Update on Master Class and a new free resource

 Hello, ESL Literacy teachers!

Well, since announcing that I would create a master class to show new ESL literacy teachers how to build a module’s worth of activities around a Bow Valley College reader or LEA book, I slipped into a state of perpetual procrastination. I had even bought the special little mic that clips on your lapel and had downloaded the recommended open-source software that enables me to split the screen between a lovely talking head and a screenshot of a worksheet. Sigh. I really do want to create this free course. Maybe the email I got from a teacher today will light a fire under me and get me going again. I don’t want to over-promise and under-deliver again, though, so I won’t say more yet.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Meanwhile, here is a new resource that is free or maybe freemium. I checked it out. It reminds me a bit of English in Vancouver with its videos of people interacting in English. There is a gamified aspect to it that might appeal to some students. I’m not sure how much of these materials are appropriate for the earliest arrivals with lower literacy, so I encourage you to vet the resource well before using it with your learners.

Here is the description that was provided to me: 

Boston English Center offers 36 free beginner English lessons with videos, vocabulary, and interactive exercises covering everyday topics. Teachers can use them as supplementary classroom resources, and learners can practise independently. No registration or payment is required.

https://bostonenglishcenter.com/free-english-materials

Cheers!

Kelly

Those Elusive Bow Valley College ESL Literacy Readers

 Well, I never thought I'd be posting here again! No, I haven't returned to the field of teaching English. I do, however, continue to get inquiries, six years later, into the ESL literacy readers and the activity packs that I created to complement them. Everyone has been so very disappointed by Bow Valley College's decision to take them down or no longer host them on the web. That being said, they must still exist SOMEWHERE, even if that somewhere is on our old thumb drives. So, mission number one is to find them all and put them where they cannot ever again go missing. For me, that means downloading PDFs and providing download links on my website thejoyofesl.weebly.com.

The good news is that achev.ca seems to have made a place for the PDFs to reside, and on this Google Drive you can find slide packs of the same readers. Finding these resources again after thinking them all lost has been so exciting for me that I might even create activity packs for the rest of the readers, such as for Inge Cuts Hair.

The second reason I've come here to this blog today is to announce that I have been asked to come back to Canada to teach other teachers how to create the activity packs. Well, I see no need to hop on a plane in these post-pandemic times. We all know how to teach and conference virtually now.

So! Mission number two is for me to put together a masterclass, a series of very short videos explaining exactly how I did what I did to provide a week's worth of learning activities to go along with one of the readers or with a Language Experience Approach reader co-created by you and your learners.

If you see this post, please leave a comment.