EAL Resources for #skteachers

Here are some helpful links for anyone looking for EAL resources. I have used most of them and would definitely recommend the Oxford website and the Penguin ESL readers. The first few resources were provided by the ministry and I added a few of my own afterward.  Be sure to check out the Oxford English File and Azar Grammar.

EAL Resources from the Ministry of Education

A Guide to Using the CFR with EAL Learners

EAL Middle Years Modules 1-5

Publishers

• Oxford University Press: www.oup.com/elt (“Catalogue”)

• See “Graded Readers” for reading material aligned with the CFR (CEFR) levels http://elt.oup.com/cat/subjects/graded_reading/?cc=ca&selLanguage=en&mode=hub 

• See “Dictionaries” (search for Picture Dictionaries and Bilingual Dictionaries) http://elt.oup.com/teachers/opd/?cc=ca&selLanguage=en&mode=hub

• Pearson ELT (Canada). Penguin Readers: www.penguinreaders.com (“Catalogue”)
• See “Graded Readers” http://www.pearsonelt.com/products

• Heinle Cengage Learning – Affiliated with National Geographic and Nelson Education 

• Academic Vocabulary Toolkit (Dr. Kate Kinsella, author)

• In Canada Volumes 1 & 2 (Language & Literacy for English Language Learners)

Recommended Reading
Coelho, Elizabeth. 2004. Adding English. A guide to teaching in multilingual classrooms. Pippin Publishing. Don Mills, ON

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Some Resources I Like...

Azar Grammar - Love these grammar books and just discovered a great website that complements the texts. I am excited to try out some of the songs with my students.

Dave's ESL Cafe - This website has it all...lots of ideas for lesson plans on every topic related to teaching English as an Additional Language.

Busy Teacher - This website has a variety of others listed that are useful for teaching EAL including many that encourage the integration of technology in learning.

ESLPoint - Has a number of activities available online at many different levels.

Learning English with CBC Manitoba - This website is fantastic. They discuss relevant newsworthy topics, provide audio, lesson plans, and lots of great ideas. It is well worth a look if you teach EAL at the high school level in particular.

Oxford University Press English File - This is possibly the best quality website for EAL learners to play all sorts of games online to practice English. Students can choose their level and do a variety of activities and games to practice English skills. I have used this a lot in the past especially at the elementary level.

Shakespeare in Bits - This is an Ipad App that I just discovered and absolutely love. They have taken Shakespeare plays, created cartoon animations along with dialogue, summaries, notes, definitions, character lists, etc. and made Shakespeare a lot easier for EAL students to understand. I downloaded a play for my students this semester and the app really helped them understand what was happening in the play and of course they were much more engaged because they got to use an IPad! The downloads are a bit pricey at $14.99 but worth it and likely not much more than the cost of a book.

Hope that was hopeful for someone out there in the blogosphere. Please feel free to add more great websites in the comments and I will edit the list.

Livin' La Vida Loca

University of Regina from the 5th floor of the library

No reason for the Ricky Martin lyrics except that I really do feel like I'm living a crazy life.  I wish I could report I've got some exciting vacation planned like my Facebook friends who all seemed to have made it to a beach somewhere in the Caribbean this winter.  It's okay..I think you're all great and I'm just really, really jealous.  I also must remember that I had a fantastic trip to Italy a few short months ago.  It just feels like forever since last summer after this extremely long, arduous winter.

I just spent the afternoon at the university working on my thesis...here was the view from the window.  At the very least, it's a nice view and it's not hot and sunny.  I am okay with working inside when it's freezing outside.  Of course, I made the mistake of calling home to ask Jeremy for a favour and Aleena had just tossed a couple rolls of toilet paper in the toilet.  I guess things could be worse.  She's hit the terrible twos times about a hundred lately.  I'm sure Connor went through this phase but it's certainly draining.  Speaking of her, she's currently in a "time out" for throwing toys...I should check on her to make sure she hasn't destroyed anything.

Okay...back.  No major damage!

I wish I had more time for blogging and am sorry my mommy blog has been non-existent as of late.  I guess that's just part of being a Mom though...especially a full-time working Mom with way too many things on my plate.  I do have a few things I REALLY want to share soon though..like my half marathon training and my new obsesssion with all things Banana Republic and my new bestie MyFitnessPal.com.  Future posts might include some education-based rants about increased school hours or standardized testing.  I've got all sorts of things to write about!

I'm going to end this for today and read some books to the kiddos before bed.

Things that make me smile:

- Connor's knock knock jokes...here's one:

Connor: Knock! Knock!
Dad: Who's there?
Connor: Donut!
Dad: Donut who?
Connor: Donut let me go outside in the backyard by myself!

- Aleena waving into the toilet after she flushes it.  

- Connor saying: "I had a lucky pee" after a successful trip to the bathroom.

Thanks for reading! 

#ETMOOC | Digital Literacies for EALs

Welcome to my blog!  This is my first post contributing to the #ETMOOC community.  I had meant to join in the fun earlier but life is busy and time has passed me by.  However, I saw the topic for the next couple of weeks and knew I had to jump in head first because the topic was perfect.  I wrote a paper for a Masters class a couple years ago on digital literacy for EAL (English as an Additional Language) students so this is an apt time to share what I researched and documented.

Here is the paper...I had hoped to revise and make it less academic and more reader-friendly but it wasn't happening so this is better than not participating at all:  Downloading Multiliteracies into the EAL Classroom

As a follow up, I haven't used Fan Fiction with my students.  I am not too worried about making it "uncool" by presenting it to students.  I am certainly a cool enough person to get them excited enough to participate.  In fact, I might give it a try this semester with the students in my higher level literacy class.  Up to this point, my struggle with trying something like Fan Fiction has been the students' lack of fluency in writing and in computer skills.  Attempting simple blog posts have literally taken a couple of class periods and constructing a written piece let alone typing it out on the computer is extremely time consuming for students new to the language.  As a result, I concluded that a reasonable amount of technological literacy was a pre-requisite to attempting such a task and have kept it in the back of mind as something that I would still like to try someday.

I realize there were some thought provoking questions to ponder on the #ETMOOC blog and I may get around to a couple of those yet but I've got a thesis to work on and it's calling my name...and that voice is becoming increasingly louder as each day passes.  Hence, I will contribute as I can to this community and you can be sure that no blog post from this day forward will be as thorough as today's. :-)  Enjoy.