Guest Blog: Great Internet Resources

Vince Scalise, 

ESOL Instructor

Students working on their language skills today have wonderful free resources available to them. In our age of technology there are numerous web sites, YouTube videos and blogs for language learners. As an ESL instructor working with multi-level students I have found the Internet invaluable.

Most of my lessons I pull from different sites, but I will always tweak them a little. I go to Google Images to add pictures whenever possible, and I have found that extremely helpful for our ESL students. I also send out some cyber lessons every Monday to my students. These are mostly from YouTube but also from a few web sites I like, which correspond with the class lessons for the week.

I would like to share a few of these sites with you.

http://www.youtube.com/ - type in the lesson you are interested in. I recommend adding some music videos with the lyrics. This is a fun way to practice diction.

http://www.engvid.com/ - One of my favorite sites, this is from a language school, their instructors are great.

http://www.youtube.com/user/JenniferESL - An ESL instructor has posted her lessons on YouTube

http://www.cambridge.org/us/esl/venturesadulted/venturesarcade/index.html

http://www.englishclub.com/ - check out their idioms

http://esl.about.com/

http://www.uic.edu/depts/tie/coolsites.htm - this list from University of Illinois in Chicago has numerous sites.

These are just the tip of the iceberg. I encourage everyone to explore the web for helpful lessons. It is a free source of great information. And these sites are not just for ESL students, any topic can be found. I even found some of the old “Schoolhouse Rocks” videos, which I used in my citizenship class. If anyone would like to be added to my distant learner e-mail group please email me at yanks78915@aol.com.