ELL

Incredibly Pinteresting Ideas for Teachers of Young Learners

Posted by on Jan 28, 2015 0 Comments

“Teachers who love teaching, teach children to love learning.”
—Robert John Meehan

One year I was given a class of two-year-olds. I had never taught students that young before and definitely felt out of my element. I remember asking the teachers I met online for resources and many lead me to some great books, but nothing that I could browse online for inspiration. After hours of online research, I couldn’t find any teacher blogs and sites for teaching toddlers and very young learners. However, the tide has changed, and thanks to the visual social bookmarking site, Pinterest, the web is full of a plethora of magical activities for teaching children of any age. Below, I’ve listed some sites and tips for tapping into the magic! Your problem will soon be that you run out of days to try these lessons with the kiddos you teach. (more…)

#ELT Ideas: Games, Activities, and Tips for Teaching English to Young Learners

Posted by on Sep 25, 2014 0 Comments

Sprout English has been growing for over a year now!

As a materials writer who contributes to various Red River Press publications, including Sprout English (previously English Avenue) and ESL Library, I was excited about the opportunity to blog with the Sprout team. I have been blogging in the field of ELT for many years both personally and professionally. Here are a few reasons why Sprout English has been my favorite place to blog so far!

  • It’s beautiful! The clean design and gorgeous illustrations make it a pleasure to blog here. I love looking at the finished product. Thanks, Robyn!
  • It’s organized! Sprout’s editor Tanya Trusler has the blog team working on a handy, theme- and grammar-based schedule. Each post connects with a featured lesson in our Spotlight section.
  • It’s useful! Many of our posts offer free, professionally designed worksheets to go with our suggested activities. The blog allows teachers to get a feel for the quality-based materials that Sprout English offers to subscribers. (more…)

50+ Grammar, Vocabulary & Pronunciation Resources for Teaching Young ELLs

Posted by on Sep 23, 2014 0 Comments

Time flies when you’re having fun! When you enjoy blogging about grammar, teaching, and the English language as much as I do, a year of weekly blog posts goes by just like that! Our goal at Sprout English has always been to provide quality educational materials to English teachers and students, and my personal wish is that teachers and students will continue to learn from and use our free blog materials. We love helping young learners grow their English skills!

I thought it would be helpful to organize all the articles I’ve written so far into a list that’s easily accessible. (Some articles are included twice if they belong to more than one category.) I hope you find this resource list useful! (more…)

Educational Acronyms and Abbreviations

Posted by on Sep 10, 2013 4 Comments

There are so many acronyms and abbreviations related to ELT (which stands for English Language Teaching or English Language Teachers, by the way). Thanks to social media, acronyms are used now more than ever. Twitter, for example, is full of acronyms in individual tweets and in hashtags. Last week I blogged about Education Resources and Networking Opportunities in Social Media, where I listed a lot of acronymic hashtags. But what do they all stand for? Some may be obvious, and some, not so much. I know I had to look up a few. I hope this handy list will save you from having to search for the correct meaning of any educational acronyms or abbreviations you encounter, especially those that have more than one meaning. (For example, when you google ELT, the first thing that comes up is Emergency Locator Transmitter. And PLN has at least 28 possible interpretations!) (more…)

Welcome to Sprout English!

Posted by on Aug 22, 2013 7 Comments

We’re so excited about the launch of Sprout English, a resource site for teachers and parents of young learners of English. Let us tell you a little bit about who we are and what we do!

Who Are We?

We are a part of Red River Press, a company dedicated to quality educational websites and apps. We used to be called English Avenue, but we’ve undergone a big transformation that includes a beautiful new website, and we are now Sprout English! We feel that there continues to be a lack of resources available for young learners of English, and it’s our mission to change that. We will do for teachers and parents of young English learners what ESL-Library has done for teachers of teens and adults, which is to provide a wealth of valuable resources to make teaching easier and learning fun! (more…)