Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

This is a marvelous collective resource for any teachers of ELL/ESL students and even for teachers of other languages. The range of offerings goes from lesson plans and activities to games to grammar explanations and more. There are also teaching tips and informative articles. The overall ESL Base website also has job-finding and other important information for ESL/ELL teachers worldwide. The GRAMMAR section of this site would be useful to any class learning proper grammar (articles, reflexive pronouns, passive voice, and more). (This website does not use American English, so you may notice some slightly different spellings if using this is American schools. For example, practice is practise.
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tag(s): grammar (137), grammar review (31), professional development (385), resources (83), verbs (26)

Jump into fiction and poetry with fictionteachers.com. Find information about teaching reading, poetry, readers theater, and inviting such authors to visit your classroom. Write a Girls to the Rescue, a mini mystery, or a new fangled fairy tale. Lesson plans have creative ideas to inspire students, teachers, and parents.
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tag(s): poetry (193), readers theater (12)

This site is a wiki that allows ENL/ELL teachers to share helpful websites, games, presentations, and songs with other ENL/ELL instructors. There are PowerPoint presentations, games, templates, tutorials, songs, and more... all ready to go! You don't need to join the wiki to enjoy the games, PowerPoints, etc., but , by joining the workspace, you can comment on materials and methods, and add your own activities. Another benefit of joining is that all members receive notification of changes and new activities added to the wiki, in their email.

tag(s): directions (11), grammar (137), songs (46), vocabulary (238), writing (325)

Enter the world of assisted learning with Word Talk, a free plugin for use with Microsoft Word. This software downloads onto unlimited computers for educational use. A talking dictionary assists with definition and spelling. The ability to turn the words into MP3 format is available. This plugin has won the Microsoft Innovative Teacher Award.

tag(s): dictionaries (47), Microsoft (80), text to speech (20)

Socrative is a smart student response system -- the answer to not having expensive "educational clickers" in your classroom. Socrative works on tablets, smartphones, iPod Touch, laptops, and others. There is an introductory video demonstrating teacher and student logins and how your class will interact in real-time. You can create your own multiple choice, true/false, and short answer questions. You may also choose to use one of their ready-made activities as exit tickets, thoughtful questions, or games. See your students' responses in an Excel file or view online as a Google spreadsheet. Multiple choice questions are automatically corrected.

tag(s): chat (41), DAT device agnostic tool (147), game based learning (205), gamification (83), polls and surveys (49), questioning (36), social networking (61)

This site offers more than just worksheets. Choose from over 17,000 worksheets and lesson plans for teaching English, make a word search or word scramble, or generate "double puzzles." Find worksheets by selecting topics including grammar and vocabulary, or use the search feature to find specific topics of interest. This site also includes many ESL essentials including games and ideas for focused lessons.
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tag(s): creative writing (124), descriptive writing (42), grammar review (31), listening (93), multilingual (77), pronunciation (34), reading comprehension (149), speaking (26), Teacher Utilities (198), vocabulary (238), vocabulary development (94)

This site offers well-organized lessons of English to limited English speakers. There are three levels. After selecting a level, students can choose the theme of each lesson they wish to study. Offerings include vocabulary, grammar, listening comprehension, pronunciation, reading, and other types of practice. Besides complete English lessons, the site offers a word of the day and also lesson plans for teachers that correspond to the lesson themes. At the time of this review, these were only available at the beginning level. The site promises that those at the intermediate and advanced levels will be coming soon.
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tag(s): listening (93), reading comprehension (149), reading strategies (96), speaking (26)

Test any website's readability using The Readability Test Tool. Test readability by URL or direct text input from any source (such as copy/paste of student writing). Simply enter the web address (URL) and get the readability of the site on several scales. You can also check your own webpages by using the "referer" section. You will get a score for the most used readability indicators: Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease and Grade Level, Gunning Fog Score, Coleman Liau Index, and Automated Readability Index (ARI). These tell much more than a simple "grade level." View sentence info such as total characters, number of words, average word length, percentage of short and long sentences, and more. View word usage of types of verbs, conjunctions, and other parts of speech as well as type of words used to begin sentences. Click the link provided to view an explanation of each type of score.
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tag(s): independent reading (81), readability (5), writing (325)

