Integrating Home Schooling Websites into Class Activities for the ESL Classroom

By William M. BalsamoHimeji Dokkyo University

Himeji-shi, Japan 670-0011email:yamataro670@yahoo.com

What is Homeschooling

www.wikipedia.org/wiki/home_schooling

Homeschooling – also called home education or home school – is the education of children at home rather than in a public or private school. Prior to the introduction of compulsory school attendance laws in the 19th century, most childhood education worldwide occurred within the family or community, with only a small portion of the population attending schools or employing tutors. Today most children are institutionally schooled.

Beginning of the modern homescho

ol movement: John Holt In 1964 John Caldwell Holt published his first work,

How Children Fail. A teacher, and an observer of children and education, Holt asserted that the academic failure of schoolchildren was not in spite of the efforts of the schools, but actually because of the schools. Not surprisingly, How Children Fail ignited a firestorm of controversy. Holt was catapulted into the American national consciousness to the extent that he made appearances on major TV talk shows, wrote book reviews for Life magazine, and was a guest on the To Tell The Truth TV game show.[5] In his follow-up work, How Children Learn, 1967, he tried to demonstrate the learning process of children and why he believed school short circuits this process.

The Internet and Homeschooling

Education is not the filling of a pail,but the lighting of a fire-- W. B. Yeats

‘The Mind is like a parachute; it works best when it is open’

http://homeschooling.about.com

This is a comprehensive webpage which can give you a lot of background information about home schooling

But there are also a lot of photo copiable materials at this site which are free to download and use. Each month the material changes to coincide with the activities of the month or season.

On the left is a word search for President’s Day on George Washington. It is useful if you integrate foreign culture into your classrooms.

www.abcteach.com

Flashcards – A wide selection of flash cards is available free at the site. The cards cover many areas. (e.g. emotions, People, places, things, colors, numbers the five senses)

There are also reading materials for elementary school students which are suitable for low intermediate ESL students.

This site is a must for the language learner. There are over 5,000 free pages for visitors and 12,000 for members

www.eslgo.com

My name is James Trotta, and I want to help you learn English or teach ESL. If you are learning ESL, study English online with me and the free ESL community. We will improve your English! If you're teaching ESL, I hope that you send your students to ESL go and try out some of the ESL speaking activities, Business English handouts, and ESL lesson plans. Good luck!

http://www.eslgo.com/quizzes/grammar/past_present.htmlEnglish grammar test: present tense and past simple irregular verbsFill in the blanks. Use lowercase letters. Do not use contractions!

vocabulary: "first impression" is your first feeling about something, "Gimpo" is the name of an airport in Korea, "cut" means to go to the front (instead of waiting).

Student: Where (be)_____ you from?Teacher: I (be)_____ from New York.Student: When (do)_____ you (come) to Korea?Teacher: I (come)_____ to Korea in 2001.Student: What (be)______ your first impression of Korea?Teacher: I (get)_____ confused in Gimpo airport and I (have)_____ a hard time figuring out where to go. I (try)_____ to ask for help at the information counter, but everybody just (cut)_____ me and (go)_____ to the front of the line. So I guess my first impression (be)______ kind of bad.Student: What (do)_____ you (think)_____ about Korea now?Teacher: I (love)______ Korea.

http//homeschooling.gomilpitas.comBefore entering this home school site, be sure small children are

safely occupied and have plenty of snacks on hand. This is a large education site with lots to read and do!

This is an excellent site for activities with small children. It is also a great reference for information about the home schooling movement with hundreds of links which will take you off into hours of web-searching.

The alphabetized link library at the top of the page will take you into topics from A to Z. For example, if you lick on the letter ‘C’ this will take you into a catalog of references which begin with C ． Among them is ‘Car Games’ – activities for children who are taking a long car ride with parents. These activities can easily be adapted for the ESL classroom.

http://towerofenglish.com

• The Tower of English is here to help ESL students and teachers quickly find the best places on the Internet to practice real English! You'll find about 300 fun and interesting websites in 34 different categories.

• The Tower is easy to use. Just choose a page from the ESL Internet Guide on the page. You'll find a list of sites for you to visit. Read about the site to see if you're interested. Read Your Turn for a fun idea for a related activity. Some of these activities can be done at home, and some can be done in your classroom.

• We have also added some fun and interesting interactive activities that we hope you will enjoy. We will keep adding new activities all the time, so come back often! If you want to know when new activities and resources are added, sign up below for our free Tower Tipsheet newsletter!

www.awesomelibrary.org

Awesome Library organizes the Web with 33,000 carefully reviewed resources, including the top 5 percent in education.

The materials here are for the teacher, students in every age category and librarians. The list of topics under each category is comprehensive.

The categories lead to links which lead to more links. This is a page to bookmark and return to with frequency. The lesson plan for creative writing found on the next slide was located by surfing through this website.

 

Lesson Plan: Spotting Details• AUTHOR: Bill Zook, Pine Hills School, Montana • GRADE LEVEL/SUBJECT: English for secondary students • OVERVIEW: This lesson is aimed at victim awareness.• OBJECTIVES: To pay closer attention to details, and subtleties of sa

me.• RESOURCES/MATERIALS: Pencil and paper. If no window and stre

et available, a contrived exhibit could be developed.• PURPOSE: While the guise of the lesson is creative writing, the subj

ect can be construed to apply and ultimately to a better understanding of others' perspectives.

• ACTIVITIES AND PROCEDURES: Observe changing objects - in my case, the cars passing on the street - for a limited time (2-3 minutes). No discussion is permitted until lesson is completed. On cue, the students return to their desks and record as many details of items (vehicles) observed, and in proper sequence of appearance.

• TYING IT ALL TOGETHER: Reports are collected and read back to class. These are compared with either a video taken on occasion - if possible to do discreetly - or with documentation recorded by instructor.

www.fonetiks.orgOnline pronunciation guides to 9 varieties of the English lan

guage and 9 other languages. Instant sound,Pronunciation samples by over 40 native speakers. All 600+ pages free · Click on a flag to open a dictionary

www. howjsay.org This is an amazing site. Just type in a word and it will appe

ar in a box below your entry. Then put the cursor on the word and it will be pronounced by a native speaker

www.everdayenglish.com An audio site for ESL learners (and teachers) in every categ

ory of competency. Points of grammar are explained simple and clearly.

Pay Sites:

• Many of these sites are pay sites. The charges are minimal for what they offer. However, almost all of these sites also contain a lot of free material. Lesson plans, project ideas, worksheets, photo copy sheets.

• Much of the material is geared for early learners in their first language, but this becomes also excellent material for the second language learner.

www.esl-images.com

www.ed-helper.com

wwww.esl-images.com

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Mailing Address:Red River Press Inc.Suite 733, 776 Corydon AveWinnipeg, ManitobaR3M 0Y1Canadainfo@esl-images.com

Samples cards from ESL-images

Used to/things we did in the past

I used to smoke but now I don’t

Adjectives with too/not enough

I am too cold.

www.edhelper.com

Individual Accounts:edHelper basic subscription - US$19.99 per yearedHelper everything subscription - US$39.98 per yearSchool Licenses: (a minimum order of five teachers)

www.homeschool.com