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Listen in English
On this website, find short clips of TV shows, movies, news, and academic stories accompanied by vocabulary building activities and listening comprehension questions from beginning to advanced levels. Learners and teachers can make free accounts in order to access expanded discussion activities.
Adult ESL Beginning Level Instruction Videos
Find Low-Literacy Instruction and Classroom Activities videos that feature Minnesota teachers working with ESL Beginning Level learners on a wide variety of activities and skills, including phonics, TPR, speaking skills, and numeracy.
Additional Comprehension Resources
ESL Literacy Readers offers 40 theme-based stories, a learner page, and a teacher's guide with ideas for reading activities and extensions. ESL Yes! offers 1600 stories intended for Beginning and Intermediate level ESL students, supplemented with audios and various kinds of exercises.
The Times in Plain English
This website contains free "Plain English Version" articles about current world and national news or events. All of the articles are edited by Arthur Schiff and grade-leveled according to Flesch-Kincaid. In addition to articles, the website offers Tips for Teachers, which provides text-dependent questions.
The Role of Vocabulary Instruction in Adult Basic Education
The author of this chapter analyzes research and theories about vocabulary acquisition, reading comprehension, and their inter-relationship. She presents proven practices for vocabulary instruction and makes other recommendations for research and policy.
Additional Fluency Resources
These Comprehension resources are also useful for Fluency instruction: * Britannica School Elementary offers non-fiction articles related images, videos, maps, and learning games * The Change Agent includes leveled student-written articles, discussion topics, and lesson plans * The Times in Plain English contains free, leveled articles about current world and national news or events * Center for Adult Literacy Text Library offers over 1600 leveled texts on a range of topics
Reading Skills for Today’s Adults – Fluency
This website is a source of passages (Levels 0.7 to 8.0) and audios intended “to help adults become better readers and more informed consumers, parents, employees, citizens and community members.” It is useful for Beginning and Intermediate level students.
Reading Skills for Healthcare Workers – Comprehension
This website provides 175 CNA (certified nursing assistant) and general healthcare passages and audios for adult readers at grade levels 5.5 to 8.5 (Intermediate level). All are CCRS aligned and include pre-reading questions, definitions of healthcare or high-frequency vocabulary, and text-dependent questions.
Comprehension Instruction for STAR/EBRI Volunteers
This handout describes what STAR/EBRI volunteers need to know about evidence-based and explicit comprehension instruction. It focuses on teaching five strategies: 1) asking and answering questions, 2) finding topics, 3) identifying main idea sentences, 4) identifying key details or important steps, and 5) writing summaries.
Comprehension – Challenges & Possible Solutions
Common comprehension strategy instructional challenges and solutions developed by Minnesota STARs and Trainers.
Reading Skills for Today’s Adults – ESL
This website was designed to provide an online repository of leveled reading selections that are appropriate for and valued by adult learners. The readings being posted correspond to CASAS 200 - 235, focusing on topics such as Civics, Employment, Housing, Health, School, Money, and Government.
- CCRS
- Comprehension
- Curriculum Design
- ESL
- Fluency
- Formative Assessment
- Text-Dependent Questions
- Vocabulary
ReadWorks.org
ReadWorks provides a large, high-quality library of curated nonfiction and literary articles, along with reading comprehension and vocabulary lessons, formative assessments, and teacher guidance. Through this website teachers can access curriculum, lesson plans, and free training.
Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab
Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab is an online, multimedia listening website designed to help ESOL students improve their listening comprehension skills in English. The website contains over 300 original learning quizzes and activities that cover functional language topics.
How Should Adult ESL Reading Instruction Differ From ABE Reading Instruction?
A brief from the Center for Adult English Language Acquisition (CAELA) summarizing the research base on adult English language learners (ELLs) learning to read. It describes how ELLs differ from native English speakers and how these differences should affect reading instruction.
New Resources
- Course Design
- Culturally Responsive Teaching
- Curriculum Design
- Immigrants & Refugees
- Student Centered
Collective Joy: Leveraging Students’ Collectivist Mindset as a Classroom Asset
View the slides from Collective Joy: Leveraging Students’ Collectivist Mindset as a Classroom Asset, presented by Erin Cary and Cydnee Sanders at the 2025 Minnesota English Learner Education (MELEd) Conference. This session invites educators to shift from deficit-based thinking to an asset-based approach that recognizes the collectivist strengths many multilingual adult learners bring to the classroom. The resource includes practical strategies—such as simple, community-building routines—and reflective prompts to help educators create classroom environments where connection, identity, and joy are central to adult ESL and ABE instruction.
Beginning ESL Literacy Distance Learning / In-Class Units
These lessons for Beginning EL Literacy (NRS ESL Level 1, CASAS STEPS 160-183) can be used in class, or assigned out of class as proxy hours by a TVM-certified teacher. The lessons are paper-packet based, and each has a QR code link to a video for the lesson. Each unit contains 5 lessons. Each lesson introduces 6-8 new vocabulary words, and is meant to build knowledge based on previous lessons.
Presenter Information
Get information about stipends, reimbursements, the MN Adult Ed policy on use of images in presentations, and other instructions for presenters.
MN Adult Ed YouTube Channel
The MN Adult Education YouTube Channel is a free online PD resource that you can use to explore teaching techniques and classroom ideas in action! Find out more in this MN ABE Connect newsletter article.
ATLAS Announcements & Future PD
Check out the latest list of ATLAS professional development announcements and opportunities! This is the document that is shared at all ATLAS events.
Virtual Meeting Resources
Find resources for conducting online meetings/events/presentations! You are welcome to use and adapt these materials to fit your own needs and context.
Upcoming ABE Events
April 13, 2026
6:30 pm–8:30 pm
Online
Developing and Practicing Reading Fluency
Online
Registration Deadline: MON. 4/13/26 Venue: Online (see details below) Come and review the important role of fluency in reading instruction. We will discuss the three key components of reading fluency and look at a variety of activities tutors and teachers can try. We will talk about the mechanics… Learn More
Online
April 17, 2026
8:30 am–2:45 pm
Online
Statewide Virtual Conference
Online
Registration Deadline: FRI. 4/17/26 What? A statewide virtual conference on Friday, April 17! See complete flyer for the program with all workshop titles and descriptions HERE. Where? Anywhere! This event is virtual. Why? To catch timely, informative sessions (including re-licensure areas)… Learn More
Online
April 22, 2026
6:30 pm–8:30 pm
Online
Teaching and Tutoring with Northstar Digital Literacy
Online
Registration Deadline: WED. 4/22/26 Venue: Online (see details below) You don’t need to be a computer expert in order to teach computer skills! Come learn how help students build their digital literacy skills using Northstar Digital Literacy. In the webinar, participants will learn: The features of Northstar Digital… Learn More
Online