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"Jumbled Sentences is a series of five free iPad apps designed to help students learn to construct sentences. The apps provide students with drag and drop activities in which they sort jumbled words into sentences. The sound can be turned off and on in each app. When the sound is turned on students can hear the words read them by the narrator. The narrator also reads the sentences that students construct. The app provides students with immediate feedback on each of the sentences that they build. When students correctly create sentences they earn virtual coins that they can then use to buy virtual stickers to mark their progress." These apps might be useful for EFL/ESL students, since they include sound/reading aloud of sentences. t/h R. Byrne

A nice app for your iPad by a language teacher in Brasil. Free version has 80 sentences, but the pro version is only $1.99. Practice prepositions and phrasal verbs sentence by sentence to cross a flowing river of lava.

This web resource is for teachers of high beginning and intermediate writing courses and intermediate ESL learners. The resource provides 8 units that 1) teach about paragraph structure and paragraph elements: topic sentence, supporting sentences, and concluding sentence 2) introduce transition words and coherence in a paragraph 3) provide the opportunity to learn about and practice basic writing skills such as making an outline and staying on topic. Clear explanations are supported by examples; therefore, teacher can use this resource for class preparation, and ESL learners can use it as additional material to learn about paragraph writing. Practice activities provided by the website are not interactive; however, most of the assessment tasks have answer keys. In addition, each unit provides lesson in a PDF format that can be used by a teacher as a handout. -- From Lena Shvidko For ESL K-12 learners, but would be useful for adults as well. Focuses on the paragraph, rather than the essay, so makes a good beginning set of lessons.

"a sentence building site in English that is loads of fun and great for low levels. It creates videos of the sentences and is well worth looking at. Lots of fun for your students." Students select words on the screen to create sentences that are then spoken by various people. Try the Twist Galley to see examples first..

Downloadable app to use Word Magnets on your own computer (requires registration). Sentences are broken up into words that can be rearranged and moved around the desktop to make poetry, re-create a target sentence, or make new sentences and punctuate it. See Russell Standard's http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/magnets/index.html for how to download and use this app.

"This is one of my favorite websites for advanced sentence-level writing. The exercises on run-on sentences and fragments, for example, have lots of challenging vocabulary and funny situations. The exercises provide immediate feedback with cool (or yucky) "cyber prizes." "One caution: the exercises are only useful for advanced-level students who can understand the vocabulary and appreciate the humor." - by Nancy Overman New exercises appear to be added fairly regularly.

"The key to IELTS Writing Task 2 success is to give the examiner exactly what they want and nothing else. "Below you will find everything you need to achieve a high score in IELTS Writing Task 2. "It includes: 5 Step Approach Video Writing Task 2 Tips Essential Skills Sentence-by-Sentence Structures Common Topics Full Lessons On All Question Types. Grammar Sample Answers Correction Service Easy to Understand Infographic" This lesson is oriented toward passing the IELTS Writing Exam, but it is a useful set of exercises and activities, including a video, for anyone learning how to write an academic essay

Our pedagogical imperative is to let a course unfold according to the whim and determination of the group - to replace teacher-as-content with learning-community-as-content-maker. Doesn't this replace the content-as-authority with the random knowledges of various members of the group? How does "whim" become "content"? Wouldn't it be better to start with actual, factual knowledge? on Dec 09, 14 - Edit - Remove This is at the heart of what Freire calls "co-intentional education," in which "Teachers and students (leadership and people), co-intent on reality, are both Subjects, not only in the task of unveiling that reality, and thereby coming to know it critically, but in the task of re-creating that knowledge." The collective knowledge of a group of students will almost always exceed the expertise of one instructor. The last sentence is misleading -- not what Freire says. If the teacher is not included as part of the task, the knowledge of the group of students probably doesn't exceed the instructor's expertise.

The article has some great ideas for using corpora as a class activity to help students learn appropriate sentence patterns.

"What you see here are candid submissions from people who have engaged in a little exercise. Here's how it works. Think about the word Race. How would you distill your thoughts, experiences or observations about race into one sentence that only has six words?" This National Public Radio blog makes the perfect starting point for a multicultural lesson for ESL/EFL students. The entries are sheer poetry and give a great deal of content to think about the issue of race and one's place in society, for better or worse. Each 6-word "poem" makes us, as one contributor said, "Look past race to underlying humanity."

You paste an English text (sentence, paragraph, or more) into the site and Rewordify will simplify it. May help students understand difficult passages, but could also be used as the basis for lessons on vocabulary, paraphrasing, analyzing, etc. The "Smart HIghlighting" feature finds the hard words and phrases and highlights them. See the teacher demo video on the site.

This resource from the University of Victoria offers a set of advisory files primarily on writing about literature. It has basic information about types of essays, essay organization, basic steps in writing process, types and function of paragraphs. The website also offers guidelines on writing clear sentences, and introduces rhetorical and literary terms. -- From Lena Shvidko

This software helps learners develop their basic paragraph writing skills. Students learn how to write an effective paragraph -- developed by reason, detail, sequence, example, and cause and effect. The full version of the software provides 15 interactive writing activities on a variety of topics. Choosing from a menu of topics, students are guided to generate ideas, write a topic sentence, body of a paragraph, and a conclusion. Each interactive activity includes the following steps: pre-writing, writing, organizing, revising, rewriting, and publishing. The software is a great tool for assessment and self-assessment, for individual practice, and may be especially useful in classes where a teacher is not able to provide personal attention to individual student. -- From Lena Shvidko The focus on process in writing is important, from pre-writing to developing an idea. Would probably be appropriate for both young and adult learners.

One teacher explains how to teach thinking skills. A nice build up, e.g., from concepts to topic sentences, observation to finding patterns and drawing conclusions. Starts with magazine advertising as a short path to larger works.

pdf files with papers on such topics as "How to Write a Thesis Statement," "Paragraphs and Topic Sentences," "Taking an Essay Exam," etc.

Nice ideas, and a downloadable sheet to get a free teaching aid: "At one time or another, most of us suffer from writer's block and have a terrible time coming up with story ideas. We stare at a blank page, unable to come up with clever story starters or generate ideas for stories to write. In a way it traps us and keeps us from doing the one thing we want to do most when we sit down with a paper and pen in hand or in front of a computer: write. The more time we waste and are unable to come up with ideas for writing stories, the more we get discouraged. That's why we have something to help kick-start your muse.In this free online download, you get two weeks worth of top-notch writing prompts designed to spark your mind and help you flex your creative muscles. From fiction prompts to poem starters to short stories ideas, you'll be able to generate creative story ideas based on a sentence or two of direction."

Thousands of online exercises and activities for all the language skills, constantly revised, improved, and added to by the geniuses, Charles & Lawrence Kelly.

This web site is for people studying English as a Second Language (ESL) or English as a Foreign Language (EFL). There are quizzes, word games, word puzzles, proverbs, slang expressions, anagrams, a random-sentence generator and other computer assisted language learning activities.

Mostly free and easy to use--all online. Can be very useful for diagraming sentences, charting the plot for a collaborative story or project, etc.

Offers several online games--word sort, complete the sentence, and proofreading--connecting spelling to reading, writing, and thinking skills.

Make a sentence by arranging the words and then it's read by native speakers, one person per word. You can then save and embed in a blog or Website. Fun, but may not give much help with intonation, elision, and the finer points of pronunciation.