This is a reading assessment based on Reading Apprenticeship ideas. I’ve added a longer writing task to make it a more effective assessment in reading/writing classes. Laura TalleyESL and English Instructor at Yuba College and Butte College <<https://lctalley.wordpress.com/>>
Category: Accelerated ESL
Practice Final (High-Int Writing)
This is a Practice Final I’m using in ESL 268/568: High Intermediate Writing. It’s my first semester teaching the class, so I’m not sure how it will go. Most of the semester we’ve been working from Q Skills 3: Reading and Writing, but I wanted to use a reading and prompt more based on composition classes. Laura TalleyESL and English Instructor at Yuba College and Butte College <<https://lctalley.wordpress.com/>>
Genre Based Writing
At the CATESOL conference, there was a new technique for teaching writing that has spread to classrooms. Sometimes I feel like language teaching trends can be a lot like fashion or diet trends. Once one style is popular, just wait a decade until the opposite (bell- bottoms versus skinny jeans or low fat versus Keto) comes into play. Since I started teaching, about a decade ago, I’ve been vigorously implementing techniques for my students to […]
Comparatives and Superlatives
This is a great lesson plan as a prelude to a compare/contrast project. I like teaching superlatives and comparatives because they are a somewhat “simple” grammar concept for students to grasp onto. There are only a few “exceptions” to the rule – like fun! I teach how to use fun as a comparative and tell students that if they listen, they will hear native speakers use funner all the time and this is their opportunity […]
ESL 235 Practice Final
<<ESL 235 annotated practice final>> <<ESL 235 Practice Final>> This is the Practice Final I created for Level 3 Integrated Skills this semester. It’s based on older finals that incorporated more reading, because as a department we decided that (only) writing finals may not be the best assessment of integrated skills. I gave them another practice final with added writing practice to do as homework before this, and then they had an entire class time […]
Smart Phones and You – Research Results
This unit/module focuses on the negative effects that smart phones are playing in our life in terms of memory and our attention via an article entitled “How Smartphones Hijack Our Minds,” by Nicholas Carr, October 6, 2017. The article is rather lengthy so best to do this towards the end of the semester than at the beginning. With that in mind, the unit/module focuses on teaching students how to relay research results in a […]
Practice for a Writing Test
<<Practice Midterm>> I used this handout to prepare students for the writing midterm in integrated skills level 3. We began by looking at the prompt together. We focused on noticing verb tenses used in the prompt and what verb tenses they should use responding to the prompt, with me annotating the prompt on the document camera (with students writing it out on the handout to help plan). We then talked about what a topic sentence […]
World Village
This is an intermediate /advanced listening & discussion activity that has students imagine the world as a village of 100 people. What would this world look like? All the activities and instructions are on the two page handout. The first page is the handout for the students and the second has instructions and follow up assignments for the teacher. Here are links to the 2 page handout: » WORLD VILLAGE « and the […]
I Have a Dream by Margaret Davidson
This is material that I used in my low intermediate ESL class. I used this book in addition to other things I was doing in the class. We dedicated part of the class to do activities related to the book, have discussions, and write about the themes. I already wrote about this on my blog, so click here to read more about this material. CLICK HERE to download prereading activities and then activities for […]