7 On-Line Tools for English Teachers that Made my ESL Courses More Effective

Let me start by saying that I have resisted using technology in the classroom for a long time. I am one of those “old” teachers who started teaching before the internet was widely available. For listening lessons I used to have to use a cassette tape!

I still have nightmares about having a lesson all ready to go that involves playing a video, using a power point or absolutely depends on students being able to access a certain website only to have the internet go down all of a sudden or the speakers refuse to communicate with the computer. The silence is deafening as I stand up there in the front of the room fumbling with connections and turning things on and off while 30 pairs of eyes stare at me, waiting. It makes me sweat just thinking about it so I always make sure I have a plan B if the technology decides it is not my friend.

When I choose technology to use, I choose carefully. It absolutely must adhere to the following criteria.

• It must help my students learn in some way and must not distract from their learning. Grabbing the student’s attention is great but only if you are grabbing it in order to help them learn.
• It must be relatively easy to use. I don’t have time to take 6 months to figure out how it works.
• It must make my job easier, faster or make my work more professional. Technology should make our jobs easier, not suck up our time and energy.

So, with no further ado, here are the tools that have helped me to teach better.

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Schoology

What is it?
It is a learning platform that helps you interact with your students outside of the classroom.  It organizes and calculates grades and attendance.



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​How I use it:

• I set up each course I teach on schoology before the class starts. Each course is given a separate password that I print onto the syllabus for the students and then in the first week of class I take them to the computer lab and help them sign up. ​
• I use it throughout the course to post homework assignments. Students can easily see what the assignments are and when they are due. They can also “hand in” assignments like papers and videos in which they practice speaking.
• I teach TEOFL prep courses and I don’t want to spend every class period having students do practice tests so they do those at home using schoology. I post the answer choices as a quiz and students use their books to take daily quizzes. Schoology grades them automatically for me so I don’t need to worry about that. I eliminate cheating by give students unlimited chances to take the test to get a perfect score. That way the quizzes are all about practicing, not being afraid of getting a bad score.
• If I need to contact a student before I see them in the next class for whatever reason, I can send them a message and they can send me messages that get sent to our emails.
• I use it to calculate their grades. No more scrambling at the end of the semester to tabulate percentages, that is already done.
• I use it to keep track of attendance. In my program students can’t miss more that a certain number of classes and this help both of us to keep track of their absences.

Why I love it:

• It keeps all my course records organized and easily accessible.
• It makes the grades and attendance available to the students to they can keep track of it. If I make a mistake entering data, they can catch it and tell me. There are no surprises at the end of the semester.
• I can communicate with my students more easily.

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Quizlet

What is it?
It is a site where you can create flashcards for your students.  They can practice vocabulary with a variety of games and activities.


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How I use it:

• I set up one group for each of my classes and invite all of my students to join.
• I keep class vocabulary lists that I update weekly.
• ​We play the class games together as a warm up activity sometimes.
• I monitor who is practicing their vocabulary and who is not. I can compare who is studying with their test scores and encourage those who are not to start practicing more.  

Why I love it:

• It makes studying vocabulary super easy. If you have a phone and internet access, you can study. This gives students no excuse not to know their vocabulary words, they can study on the train, in the bus, while they are walking, while they are waiting, really anytime.
• It offers different games, quizzes and activities to learn the words.
• Students can add their own words to their lists so they don’t have to depend on me to be the lord and master of vocabulary.
• Students can do it alone or can compete with their classmates if they wish.

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Canva

What is it?
It is a design site that allows you to create professional-looking documents and handouts. 



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​How I use it:

• I create worksheets for students to use that look professional.
• I create games for students to play.
• I can create fun “word of the day” facebook posts.

​Why I love it:

• I can easily combine pictures, shapes and texts.
• It is easy to learn how to do.
• It saves my work so I can find it later if I want to.
• ​I can upload my own images into it and use them.or it provides stock images.

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QR Codes

What is it?
QR codes enable you to give students a scannable code that will take them directly to any website you wish without having to type in the address.  



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​How I use it:

• I create listening stations around the classroom by taping QR codes to different places. Students can listen to different things in small groups and then come together to talk about what they heard. Kind of a jigsaw activity with listening materials.
• If I assign an activity that requires students to access a website for homework I will put the QR code alongside the web address. That way students don’t have to type those sometimes lengthy addresses in by hand.
• When I give presentations at conferences, instead of handing out so much paper, I will hand out cards with a QR code to a dropbox address or my website.

Why I love it:

• Once students have the QR scanner apps on their phones, it enables everyone to quickly and easily access the same website or video. This saves precious class time for other activities.
• It helps me save paper and the expense and weight of carrying around handouts.

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Tagul Word Cloud Creator

What is it?
It takes texts and turns them into “clouds” or figures made up of the words in the text. The most common words are larger and the less common words are smaller.



How I use it:

• I create a “cloud” from a text students will be reading and use it to introduce the theme. Students can look at the words and make predictions about what the reading will be about. They can highlight words they are not sure about to pre-teach vocabulary.
• I ask students to find as many names as they can in the word cloud and then create dialogues to act out using the other words in the cloud.
• We have cloud races where I choose a category like “weather” and students have to race to find as many words as they can on that topic.
• I ask students to create their own categories and group words that they find in the cloud.
• If students are writing a longer essay, they can make their own writing into a cloud to see what words they use the most. If they are using a word too much, what other words could they use to express a similar idea?

Why I love it:

• It is a great way for students to build their vocabulary before they start reading rather than look up words along the way.
• It is easy to use and fun to play with making different shapes and colors.
• They are attractive and create interest in a topic. When you make a prediction, you have an incentive to find out if you were right or not.
• It makes texts more approachable and less scary for struggling readers.

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Google Docs

What is it?
Google docs is a free application where you can create, store and share documents. 




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How do I use it?

• I use it to organize my lesson plans. I create slides for each day of class and link words on the slides to handouts or other materials that I have saved in dropbox. This enables me to have lesson plans and handouts all in one place and makes it incredibly easy to put classes together.
• In my department, teachers collaborate to create the curriculum by sharing those slides. Each teacher can add their material to the slides.
• We use googledocs to share materials that we are thinking of using for the next semester while we are away on vacation.
• When a student or someone else asks me to edit their work, it is easy for me to add notes on the sides of essays and send them back electronically. They can see the corrections and comments and choose to change them or not on their own documents.

Why I love it:

• It keeps me organized and ready to teach. I can find everything I need just by clicking on my slide.
• I can easily work with people who are far away.
• ​Giving feedback on essays is easy and clear for my students to understand.

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Dropbox

What is it?
It is an online place to save your documents on the web.  That way you can find them no matter where you are, even if you are working on different computers without having to bring a flash drive with you.


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How I use it:

• I use it to save the materials I create for class.
• I use it to share those materials with others at work or at conferences. There is an easy to use share button that enables you to create a web address for your document.  If you give someone the web address or link it to something, it can be accessed by other people.  
• I use it to organize my photography. It automatically saves my photography from my home computer so that if anything happens to it, I don't lose my pictures.

Why I love it:

• Even if my computer crashes or I accidentally drop it into the ocean, I still have my work.
• If I am suddenly asked to work on something but I don’t have my computer with me, I can still do it on another computer.
• It makes sharing documents with people easy.

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New things are being developed all the time that are really helpful. I am truly grateful for all of the wonderful things I can do now thanks to technology even though I do sometimes grumble at having to learn all of it. Do you have any online teaching tools that you just can’t do without? Please tell me about them! I would love to update this post with new ideas!  

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