Viewing entries tagged with 'ENL'

Simple Halloween Lesson for Low Beginners

Posted by Nancy Callan on 24 October 2016 | 0 Comments

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Halloween can be disconcerting for new immigrants and refugees who may not understand what it's all about. An important role for ESL teachers is helping students crack our cultural code. 

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News Articles for Intermediate Students

Posted by Nancy Callan on 23 October 2016 | 0 Comments

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Stroke victims often suffer from aphasia, a condition that can result in anything from occasional trouble finding words to completely losing the ability to speak or read or write. Intelligence is unaffected. 

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Simple Earth Day Lesson for Low Beginners

Posted by Nancy Callan on 7 April 2016 | 2 Comments

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Who says you can't teach about Earth Day in low beginner ESL? Earth Day is a great time to discuss things we can do to live a more sustainable lifestyle and to practice simple "Do you" questions with low beginner students. 

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Intermediate Level Personal Information

Posted by Nancy Callan on 29 August 2014 | 0 Comments

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Filling in forms is one of the most common activities English language learning students have to do outside the classroom. It's a mistake to assume once students reach the intermediate level they have fully mastered the language required for those tasks. 

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Reading on a Thrift Store Business Model

Posted by Nancy Callan on 21 March 2014 | 0 Comments

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Thrift stores are becoming more popular with middle aged clothes shoppers. Seems if you don't want to wear yoga attire to work, thrift stores are some of the best sources for clothing made from a wider variety of fabrics.

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Soft Skills: Small Talk About the Weather

Posted by Nancy Callan on 15 February 2014 | 0 Comments

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Over the years I've had numerous students say they've been turned down after job interviews because they lacked local experience. If having worked locally were a prerequisite for the job, would their resumés not have precluded them from even getting the interview? More likely the experience referred to is related not to quantifiable hard skills but rather to more intangible soft skills that enable a person to "fit in", such as knowledge of local language and the ability to engage in small talk. 

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Christmas Reading for Low Beginners

Posted by Nancy Callan on 4 December 2013 | 3 Comments

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The Christmas story below is geared for literacy and low beginner ELL students. It is adapted from Callan’s Canadian Holidays for Low Beginner ESL, but is suitable for use in America as well. Further low beginner exercises on Christmas, with pictures, are found in that book. An audio CD and cloze exercise are also available. (For free material for mid-beginner or intermediate level, check out my blog post on Christmas from last year, here. Or why not try a jigsaw lesson for Christmas? Check out Callan's Holiday Jigsaws.)

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Classroom Word Search Using English Directionality

Posted by Nancy Callan on 29 November 2013 | 0 Comments

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This activity is made for an absolute beginner ESL or literacy level English language learning class, focusing on classroom verbs such as listen, speak, read, write, sit down, open, turn on, turn off etc., as well as classroom nouns, such as chair, desk, table, board, etc. A word search is a great way to reinforce this new vocabulary, but watch out for the direction words are written in.

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Go and Went Grammar Errors

Posted by Nancy Callan on 10 October 2013 | 0 Comments

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Anyone who has taught grammar in a beginner level ESL or EFL class knows that the speed and accuracy with which students complete grammar worksheets is only very weakly correlated with their ability to use the given grammatical structure later in their own speech.

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A Fun Way to Teach Body Parts

Posted by Nancy Callan on 4 October 2013 | 0 Comments

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Jigsaws aren’t the only cooperative learning activity that I do in my classroom. Here is a fun activity for reviewing body parts. I divide the class into groups of three and give each group a sheet of chart paper and a felt marker. I ask the students to take turns being the artist.

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