Google for Teachers, ESL

I have found lots of good information in the "Google for Teachers" document from freetech4teachers.com. I look forward to trying some of the features.

I also found some recommended sites for ESL students and have signed up my student. One is the usalearns.org and usalearns.org/class. I can set up a classroom or my student can register independently. I set up a class and student and plan to assign some of the reading/videos/activities for my student.

I have my ESL student going to www.eslcafe.com. Under quizzes, there is an area for idioms and confusing words. I plan to have her spend 15 min/day on this site or the above site. The other 45 minutes in my class I assist her with her homework assignments and have a small group working on study strategies.

My student wants to go to New York City to live after graduation. Through someone's recommendations, I found a set of videos about New York with English captions called "We are New York" at http://www.nyc.gov/html/weareny/html/home/home.shtml. Most of the videos are more for adult learners but have such activities as opening a checking account, finding an apartment, dating, etc., but from what I previewed so far, the content is all G-rated.

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Comment by Grace Gorman on October 11, 2011 at 8:34am: English Central is a great site. Videos with captions. You can watch and listen or you can record your own voice and get a rating on your pronunciation. If this is not a child, you could send them to the free part. If younger, you might want o control what he/she is viewing. If you are looking for reading - the International Children's Digital Library has books in all languages. It is also good for oral language. I pick a book in Arabic or something on a topic they would be familair with and have them tell the story just by looking at the pictures.

Comment by Darliss Bardwell on October 11, 2011 at 9:10pm: My student is in the 7th grade. Her pronunciation is pretty good; her problem is comprehending what she is reading. I'll check out English Central. Thanks.

Comment by Grace Gorman on October 14, 2011 at 4:56pm: The problem may be vocabulary. Even in picture books there is a lot of vocabulary that is not familiar to a second language speaker. I teach in a school where students learn English as a second language in Peru and often the English teachers have difficulty with some of the vocabulary that you or I would not even give a second thought to. It is one thing to read well enough to get the main ideas and important details and quite another to get nuances. Even though the student is in 7th grade, he/she could go back to 1st or 2nd grade books and write down the words that are unknown. Often it is the little word that is most confusing and can change the sense of an entire sentence if you miss it. A person has to experience a word at least 17 times before they know it - in their first language.

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