Literacy Organizations

ProLiteracyAmerica
http://www.proliteracy.org/
ProLiteracy America, the U.S. programs division of ProLiteracy Worldwide, is the largest adult literacy organization in the United States, with more than 1,200 member groups nationwide. ProLiteracy America is dedicated to providing the highest quality information, training, and technical assistance to advance the work of the adult literacy field. This site provides a range of information about the current state of literacy, how to get involved with local ProLiteracy affiliates, and provides links to other valuable resources.

National Institute for Literacy
http://www.nifl.gov/
The National Institute for Literacy, a federal agency, provides leadership on literacy issues, including the improvement of reading instruction for children, youth, and adults. In consultation with the U.S. Departments of Education, Labor, and Health and Human Services, the Institute serves as a national resource on current, comprehensive literacy research, practice, and policy.

General ESL Sites

Verizon Literacy University
http://www.thinkfinity.org
A wonderful collection of resources and information for anyone interested in literacy. Also included are FREE online classes. Verizon is heavily involved in and dedicated to improving literacy.

About.com’s Guide to English as a Second Language
http://esl.about.com
Hosted by an English teacher in Tuscany, the site includes quizzes, vocabulary study pages, interactive polls, chat rooms, pen pal information, and a weekly e-mail newsletter. It also has pages of resources for Spanish speakers learning English and for teachers of English. Recommended for intermediate to advanced English language learners.

Classroom Materials and Reference for Tutors

Real Tutors Real Learners
http://www.literacyvolunteersdupage.org/RealTutorsRealLearners.html
Real Tutors, Real Learners is a set of videos created by Literacy DuPage which illustrates practical techniques for basic and ESL literacy instruction. Ever wonder what other people are doing in their lessons? Each of these videos is a great opportunity to be a fly on the wall during another tutor’s lesson.

Assembling an ESL Toolbox
http://literacynetwork.verizon.org/TLN/fileadmin/print_resources/tt_esltoolbox.pdf
Like a craftsperson, an English-as-a-second-language (ESL) teacher needs a set of versatile tools to do the job. You can reduce planning and empower students by developing a store of activities and strategies you can repeat many times. When students encounter an activity type or strategy more than once, familiarity with the procedure allows them to focus on the language itself. The best tools are those that can be used for a variety of purposes.

VOA – Special English
http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/
A site with today’s news written specifically for English language learners. All articles come with a separate audio version.

UsingEnglish.com
http://www.usingenglish.com/
Provides a large collection of English as a Second Language (ESL) tools & resources for students, teachers, learners and academics. Browse our grammar glossary and references of irregular verbs, phrasal verbs and idioms, ESL forums, articles, teacher handouts and printables, and find useful links and information on English. Topics cover the spectrum of ESL, EFL, ESOL, and EAP subject areas.

Inspiration Lane
http://www.inspirationlane.blogspot.com/
For all levels of ESOL, ESL and EFL classes. The creator and editor of Inspiration Lane is an ESOL certified teacher in Florida, USA. Each day the reading content here automatically changes. The daily readings and interactive language activities provide a free, fun and encouraging experience for students learning English — especially during those last minutes of class time!

Breaking News English
http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com
From the site: “Free ready-to-use EFL / ESL lesson plans in Word and PDF. Graded news articles, listening, podcast, and communicative activities.” From your web master: A daily news site with full lessons that are VERY thorough and easy to follow. The lessons are available as a Microsoft Word document, as well as, a PDF, which makes them very easy to print, bring with you for reference, and to distribute to your students. Having podcasts (recordings of all of the readings) is a great bonus for giving your students the experience of listening to natural English.

Dictionary.com
http://dictionary.reference.com/
English Dictionary with multi-lingual support and translation tools

PDictionary.com
http://www.pdictionary.com
Online English picture dictionary.

Puzzlemaker
http://www.puzzlemaker.com/
Part of the Discovery Channel, this site helps you create and print customized word search and crossword puzzles using your own word lists.

The Gateway
http://www.thegateway.org/
High quality lesson plans, curriculum units and other educational resources. Great for Basic Literacy and ESOL tutors alike.

Capital Community Technical College
http://cctc.commnet.edu
Includes ESOL resources at Capital, links to help with grammar and vocabulary, writing projects, work news links, and multi-purpose ESOL sites.

Key Archive of New Stories
http://www.keynews.org/
This site includes easy readings about world and national events, jobs, money, health, and family issues.

English Studio Online Practice
http://yourenglishstudio.blogsome.com/
Offers video clips from YouTube with accompanying questions and activities. Great for incorporating real life audio into the classroom.

