Project Based Learning: How to Create Engaging and Meaningful Learning Experiences Online
You can use activities and materials focused on Project-Based Learning to inspire your online English classroom.
Category ESL teaching theories
Fun ways to teach English outside
Here are some fun ways to teach English outside. If you have a class that meets outside, here are some fun outside ESL games you can play.
BICS and CALP in ELL or ESL
BICS stands for Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills CALP stands for Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency BICS and CALP are acronymic to help us understand how long immigrant children take to develop conversational skills versus grade appropriate academic proficiency in a new language.…
What is a morpheme?
Think of a morpheme as the tiniest possible thing you can make from language and still make sense. You can say “go” and it makes sense. You can’t make it any smaller, though. You can’t say ‘g’ or ‘o’ and…
Ebonics: Using AAVE to Teach Reading
Evidence shows that incorporating AAVE, alternately called Ebonics, into the classroom helps black children read faster. What is Ebonics? The term Ebonics is coined by Robert Williams, an African-American social psychologist, coined the term Ebonics in 1973. Ebonics means ‘black speech’…
Communicative Language Approach
Let’s talk about the Communicative Language Approach to teaching ESL: see what I did there? 😉 I think Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is one of the easiest ways to teach a foreign language. The goal of CLT is to increase the…
Is “native-speaker” of English…offensive?
Many professionals in the ESL world argue that the term “native-speaker” of English is offensive and inaccurate. It doesn’t gauge actual skills, and its inaccuracy is mired in colonialism to boot. So, what exactly is the problem with job postings…
ESL vs ELL
What is the difference between ESL vs ELL? ESL refers to students learning English as a second language in a separate class, but ELL refers to students that are in mainstream classes with native speakers. You might be more familiar…
All about Phonics
Phonological awareness, phonemic awareness vs phonics Though all three terms have to do with sound, as seen by the prefix “phon”, Phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics are distinct terms that refer to different skill sets. An early reader can…
Fun Games: Vowel Sounds
Let’s talk about some fun games to teach kids vowel sounds! I have adapted some of these for teaching vowels to online students. Young learners, especially, will benefit from these simple vowel activities. But teachers can use these vowel activities…