ESOL
STUDENT WEBSITES
EDUC
4113 - Empowering
ESOL Teachers
March
2, 2010
The following list
of websites contains materials that I believe to be appropriate for ELL
students to use to help them learn the English language.
- Helping You Learn English - http://www.helping-you-learn-english.com/
Offers tips and materials to help learn
the English language.
- Activities for ESL Students - http://a4esl.org/
This website contains many activities to
help ELLs learn English through grammar and vocabulary materials.
- BookHive: Zinger Tales - http://www.plcmc.org/bookhive/zingertales/zingertales.asp
This website includes many videos of
readers reading stories. ELL students can gain an understanding of English
through hearing the readers read stories with lively expression.
- English 4 Kids: Games - http://www.english-4kids.com/games.html
This website contains several ESL games
for students, as well as printable board games and game templates.
- English Club: Games - http://www.englishclub.com/esl-games/index.htm
Offers several games to help ESL students
learn English.
- English Daily - http://www.englishdaily626.com/
This website is designed to help ELLs
strengthen their skill of learning English by offering conversation examples to
follow or abandon, grammar exercises, idiom examples, and other helpful tools
to integrate ELLs into the American (pop) culture.
- ESL Bears - http://eslbears.homestead.com/
The website has vocabulary materials,
listening materials, games, pre-reading and reading activities, and grammar and
writing materials. It originally was a website designed by a teacher for her
ELL students, but now is for any ELL student who visits the website.
- ESL Kid Stuff - http://www.eslkidstuff.com/index.htm
This website contains flashcards, games,
and helpful tips for ELL students.
- ESL Reader - http://www.esldesk.com/reading/esl-reader
This website is a perfect tool in helping
ELLs learn the meaning of words. The user simply pastes or types a sentence or
paragraph into the box and clicks the button and chooses where to search for
the definition of the word (ex. Dictionary.com), or which language to translate
it to on a search engine, to understand the meaning of the word.
- Kids Know It - http://www.kidsknowit.com/
This website contains interactive
materials that I believe can engage an ELL to learn important educational
information.
- ManyThings - http://www.manythings.org/
This is a website that contains a slew of
materials geared for ELL students. The website contains grammar and vocabulary
help, podcasts, hearing/listening tools, and reading and spelling help.
- Marks-English-School - http://www.marks-english-school.com/games.html
This website helps ELLs learn English
grammar through interactive games.
- Mingoville - http://www.mingoville.com/en.html
This is an interactive website geared to
teach English lessons to kids. It includes games, exercises, and songs.
- Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab - http://www.esl-lab.com/
This website contains many listening audio
sound bites that ELLs can listen to and then take comprehension questions
afterwards.
- Starfall - http://www.starfall.com/
This website
teaches young students how to read and know the important facts about
vocabulary and grammar. It could be a benefit to ELLs in the same way it is for
English students who are just learning to read.
- Storyline Online - http://www.storylineonline.net/
This glorious website has famous actors
read particular storybooks on video. The videos show the actors reading the
books, and show the illustration of the storybooks with the text in subtitles.
Perfect for ELLs who have trouble reading, because they can read the subtitles
as the actor reads, and hear how the words are supposed to be read.
- StoryNory - http://storynory.com/
Generally, a website with free audio
storybooks, but this website is also a huge help to those of other languages
because it has helped them learn English through hearing the stories. Also, the
website is generated to where a person can click on a word written on the
website and select their language to help with translating the English word
into their language.
- Story Place - http://www.storyplace.org/
Contains interactive stories, which could
help ELLs learn English through hearing, and reading the subtitles when
available.
- Translator - http://translate.reference.com/
This website is a simple translating tool
that allows the user to translate texts into over 50 languages from other
languages.
- Worldestiny - http://www.worldestiny.com/
Offers virtual class instruction and
materials to help learn English.
The Content Area Activities:
Language Arts
The first activity
could be for a 3rd to 5th grade classroom. I could have
the students use ESL Reader (http://www.esldesk.com/reading/esl-reader)
to copy a word from the board and have them use the reader to search the
definition of the word, draw or act out a visual representation of the word,
and note its alternate spelling in another language (using the ESL Reader).
The second activity could be for a K to 2nd
grade classroom, and especially be for ELLs who are struggling with their
reading. Using Starfall (http://www.starfall.com), the student can review their
phonemes and phonics and work their way up to reading fiction and nonfiction
stories on the website. They can then write a reflection of what they learned.