Secondary ESOL Links

Reading/Writing

• ABC's of the Writing Process: Specific Graphic Organizer Links

  A great resource to help students analyse texts and structure their ideas before they begin writing.

• Alphabet Organizer

  Students can use this tool to create such things as an alphabet book or for discussing background knowledge on a topic they are beginning to study.

• Beyond the Fire :Teen Experiences of War

  Real-life stories of 15 teenagers, now living in the U.S., who have survived living in war zones. Interactive site with teaching resources that are aimed at mainstream students.

• Building Comprehension through Explicit Teaching of Comprehension

  Nell Duke's presentation to the second annual MRA/CIERA Conference, September 22, 2001 (PDF).

• English - Writing (BBC Schools)

  Short, interactive revision of structure and content of transactional and other writing.

• Grammatical Knowledge for Teachers

  A series of modules for teachers to build traditional grammatical knowledge (the UK National Literacy Strategy).

• LearnEnglish

  A British Council site. It offers opportunities to learn and practise English online. It is aimed at the intermediate learner.

• Paragraphs Game

  Drag the pictures of a road accident or a cricket game into the right order. Practise sequencing sentences to build a paragraph (BBC - Skillswise Words).

• Thinking about How Language Works

  This Assessment Resource Bank resource describes sentence structures, how ideas are linked within and between sentences, and how information is condensed in academic writing. Useful for teachers and students.

• The Why Files: Science Behind the News

  Great site for reading texts. Short, high interest, great graphics.

• Writing in English as an Additional Language

  Research report commissioned by Ofsted (the British Office for Standards in Education)to examine the writing of students who, while at an advanced stage of education, may be under-achieving in English. Written by Lynne Cameron (PDF).

• Aardvark's English Forum

  Comprehensive portal with resources for students and teachers.

• Artsedge: All the News That's Fit to Print

  Useful lesson plans to scaffold learning as students write, design, and produce a newspaper - in this case based on the Cinderella story.

• Artsedge: One Story, Many Tales

  Through the study of various versions of Cinderella beginner level ESOL students practise their reading, writing, oral, and technology skills.

• Assessing Reading Growth with Running Records

  A clear, brief summary of Marie Clay's running record (An Observational Survey of Early Literacy Achievement, 1993).

• The Author Yellow Pages

  A searchable directory of historical and contemporary author websites.

• BBC - Skillswise Words - Summarising

  This module helps learners improve their summarising skills by extracting the main points from written and oral texts.

• BBC Learning English

  Rich site including listening, reading, vocabulary sections.

• BBC World Service: Learning English

  Combine language skills with current events. The "Words in the News" section is particularly useful.

• Best New Zealand Poems

  An online collection of poems from contemporary New Zealand poets.

• Big Dog's Grammar

  Simple, entertaining explanations and exercises to reinforce basic grammatical concepts, especially about sentence structure.

• The Big6

  A clear outline of the steps in the research/information problem solving process.

• Bookbox

  Information and activities on children's writers and their books.

• Books and Films which Inspire Teachers

  You might find something encouraging here.

• Building Reading Comprehension Through Think-Alouds

  Think-alouds can improve reading comprehension and help students to develop the ability to monitor their reading comprehension.

• CanTeach: Writing Prompts/Journal Topics

  The "What would happen if..." prompts are useful for teaching the language of probability.

• The Compleat Lexical Tutor

  Analyse the vocabulary difficulty of your text.

• The Compleat Lexical Tutor: Analysis of Word Difficulty in Text

  Paste a text you have written here to make a vocabulary profile of your writing.

• Conceptual Development in Technical and Textbook Writing: A Challenge for L1 and L2 Student Readers

  Alan Jones writes about the complexity of reading technical text for first year university students and suggests ways teachers can prepare students through carefully designed exercises.

• Connecting Students to Culturally Relevant Texts

  A case study of how connecting a reader with one culturally relevant book can launch a learner on the path to academic success.

• Dave's ESL Café

  A popular site with news updates, forums for students and teachers, a graffiti wall, an ideas page for teachers, an on-line help centre for students and much more.

• Digitales

  Traditional storytelling meets the Internet in a site which includes resources, examples and training opportunities to inspire the creation of digital narratives.

• Eats, Shoots & Leaves

  A website to accompany the Lynn Truss punctuation book.

• The English Department

  Lots of reading comprehension exercises based on current news and short stories. Advanced level.

• English-to-go.com

  Up-to-date resources based on Reuters® news articles. Some free lessons.

• ESL go

  ESL go.com aims to give ESOL students help learning English as a second language through free ESL classes and free English practice message boards. Teachers can share teaching activities.

