ESL Resources
Special Topics in ESL
Citizenship Resources
This collection on the ATLAS website provides many resources on teaching citizenship that are relevant to teachers of adult English language learners.
Find it under Citizenship in the ATLAS Social Studies & Civics library.
Language of Math
This collection of resources on the ATLAS website is aimed at adult education teachers of English who are working to incorporate math instruction into their classes. A number of the resources included are appropriate for CCRS levels A and B.
Find it in the Language of Math tab under Instructional Resources in the ATLAS Numeracy resource library.
3 Tips to Make Any Lesson More Culturally Responsive
This article by Zaretta Hammond discusses three easy strategies that teachers can use to leverage the brain’s memory systems and information processing structures and make their lessons more culturally responsive to the diverse learners in their classrooms.
A Framework for Culturally Responsive Teaching
This article addresses the roles of motivation and culture; analyzes some of the social and institutional resistance to teaching based on principles of intrinsic motivation; and outlines the norms, procedures, and structures for effective culturally responsive teaching.
Adult ELL Pathway to Literacy
Find the Adult ELL Pathway to Literacy curriculum and online assessment tools here. These resources were developed by a team of literacy level teachers, and piloted with in-person and online classes of literacy level learners.
Adult ESL Beginning Level Instruction Videos
Find Low-Literacy Instruction and Classroom Activities videos that feature Minnsota teachers working with low literacy and beginning level learners on a wide variety of activities and skills, including phonics, TPR, speaking skills, and numeracy.
Advocates for Human Rights
On this website, find extensive resources including articles, toolkits, classroom materials, and personal stories on a wide variety of human rights issues that impact immigrants and refugees.
Beginning and Literacy Level Adult ESL Students
This online collection from the Center for Adult English Language Acquisition contains links and citations for multiple articles, guides, and handbooks focused and adult literacy level readers.
Building Refugee Youth & Children’s Services
The resources posted here include links to webinars, toolkits, and publications designed for educators who are working with refugee families. The resources provide support on topics such as building community, raising children in a new country, and family strengthening across cultures.
Carringbush Reading Series
The Carringbush Reading Series features stories and language from everyday life that are relevant to adult English language and literacy learners. The materials are designed to be used as reading resources and as tools in the classroom to accompany lessons on themes such a daily routines, going to a doctor appointment, employment pathways, and other topics.
Carringbush Teacher Training Videos
The videos are a series of teacher training resources developed by Carringbush Adult Education for teachers of foundation level adult EL learners. The videos feature systematic approaches to teaching pronunciation, vocabulary, and text, and include error correction techniques as well as other tips and tricks that are based on research findings.
Center for Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning
This resource repository contains videos, articles, and handouts on the topic of culturally responsive teaching. The executive director of CCRTL, Dr. Sharroky Hollie, is a nationally recognized leader in the field of culturally responsive education.
CTEP Digital Homeroom
This website contains extensive vocabulary lists along with videos and interactive lessons on computer basics, Microsoft Word, email and internet at beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels.
Cultural Identity and Teaching
This article discusses the role that culture plays in shaping the values and practices of teachers, both consciously and subconsciously. It offers recommendations for how teachers can build awareness of their own cultural values and beliefs, and suggests ways that teachers can build and present culture in their classrooms.
Curriculum as Encounter: Selves and Shelves
In this article by Emily Jane Style, "a veteran teacher expresses the importance of drawing on the life-texts of students and recognizing the ways that personal experience influences a student’s perception of the world."
DigitalLearn
This site is a collection of self-directed tutorials for users to increase their digital literacy. Modules are video-based with narration, 6 to 22 minutes long, written at the fourth grade reading level.
Emergent Readers
This website contains instructions for scaffolding reading texts and speaking activities for literacy level learners, resource lists, and videos of literacy level classroom instruction.
ESL Literacy Readers
This collection of 40 theme-based readers features adult ESL learners engaging in everyday work and life activities. These readers, along with an instructor's guide, were developed to help ESL teachers create comprehensive, theme-based lessons for adult ESL learners.
