Resource Description: As teachers, our attitudes, emotions, and motivations define how we approach our professional roles. As Palmer (2007, p. 1) states, “we teach who we are’. In this webinar, we will focus on our professional well-being and specific steps we can take to ensure we are in the best possible frame of mind to teach to the best of our abilities in a sustainable way. 

Resource Type: Virtual Seminars

Resource Description: This video talks about non-defining relative clauses and why we use them.  It features creating a relative clause and adding it to another sentence in 4 steps.

Resource Type: Teaching Tips

Resource Description:

This is a brief introduction to two general library databases that bilinguals (Spanish/English) in their early experiences with the research process. 

The database, Opposing Viewpoints in Context, provides overview articles, pro/con on social issues, reports, images, streamed videos, and other resources.  This database is especially useful to English learners because the concepts are presented in simplified language.  It can be used as a scaffold to more complex research where academic and professional terms are used in more sophisticated sentence structures.  

The second database, Proquest Newspapers, introduces English learners to digitized news items.  Vocabulary is not highly academic and professional so students can understand the concepts. 

Both databases can be used in conjunction with Google Scholar, Wikipedia, Twitter Feeds, Blogs, etc. Learners will learn to compare and contrast types of information found in library databases and internet websites.

The presentation also explains how to introduce English learners to citation creators, email apps, creating folders, organizing materials, etc.  These are important skills needed in the twenty-first-century global environment for academic, professional, and personal research.

Resource Type: Teaching Tips

Resource Description:

This is the first lesson of the Unit.  Students will read [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] by e.e. Cummings. Students will learn about metaphors and how to create their own so that they will be able to write their own poem at the end of the unit.

The final poem can be accompanied by an art project depicting the poem's meaning.  Emphasis is on reading, writing, and creativity.

Resource Type: Lesson Plans

Resource Description: This video talks about Passive Voice and how it's used.  It features 4 steps to go from Active Voice to Passive Voice.

Resource Type: Teaching Tips

Resource Description: As teachers, we usually need games for testing how much our students have progressed as well as motivating students or filling in the remaining time of a class in a meaningful way. You can use these two games with any class level as they will be competing against each others.

Resource Type: Activities

Resource Description:

This ​handout with worksheet introduces four ways to introduce a direct quotation using a simple signal phrase with a reporting verb and an in-text citation. It includes a memorable template and chart for students to follow.  The selected passage also allows an instructor to address the important first step of actually deciding which sentence in a passage is worthy of quoting. 

Resource Type: Activities

Resource Description:

In this unit, international students explore the concept of academic honesty in the USA and then practice paraphrasing in order to avoid plagiarism. The unit can be divided into separate lessons. The notes under each slide describe the focus and activity. Students start by describing their experience and feelings about using expert sources in academic writing. Then students analyze examples of effective and ineffective paraphrases using a checklist. The handout provides ​two kinds of practice.  Part 1 helps ​students recognize effective and ineffective paraphrases. Part 2 provides three advanced passages for students to practice creating original paraphrases.  

Resource Type: Lesson Plans

Resource Description: Typely is a free online proofreading application. Typely is precise. Existing tools for proofreading raise so many false alarms that their advice cannot be trusted. Instead, the writer must carefully consider whether to accept or reject each change.

We aim for a tool so precise that it becomes possible to unquestioningly adopt its recommendations and still come out ahead — with stronger, tighter prose. Better to be quiet and authoritative than loud and unreliable.

Resource Type: Assessments

Resource Description: A song activity by Adelle that provides practice of verbs in simple past

Resource Type: Activities

Resource Description: Students act as HOSTS and MYSTERY GUESTS on a TV program. Teacher offers guidance through a HOST worksheet and a MYSTERY GUEST worksheet. 

Resource Type: Activities

Resource Description: Observation and conferencing can be extremely effective for promoting the growth of any teacher, from novices to seasoned experts. However, without a principled approach, opportunities for improvement can be lost and damage can be done. This virtual seminar will examine the stages of teacher observation and the principles that make it most effective, from pre-observation conversations to post-observation conferences and beyond.

Resource Type: Virtual Seminars

Resource Description: With the increase of great videos from online sources such as MOOCs, TED, YouTube Channels, and other useful sites, more and more educators and learners of language are relying on video and audio as their main source of language input. Additionally, the development of smartphones and other mobile devices have made taking and sharing good quality videos easier than ever. So through this seminar, the presenter will guide you through some DIY (do-it-yourself) methods to create your own simple but useful videos for your English language teaching environment. These videos could be used for effective instructional purposes, student projects, as well as for your own professional development.

Resource Type: Virtual Seminars

Resource Description:

In intermediate ESL writing courses, students learn a great deal of vocabulary related to writing in English. These vocabulary words and phrases are used throughout their writing courses to discuss how to write paragraphs, essays, and research papers. The vocabulary words will also be used in future ESL writing courses. This lesson is designed to help students review writing vocabulary to prepare for a midterm or final exam. It also challenges them to “think on their feet” as they explain what the vocabulary words mean to their classmates.

Resource Type: Lesson Plans

Resource Description: Being able to use adjectives correctly in sentences is essential to write well in English. Adjectives add details and description to sentences. This lesson is included in a “parts of speech” unit for a beginning-intermediate ESL writing course. It is a group activity that gives students practice using adjectives in sentences. 

Resource Type: Lesson Plans