ESL etc.

eslflow.com has a good-sized collection of environmental activities for the ESL / EFL classroom. Topics include climate change, pollution and transportation. The materials look to be mainly vocabulary exercises and readings. Let us know in the comments if you find any particularly good ones.

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In Feed,M. T. Anderson describes a dystopic future, in which the majority of Americans are continually online, via neural implants. The feed supplies a constant stream of advertisements and entertainment options, while keeping tabs on the users consumption patterns.
The story follows two high school students, one of whom (atypically) questions the value of the […]

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Dot Earth is Andrew C. Revkin’s blog at the New York Times. He covers a wide range of news related to sustainability and climate change. It is too complex for most language learners, but simplified versions of some of the articles he references could be useful.
In addition, he often refers to videos and […]

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Larry Ferlazzo just posted two multimedia plagiarism resources that could be useful for English learners. The first, Plagiarism, is an interactive slideshow that talks about what is and is not plagiarism. The information is all presented visually, which is nice because English learners can go through it at their own pace. The […]

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Facing the Future is an organization that makes activity-based, global issues curricula for students of all ages. In addition to the great stuff they offer for sale, they have a ton of materials available as free downloads. I especially like the lesson plans from Engaging Students Through Global Issues, and the Climate Change […]

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The Intercultural Resource Pack is a free electronic ELT textbook with a variety of cultural and global issues based activities. Even though it is subtitled “Latin American Perspectives,” most of the activities could be used with students anywhere. Each activity is labelled according to the target students’ ages and levels. The five […]

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I just made a new page featuring some news sites that gear their articles towards language learners. Most of the sites also offer supplemental materials such as vocabulary lists, audio recordings and grammar exercises.
The page is posted in the links for teachers section of the website.

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The Everyday Life Project features interactive activities (using text, pictures and audio) that take students through everyday activities. Activities include looking at the classifieds, using an ATM, and getting a prescription filled. Registration is required, but it is free.
If I were teaching a class in the US, I would definitely recommend this site […]

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Disaster Watch is a another video game (like Stop Disasters) that deals with natural disaster preparedness. There is a decent amount of reading in the game, particularly in the first level, where the player tries to collect clues about a coming disaster. Level two and three are basically just arcade games, at least […]

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On Fresh Air recently, Terry Gross interviewed Mark Schapiro, author of Exposed. Schapiro talks about the toxic chemicals that are released into our bodies and our environment by many of the goods that we consume.
He also talks about how the US policies on hazardous chemicals are much laxer than the EU policies. Thus, many […]

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