As part of their extensive site for vocabulary, roots, and more, MyVocabulary.com has added a themed area for President's Day. Find interactive vocabulary activities using President's Day related vocabulary words. You will also find printable crosswords, fill in the blanks and more, all using the same theme words. This and other "themes" available on the site will make vocabulary development fun.

tag(s): vocabulary (238), vocabulary development (94)

This site offers many songs related to math, social studies, and science concepts. Science concepts include water & pollution, scientific inquiry, changes in matter, and much more. Math concepts range from order of operations to quadratic and exponential functions. After choosing a topic, you can listen to the song online, download the mp3, view lyrics, and possibly view an accompanying video. (Not all topics include the video.) Some topics also include a teacher guide with lesson suggestions. This site does mention that you can create your own videos. However, at the time of this review, that feature was not working.

tag(s): africa (148), area (53), atoms (43), bill of rights (33), branches of government (65), cells (82), civil war (139), constitution (96), elements (33), equations (119), exponents (35), factoring (25), factors (29), functions (52), inquiry (24), integers (21), matter (45), nutrition (140), oceans (149), order of operations (29), quadratics (27), rainforests (18), ratios (47), songs (46), sound (72), volume (33), water (102), world war 2 (161)

Here you will find the most extensive list of homonyms ever seen! Download this PDF list of over 460 homonyms (words that sound alike but have a different spelling and meaning) organized for us by Alan Cooper. If you've exhausted your list of homonyms to use with your students, check this site out. If you're still confused by which witch is which, use this site to cite the correct word!

tag(s): editing (93), homonyms (8), spelling (98), word choice (14), word study (59)

NaturalReader is a text-to-speech program that offers users many language and voice options. To access the free version, select the get started link and choose the personal use link to use NaturalReader online. Choose from hundreds of voice options, including the ability to clone your voice and record it in many languages (free registration is required for the cloning feature). Add documents, copy and paste text, add scanned photos or screenshots, or listen to the contents of webpages. Once your text is ready, choose a voice and select play to begin listening. Additional features allow users to highlight areas of text and add notes. Use NaturalReader's filters to personalize areas to skip, such as text in brackets or URL text. When ready to share, download it as an MP3 file to your device or share it using the link in your history.

tag(s): artificial intelligence (177), DAT device agnostic tool (147), dyslexia (11), learning disability (21), learning styles (18), listening (93), Special Needs (53), text to speech (20), writers workshop (31)

This interactive graphic organizer helps students develop an outline for one of three types of comparison essays: whole-to-whole, similarities-to-differences, or point-to-point. A link in the introduction to the "Comparison and Contrast Guide" gives students the chance to get definitions and look at examples before they begin working. The tool offers multiple ways to navigate information, including a graphic on the right to move around the map without having to work in a linear fashion. The finished map can be saved, e-mailed, or printed. There are many additional interactives and lesson plans (with standards included!).

tag(s): charts and graphs (171), concept mapping (15), graphic organizers (48)

You can make your very own comic right now! At Write Comics, you will be able to create your own comics using the figures, backgrounds, animals, aliens, and dialogue bubbles, supplied by Write Comics. This site is extremely easy to use. There is no need to sign up or register. Once you click Finish, you will receive a link. Go to your link and print your comic or upload it to your webpage.

tag(s): comics and cartoons (55), communication (129), digital storytelling (154), summarizing (23)

