Web Guide
Guide to internet resources
USE THE WEB during your tutoring sessions. The LCLC has 5 computers with DSL connections. Decide which sites will be useful to you and to your learner. You will have to check out several links before you find specific lesson plans. Many of the sites below are umbrellas for other sites; number 6 is the LC's own list. Please report outdated links and sites that bombard the screen with pop-up ads so we can remove these links.
1. Sites recommended and used by tutors:
Capital Community College, Hartford, CT. Grammar and writing tools for all levels. This listening lab is all audio and not for LC use, but a great site for learners to use at home. Edhelper.com might look like it is meant for children; you will find a wealth of guides here for everything from pronunciation to grammar to topics for writing; previous tutors loved it. Partners in Learning. Go to Resources: articles, etc., and then Activities for ESL students. Once again, you'll find a great variety of excellent materials.
2. ESL Lesson Plans and Resourses offers detailed lesson plans for teaching beginning ESL students. This is a good site for beginning tutors to review--it shows how a lesson flows with specific practice of certain conversational goals and the follow up that this practice requires.
3. The National Institute for Literacy is a rich resource, an extensive index to hundreds of sites, clearly organized but very large. This page is part of the "Lincs" service, which offers abstracts of websites concerning Literacy and reviews resources for teachers and tutors; there are some 5778 sites reviewed; there is also a useful search engine. Note the regional breakdowns and the special "midwest" page --check out the TEACHER/TUTOR and STUDENT/LEARNER links..
4. Dave's ESL Café is a popular site for ESL learners and teachers. It offers a help center at which learners can post questions about English grammar and have them answered in a short time. Also available are discussion forums for teachers and students, teaching strategies, icebreakers, and lesson plan suggestions, which are listed under "ideas" on the home page.
5. The Internet TESL Journal offers articles describing specific teaching techniques, some for classroom use (but very useful in our setting). The format of each article is a model for a lesson plan; very practical.
6. The LCLC's detailed guide to Web resources was compiled by intern Liz Chapman in Spring 2003 and contains concrete suggestions for how sites can be effectively used during tutoring sessions. Some of these links might not be current; please report dead links.
7. Purdue Online Writing Lab at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ is one of the best resources on the web.
8.The Georgetown Univeristy Writing Center at http://writingcenter.georgetown.edu/ is also a good resource.