ESOL Queen

I've been spending the last few weeks encouraging my Pre-Entry low literacy students to do self-study with a focus on phonics- particularly looking at initial sound patterns and CVC words. My students all have access to Microsoft Teams and after a lot of practice they can now log on and click on their class Team independently. When they have logged on they can click on the websites I post and access them on their mobiles. This has been really useful in enabling my learners to practice at home. If you want to know more about using Microsoft Teams with a low literacy class, let me know in the comments box below and I will post more information about it when I have time. Here are my best self-study phonics websites and videos: Citizen Literacy – Reading and Writing for Everyone  This is an excellent app for reviewing basic literacy and phonic skills. Learn to Read with Phonics | Starfall Education e Word Machine (starfall.com)   Phonics - KS1 English - BBC Bitesize phonics – Sha...

 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 ...

After 3 months of online teaching due to lockdown, I am rather pleased to be back to face-to-face teaching again! It has been so lovely to see students in flesh rather than on a screen and everyone seems so happy to be back :) One of the things I've been keen to establish with my very low/ zero literacy Pre-Entry students is how much their literacy and language skills have developed over the last few months and where I will need to 'pitch' my class over the next few weeks. I will also have some new learners starting, so it will be useful to know how much to 'repeat' what we did online and which words and phonic patterns we can move onto next. Therefore, I've created a 'Pre-Entry Literacy Progression Test', which covers basic phonic activities such as initial letter recognition, CVC and CVCC words and simple sentences. I have also included activities to review personal information and basic vocabulary (e.g. colours, clothes and house objects etc.).  To do...

 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 ...

 It's been awhile since my last few posts. but I have been rather busy going back to online teaching on Zoom. These last few weeks have involved going back to shouting "press connect to audio!" and "you need to unmute!" to my ESOL learners, most of whom have coped with online learning very well. I've also had the chance to be more creative with my online resources.  Here are my latest PowerPoints for my low/ zero literacy Pre-Entry learners learning about objects in the home. I have made the PowerPoints to focus on phonics and sound patterns and have chosen home words as a way to make the language relevant and meaningful to my learners' lives. Each PowerPoint has activities such as "read and find the object", encouraging my learners to go to the correct room and find the objects in their house e.g. "cup" and "cushion". There are also activities for matching the words to the pictures, filling in the missing letters, watching ...

My Journey of Teaching Illiterate and Low Literacy Adult ESOL Pre-Entry Learners: I have been teaching Pre-Entry (Absolute Beginner) adult learners for the last 3 years and have to say it is one of my favourite ESOL levels  [1] . This is because you see students make an incredible amount of progress in a short time, and because you are helping students to make their first steps in understanding English. This year, in my low Pre-Entry class I was presented with a new challenge of teaching students with zero or very low literacy in their first languages as well as in English. These students had never been to school before or had little or no access to education in their home countries. Some of them could read a little Arabic or Farsi, but really struggled understanding the English alphabet, as it is in a completely different script. I also taught a student from Guinea whose first language had no written form and was only spoken. This wasn't on my Cert-TESOL course...

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...

I'm often asked what are the best websites for teaching absolute beginner (Pre-Entry) students. I have made a list of my favourite websites below:       One Stop English ESOL: http://www.onestopenglish.com/esol/absolute-beginners/ This is a series of 20 lessons very useful for very low level learners.        English W Sheets: https://www.englishwsheets.com/ Free vocabulary and grammar materials for learners with literacy.       MES English: https://mes-english.com/ This website has very useful beginner flash cards, matching worksheets and games. It is American so be careful with the American versions of words.       First Resort [a] : Extremely useful for beginner vocabulary and basic alphabet practise https://www.gatehousebooks.co.uk/first-resort/       Tracing worksheets : https://www.worksheetworks.com/english/writing/handwriting/handwriting-print-trace-old.html . This website has self-creating trac...