Library Online (Elllo). This site offers an array of authentic conversations on many topics by listening to speakers from different parts of the world. You can even choose a conversation by proficiency level. They are all very short and can be a great way to begin class. Topic #882 on text messaging would a good conversation for my context since these teens enjoy texting. I also like this site because there are many topics that relate to culture.

http://www.elllo.org/

4.) The last site that I would recommend for listening is Breaking News English. This site offers up to date news items on topics that are appropriate for this age group. It has an MP3 that students can click on and listen to. I used this site quite a bit in Korea because the news items in the textbook I was using were more outdated and this site offered more recent news items. It also offers warm-up and pre-listening exercises as well as post-listening exercises. Recent news items that would be good for young learners in an EFL setting are "Children can 'imagine' pain away" and "Miley Cyrus quits twitter". This is a great site that offers an integrative approach to learning.

http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/

Please share any other sites that you would recommend :)

Introduction to my blog

Purpose: The purpose of my blog is to share advice on teaching adolescents English as a Foreign Language in South Korea. The information in these posts might prove useful for those who are planning teach adolescents in Asia or for those who are currently teaching adolescents in Asia.

My Teaching Context: My teaching context consists of 7 young learners that are currently enrolled at E.C.C. (English Center for Children), which is a private English academy located in Tongyeong, South Korea. These students are around 12 and 13 years of age and are among the most advanced in the school. Their parents want them to learn English as a Foreign Language (EFL) because many Koreans see English as a tool for their child’s upward mobility within the society. This particular class takes place on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 7:30-8:10 p.m. This class is required to use a textbook called Jump Start with CNN Intermediate, where each lesson centers on a particular news item. Each lesson provides students with the opportunity to hone each of the four language skills. This institution did impose this particular textbook, however it did not impose any regulations as to how to go about teaching it which allows me a large amount of flexibility. These students do not have a lot of access to the target language outside of this classroom. They do have a local movie theater that has English movie showing and Korean television also airs a variety of shows in English (both contain Korean subtitles). A couple of other resources that are available to these students include a library which houses books in English for all levels and a computer lab where there is also a flat screen television.

Preferred Comments: I am hoping to elicit comments that will help me as well as others improve their teaching with respect to adolescents in South Korea. I welcome comments as well as links to other sites that might provide useful information.