Beginners - Resources, Lesson Plans, Activities

The current issue of About.com's ESL's Newsletter focuses on beginners and includes: helpful 20 point absolute beginner teaching guide; other beginning level English lesson plans; review or starter with 25 basic English lessons; practice exercises for asking questions in English; a lesson explaining the common verbs do or make.

Are You an Absolute Beginner?  Do you understand the question? If yes - you are not an absolute beginner. If no - then you might be an absolute beginner. A simple definition of absolute beginners... Read more

Online ESL Newsletters

Years ago, before Web 2.0 and live or real time learning applications, lessons by email and newsletter subscription ruled. They're still around and still a useful learning tool. 

• The #ESL Daily 
  
• Pearson Longman USA ESL/EFL Daily 
  
• English Test Newsletter 
  
• Subscribe to About ESL Newsletter 
  

With Paper.li, you can even create your very own newsletter for learning English. Maybe I should do that for Blogging English. Do you have a favorite ESL newsletter? Please share it with us by posting a link to comments.

DIY U: Getting Started With Self-Learning

Are you ready to get started with self-learning? Read this important message from P2PU

P2PU is excited to announce an overdue collaboration with Anya Kamenetz, author of The Edupunk’s Guide to a DIY Credential, to create a new course centered around motivated learners who are ready to experiment with an innovative approach to learning.

Together we started DIY U: Getting Started With Self-Learning on P2PU.org. This course is a chance to explore the process of self-directed learning. We’ll help each other with two goals: creating an individualized learning plan, where you define your own goals and the path to get there, and reaching out to others to build a network of peers and mentors who can help you on your path.

DIY U is a pilot attempt of developing learning plans together. It will runs through September and is intended for those new to P2PU and even to online learning in general. If you’ve been a fan of P2PU but haven’t found a course or study group to suit you, this is a great place to start. If you have friends or students or others in your network who are newer to this self learning thing, please encourage them to sign up! And even if your interest in personal learning plans is more academic or theoretical, we encourage you to bring a focused learning goal to the table!

An exciting and diverse crowd has already signed up – with plenty room for more! One of the participants (and a P2PU staffer) has even created a tutorial on how to hack the P2PU course module to layout your individual learning plan. Sign up and start working through the tasks to take charge of your learning goals!

And then you can add all the English learning resources here - and more - to your Personal (English) Learning Plan

DIY U: Getting Started With Self-Learning

About ESL: Visual Learning

Hello all. It's been very quiet here. No excuses please ~ the analytics on my Blogger dashboard tell the story. Sadamu is the only member I've heard from: I owe him an email and hope he will let me share his message with you. I haven't been active here but have been posting mini-lessons and learning resources to the StudyCom Help Board that you can visit. You can also post grammar and usage questions there. 

Today's ESL resources from About ESL focus on visual learning. If you haven't already subscribed to the newsletter for your learning portfolio, don't put it off any longer: subscribe now! If you are a visual learner or interested in visual learning, take a look at Digital Delights for Learners too. If you don't know what kind of learner you are, find out before planning or starting your self-paced English learning program.

From Kenneth Beare's About.com newsletter, your Guide to ESL This week's newsletter provides a number of visual aids such as dictionaries, and tense charts to help with learning. The visual tense charts provide a picture for each tense to help with understanding, and a tense timeline shows all the tenses on one page. The visual dictionaries provide context for each picture with plenty of related vocabulary. There's also visual help with prepositions and finally a sheet on separable and inseparable verbs.

Visual Tense Charts  Visual clues can really help learners understand tense usage. This resource provides a visual tense chart for each of the major uses of the 14 tenses in English... Read more For more advanced learners, this tense timeline chart shows all the tenses on one page moving from past to future and can be a good way to review tenses by contrasting and comparing usage.

Visual Dictionaries

Broadsided: Responses: Japan Earthquake and Tsunami 2011

RESPONSES

Japan Earthquake and Tsunami 2011

At Broadsided, we believe that art and literature belong in our daily lives. We believe they are not just decoration, but essential communication. They inspire and they demonstrate the vitality and depth of our connection with the world.
Moved by the plight of post-tsunami Japan, Broadsided artist Yuko Adachi sent us the image "Love Heals Japan" (see right) and asked if we would help her find writing to accompany it. We were inspired by her idea, and decided to ask other Broadsided artists if they had been similarly moved and, if so, if they'd be willing to share their work.
We posted that art, and asked writers to respond. Below are the collaborations that resulted, as well as a short note from the writers and artists about this process. We hope that you will download, print, and share these with your community.
Yuko has created a high-quality giclee print of her collaboration with Hugh Martin. You can purchase it on Etsy. All proceeds will go to the relief effort in Japan.
Click each image below for the pdf; scroll down for more information about each collaboration.

add your 2¢ worth

What area of English do you want to work on and Why? What is your personal goal?

How would you assess your English level?

• Listening comprehension? 
• Speaking? 
• Reading? 
• Writing?

What features would like to see added?

• Text to Voice
• Chat
• Private group
• Other

Use the comment feature to answer or add anything else. No rude language, spam or inappropriate comments please.

A Language Learning MOOC for English

I wrote about MOOCs (☜ watch the video) or Massive Open Online Courses a while back when I was taking the PLE/PLN course - a MOOC called PLENK (for Personal Learning Environments and Knowledge Networks). Remember all the PLE and PLN graphics? Back then that we could adapt the ideas here for an open online study group. Now someone is doing just that, although a class rather than a study group.

What do you think?

Read the post, think about it and let me know. Then we can start planning how to do it.

"A MOOC course structure seems to usually be centered on topics such as online learning, teaching practices (M-learning), learning about connectivisim, or other such related fields as education and e-learning. Adapting the MOOC structure for some topic not related to the field of education itself would pose some challenges considering the participants would likely not be comprised mainly of educators or even people with an affinity for Distance Education technology and innovation. As others have pointed out, the effectiveness of a MOOC structure is partially dependent on the subject matter; not all subjects lend themselves to this style of information presentation. However, some especially do. Language Learning might be ideal for this type of course design.

Since being introduced to the MOOC earlier this year, I have often thought about how a Language MOOC might play out. This post is an explanation of why I think Language Learning suits the MOOC structure"

A Language Learning MOOC #EFL #ESL