English Learner Achievement Network PTA Resources

  • Resources from Dr. Edwidge Crevecoeur Bryant’s Workshop on November 5, 2020

  • http://en.childrenslibrary.org(Links to an external site.)
    It had books for ages 3-13 in any language. It also had different kinds of books to choose from whether it was a picture book or a chapter book.

  • https://www.duolingo.com/ (Links to an external site.)

    Duolingo is an excellent resource for English Language Learners.  The platform is able to be used by all different levels of emergent bilinguals.  Duolingo is a fun way for its users to complete mini-lessons and practice vocabulary terms.  Each student can set their own daily goals and be at their own unique level.   The lessons also allow for the student to play games, listen to new words, and practice repeating their pronunciation skills.

  • https://www.fluentu.com/en/ (Links to an external site.)
    FluentU is also a great resource to use for emergent bilingual students.  FluentU can be used for students of all ages.  Students can immerse themselves within the new language they are learning through fun and engaging videos.  The videos are tailored in order to meet the interests of many types of students.  Students can watch real world videos such as music videos and movie trailers.  All of the videos have subtitles and are translated into the student’s native language as well.  While watching the videos, students can pause in order to see the definition or a word and it used in context and take quick informal quizzes in order to check for understanding.

  • https://www.colorincolorado.org/ (Links to an external site.)
    A third resource for ESOL students is Colorín Colorado.  This resource is geared towards students who speak Spanish.  The website has an ELL starter kit for teachers to use.  Within the starter kit, teachers will learn common classroom phrases in Spanish, cognates (similar Spanish-English words), and recommended Spanish-English bilingual books for students at all different levels.  The website also features resources for parents, classroom videos, and the best practices to use while teaching ESOL students.  I would highly recommend checking out this website if you are working with a Spanish speaker.

ESL/ELL Resources To Succeed in School

  • Five Minute English (http://www.5minuteenglish.com/ (Links to an external site.))
    It is a great resource for students to use who might have a busy day and do not have a lot of time to practice their English language speaking skills when it comes to grammar, listening, and vocabulary. The website is filled with five minute lessons for students to go in and work on their basic English skills. The information is very simple to follow along.
  • BBC’s Learning English (Links to an external site.)

    This is definitely a tool for older kids (probably middle and high school), but it is absolutely fantastic. I was amazed at the amount of material available. This site provides videos on pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and even lessons on English. They also provide news segments on relevant topics (I watched one on fake news) that discuss important vocabulary prior to the segments, as well as provide quizzes after so ELL’s can test their knowledge.

    Although adding a British accent may cause additional difficulties for ELL’s, this site is a great source for learning English. The videos are well shot and are oftentimes entertaining. They have an entire segment dedicated to pronunciation, and I actually ended up learning about the pronunciation for “would you.”
  • Learn That Word (Links to an external site.)

    This is a site that you can pay for if you want premium features but is also great with the free version. Learn That Word focuses on helping ELL students learn English vocabulary but is also great for students who already know English and are looking to improve their vocabulary. The site has an entire section dedicated to suffixes and root words, which would not only help teach vocabulary to ELL’s, but would help ELL’s be able to better define words they don’t know. This tool is for high school students.
  • English Forums (Links to an external site.)

    This is another site that I would recommend for older students, and since it is an open forum, I would reserve it for high school students. This is a free site that allows you to ask any questions you have about the English language, and you can also search to see if your question has already been asked. A good question I found on the site was about adjectives.

    One user commented: “What is the rule for the use of adjectives in plural nouns? Do I have to say: They are attractive or they are attactives. They are cute! or they are cutes!” Growing up speaking English, this is something I never would’ve thought to ask. For that reason, this could be a good resource for teachers too. It may be helpful for you to see the questions ELL’s are asking that you never would have expected.

    Under the student’s tab, they also have things like pronunciation exercises, accent guides (there’s a video of a woman doing 21 different accents, and it was wild to watch), and games.

High Level of Proficiency:

  • https://www.ef.edu/english-resources/ (Links to an external site.)

    For students with a high level of proficiency, this website provides students with resources for learning English focusing specifically on English grammar and usage. Students may also elect to take a test that is primarily concerned with conversational English to determine their proficiency after using the resources provided.

Low Level of Proficiency:

  • https://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/ (Links to an external site.)

    For students with a low level of proficiency, this website provides students with games, songs, and videos that will help them learn English words. The website also provides articles for parents to support their children as they learn English, but perhaps more exciting is that the website provides parents with an article regarding Covid-19 about how parents can help their students maintain what they’ve learned and continue to learn at home.

