QUICK RESOURCE SHEET #92
Media-based learning guides
PREVIOUS TOPICS LISTED AT BOTTOM OF PAGE
The most valuable commodity in a typical teacher’s life is time. For most of us, there is no such thing as “clocking out.” Every encounter provides us with more food for thought, making us reflect on ways we can be more effective in the classroom.
Even in this multimedia age, there is no substitute for a well-written textbook. It offers a useful framework on which to hang our lessons, and gives students a sense of stability and continuity. That said, even a great textbook can seem monotonous when not extended by a wide variety of supplementary materials, both printed and not.
The challenge when using supplementary materials, often not designed for classroom use, is how to adapt them in ways that are student-friendly, without losing their power. Of course, most of us know our students well enough to adjust authentic materials for their level of comprehension as well as their interests, but we could spend hours adapting a few small pages that may get used up by students in a matter of minutes.
With this edition of the Quick Resource Sheet, I would like to recommend supplementary materials by various media outlets (i.e., magazines, newspapers, TV networks). These materials are created specifically for teaching purposes, they are up to date, and they can help develop new reading habits in our students because of the wide range of interests they target. In most cases, these materials are ready to use, and come with well-designed worksheets. What follows are links to just a few such websites.
http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/
“PBS TeacherSource materials are developed by trained and practicing educators. In addition to having teachers create curriculum materials, PBS regularly seeks educator feedback through surveys and focus groups, receives ongoing guidance from the team of exemplary teachers who make up the TeacherSource Advisory Group…”
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/index.html
“Students can read the day's top stories using Knowledge Tools, take a news quiz about today's world, and play special crossword puzzles. Students can also submit a letter to the editor, ask a reporter a question, or submit a science question and search through the Science Q&A archive. They can also expand their vocabularies and practice their verbal test-taking skills, and even take a Web Exploration on a variety of topics.
Teachers can access a daily lesson plan for grades 6-12, written in partnership with The Bank Street College of Education in New York City. Each lesson plan and the article it references can be printed out for classroom use. Previous lessons are available in the archive and in thematic lesson plan units. Teachers can also use News Snapshot, aimed for grades 3-5, to explore current events through New York Times photos and related questions.”
http://www.thenation.com/classroom/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learning/
Massive website with information on teaching and learning for all ages on an enormous range of topics.
Previous editions of the QUICK RESOURCE SHEET
#1 – Creating quizzes (and more) online
#2 – Vocabulary builders
#3 – Online discussion groups for English teachers
#4 – Grammar headaches – and how to cure them
#5 – Resources for new teachers
#6 – International Education Week
#7 – Mentoring programs
#8 – Education publications online
#9 – Applied Linguistics
#10 – English for Young Learners
#11 – World AIDS Day
#12 – Online writing guides
#13 – E-mail exchanges
#14 – Free online English courses
#15 – Effective e-mail communication
#16 – Libraries online
#17 – American Studies
#18 – Teaching methodologies
#19 – Internet tutorials
#20 – Using the newspaper – Part I
#21 – Making books
#22 - Using the newspaper – Part II
#23 – Human rights in language teaching
#24 – Blogging
#25 – Poetry and language teaching
#26 – The communicative approach
#27 - Idioms
#28 – Earth Day
#29 – Alternative assessment
#30 – Peer assessment
#31 – Self-assessment
#32 – Portfolio assessment – Part I
#33 - Portfolio assessment - Part II (Online Portfolios)
#34 – Intercultural communication
#35 – Teaching Adults
#36 – Learning disorders / Special needs
#37 – Using computers in reading instruction
#38 – Use of authentic materials
#39 – English for Medical Purposes
#40 – Sources for authentic materials
#41 – Education and technology
#42 – Academic writing
#43 – Teaching and stress
#44 – Back to school
#45 – Motivating students
#46 – Action research
#47 – Internet terminology
#48 – Fluency
#49 – Curriculum design
#50 – Pragmatics
#51 - Podcasting for English teachers
#52 – Critical reading
#53 – Learner autonomy
#54 – Scaffolding
#55 – Holidays
#56 – English for Academic Purposes
#57 – Mixed-level classes
#58 – The brain and language learning
#59 – Book clubs/Readers’ groups
#60 – Teachers and technology
#61 – Using video in the language classroom
#62 – Internet-based classroom projects
#63 – Observing student teachers
#64 – Digital literacy
#65 – Group work
#66 – Giving feedback on student writing
#67 – Vlogging
#68 – Educational leadership
#69 – The first five minutes: How to get a class warmed up
#70 – Managing test anxiety
#71 – Developing listening comprehension
#72 – Discourse analysis
#73 – English for Tourism
#74 – Storytelling
#75 – Virtual Learning Environments
#76 – Sociolinguistics
#77 – Corpus Linguistics
#78 – Teaching teenagers
#79 – Lexical Approach
#80 – Humanism in language teaching
#81 – Collaborative teaching
#82 – Distance learning
#83 – Open Education
#84 – The non-native speaker as English teacher
#85 – Contrastive grammar
#86 – Plagiarism
#87 – English through drama
#88 – Lifelong learning
#89 – Global teaching and learning
#90 – Collaborative online learning
#91 – Phrasal verbs