I'm resource teaching two eastern europeans. Running outa Idea's. Help please?

Question

They are 15, ones a boy the others a girl. OK english but not fantastic

Answer 1

In what area are you providing support? I'm assuming ESL? From there, we need a little bit more information about their langauge level. What benchmarks do you use to determine their level and according to those benchmarks where are the students?

Before you teach them, you might want to brush up on your own punctuation. "Idea's" = "Idea is". "Ones" = "several of the number one". It concerns me that your own poor language skills might rub off on these young, impressionable students.

You can always find extra materials based around what they're doing in their other classes. If they're studying plants in Science, get them to design a crosswork puzzle about plants, writing the clues themselves. See if you can find some relevant newspaper articles about current events that interest/affect students. My students from Eastern Europe are usually excellent at speaking and listening, but show poor writing skills. Peer editing is great for this. Give them a question or writing prompt and have them write for ten or fifteen minutes. Then they can swap papers and correct one another's work. After you can discuss the changes that they made and why. If you're looking for worksheets (which should be a last resort) try some of the links below (which require registration). Don't throw a grammar worksheet on them if their program of study is structured around themes. It's too insulting.

Answer 2

English Learning Links

There are some excellent ESL websites about and there are some appalling ESL websites about.

http://free-esl.com/channels/articles/details.asp?fIndex=32

Each week reviewers take a look at different sites across the spectrum of ESL and tell you what is worth visiting and what is worth avoiding.

http://www.eslcafe.com/

http://grammar.free-esl.com/

http://www.eslcafe.com/

http://free-esl.com/

http://blogs.free-esl.com/

http://free-esl.com/channels/forums/

http://www.world-english.org/

http://www.englishforums.com/

http://www.tolearnenglish.com/

http://www.zozanga.com/

http://www.word2word.com/

http://sitemaker.umich.edu/eli.resources/home

http://www.englishpage.com/

http://www.usingenglish.com/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/

http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/

http://www.english-at-home.com/


Good luck.

Kevin, Liverpool, England.