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Sorry, this resource isn't free, but if your ESL program decides they can spare just $5-6/week, then both students and teachers can use the same password to access news stories as well as features such as audio recordings of stories, exercises, crossword puzzles, and definitions of key vocabulary. I taught a weekly current events ESL class for adults, and students loved News For You. Each week there are 7 new stories, and several students would read/listen to all the stories before coming to class. I would pick one or two stories to focus on during the 90-minute class. I made my own activities, but students who wanted to could do the online exercises at a library or community center computer. However, because the stories are written for adults who are learning to read (either ABE or ESL students), the content is not as authentic as a regular newspaper. But the fact that it is motivating and accessible to students and encourages lively discussions in class makes it a nice resource.

I don't think this resource has been posted yet. It's a website with simple news stories for English language learners. Each news story has a recorded version that learners can listen to and a transcript for them to read. The transcripts have glosses for difficult words as well. Overall, it looks like a good resource for in or out of class reading or listening activities.

I like stories that come with transcripts. Because it will help students listen and read at the same time. I think that having students with different learning styles, this would be extremely beneficial. Thanks Alan

Here is another adult education newspaper. It includes grade-leveled articles (ranging from 3-12) written by adult students on topics relevant to adults. I have not personally used this resource, but I know it can be challenging to find relevant and engaging reading materials for adults who are learning to read. Like News for You, this newspaper provides audio files, which I have found to be a nice feature for literacy classes. The site suggests having students listen to short sections and then read them aloud to improve fluency. The newspaper is produced by the New England Literacy Resource Center.

English Daily is an interesting site for English learners because of its vast array of resources. For learners who have an interest in learning about English idioms, learners can discover the definitions of idioms and read examples of them in context. To learn about English language culture or for practicing reading fluency aloud, the Movie Lines section of the site contains portions of dialogue from popular movies. To practice comprehension questions, the comprehension section allows learners to read a passage and to answer questions about it. While the website has many advantages and may appeal to younger learners and business professionals alike, the presentation of the content is not very aesthetically pleasing, and the site is full of advertisements that may distract learners from the content they are attempting to learn. Additionally, the site is not very interactive beyond the news section that allows learner to listen to a news story and to complete cloze exercises. Furthermore, the answers to exercises are presented on the same page as the exercises themselves, so clearly a learner would need to be rather autonomous to use the site effectively. To fully incorporate the site into a classroom, a teacher would benefit from creating supplemental materials such as a learning log in order to track student learning.

This is a quirky website that I used in my high school creative writing class. I think that ESLers could use this page to talk about syllables, pronunciation, and of course rhyming. Through a simple search, students could discover a very wide variety of new words from the suggested rhymes on this site. The attention to phoneme-grapheme association (spelling vs. pronunciation) will reinforce emerging literacy skills. Overall, I just find this to be a fun site for generating ideas and word knowledge.

The New York Times has a blog named 'The Learning Network'. They post several activities everyday. These include cloze texts, multiple choice reading comprehension questions, puzzles and videos with discussion questions. They also have a word-of-the-day page where they post a new word everyday with its meaning and a sample sentence. I check their page from time to time to see if any of the activities would be appropriate for my students. You can also assign them as homework or students can work on them on their own.

Free Rice is an online educational game. It can be used for many different subjects, including vocabulary and grammar. It's a fun way for students to practice their skills. To add a motivational twist, Free Rice donates a certain amount of rice for each correct answer. Because the vocabulary words and grammar structures are selected at random by the program, it wouldn't be a very effective learning tool. However, If the students worked in groups, they could learn new vocabulary together as they played, but I don't think this format would be possible with grammar. I think it would serve most useful as a fun way for more advanced students to review material.

Since Power Point has lost some it's wonder, especially among younger students, teachers can use Prezi, which is a similar tool used for giving presentations. Prezi is similar to Power Point, but it provides a new and interesting tool for students to explore. Presentations created using Prezi can also be published to the Prezi community for other users to see. This could take some of the hassle of the teacher having to load everyone's presentations before class because they are all available through a website instead. Personally, I find Prezi more confusing than Power Point. However, I haven't dedicated much time to learning how to use it properly. I'm sure if I educated myself on using it correctly it would be worthwhile.

Live TESOL webinars are presented every Friday at 4 PM EST or New York time with Shelly Terrell. TESOL Webinars are open to the public, so feel free to invite a friend.