All Levels of Proficiency:

  • https://learningenglish.voanews.com/ (Links to an external site.)

    For students with varying levels of proficiency, this website provides students with current news articles written for non-native English speakers. Each article is written in simple English and includes an audio version of the text so that students can follow along as they read the article. However, the website also provides students with articles and videos about English grammar and usage.
  • https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/ (Links to an external site.)

    The BBC has a section of its website dedicated to explaining different areas of the English language. This website can be used for all grade levels/ages and provides informative videos (and their transcripts) about grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. It also focuses on concepts that might be harder to grasp, such as how one word can be used in multiple contexts. For example, they have a mini-lesson entitled “Person vs persons vs people vs peoples.” They have also organized their lessons based on the level of English the student knows and how much time they have to study that day!
  • https://www.commonlit.org/en/library (Links to an external site.)

    This resource is great for students and teachers alike and can be used for 3rd to 12th-grade reading levels. With a free account, English Language Learners have access to a massive library of different articles and poems, which are also centered around current events. My favorite feature is that any English article can be translated into a variety of languages and easily changed back to English. With this feature, students can practice reading in English but also refer back to the translated text if they need help reading a certain word or sentence.
  • https://freerice.com/categories/english-vocabulary (Links to an external site.)

    This website is so simple, yet so impactful! Students can practice their English vocabulary and grammar with short multiple-choice quizzes.  This website is friendly to all grade levels, but the student can set the difficulty level to whatever they are comfortable with. The best part is that every correct answer generates 5 virtual grains of rice. The World Food Programme then donates the amount of money it costs for however many grains of rice you collect while practicing to people in need! The website also includes categories such as science, math, and geography that are also very helpful in developing an ELL’s academic language.
  • https://tefltunes.com/ (Links to an external site.)

    The first site that I found incredibly useful was TEFL Tunes. This website features a variety of songs to help teach grammatical concepts and word building. I would use this site in every grade level but specifically Elementary, being that children love to dance and sing! This site is not free, you must have a subscription, but it looks relatively cheap and it would be so helpful for auditory learners!
  • https://www.real-english.com/ (Links to an external site.)

    The second resource that I found was for a variety of different age categories, but I found it particularly useful for middle school students just because of the online activities that this site provides. This website features interactive multimedia forms such as videos, audio, pictures and games. The awesome thing about this site is that it is free and I even tried out a game, and it was so awesome!!
  • https://www.wordenglish.com/ (Links to an external site.)

    The third but not last resource that I found was this site called Word-English. This website I found would be so incredibly useful for high school ELL learners because in High School students tend to learn how to write resumes and business letters and this is all what this website is. Some items on the site are free but to get the narrated help by someone I believe you have to buy a subscription.
  • https://www.eslvideo.com/ (Links to an external site.)

    This website provides students with videos that contain audio clips of everyday conversations played over images related to the conversation. After the video, there are short quizzes for the student to check their understanding. For example, there is a video where people discuss their favorite things, things they like, and things they don’t like. The student would then have to answer questions about how people feel about the things listed.
  • https://www.linguee.com/ (Links to an external site.)

    Linguee is a website that functions as a translator for many different languages. However, instead of just translating back to the student’s native language, it also provides context, examples, and pronunciations for the given word.
  • https://freerice.com/categories/english-vocabulary (Links to an external site.)

    This resource is a fun way for students to improve their vocabulary in all levels and it also helps people. It’s just a multiple choice vocabulary quiz, but the questions are endless, and as you master new words, you can move up levels. In addition, the organization that runs the website donates ten grains of rice for each question answered correctly!
  • https://ed.ted.com/ (Links to an external site.)

    To help students with listening skills, I feel that TED talks would be beneficial for ELLs of all levels. With this website, students can find any number of videos related to a topic they are interested in. Each video is accompanied by a lesson that includes comprehension questions to check for understanding as well as open-ended questions and links to explore more about the topic.  And students can read the transcript while they listen.
  • https://tefltunes.com/ (Links to an external site.)

    This is a resource that could be used for all grades (K-12) but may work better for the elementary grades. This source has songs/lessons specially made for EEL students and they are categorized based on their proficiency level. There are some free ones, but some of them require you to get a membership to the sit, which is about 7 dollars a month. The price is the only downfall, but I am all about using songs and the arts in the classroom, so I think it is a cool site.
  • https://www.sciencejournalforkids.org/ (Links to an external site.)

    This resource could be super useful in middle and high school, but could also be used in elementary depending on the topic and the proficiency level of the student. This website has science articles that are available to download and they are geared towards children. The neat thing is that they allow you to do some of the articles in many different languages, so that the ELL is able to read about science in their native language.