{"id":34135,"date":"2021-09-20T01:08:56","date_gmt":"2021-09-20T01:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sanookenglish.com\/?p=34135"},"modified":"2021-09-20T04:36:21","modified_gmt":"2021-09-20T04:36:21","slug":"teacher-tools-for-esl-classes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sanookenglish.com\/teacher-tools-for-esl-classes\/","title":{"rendered":"13 Free Teacher Tools for ESL Classes I Couldn’t Teach Without"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I would be absolutely lost without these teacher tools for ESL classes. Now, I don’t use each tool for each lesson, but over the course of a year, they all get plenty of use. Some of these you’ll be familiar with like Pinterest and Canva but some of them you probably haven’t heard of (yet).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve been teaching ESL for a long time. I went to Thailand just before the Tsunami of 2004. When I arrived, there were about 12 ESL teachers at the school where I taught. And about 2 of them had laptops. (Maybe only 1, it was so long ago it’s hard to remember). I didn’t have a computer. There were 2 desktop computers in the teacher’s office that we all shared. Back then we mostly used textbooks and flashcards. Every week we would put in for copies of worksheets from the textbooks we were using like GetSetGo and Chatterbox. No one was using a computer in the classroom back then, we didn’t even have projectors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How times have changed! I can’t imagine going into a class now without my laptop. Not only have things changed for teachers, but for the students too. Student’s have changed. They don’t get excited by flashcards like they used to. Attention spans are shorter. And we, as teachers, have to deal with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part 1 <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The number 1 thing I couldn’t do without is SanookEnglish.com. We think Sanook English is one of the best teacher tools for ESL classes. Everything we have created at Sanook English is for the classroom or online teaching. We started this website to pass on many of the games, activities and resources we have gathered and used over the past 20 years teaching ESL in Asia. We are unique because we have gathered a bunch of diverse activities and put them all in one place. Let’s say you are teaching about animals. If you come to Sanook English and go to animals, we have 28 interactive resources just for animals. It looks something like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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SanookEnglish.com animal resources<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Each interactive is bright and easy to see. There’s an easy to navigate menu on the left as well. And our resources are growing every day. Some of our interactive ESL games include: interactive presentations, interactive videos, memory matching games, crosswords, wordsearches, gameshows, airplane games, maze chase games, branching scenarios, and many more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of our teacher resources are completely free. You can check it out here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is an awesome list of 13 Free Teacher Tools for ESL Classes<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

1. Canva<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What is Canva? For people and teams wanting to design absolutely anything, from logos and social media content to documents, prints and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canva was (and is) an absolute game-changer for me. Canva is number 1 in my Teacher Tools for ESL Classes list. Before Canva, I plodded through PowerPoint presentations. It took me way too long to make them and they weren’t all that interesting. Canva changed all that. Canva showed me how awesome it is to create content. I love creating content now. Crafting a lesson with Canva and some of the other tools on this list makes it enjoyable. There’s no plodding. There’s no ‘Uggh’. It’s exciting. I’m excited to lesson plan. It’s another form of creativity for me. And if I’m excited, the students will be excited too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you don’t know what Canva is, you can check it out here. There’s an awesome Free account with thousands of images and tools, as well as a Pro account that’s not too expensive either. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\"\"<\/a>\n\n\n\n

I use Canva in pretty much every lesson, both online or in the classroom. My students love the beautiful pictures, the transitions, and the bright text. It\u2019s easy to add photos, videos, all kinds of elements like grids, frames, lines, shapes, charts and all kinds of the cutest graphics. I know PowerPoint lovers will be saying that you can do all that in a PPT. But not with the ease, functionality, or beauty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\"\"<\/a>\n\n\n\n

Let’s say you’re looking at your curriculum, planning your lesson for the day or week. You have to teach about animals. You browse through the resources that have (or haven’t) been provided for you. But they’re boring. So create your own. I used to dread this scenario, knowing it would take me forever to create something exciting. So I would go forward with my boring resources and my students would be bored. Not anymore. Now I love it. I love creating lessons from scratch using Canva. Check it out, your students will thank you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Canva<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

2. Pinterest<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What is Pinterest? Pinterest is a visual discovery engine for finding ideas like recipes, home and style inspiration, school and craft ideas and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No surprise here. Everyone knows Pinterest and it seems that people either love it or hate it. One thing is for sure, there are a ton of teacher resources. Pinterest is especially good for crafts. And it’s great for teaching younger students. There are over 200 billions pins on Pinterest. That’s a lot of stuff. And there’s a lot of great stuff. If you’re ever stuck for a craft while you are planning, head over to Pinterest, you’re bound to find something. I will keep this short because most people reading this will be familiar with Pinterest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have a Pinterest Page too: https:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/sanookenglish\/_created\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Nearpod<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What is Nearpod? Nearpod is a tool for creating and delivering interactive presentations, formative or summative assessments, and content related to all kinds of stuff like Math, Science, Language arts, and more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearpod could also be at the top of my Teacher Tools for ESL Classes list. You can think of Nearpod like a PowerPoint that you have ready for a class. Except within that PowerPoint you can create interactive videos (like EdPuzzle), games (like Kahoot or quizzizz), drag and drop activities (like Seesaw), collaborative boards, memory games, matching games, fill in the blanks, polls, have virtual tours and so much more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel like most people are familiar with Nearpod too. If not, they should be. I’m really surprised at how many schools use Google Classroom when they could be using Nearpod. It’s far superior. I think it’s because of the mad scramble that many schools made to get online (our school included). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I understand, it’s hard to get familiar with a piece of software or website or whatever it is you are using to teach with. So once a school goes in one direction, teachers work hard to figure out how to use that software to the best of their ability. It’s hard to change. So I feel that many schools chose Google Classroom, sort of in a panic, and now they’re stuck with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whereas, if they had chosen Nearpod, there are so many more amazing things they could do. I know. I teach my online classes with Nearpod, my kids study with Google Classroom. Day. Night. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, I’ve written about Nearpod before. You can check out our “5 Best Apps for Online Teaching” article here<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a free account with Nearpod but I must say, it’s limiting. It’s a good place to get a taste of all that Nearpod has to offer. And it’s extensive and amazing and it’s one of those software things where I’m not sure how they are doing it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can check out Nearpod here<\/a> to sign up for a free account. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Wordwall.net<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What is Wordwall? It is an easy way to create custom activities for your classroom like quizzes, gameshows, maze chase games, airplane games, whack a mole games, and more. You can see more in the picture below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Some of the games that Wordwall has to offer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Wordwall is getting more and more popular. And rightly so. The great thing about Wordwall is that once you create one game, like a quiz, you can use it with many different templates. So one multiple choice quiz can be used with maze chase, gameshow, airplane game, image quiz and more. It’s awesome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s a free account, but it’s limiting. Like Nearpod, it’s a good starting point. You can try the free account which gives you access to 5 games and see if you like it. You can check out the free account here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can also read more about Wordwall in this “5 Best Apps for Online Teaching” article<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. YouTube Channels<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What are YouTube Channels? Where a creator groups together all the videos they have made, the videos they like and watch, as well as the playlists for certain videos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has only been in recent years that I’ve discovered how awesome YouTube can be for teachers. For years I used YouTube as a way to help me teach my topic. Let’s say that I have a lesson where I am introducing Possessive Adjectives (my, his, her, etc.). A typical classroom lesson would be to teach possessive adjectives on the whiteboard, or with a presentation like a PowerPoint, or both. Then I would have a video to nail down what I’ve just taught, something like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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