• Eslgold.com

  Hundreds of pages of graded ESOL materials. The language is not embedded in a context.

• Everyday Routines

  An activity focusing on the present tense and its use for talking about everyday activities. (The ESL Wonderland).

• Features of Text Forms

  Structure and language of different types of text forms.

• From Caveman to Spaceman

  Listen and read. A cartoon on the evolution of the human species. From BT Education.

• Further Notes on the Four Resources Model (Luke and Freebody)

  This short paper reviews the relevance of Luke and Freebody's model of the reader's roles - code breaker, meaning maker, text user, text critic (Readingonline).

• Guardian Weekly TEFL update

  Links to email versions of the materials and lesson from the 'Learning English' sections of the Guardian Weekly.

• A Guide to Grammar and Writing

  Charles Darling's extensive collection of grammar, writing exercises and quizzes for the advanced student. At word, sentence and paragraph level.

• Guided Reading

  A clear description, from the Department of Education, Tasmania.

• Guidelines for Teaching Middle and High School Students to Read Well: Six Features of Effective Instruction

  16-page research-based booklet from the Center on English Learning and Achievement (CELA, 2000).

• Handbook of Reading Research

  Chapter summaries from the Handbook of Reading Research: Volume III, 2000, (Readingonline).

• The Highwayman

  Alfred Noyes's poem with a focus on alliteration, metaphor, personification and simile.

• How-to Guide to Writing Book Reports

  Practical scaffolding for book report writing.

• Idiom Site

  An extensive collection of idioms with explanations.

• International Reading Association - Literacy Links: Resources for Teachers and Parents

  Links for teachers and parents.

• Learning Resources

  Simplified newspaper articles with interactive learning activities. This material is intended for adult literacy educational purposes, but is useful for senior/advanced ESOL students.

• Literature on Early Literacy Instruction in Four Languages (Chinese, Korean, Navajo, Russian)

  A summary of evidence-based research on how reading is taught to Chinese, Korean, Navajo and Russian children. The aim is to deepen understanding of how literacy is defined differently across cultures and how the language of a people affects the way reading is taught (revised 2003, University of Minnesota).

• London Online: E-learning Collaborative Project

  Interactive multimedia materials developed to support the Skills for Life ESOL Curriculum. Units of work on health, jobs, neighbourhood, friends and shopping. Not quick to load.

• Make Beliefs Comix

  Students create 3-panel comics using tools provided. Can be used for activities such as vocabulary practice, prewriting and summarising

• The Music Archive for the Pacific

  Established by the Southern Cross University, Lismore, Australia.

• Myths, Folktales and Fairy Tales

  Teaching resources from Scholastic.

• National Education Monitoring Project

  2006 reports - Writing, Listening and Viewing, Health & Physical Education.

• National Geographic Online

  Reading for senior students.

• The New Zealand Dictionary Centre

  From Victoria University. Activities for students such as "Unravelling NZ English usage for newcomers" (PDFs).

• OWL Online Writing Lab – Professional Readings and Online ESOL Journals

  This site has a large collection of activities for senior students.

• Pacific Islands Literature

  Links to literature and writers of the Pacific

• Pacific Literature Authors

  Links to Pasifika authors.

• Paragraph Construction: The Hamburger Model

  How to teach students to write a paragraph using a real hamburger. From teacher Steven Charlton.

• Paragraph Punch

  An online tutorial dealing with the steps of writing a basic paragraph. For advanced students.

• The Paragraph:Topic Sentence Development

  Illustrations of the various ways of developing a topic at the paragraph level - adding detail, examples, contrast, comparison.

• Parapal Online English Exercises

  Interactive listening, writing, reading, vocabulary and grammar exercises.The site includes software for schools and teachers to use. (Uses Flash Player.)

• Penguin Dossiers

  Monthly articles - Penguin Reader level 3. Archive of past Penguin Dossiers and worksheets. Dossiers include reading and listening practice, and vocabulary building.

• Phil Shapiro Websequiturs

  A shareware program for windows that lets you create reading exercises on the web where students have to figure out which phrase comes first and next in a reading passage.

• PIZZAZ! ... People Interested in Zippy and Zany Zcribbling

  Simple, creative writing and oral storytelling activities with copyable handouts for use with students of all ages.

• Poetry for Children: Internet School Library Media Center (ISLMC)

  Designed for primary and junior secondary school teachers, librarians, parents and students to preview selected WWW poetry sites.

• Pronoun Reference

  An exercise to help students recognise loose reference.

