Teacher Discussion Forums

If you are an ESL teacher, what types of technology do you use to help your ESL students? If you are an English Language Learner, what types of technology did your teachers use to help you learn English?

I used to teach in a school where we used smart boards with the students and a program called E Kilowatt. That was with kindergarten and I would highly recommend it. In another school with elementary I used ChildU, a learning Odyssey. That was great too but it was more for teaching subjects to ESL students.

I am currently teaching in a school where we have access to iPads for the kids -posh, I know! I teach kindergarten and they want me to use technology as much as possible. I just started a Space theme and I have been using an app called Jetpack Journeys that my kids love. It is mainly geared towards letting young children (maybe 3-7 year olds) discover space themselves, but I also use it for teaching other subjects such as math and English. We count the planets together or we describe the spaceships we create to learn colors and shapes. It's a fairly new app I think and I want to help the producers spread the word because it's quite fun for the kids! It's hard to find apps for the really young ones. You can find it at https://bitly.com/JetpackJourneys

I am looking for other apps that people can suggest. I am hoping to get a thread going that lists a bunch of quality apps so that I can have a good resource to use. Please help me out by responding and posting if you know of anymore...

Tech Teacher,

I have recently created a blog that, among other things, talks about websites and apps that are available to use in the classroom. Please feel free to visit. The websites and apps should be towards the bottom, since those are the first things I posted about.

http://www.mskimberlyard.blogspot.com/

kmard and tech teacher,

where are you guys teaching in? in the states or abroad?

Sosulee,

I teach first grade in Arkansas, U.S.

Kimberly

Hi there

I use tech all the time and my favourite esl tool is Google, a picture speaks louder than words.... I've also developed my own language software for complete beginners, you can see it at greateng.com, it's completely free to the user. I've also used razkids reading program extensively along with brainpop and many others. I am a big fan of tech in the classroom, used sensibly of course alongside traditional reading and writing skills.

katrina

Hey guys, I've been making lesson plans for years (mostly for private EFL/ESL lessons) and have always been fine with generating them in PPT with images and video. Earlier this year I decided to release them on an easy to use web / table platform for other teachers to try out. If you'd like access to them you can PM me or go to my site to request an account (www.off2class.com).

Cheers,

Kris

kmard wrote:If you are an ESL teacher, what types of technology do you use to help your ESL students? If you are an English Language Learner, what types of technology did your teachers use to help you learn English?

Interactive Whiteboards are gaining popularity in China lately. Here's a brief demo on using the smart board: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6oXJGgBGSc

I am an ESL teacher and in my school we actually have a couple of laptop carts but they must be shared by the entire school. It is kind of difficult to get into the line up to use them and should you have reserved them for a time when they have decided to do testing then you are simply out of luck. The laptops are slow and outdated but I have been able to incorporate homework activities online such as Wikis. Now most of my students have Internet access and the few that did not I allowed to use my iPad as a center for when they finished another activity. This has actually worked out quite well. We have computers, ELMOs and projectors and each teacher has thankfully been issued an iPad to use with their students.