GCF LearnFree.org
Through videos, basic readings, and step-by-step instructions, users can learn about using web browsers, email, navigating Windows 10 and OS X, and staying safe online.
Global Oneness Project
According to their website, “We aim to connect, through stories, the local human experience to global meta-level issues, such as climate change, water scarcity, food insecurity, poverty, endangered cultures, migration, and sustainability. Through featuring individuals and communities impacted by these issues, our stories and lessons provide opportunities to examine universal themes that emphasize our common humanity... Our lessons facilitate the development of students' critical thinking, inquiry, empathy, and listening skills."
Healing Resources for Refugees: A Service of Minnesota Council of Churches Refugee Services
This database provides information about services, programs, activities and places that can help a refugee when he/she has emotional, psychological or spiritual healing needs. It is intended to be used by anyone serving refugees.
Health Literacy Resources
This collection of multi-language health videos, classroom lessons, and support resources was created to support language learners who are new to English and who may have limited literacy skills to reduce barriers to access healthcare and improve health literacy.
Immigrant Story Curriculum for English Language Learners
Immigrant Stories is a digital storytelling and archiving project. This curriculum will allow students to create a 3-5 minute digital story about a personal experience using the Immigrant Stories website (https://immigrantstories.umn.edu/). The curriculum includes everything you need to assign the project: a 4-week schedule, lesson plans, a grading rubric, and student handouts.
Immigrant Story Curriculum for English Language Learners
Immigrant Stories is a digital storytelling and archiving project. This curriculum will allow students to create a 3-5 minute digital story about a personal experience using the Immigrant Stories website (https://immigrantstories.umn.edu/). The curriculum includes everything you need to assign the project: a 4-week schedule, lesson plans, a grading rubric, and student handouts.
Introduction to Blended Learning
This course presents foundational information about blended learning, including definitions, strategies, examples, and reflective activities presented in multimedia format. The goal of the course is for participants to have a basic understanding of the different forms of blended learning and how they might integrate them into coursework.
Introduction to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy
In this video, education experts Jackie Jordan Irvine, Geneva Gay and Kris Gutierrez explain how to make culturally relevant pedagogy a reality in your classroom.
Introduction to Mobile Learning
Participants in this course learn about integrating mobile devices into their classroom, distance, or blended instruction. It includes definitions, suggested strategies, examples, and reflective activities. The goal of the course is for teachers to have an understanding of the different ways adult learners and their teachers can use flip-phones, smartphones and tablets for learning both in and out of the classroom.
iPads and Tablets in the LESLLA Classroom
With suggestions of iPad/tablet apps that build reading foundations skills, numeracy, and digital literacy for ESL learners with limited or interrupted formal education, this list can help integrate ABE standards in a targeted, self-paced, and differentiated manner.
JobScout
JobScout is a free online learning platform designed to help users learn basic internet skills that they need to find a job. The website is designed for native English speakers, but with support, is appropriate for high intermediate and advanced English language learners.
Learning Chocolate
This learner-based website contains lists of technology-based vocabulary words that learners can listen to, then check their understanding with matching, fill-in-the-blank, and dictation games.
LINCS ESL Pro Module 2: Integrating Digital Literacy into Adult English Language Instruction
This self-paced professional development module from LINCS is designed for teachers and administrators interested in integrating digital literacy in their classes and programs for adult English Language Learners.
Literacy Education and Second Langauge Learning for Adults (LESLLA)
This website provides information about current research with low literacy level adult English language learners, as well as numerous resources for teaching and supporting beginning level learners.
Making It Real: Teaching Pre-Literate Adult Refugee Students
This book is a great place reference for both new and experienced teachers. It covers a variety of effective practices for teaching low-literate adult refugees, and describes techniques and activities that support these practices.
Minnesota Issues Resource Guides: Immigrants in Minnesota
This guide from the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library is compiled by library staff on a topic of interest to state legislators. It contains links to legislative history, articles, books, and internet resources on topics such as immigration law, resettlement, the economic impact of immigrants, education, health, and much more.
