ESOL Queen

 Over the last few weeks I have been introducing my very low (zero) literacy ESOL students to body parts, health problems and medical treatment vocabulary. One of the main reasons for this is to encourage my students to be confident should they or their family need medical help. Another reason is to help them see that certain words like "children" and "expiry date" can be found on medication labels, enabling them to gain some practical skills for word recognition.  My PowerPoints can be used for both Zoom and face-to-face teaching. They include slow typing motion to show students how the words are formed (with colour-coded vowels). They also include matching activities, simple sentences to practice reading and a few have "fill in the missing letter" activities (see below). Today, I asked my colleagues to bring in their old "over the counter" medical packaging and I was able to create a mini pharmacy in my classroom. My students were able to look ...

 I can't believe it's nearly Easter already. This term has gone so quickly teaching online, but I can't wait to go back to face-to-face lessons after the Easter holidays.  Here are two of my latest PowerPoints for zero/ low literacy Pre-Entry ESOL learners looking at Easter and Ramadan. This year in the UK Easter is on Sunday 4th April 2021 and Ramadan is roughly between Monday 12th April and Wednesday 15th May (depending on the moon).  My students come from very mixed backgrounds (mainly Middle Eastern and European) and they love finding out about each other's cultures. These PowerPoints are designed to give students the language to describe the festivals they might be familiar with and to share how they celebrate them.  Each PowerPoint consists of vocabulary colour coded to show the phonic patterns, videos, matching activities and spelling activities. Each PowerPoint should last about 2 hours on Zoom, depending on your class. I hope you enjoy using them, just click...

 I've created two new PowerPoints for zero/ low literacy students to use on Zoom, this time focusing on colours and clothes (using British English). I have tried to break up the vocabulary into simple phonics patterns (CVC/ CVCC etc.) and to use words relevant to my students everyday lives.  I have struggled to find adult appropriate and phonics friendly materials for very low English learners who have zero / low literacy skills which uses British English. Whilst there is a lot of amazing American resources out there, I do feel it is important to familarise my students with British English words, as that is what they are most likely to encounter when shopping in Britain. Therefore, I have decided to include words like "jumper" instead of "sweater" and "trousers" instead of "pants".  Do you struggle with the differences between British and American English when teaching low level/ beginner English? What approach do you take? I'd love to re...

 I've recently created several resources to use with very low literacy Pre-Entry learners on Zoom. For the last six weeks we have been learning about rooms in the house and household objects. These materials have been created specifically for learners who are unable to read and write on their first language and who really struggle with learning to read in English. I have chosen to focus on rooms/ house objects as a way of making language meaningful and practical for my learners and to encourage them to practice using English in their everyday lives. Several of my learners really enjoyed describing their 'bedrooms' and 'living rooms' to me using their mobile phone cameras to give the class a tour and others started to write down object words on post-it notes which they stuck around their house! I have also tried to breakdown words by basic phonic and sound patterns. The Teach ABC English  https://www.teachabcenglish.com/book-1-activities.html website has some great ...

There are hundreds of amazing video resources out there. Here are my favourite websites to use both teaching online and in the classroom: Pre-Entry/ Entry 1:        English My Way- Learning Circles. Simple role plays with flash cards https://www.englishmyway.co.uk/learning-circles         Rocking English Grammar- Very simple grammar and vocabulary explanations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZCcRzgrr8Y         MES English Vocabulary videos (American pronunciation) http://tv.mes-english.com/         Mr Bean YouTube/ Vimeo- worksheets from www.islcollective.com        Shaw English Phonics- Simple phonics videos https://shawenglish.com/tag/phonics-2/ Entry 2 and Entry 3:        British Council ESOL Nexus videos https://esol.britishcouncil.org/content/learners/uk-life/video-uk        Film English http://film-english.com/ A lot of great fre...