Brainstorming is an important part of the writing process. Bubbl allows students to draw mind maps on the computer. In class we talked about creating mind maps in Google Draw, but Bubbl might be easier to use in the sense that you don't have to create the structure for the mind map itself. By simply clicking the tab key, you can add another idea bubble. By clicking enter, you can add a new "level" of ideas. You can also click on the line connecting idea bubbles and hit delete if you would like to separate the ideas. These mind maps can be saved, printed, or exported. I have used mind maps in my writing classes before (with paper and pencil), but sometimes they can get a bit messy and hard to read. One benefit to using this website is that students can edit their maps and keep them fairly organized and easy to read. My students also appreciate opportunities to practice typing in English, so they may be more motivated to type up their idea maps. However, brainstorming activities in class are often fairly short. Sometimes it is a quick 10-minute activity at the beginning of class to get ideas flowing. Using the computer to create mind maps may not be ideal for these quick warm-up activities since time will have to be spent familiarizing students with the website itself.

This looks like a really interesting new blog from NPR which examines the intersection between language, culture, and identity in everyday life (topics that often arise in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology). This could be an excellent source of authentic reading material for L2 learners, a source of culture learning, and also a model source of the blog genre.

This site provides a wealth of information about technology for classroom use, as well as current discussions about technology and resources for teachers. I think K-12 teachers should subscribe to the newsletter to stay informed about what's going on in the field. I've been skimming the site, and so far, I've come across interesting research about the use of games in the classroom, as well as serving diverse populations, like special Ed through technology. The strength of this site is it's breadth of topics, but the weakness appears to be the amount of time sorting through everything to find what you want.

Similarly to the Breaking News English website, the Famous People English website features simplified mini-biographies on famous people from all over the world. Each passage also comes with a variety of activities. I have used this site many times for finding level-appropriate reading passages.

Grammar Girl is a website and podcast with a daily grammar rule or tip. When we listened to Bek's podcast, I was reminded of Grammar Girl. It has a similar quick and fun feel. The podcasts are likely most appropriate for advanced learners. It's useful for teachers, too, as I frequently learn something new through the show.

I use this website frequently to find simplified reading passages of current events. The passages are ranked as easier and harder and include a variety of activities (though the activities are redundant for each passage). Most passages are 1-2 paragraphs long.

I use this learners' dictionary frequently when I am trying to come up with a simplified definition for a new vocabulary word for my students. This website's definitions are almost always better and simpler than anything I can come up with. And quicker. It also includes daily words, quizzes, and activities for students.

While browsing the language learning resources from various universities, I came across these links for international broadcasts on Indiana University's website. There is also a link to SCOLA, a non-profit that provides authentic foreign language learning resources. You can get a SCOLA app or web subscription. In terms of evaluating foreign language news sites, I'd say to use similar criteria as you would in evaluating other classroom activities. Does the content relate to class material and/or student interests? Is the level appropriate (vocabulary, pace, etc)? Is the length appropriate, and can you justify using class time to watch or read this material?

StumbleUpon is a website that was not created with language learners in mind, but it can be a useful tool in the language classroom. You can sign up for free, and then you pick interests, such as English, humor, cats, politics, etc. When you hit "Stumble," you get new pages generated based on your interests. There are articles, videos, memes, blogs, pages dedicated to motivating writers, and so on, and most of the content is in English. Though not everything is authentic, there are pages on here that would be useful for reading, listening, and writing especially. The website is fun to use and based on students interests, which should increase student motivation. One activity that can be done with it is to ask students to share with the class (in person or perhaps on a discussion board) one or more websites that they stumbled upon. It would get students to use English to describe what they came across. One downfall for the classroom, though, is that you never know what you will get, so the content may not always be useful or level appropriate. Content is sometimes also more appropriate for teenage or older users.

From the site: Latest update 20th Jan 2013 - These are some of the best free internet resources for education. This page is constantly updated; every time I come across a new piece of software or an exciting website, I list it here. This list is not exhaustive in any way.

Memrise is a site similar to Quizlet. For language learning, you can build vocabulary decks and then the site gives you a variety of quiz-type activities to review them. There is some multimedia support (pictures, and sound, if I remember right). It uses a metaphorical "garden" for you to track your progress with each item. An instructor (or individual) can compose a custom deck and share it with students. Also, students (or any other learner) can add information to the vocab item- more definitions, mnenomics, example sentences, etc. I haven't had the chance to use it with a class, but I've played with it for my own language learning. Like most flash card type schemes, if you can make it a habit, it seems to be effective.