Minnesota Literacy Council Pre-Beginning ESL Story Bank and Curriculum
This curriculum builds literacy skills and incorporates level-appropriate Transitions skills identified by the ATLAS program's Academic, Career & Employability Skills (ACES) initiative, as outlined in the Transitions Integration Framework (TIF), into every life skill unit.
New American Horizons: Adult ESL Teacher Training Videos – Low Literacy
This collection of 12 teacher training videos were filmed in adult ESL classes and feature a variety of teaching strategies and activities. For teachers interested in learning more about working with low-literacy learners, there are three videos that address this level.
Next Gen Personal Finance
Next Gen Personal Finance is a nonprofit dedicated to financial literacy, and policy advocacy to bring financial literacy into the middle school or high school classroom. They have excellent content on just about any topic related to financial literacy, including an online Banking Simulator, and usually have effective lessons attached. Many materials are also available for teaching English Language Learners.
NorthStar Digital Literacy Assessment
The Northstar Digital Literacy Assessment is a self-guided, online set of assessments that show an individual’s ability to perform basic computer skills in seven skill area areas: Basic Computer Use, Internet, Windows OS/Mac OS, Email, Word Processing (using Microsoft Word), Social Media, Excel, and PowerPoint.
Pathway to Literacy Level Teacher Training
This training module explores definitions of adult EL emergent readers, best practices, lesson planning and learning activities, and showcases the Adult ELL Pathway to Literacy curriculum and assessment; a free resource for adult literacy level teachers.
Phonics Pull-Out Kit
English language learners at many levels need additional assistance with building their phonetic awareness and strengthening their phonetic decoding abilities. The Phonics and Phonemic Awareness Kit provides a variety of activities that can be used with low-beginning to high-intermediate levels of English language learners.
Reading Skills Stories
This section of the Literacy Centre of Expertise website offers both interactive (with audio) and downloadable (PDF) student and teacher materials. There are phonics stories, "Interactive Foundational Stories" (dealing with oral language, vocabulary and comprehension), and stories dealing with word families and sight words, all written for adult language learners.
Refugee and International Health
This MN Department of Health website contains descriptions of trainings on refugee resettlement offered by the MN DHS, as well as links to informational resources on refugee resettlement in Minnesota and the U.S.
Refugee Resettlement Program Overviews
This MN Department of Human Services website contains information about refugee resettlement in Minnesota, including arrival statistics, resettlement services, and employment services.
Refugee Resettlement Training and Resources
This MN Department of Human Services website contains descriptions of trainings on refugee resettlement offered by the MN DHS, as well as links to informational resources on refugee resettlement in Minnesota and the U.S.
Rigor, Relevance, and Respect for Beginning Adult English Learners
Oxford Picture Dictionary author Jayme Adelson-Goldstein shares tips for laying the foundation of college and career readiness skills in beginning level adult instruction.
Save the Food! A Food Waste Prevention Course
This resource provides five lesson plans and resources regarding preventing food waste. Wasted food costs money and harms the environment. This course explains basic concepts of food waste prevention and provides easy tips for students to follow, while offering useful and relevant English language exercises, money-saving tips, and skills for being a thoughtful citizen.
Teaching Immigration with the Immigrant Stories Project
Teaching Immigration with the Immigrant Stories Project contains lessons for grades 8 to adult audiences that help students learn about aspects of United States immigration, past and present, through the personal experiences of immigrants and refugees. The lessons highlight digital stories from the Immigrant Stories collection: brief, original videos made by immigrants and refugees.
Total Physical Response (TPR): A Curriculum for Adults
Learn about the "how" and "why" of using TPR in the classroom and explore a lesson routine that can be used for a wide variety of TPR topics. A great resource for teachers who are new to incorporating TPR into their lessons.
Welcome to the United States
This video features newly-arriving and previously-resettled refugees from various ethnic groups. Shown to refugees in overseas orientation, the video gives viewers a sense of how refugees adjust to life in the United States.
Submit a Resource!
Do you have a free online resource that you would like to recommend for this library? Complete this brief form and submit to ATLAS for review. Thank you!