Teacher Resources
Useful Links and Resources
Need help getting the conversation started with your new student or students? Below are several fun teaching tips to help you get started. Intercambio also provides optional teacher in–service trainings. Topics covered include Grammar, Pronunciation, Culture, and Teaching Activities.
Activity Resources
You'll find printable pdf versions of the reproducibles needed for Interactive English via the links below.
Explore these resources for fun activity ideas for both groups and one-on-one classes:
Useful Links
Pronunciation
- Sounds of English (Pronunciation tips )
- Phonetic table (Interactive and very technical, but useful.)
- Train you Accent (At Train Your Accent, you can listen to short recorded speeches on various topics. Each speech comes with two transcripts. One shows the speech in formal written English, and the other highlights all of the instances in which the speaker uses more natural-sounding English. This site is fairly technical and the content may need to be adapted depending on your students’ levels and backgrounds.)
- Englishpage.com (Lessons for advanced classes)
- Manythings.org (Variety of useful lessons)
- ESL Party Land
- English 4 Today (Helpful information on challenging grammar topics and good general activity ideas)
- Activities for ESL Students
- Quizlet (Flashcard generator)
- Dave's ESL Cafe
- Everything ESL
- ESL Flow
- ESL About
- English Club
- Resources for Teachers of English
- Conversation Topics
- Teaching Ideas
- Activities to energize a tired class (Most can be easily adapted to one-on-one teaching)
- The Owl at Purdue (Definitions of when to use particular prepositions)
- Web English Teacher
- One Stop English
Vocabulary
- Teaching Vocabulary: Two Dozen Tips and Techniques
- Lesson Plans 4 Teachers (Links to other helpful vocabulary sites (methodology and activities))
- Using English (Idiom Guide)
Methodology
- National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (Technical focus for teachers interested in formal instruction of adult level learners and low-literacy issues)
- Reading Rockets
- The Internet TESL Journal
- Aardvark's English Forum
- English Club
Listening and Reading Activities
- Simple English News (Simple English News presents a range of news and feature stories each in a short paragraph. The stories are likely suitable for students in at least level 3 or 4.)
- The Learning Resources (This site uses video or audio clips of CNN news broadcasts along with the written story in its original or abridged form to teach reading and listening comprehension. Each news story includes vocabulary and comprehension exercises. There is also a discussion board to send in thoughts/opinions on stories. This is recommended for advanced students.)
- Song Lyrics (This website is an index of song lyrics that can be easily used to illustrate specific grammar themes)
- White House (Here you can listen to President Obama's weekly address and download a transcript. The address lasts about 5 minutes long and generally covers timely, political issues that students may be interested in discussing.)
- Story Corps (This is a website that features 3-5 minute audio files of people telling stories about themselves. Transcripts of individual pieces are on the NPR website www.npr.org by searching for "StoryCorps")
- National Public Radio (Find transcripts for StoryCorps stories)
- Radio Diaries (This website also documents people telling their stories (links to transcripts and downloadable files on the same page). The pieces are 15-30 minutes long.)
- Voice of America (Voice of America broadcast in "special English" for language learners.)
Low Level/Low Literacy
- Multi-Cultural Educational Services Geared toward low-level/low-literacy adult learners, this website's phonics stories have listening components.
- English Express This website contains stories written at three different levels. Updated monthly, many stories on this website have listening components and can be easily printed.