The Learning Edge
http://thewclc.ca/edge
An interactive site teaching topics such as understanding classified ads, missing work and others.

Factmonster
http://www.factmonster.com/
Great resource for basic information about everything from geography to word games, science to sports.

FunBrain
http://www.funbrain.com/
A variety of puzzles and games, with especially good math activities.

Words And Pictures
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures
Lots of fun phonics exercizes!

Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab
http://www.esl-lab.com/
Provides interactive listening activities for students of all ages.

English Club
http://www.englishclub.com/
Explore one of the many subject-matter links, and you will find that this website is for the community of teachers and learners of English. Through the English Club, you can study English, play games, meet other students and teachers around the world, find information about language holidays for study abroad, find penpals, ask vocabulary questions, get help on English grammar, test yourself, and find reproducible resources for learning and teaching English.

ESL Home
http://www.eslhome.org/
This site includes lesson plans, thematic units, and links to other sites for teachers and activities and listening assignments for students.

a4esl.org
http://a4esl.org/
A variety of vocabulary and grammar activities, crossword puzzles and bilingual quizzes.

Adult Learning Activities
http://www.cdlponline.org/
Uses short readings to teach about family, law and government, school, health and safety, nature and other life-skills topics.

Industry Specific Sites

Hospital English.com – English for the medical profession
http://www.hospitalenglish.com/
HospitalEnglish.com contains FREE on-line materials for medical professionals studying English and resources for their teachers. We host vocabulary builders, patient counseling models, disease state directors, healthcare professionals articles, flash cards, lesson plans and more to come.

Building Basics: ESOL Toolkit for General Construction, Landscaping, Painting and Plumbing
http://www.valrc.org/publications/buildingbasics/
This curriculum was created to incorporate the vocabulary and knowledge base specific to jobs related to the contracting business. Building Basics is intended to be used with adult ESOL students in publicly-funded or community-based programs who have expressed a need and desire to learn English in the context of some of the building trades. These lessons may also be used in instructional settings within the workplace, e.g., contracting or landscaping companies. It has been written for teaching students with English language proficiency levels corresponding to the three lowest National Reporting System levels: Beginning Literacy, Low Beginning, and High Beginning. Each lesson has activities that can be used with multiple levels of proficiency within one classroom, although some lessons are more complex than others.

Articles and Research

The Internet TESL Journal For Teachers of English as a Second Language
http://iteslj.org/
Articles, Research Papers, Lessons Plans, Classroom Handouts, Teaching Ideas & Links. This is a monthly web journal, so make a bookmark.

The Capitol Region Education Council
http://www.crec.org/
Features general articles and resources useful to tutors.

Blogs

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites Of The Day For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/

ESL Tutor
http://www.esl-tutor.com/
A blog about one tutor’s experiences as a private English as a Second Language (ESL) tutor. Lesson plan ideas she’s used, resources for ESL handouts, grammar points, and interesting stories about her students are all included.

Effortless English Blog
http://www.effortlessacquisition.blogspot.com/
A blog by AJ Hoge of San Francisco, CA who has a MS TESOL degree and over 10 years of English teaching experience. He is the Director of The Effortless English Club. His blog covers experiences that he has had teaching and expounds upon his particiular philosphy of teaching ESOL.

Tools

iFlash (for Macintosh only)
http://www.loopware.com/iflash/
iFlash is a virtual flash-card program built for Mac OS X. iFlash includes many great features that could enhance your classroom activities. You can record audio directly into any flash-card, as well as attach images. Create weekly lists of words, images, or audio to do drills with your students. The possibilities are limitless. using this software requires that a Macintosh be available in your classroom, so if you have an iBook or MacBook, you are all set. Otherwise, you would need a classroom with a Macintosh desktop. ($$)

backword
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2955
An extension for the FireFox browser to help people learning English. It will translate an English word into French, German, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Traditional or Simplified Chinese when mouse cursor hovers over it. With one click, it will remember all context of the word, such as URL of the page and the paragraph which the word belongs to. You can get Pronunciation of the word with a flash. Allows you to write a note for the word. (FREE)

**Please note: As with all software, there is always a risk of unexpected outcomes to your computer when you install a program or an extension or plug-in for a program. Please read carefully any information about any software that you wish to download and decide for yourself if you are confident that there is nothing malicious in the package that you wish to install. Literacy Volunteers on the Green does not support nor take any responsibility for any outcomes from the software that we feature here.

Online Magazines

ESL Magazine
http://www.eslmag.com/index.php
The leading magazine for ESL and EFL professionals.