{FREE PDF}: Cultural Observation Activity: Seeing with new eyes

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This is a cultural observation activity to encourage pre-service ESL teachers to reflect on the experience of their students.  It could also be easily adapted for English language learners.

Instructions:

Imagine you are a newcomer to the US. Pick a setting (such as your dorm, the DC, or a chapel service), and observe for 30 minutes with the eyes of someone who has little cultural context for this setting. Use the following table to help describe your observations.

Great Websites for English Learners

  Learn English!

English Central: Videos for learning English

English with Jennifer: Videos for learning English
GCF Learn English: Practice everyday tasks in simple English

Starfall: Excellent to learn the alphabet, basic vocabulary, and phonics

USA Learns: Website for adults to learn English.
Ventures Student Arcade: Practice website for Ventures

Information about US

State Symbols USA: Information about US states

US Citizenship and Immigration Services

US Government:  children's guide to government in simple English

Voice of America:  News for English learners 

Pronunciation

Phonetics: the soundsof Spoken English 

Vocabulary Practice

ESL Vocabulary Games

Free Rice

Learning Chocolate

Spelling City  

{FREE PDF} Ventures Arcade Instructions for beginner English Language Learners

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I'm currently teaching non-credit Adult ESL at a community college in California.  This is a computer activity I created to accompany the Ventures Series (Cambridge) which shows beginning level EL students step-by-step how to access the website associated with the Ventures textbook.

Shopping class

http://www.usingenglish.com/quizzes/45.html

http://www.eslgamesplus.com/comparatives-superlatives-wild-zoo-animals-vocabulary-grammar-interactive-monkey-fun-activity/

http://www.learningchocolate.com/category/house

http://www.cambridge.org/us/esl/venturesadulted/venturesarcade/index.html

http://www.gcflearnfree.org/learnenglish

Level-appropriate songs for beginning adult ELLs

This is the PDF for a presentation on using level-appropriate songs for beginner adult English language learners that I gave at CATESOL's Regional Conference at University of Southern California on March 2, 2013.

Click here to access the file.
For best viewing and navigating results, download the file from Google Docs as a PDF and view with Adobe Acrobat Reader.