Beginners +

E-readers for low level learners

• The READERs Project: OER Phonics and Story Resources

• Adult ESL Phonics - high beginning ESL (based on the color vowel system) (by Jen Sacklin)

• African stories, by level, with audio

• Home and School - beginners (by Tim Krause)

  • Adapted and with ideas for building off it

    • #1: Niki and Matt are classmates

    • #2: Minako and Tom study in the computer lab

    • #4: Omar Goes to the Doctor

    • #6: Bob gets ready for school

• Portland People & Places - high beginners (by Tim Krause)

• Bow Valley - 40 readers at varying levels, audio narration too

• Unite for Literacy - short e-books with audio (designed for kids)

• Minnesota Literacy Pre-Beginning Story Bank, Beginning ESL Story Bank

• Free phonics readers (by Free Phonetic Readers)

• Literacy level phonics books (by Jen Sacklin)

Beginner video playlists

• Voice of America 

• Language Planet

• ISS of BC

• Real English

• ESL Video

• Elllo.org

Teaching reading & pronunciation

These amazing videos, created by Amy Grant, are appropriate both for sharing with students and for teachers figuring out how to teach English vowel sounds. 

• Letter sounds and spelling patterns (there are videos for many consonants & vowels)

Very beginning reader videos, also by Amy Grant

• Pat, Sam, and Ted

• Pat has a Fan

Assessment

A simple assessment for low-level students: worksheet, materials, samples for reading (and/or use Bow Valley Literacy Readers)

Lesson plans & resources for online teaching

Beginner lesson plans (theme-based lesson plans & resources)

• From Adult ELL Pathway to Literacy

• From the British Council on Teaching English 

• From Minnesota Literacy: Pre-beginning ESL Curriculum 

• Entry into English by Penny Jahraus & Sara Packer (Oregon teachers!)

My lesson plans for low-level learners (newest lesson plans are on top)

• Level 1 (not 0) from 2023-2024

• Levels 0/1, a 3 week class in Summer 2021

The following lesson plans were used for one-hour online classes taught with Zoom. 

• Feelings

• Food (and another set of slides for a bit higher level)

• Shopping for food

• Where do you live?

• Small Talk

• Work: where do you work? when do you work?

• Have / has

Materials & lesson ideas

• Tips and resources from Amy Grant

• A continuum of activity ideas, from "supported use" to "independent use" of a new skill - see details here

• Connecting with entry-level learners, by Amy Grant 

• Practicing sentences with various verb forms (click the green flag)

News

• ESOL News Oregon 

• breakingnewsenglish.com/ (leveled news)

• www.newsinlevels.com/ (leveled news)

• learningenglish.voanews.com/  (some videos too)

Community places

• Image bank from Amy Grant

• Image bank from Adult ELL Pathway to Literacy

Family

• A simple, free family tree maker

• A sample family tree

Holidays

• Halloween: lesson slides, Charlie Brown (watch, stop, get students to describe) 

• Thanksgiving: Lesson plan & story

• December holidays video: The Giant Boombox - Improv Everywhere

• Wordwall game: Winter holiday vocabulary 

• MLK Day

• Valentine's Day: Be a candy tester! Article with some pre/post work

• Spring holidays (Ramadan/Passover/Easter) Lesson plan & materials 

Count & non-count nouns 

• Teaching presentation

• Count & non-count nouns in food / recipes / cooking

Great online grammar presentations & materials

• A digital workbook - three levels of interactive grammar and reading activities for beginning and intermediate students of ESOL

• Teaching "too" with Goldilocks

Student autobiographies - samples from a class

Common classroom expressions - translated handouts

Each language on its own tab - make a copy and use/edit

Or get each pdf separately: Arabic - Cantonese - Farsi - Hindi - Japanese - Korean - Mandarin (China)- Mandarin (Taiwan) - Portuguese - Russian - Spanish - Thai - Vietnamese - 

See also

• Teacher training page

• Listening page

• Healthcare page

• Activities page