• Proteacher

  The grammar and punctuation section of the proteacher site has suggestions for developing student's writing skills by focusing on such things as action verbs and adjectives.

• Punctuate This!

  From the Eats, Shoots and Leaves site, a quick test of your punctuation skills.

• Readability Test

  Reading level algorithms that can be helpful in determining how readable your content is.

• Reading - Interacting with Texts

  Directed activities related to texts (DARTs) help students engage with texts and make them more critical readers (the British Council, BBC).

• Reading for English Language Learners

  From Ohio ESL.

• Reading in a Second Language

  Ppt. from San Diego University. Links to other reading resources.

• The Reading Matrix Online Journal

  This journal explores issues related to L2 reading, L2 literacy in general, and other issues related to second language learning and teaching.

• Reading Signs in English

  An American photo collection of commonly used signs.

• Rhetoric

  Over 5000 full text audio and video versions of American public speeches, sermons, debates and interviews.

• Sai's Lost Horse

  A bilingual Chinese folktale.

• School Journal Teachers' Notes Part 3 & 4

  The School Journal Teachers’ Notes for Parts 3 and 4 are available online only. They follow a similar format to those for Parts 1 and 2, with a focus on teaching purpose.

• Science and Technology

  Readings with visual and written text from Ohio University, ESL section.

• Secondary Literature Texts

  An alphabetical listing of texts commonly used in NZ secondary English classrooms - with accompanying links to online resources (English Online).

• Secondary School Texts: English Online

  An annotated list of novels, non-fiction text and films used by NZ secondary school English teachers - divided into junior and senior secondary.

• Sentence Construction Game

  You must jump on the correct logs to complete the sentence and get Bryan the beaver safely to the other side. This game has sound. (BBC Skillswise Words)

• Skillswise: Words: Grammar (BBC)

  Practice in making sentences, putting sentences together, writing instructions, double negatives and much more.

• Skillswise: Words: Reading (BBC)

  Skimming, scanning exercises and information about text types.

• Skillswise: Words: Writing (BBC)

  Find out how to build sentences and organise your writing into paragraphs.

• Stories to Read and Tell: Africa

  Stories, legends and folktales from Africa.

• Stories to Read and Tell: China

  Stories, legends and folktales from China.

• Stories to Read and Tell: Egypt

  Stories, legends and folktales from Egypt.

• Stories to Read and Tell: India

  Stories, legends and folktales from India.

• Strategies for Building Comprehension of Informational Text

  Nell Duke on the importance of teaching strategies for comprehending informational text (PDF).

• Supporting Older Emergent Readers in Becoming Bilingual and Biliterate

  Suggestions for providing students with the academic language and concepts that are crucial to success in their secondary school classes.

• Takako's Great Adventure

  Read and listen to the story of a Japanese girl's fictional adventures in Canada. Includes cloze, sequencing and multiple choice activities.

• TalkWorks Comic Online

  An animated comic book with games and exercises that help build communication skills. For primary, intermediate and secondary school students. From BT Education.

• Teachit Classroom Discussion: Which Books Would You Leave on a Bus?

  Recommended reading for teachers by teachers.

• Tools for Reading, Writing, & Thinking

  This site has a wide variety of graphic organisers.

• Types of Text

  A three level quiz to test students' knowledge about text types and a test with a quiz based game (BBC - Skillswise Words).

• United Nations Literacy Decade

  For those with an interest in literacy globally, in literacy statistics and best practice by region.

• Up the Creek

  This bilingual interactive website from the Department of Conservation introduces concepts about biodiversity in waterways by focusing on the life cycle of whitebait. Intended for level 3 and 4 of the New Zealand curriculum, the resource includes teachers' notes and ideas for class discussions and activities.

• Using Email with Foreign Language Learners

  From the Internet TESL Journal.

• Virtual Field Trips

  You will find virtual field trips on science, literature, social studies, and other topics.

• Wacky Web Tales

  Students supply individual words and the programme creates a wacky story using the words. Includes a focus on parts of speech.

• Webquest Directories: English Online

  A directory of useful webquest sites.

• Who Am I?

  Lesson plan for writing an eight-line autobiographical poem (from Education World).

• Words Without Borders

  Aims to introduce western readers to other points of view. Examples of poetry from the Middle East, China and South America as well as both fiction and non-fiction works from the Korean peninsula, the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and many other countries.

• Write Away! Writing by Australian Migrants Learning English

  Short stories from adults from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds.

• Writing for English Language Learners

  From Ohio ESL.

• The Writing Process Web

  A writing site for students and teachers to learn more about the various stages of writing.

• Yahooligans News

  News stories (including slide shows) for school students.