Teaching and writing materials for migrant learners in Australia

If you’re teaching adult ‘prelim’, CPSWE, Initial Course in EAL, ‘pre-beginner’ or ‘literacy’ students in an ESOL class, you’re probably making a lot of your own materials. Your classroom cupboards are filled with word and letter cards, ‘play money’, food and medicine packets and supermarket flyers. Your reading materials are based on excursions or ‘learner news,’ recorded on learners’ phones for … Continue reading

2016 Aug 16

When ESOL reading becomes fun…

Carly and Kumar to the rescue… Yesterday I had to find an activity for a young woman waiting for her husband to finish English language class… what could I offer her to make that couple of hours less tedious? I showed her a few ESOL reading books, and she grabbed Karen Barber’s ‘Carly and Kumar’, with a smile, though she … Continue reading

2016 Jul 19

Passionate about Picture Crosswords…

Elizabeth Bezant with her crossword book

My next ESL Extras book is almost ready to go – a puzzle book called Extra Easy Puzzles. I’m not the only puzzle creator around, of course, and I’ve recently seen beginner learners getting very excited about some picture puzzles given to them by their class teacher. When I looked more closely, I realised that these puzzles came from the Picture … Continue reading

2016 Jun 23

Let’s Connect: An Australian Grammar Workbook

Helga Burry with her book, Let's Connect: An Australian ESL Grammar Workbook

Talking to Helga Burry, ESOL grammar book author and grammar enthusiast: I always get excited about new Australian ESOL/EAL resources, and once again, I know the author. I met Helga, who has just published Let’s Connect: An Australian Grammar Workbook, when we taught together in a refugee camp in Thailand, years ago. (The same camp where I met Carmel Davies, from Urban Lyrebirds … Continue reading

2016 Apr 16

Another new Australian EAL/D resource

Pauline Bunce with her new book, According to the Script

According to the Script… I met up with Pauline Bunce at the ACTA/ACAL conference last weekend – she has a new resource out, called According to the Script, available as a downloadable pdf – from her website, alphabetheadaches.com. I bought it (for a very reasonable $15) – it’s huge, very comprehensive, pitched at a more advanced level than the Prelim … Continue reading

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