Education resources

Finland has the world’s best education system (Breaking News English):

http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/1211/121129-education.html

My worksheets

In the course of my teaching, I must have created hundreds of worksheets and other resources!  Most are sitting idly by on my computer, so in the coming weeks and months, I will be uploading them to this site for others to use. 

I’ve just added the first one (on the topic of classroom langauge), which can be found here.  All materials will be accessible via the Worksheets link at the top of the homepage.

Hope you will find this resource useful!

London Shop Fronts

I came across a fantastic website yesterday whilst looking for pictures of shops for a worksheet I was making for my students…

This is the London ESOL teacher’s dream!  Hundreds of amazingly clear pictures of shop fronts from across the city.   You can search the pictures by borough or by shop type, and they can be freely used and adapted as long as you credit the photographer. 

Perfect for lessons on shopping, places in the town, my neighbourhood, etc.

Reward Support Materials

Reward is a set of general English course books suitable for adults and published by Macmillan.  The books are at five different levels: starter, elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate and upper intermediate. 

On the following website is a large selection of free teaching resources that can be used to supplement the Reward course books, or as in my case, used independently.  Each activity comes with a worksheet plus teacher’s notes.

Although the course books seem to be aimed at TEFL students, I have used a number of the worksheets with my ESOL students with no or minimal changes.

Scriblink

Here is a link to an on-line whiteboard that I have found.  Not sure how/ whether I would use this in the classroom – especially if I am teaching in a classroom that already has an interactive whiteboard.  Some people may like it, however.  I’ll investigate a bit more and let you know if I find it useful!

Clock face

Here’s a link to a website where you can print a clock face – useful when teaching time.

http://www.printfree.com/Kids/ClockFace.htm

Worksheet Genius

This is a brilliant, free website where you can make worksheets for your class in no time at all. 

In the ‘English’ section, there are anagrams, bingo games, flashcards, handwriting practice, worsearches, mixed up sentences and more.  In the maths section, I have used the clocks worksheets when teaching time.  There is also a free clip-art page, plus more stuff I have yet to properly explore. 

Well worth a look … and very useful when you need to make a worksheet for that class that starts in 5 minutes’ time!  Click here to access the site.

Free Rice

Learn new words, test your English grammar or learn another language at www.freerice.com.

For each question you get correct, 10 grains of rice are donated to people who need it via the UN World Food Programme.

Look, cover, write, check

Brilliant, interactive website for teaching the look, cover, write, check method of learning spellings:

http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/lookcover/lookcover.html

What’s in the bag?

Originally designed for children (I think), this game would be good for Entry 1 or beginner learners.

http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/in_the_bag/index.html

Students are given three words and must guess what’s in the bag from a choice of three possibilities.  Many of the words students are given are quite easy, but having a dictionary to hand may help (or get the students to work in pairs at the computers so they can help each other). 

Excellent for vocab learning, and the students get to hear how the words are pronounced, too (albeit with an American accent!).