TESL

My recommanded web resources for ESL students:

ESL: English Study and Learning Materials ! :A very informative website for ESL students. The materials are classified into 10 categories, and within each category, the resources are further divided by learner levels and topics, which is very convenient for students to use. The best sections are Listening and Speaking. For listening, it leads users to Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab , which is a very good listening page, containing various practical listening topics of different levels. In speaking section, a user provides information about his personal schedule, English level and chatting tool preference during registration for speaking and will be arranged to get connected with a private tutor (paid for) or another student to talk in English. This is of great significance for an EFL student who doesn’t have a English linguistic environment to practice speaking in.

My future students will benefit from using this website to study English in two ways. Firstly, if possible, I would arrange a part of in-class time for students to study in a CALL lab under my supervision. For instance, I would go through the materials for “adverbs” in the “low begin level” section, select proper reading materials and exercises for the students, and then direct the students to visit these resources online during our CALL time. Secondly, I would teach my students to use the resources by themselves outside class. As I would be teaching in an EFL environment in China, I believe that, to ask my students to register for the speaking section and chat in English as an extra way of speaking practice would be the most helpful assignment.

Activities for ESL Students:One sub-web of The Internet TESL Journal. It has thousands of quizzes, tests, exercises and puzzles to help ESL learners. A great feature of this website is that, besides “English Only” section, it has a “ Two Languages” section, which allows native speakers of 37 languages to do English vocabulary exercises in the way of direct translation .

English Learning Web for Chinese students:A very informative website specifically designed for Chinese students of EFL. Its basic language is Chinese, which allows the Chinese students of EFL at all levels to navigate without any difficulty. It amazingly covers nearly all the topic about English learning a Chinese student could think of, from “Wring love letter in English” to “English Learning softwares to download”.

Discovery: Discovery Channel is, in my opinion, one of the best channels in the whole world, best combination of knowledge and entertainment. Their website covers all the topics the channels covers with both video clips and written texts available, which could serve as a mine for advanced English learners to learn both knowledge of English language, and knowledge of the world we’re living in.

National geographic: National geographic is, in my opinion, one of the best magazines in the whole world, also best combination of knowledge and entertainment. The only difference between Discovery channel and National Geographic magazine is, one talks with video and texts, and the other talks with pictures and texts. English learners can enjoy both the beautiful language and beautiful pictures on their website.