Assignment 3 - Continued Professional Development Report.
Throughout my practicum course, I used several resources that helped me prepare for my lessons. As it was my first time teaching LINC students, I was eager to follow my instructor's advice and use Tutela website, which has a lot of helpful resources for new immigrants in Canada. Tutela is an online community for ESL/FSL teachers who are looking for ways to gain knowledge, network, attend virtual conferences and collaborate with other members. Despite all the benefits of this platform, it was hard for me to navigate and to quickly find the material I was looking for.
Another resource I found valuable was a website called ESL Library. This platform has more than 1 400 lessons ready for teachers to use. I was pleasantly surprised to know that this company was founded in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where I used to reside.
I would say that the most valuable part for me during my practicum course was that the ESL Library uses Canadian Language Benchmarks and a lot of the topics were closely related to the ones I was asked to teach. So, when I had to teach the topic Job Qualifications, for example, I found a lesson for CLB 4 students on that topic and got some ideas from there. I was then able to build my lesson around them, considering needs of my students.
The website is very easy to navigate, which is a huge plus for teachers who are not that tech-savvy. I like the smooth, clear interface, which makes navigation easier. The main categories include Discussion and Debates, Grammar, Lessons for Everyday English, Academic and Business English, English storylines and others. There’s also a possibility to categorize materials by lessons, collections or resources. I found, however, the easiest way to find the materials you need is simply to hit the search button. Also, they have just added a brand new feature - The Recommendations tab. If you have set up age level attributes for your students or classes, ESL Library will provide a selection of recommended lessons based on them.
Another great feature of ESL Library is that you can print out pdfs for classroom use, or you can broadcast digital tasks in a live lesson using tools like Zoom or Google Meet. There’s also a possibility of assigning digital tasks for homework and posting assignments to synchronized platforms like Google Classroom or Canvas. As students complete their tasks, the teacher can get their results in real-time and leave them real live feedback too. The teacher can see who has completed which task and how much time they have spent on it.
One of the things that I like most about ESL Library is that I can create folders with my favourite lessons and organize them. So when I browse the lesson library and stumble upon a lesson I like, I can save it for later by adding it to one of the folders.
My students really enjoy working with flashcards too. Their flashcard sets are customizable, and you can either print them out or work with them digitally by using the DIgital Flashcard Player.
I am also a big fan of their resources for teachers - they have their own blog, which includes many useful teaching tips, explanations and videos on how to teach grammar, vocabulary or reading. I am also their subscriber, so I am getting tips and ideas on what to teach every week.
My experience using the website has always been very positive, although it does have some drawbacks, which are inevitable in any resource covering quite a large target audience.
Some of them are:
The service is not free, and you have to be a subscriber to use it.
The selection of discussion starters and warm-up discussion activities for lower-intermediate students is not that big.
There’s no step-by-step curriculum that your students can follow.
Lessons are not customizable. If you decide to go with a ready-made lesson from ESL Library and you find that the lesson has some of the new words your students already know, you’ll still have to have it in your lesson.
Overall, the ESL Library is a great resource I would recommend for teachers, tutors and students. Whether using it as a source of ideas and inspiration for your lessons or just their ready-made lessons, it could save you a lot of time and effort.
Comments