Resource Description: Jennifer Uhler, Branch Chief for Regional Programs in the Office of English Language Programs, U.S. Department of State, shares information of interest to our TESOL Teacher Educator community regarding the English Language Fellows Programs and other initiatives.

Resource Type: Teaching Tips

Resource Description: Brains Sparks Labs has just introduced an iPhone app for ESL learners and teachers. It has 1200 open ended questions to start using English in a class room or small group. It can be found by going to the iPhone App store and doing a search on 'Brain Sparks Labs'. The app is named Conversation Starters - Language.

Resource Type: Activities

Resource Description: Lesson plan that contains various activities to help teach adjectives to ESL students.

Resource Type: Lesson Plans

Resource Description:

Learning grammar can be a tedious task especially for students who grew up in other countries where the process of learning grammar is quite different from what they experience here.  The following are seven tips that can help a grammar teacher make the learning experience fun, interesting, and productive for students. An acrostic based on the word grammar is used to make these tips easy to remember.

Resource Type: Teaching Tips

Resource Description: This purpose of this lesson is to teach students to properly identify inappropriate components of thesis statements.  

Resource Type: Lesson Plans

Resource Description: This lesson teaches ELLs how to effectively break down a summary writing prompt, thus showing them exactly what it is they are to write about and how to extract the correct information from a source for writing.

Resource Type: Lesson Plans

Resource Description: This is a teaching aid tool that helps students with navigation across numerous verbs and tenses. I have built it as a practical teaching-aid tool for my classes. I use it on a daily basis with my students. They say that it helps them to see a general picture of English language and to navigate across English grammar smoothly.

This website is a part of my «Grammar Navigator» concept, which I invented and develop as a project for English language teachers and learners. The site is far from being perfect (and I know it!) but this is the best I can do for the moment. I plan to do improvements on-the-go should this concept be accepted by teaching community. I hope that this tool will help you make your teaching easier and more efficient.

Resource Type: Teaching Tips

Resource Description: This presentation was organized by the International Teaching Assistants Interest Section and is recorded a few minutes after the start. A successful teacher is one who knows his or her own strengths and embraces their unique characteristics in the classroom. Alexis Finger and Anne Politz will discuss a reflective project that guides International Teaching Assistants in identifying and forming their teaching persona. Sample reflective activities will be shared.

Resource Type: Teaching Tips

Resource Description: ELL Methods Course for Teacher Education Students: An Interactive Conversation.

Resource Type: Teaching Tips

Resource Description: Facilitator:  Dr. Betsy Gilliland, Assistant Professor of Second Language Studies, University of Hawaii

As writing teachers, we may sometimes feel like published research does not understand the realities of our classrooms. A promising activity reported in a journal article seems impossible to enact under the actual circumstances of our workplaces. At the same time, we don’t feel like we have the time or know-how to conduct research on our own. This is where action research comes into play. In an action research study, teachers ARE the researchers, selecting the focus and methods of a study and analyzing data from their deep knowledge of their own classrooms. Action research can be done within the busy schedules of most writing teachers and can further allow teachers to create their own professional development in ways that meet their actual needs.
In this online session, I will give a short introduction to the concepts of action research in language teaching and then facilitate an interactive discussion among participants around key questions about action research. We will share ideas for conducting research, forming research groups for peer support, finding research mentors, and sharing research findings, among other topics.

Resource Type: Teaching Tips

Resource Description: Dr. Gulbahar Beckett discusses how TESOL teacher education prepares candidates for roles in IEPs.  Dr. Beckett is Professor of TESOL at Iowa State and the director of the Intensive English and Orientation Program there.

Resource Type: Teaching Tips

Resource Description: This is a lesson plan appropriate for advanced learners of English and is especially applicable to English for Specific Purposes (ESP) classrooms. In this case, the specific purpose is the fields of science and technology, areas in which students engaging with this lesson would be interested. The lesson uses TED talks to stimulate interest in the topic and build student confidence in perception and production of complex scientific words. 

Resource Type: Lesson Plans

Resource Description:

Joint IATEFL/TESOL Web Conference
19 November 2016

Chaired by Christine Coombe

Resource Type: Live Event Resources

Resource Description:

Joint IATEFL/TESOL Web Conference
19 November 2016

When educators think of teacher associations, what usually comes to mind are the traditional conferences. While it is true that traditional conferences are a unique opportunity to connect with other educators and grow professionally, they are not the only sources of professional development. This talk addresses alternative conference formats that have been explored by the Brasilia Braz-TESOL chapter, aimed at differentiating teacher development. It also focuses on how teacher associations have provided other means and resources of teacher development by way of newsletters, blogs, and webinars, among others, and explores ideas for more teacher-led and innovative initiatives.

Resource Type: Live Event Resources

Resource Description:

Joint IATEFL/TESOL Web Conference
19 November 2016

The TESOL International Association is the largest association of its kind in the world. In its current three-year Strategic Plan (2015-2018), there are five main goals, one of which is ‘Professional learning and Engagement’: “TESOL will provide English language teaching professionals with the necessary body of knowledge, tools, and resources to enhance their expertise and practice”. Within that goal there are a number of objectives, including to “expand the variety and reach of professional learning opportunities” and to “incorporate relevant research and development into TESOL professional learning”. In this presentation, we will look at how the Association achieves these objectives. 

Resource Type: Live Event Resources