Find material about the U.S. national symbols, famous Americans, major landmarks, national symbols, and the basics of the US government organization and workings. Although this site is geared towards ESL/ELL students, it could be useful in all classrooms. The site is not high tech. It consists mostly of simple written text. In addition to text, there are slide shows about government topics that include lesson plans, pictures and activities. There is also a link to videos on many of the topics. Links to other themed pages include U.S. holidays, important U.S. politicians, geography, and life/survival skills for ELL/ELL learners.
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tag(s): branches of government (65), holidays (187), states (124)

Curriki is a nonprofit organization that encourages teachers and learners' to collaborate in developing quality educational materials in a global community. Click What We Do from the top menu and slide to CurikiStudio, and click Creators to create a free account and find resources like questions, photos/images, multimedia, and more for interactive lesson creation. Next under Solutions is CurrikiGo, where you will publish your lessons, etc. Last on the dropdown list is the CurrikiLibrary, where you can search by subject area, grade level, or resource type (interactive, video, or podcast). For a thorough summary of Curriki click the Explore a CurrikiStudio Activity. Join different groups for a more involved way to explore new areas in online learning, subject area interests, or focus questions. Create collections of your resources to keep private or share with others. This site focuses on providing free access to teachers, schools, students, or parents to many new creative ideas for in-class learning, digital learning, and hybrid or blended learning in a global community. Free membership includes monthly newsletters. Follow Curriki on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), or blogs.
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tag(s): graphic organizers (48), literacy (122), OER (43), operations (72), resources (83), rubrics (37), Teacher Utilities (198)

Short stories, biographies, riddles, games and other appealing activities make this an attractive way to introduce students to magazine reading. With both academic and just-for-fun features, the site fills the need students have after Highlights Magazine and other similar publications get too old. Students are using their reading skills as they try to solve riddles, tell jokes, and practice tongue-twisters.
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tag(s): biographies (94), crafts (64), holidays (187), riddles (15), short stories (18)

Create your own tests to be taken online and graded instantly and accurately. With a free account, you can save 100 test results a month. ClassMarker allows you to add your own tests to be taken online and graded instantly. ClassMarker will randomize questions and answers, add time limits, and preset test availability dates. You can choose from multiple choice, short answer, essay & more question types.

Registration is not required. You can embed the tests on your own web page. This method is useful for practice tests since test results are only saved when students are registered and logged into ClassMarker. To register students, you create a group, add the student names (use a code for online safety), and create a password for the group. Or students can register themselves using a registration code you give them. You can then transfer users to multiple groups after they are registered if you wish.
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tag(s): quiz (67), quizzes (90), test prep (69)

This ENL/ESL vocabulary site has words and related pictures organized into over 100 categories. Example categories include animals, body, birds, Christmas, camping, phonic, days of the week, Europe, Fruit, Work Site Problems, Medical Jobs, and much more! Click on a category and you get common vocabulary as well as review activities for that category. Each word has sound, and many of the review activities are based on hearing the word to complete the required work. An added benefit to the site is that it is easy to switch the target language from English to three other languages: Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish.
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tag(s): chinese (45), japan (56), japanese (47), spanish (109), vocabulary (238), vocabulary development (94), word study (59)

Need kid-friendly online news? This safe site, written for kids, by kids, offers news from a younger point-of-view. You can create a class page where you can load a variety of articles, add a book list, a calendar, favorite sites list, add lesson plan instructions, monitor student comments, and more. DOGOnews is kid-friendly, colorful, and flexible. After all, DOGO means young or small in Swahili. You can select articles from a number of categories (Social Studies, Science, World, Current Events, etc.). There is an integrated dictionary for challenging words and maps for geographical context. Some of the articles include short video clips. Students may leave brief comments about each article (no login required). Also, typing the word "video" in the search box will bring up the Video of the Week for the past several weeks. The videos reside on YouTube. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable. In addition, find a Book and Movie section with a brief summary for the book or movie, and comments. You don't have to join to read the articles, but you do need to join to create a class page. There are many benefits to creating a class page, and it's all free! Don't want to create a class page? You can also embed articles on your current web page.

tag(s): journalism (74), news (228), reading comprehension (149), sports (82)