While searching the internet for some material for my class, I happened upon a site called Scribd. I had seen it before but never at a time when I was actually looking for something. According to the site, Scribd is “the world’s largest document sharing community… There are lots of things you can do on Scribd, [including] upload and share your documents and find interesting documents by category, by topic group, by searching, or by just browsing our library.”

What does this actually mean? (more…)

“Great American Stories I” is a free ESL/EFL reader for beginning-intermediate to intermediate readers. It contains eight stories by famous American writers carefully adapted for the ESL/EFL learner. As the book progresses from story to story, the vocabulary, grammar, and structure increase in difficulty. Through pre- and post reading activities, as well as strategic use of repetition, this book strives to engage readers in the activity of reading while building  an understanding of the material itself.

Great American Stories I (PDF)

There are also some more current options that are not free, but worthwhile exploring for a long term addition to your curriculum.

A Year In the Life of an ESL (English Second Language) Student: Idioms and Vocabulary You Can’t Live Without currently $28.95 at Amazon.com

For Here or To Go?: An ESL Reader currently $19.95 at Amazon.com

As always, you can check out your local library to see if they have either of these books or can suggest other options. The New Milford Public Library has a special section dedicated to supporting ESL tutors.

As part of ProLiteracy’s work with their partner, the Home Safety Council, they created three 4-page comic-like stories related to safety. You can view them or download them for free at the following URLs. You can duplicate them for use with students in your program.

Fire safety
http://www.homesafetycouncil.org/expert_network/en_hslp_p009.pdf (NOTE: This link is no longer available)

Escape Planning
http://www.homesafetycouncil.org/expert_network/en_hslp_p010.pdf (NOTE: This link is no longer available)

Disaster Preparedness
http://www.homesafetycouncil.org/expert_network/en_hslp_p008.pdf (NOTE: This link is no longer available)

You can see the complete list of materials available for free download at
http://www.homesafetycouncil.org/expert_network/en_literacy_w012.aspx

During a recent thread on a ProLiteracy forum, a question came up about ways to get students to speak English outside of the classroom. Here is a summary of some of the ideas as well as some interesting caveats. (more…)

As you may have experienced as a tutor – sometimes the best laid plans for a class lesson either prove to be too much for one class or too little. I often find myself adjusting the homework assignment I have planned out to accommodate for a change like this. Come the next week, however, I have likely forgotten exactly what I assigned. (more…)

The Winter 2008 issue of Notebook from ProLiteracy (not the most recent Spring 2008 issue) has 5 full pages on changes to the citizenship test, why the changes were made, and samples to practice from. You can find a PDF of this newsletter in our Tutor Central area under Useful Files. If your student(s) are preparing to take the citizenship test, you can download and print the relevant pages and bring copies to your next class for discussion and review.

The section on the new citizenship test starts on page 6.

This season’s issue of Notebook, an informative and rich newsletter from ProLiteracy and available only to their members, can be found in our Tutor Central area under Useful Files.

This issue provides lessons and materials in the areas of Listening & Speaking, Reading, Writing, and Numeracy, with an interesting student profile at the end of the newsletter. Don’t wait to read this issue. Each activity is full of sample worksheets and all can be relevant in most classrooms.

By Heidi Stephens
Developmental Editor
News for You

It’s hard to find any teaching tool more relevant or authentic than a newspaper. Here are three activities to consider when planning lessons:

1. Send students on a “treasure hunt” to find grammatical structures. Give them a sheet that lists the structures they should find (e.g., three present-tense verbs, three past-tense verbs, three adjectives, three proper nouns, one abbreviation, and a comparative adjective).
2. Have learners rewrite headlines in the form of complete sentences, using proper capitalization and punctuation.
3. Choose a photo in the newspaper. Without showing the caption or having them read the article, ask learners to write a few lines about the photo.

Reprinted from LitScape, Winter 2006

Verizon has created a wonderful online resource for literacy tutors called the Thinkfinity Literacy Network. “Thinkfinity Literacy Network delivers free, top-quality online educational resources for literacy instruction and lifelong learning for adults and family literacy programs. The content on TLN strengthens literacy development, creativity and critical thinking skills for success in the 21st Century.”

One of the many things that they offer is the ability to take free online classes. (more…)

Engaging ESL students in communication can often be hard. Another issue may be that your student is talkative but their writing skills are far behind their ability to speak. In either of these cases, building up your student’s familiarity with written communication and confidence in expressing their thoughts can bring about improvements in both the willingness to communicate and comfort in writing. (more…)