Sample Reading Tests for FCE

    Hello Cambridge teachers of the World!

   Today we want to leave the url available online for a booklet containing free sample Reading Tests from the First Certificate Exam (ESOL - Cambridge University). This booklet has been compiled by the Metropolitan College so thank you for sharing it with this community.

    You can download it here. Enjoy!

English Worksheets Land: a paradise for ESL Primary teachers

    Hello folks! Today we present another subject site with free worksheets. This one has over 5,000 printable worksheets in PDF format. 

    The site was designed as a primary and elementary level free resource. Middle level grade content is being added as well since it is updated monthly. You may find the material classified by grade or topic.

Visit English Worksheets Land and download free material for your lessons by clicking the photo below:

Science Worksheets from Super Teacher

    Once again, we would like to share a worksheet bank site with free Science printable material for teachers. 

 Today we want to recommend Super Teacher Worksheets, a website full of printable science worksheets for teachers. It includes electricity, animal classifications, animal articles, plants and human body. Surf and enjoy!

Click here for free Science Worksheets

Free sample maths worksheets - all grades

   Hello to all english maths teachers out there.

   Lisa has been kind enough to send us these practice tests and problem banks. These are all sample pdf files so some of them may require previous registry. Print them and use them with total freedom. Enjoy!

Maths worksheets by topic

Maths quizzes by grade

Top 5 Reading Comprehension Websites

Hello dear teachers.

Today I bring you five websites with free worksheets that you cannot miss if you want to encourage reading skills on your young learners. Enjoy!

1. Scholastic Printables: With more than 800 reading comprehension worksheets, this is your one-stop-shop for grades Pre-K-8.

2. Worksheet Library: This is one of the most comprehensive worksheet resources you’ll find. You can download and print generic comprehension worksheets or choose from 13 book-specific collections that come with quizzes, open-ended questions, vocabulary reviews and more—all on a book and chapter level.

3. ReadWorks: With a free ReadWorks account, you have access to hundreds of reading comprehension worksheets, all of which are tied to Lexile level, grade level, text type, skill/strategy, and domain—Life Science, U.S. History, etc.

4. Reading Resource: Download these free printable worksheets created by educational professional Allison Fryer. Choose from a handful of “Starfall” worksheets, along with book-movie comparison sheets and metacognition diary templates.

5. English Worksheets Land: This website, with more than 25,000 CCSS-aligned worksheets, offers both free and locked (only accessible with an upgraded account) reading comprehension worksheets.

Review: GrammarBank.com

Hello fellow teachers.

Today I want to review an awesome resource bank for our lessons: grammarbank.com. 

This is a website full of useful resources, from worksheets, to multiple choice tests and reading exercises. It gives you the possibility to download printable pdfs.

All of their online exercises, worksheets and handouts are also available in printable version.Teachers can use use GrammarBank content in classrooms, as homework assignments or as testing material and all of it is for free. Check it out and tell us what you think of the website.

Learn nouns through apps

Hello dear teachers.

As I have done in a previous opportunity, today I bring an education app that can be installed in tablets and phones. It is called Check Correct English Grammar - Noun List Exercises. With this app, your students will be able to practice Compound and Collective Nouns.

Check it and leave your comments here about it.

Downloads available in free version: iOs App Store.

Tips to estimulate quick learning on your young students

Sometimes learning english can be hard for young learners because they find it boring, because they spend already too much time among school books and whiteboards, or simply because they have amazing auditive memory instead of reading memory. 

What can we do with those students? Encourage them to learn through less conventional ways, through movies and songs. Art is a well defined runway of language learning. The key is to find short clips or trailers that can match your lesson plan. Today with Youtube, that is a piece of cake for good teachers.

Here are some tips that can help you plan a lesson for these particular group of students:

1. Choose an interesting movie

2. Select a movie that matches your current English level. 

3. Movies with subtitles (cc in youtube) are always more encouraging for young learners. 

4. Repeat without subtitles after the kids have been familiarized with the vocabulary and the clauses of the dialogues in the scenes. 

6. Download VLC player, it works with most video formats and has a low crash rate and it's free. 

Now be honest with yourself, who wouldn´t love to learn academic abilities while watching a scene from Star Wars or Harry Potter? Huh?...

English Listening Lesson Library Online

Hello my dear fellow teachers!Today I bring you a suggested website full of online audio sketches for you to use in your lessons and practice listening skills with your students. 

This compilation website contains files you can listen to online. Over 2500 free lessons featuring speakers from around the world. All lessons comes with audio or video, a quiz and script.

Visit elllo.org and enjoy it in class!

BBC Bitesize KS3 English Website

Hello dear teachers. I know it has been a while. However, I wanted to share a golden mine that I have been using online to prepare my Grammar, Reading and Listening lessons.

The website that I bring today is oriented to young students from Primary School. It is called BBC Bitesize.  Most of the lessons are oriented to teachers so they can prepare their explanations in advance. 

At the end of each chapter, there is an interactive quiz that you can solve together with your students. It's a great source of theoretical information and tips to use in class so your young learners improve their reading technique and writing skills.

Check it out by clicking here

Free apps for young ESL learners

Happy 2017 everyone! Today we bring you 3 apps that your kid students can use in class or at home in order to keep developing their English skills. All of them are downloadable for free and support iOS or Android. Let's get started:

1. DUOLINGO

Duolingo is one of the best English language apps today and highly recommended for English beginners. The gamified learning system of the app helps you learn English quickly by spending twenty minutes a day. Duolingo structures your lessons that teaches you about seven new words based on a topic and skill points being awarded for completing the lessons.

More info and iOS download
More info and Android download

2. BESUU: Learn Languages

Busuu helps you learn English language on the go and the lesson's quality are guaranteed as it is based on CEFR language framework. Lessons range from beginner to advanced through comprehensive vocabulary, lesson dialogue, writing practice and tests. Busuu is actually a great English app if you want to improve your spoken English.

More info and iOS download
More info and Android download

3. MEMRISE

Memrise uses some creative and easy way to remember words for learning English. The focus of this app is to help the users expand their vocabulary by learning English words in a effective way. Memrise also offers an offline mode to continue learning without internet connection.

More info and iOS download
More info and Android download

Recommended Youtube Channels to teach young learners

Hello once again. It has been a very busy month at work. However, I wanted to publish here some awesome youtube channels that I have been using in my lessons with five and six graders. It is incredible how technology can make our explanations so much easier sometimes. This channels offer great support in teacher lots of Grammar such as Reported Speech or Conditionals. Check them out and tell me what do you think.

British Council's LearnEnglishKids (click here)

BBC Active English (click here)

Kids Online English (click here)

Makemegenius (click here)

This last one is a good source for explaining Science and Geography topics through cartoons.

So, did you like them? Are you using any others that you can recommend? Please leave a comment with your suggestions. See you next post! ;)

Homophones: worksheets for kids

Homophones are words that sound the same but have different meanings. With this worksheets, kids choose the homophones that make sense in the sentences. Practice with common homophones helps kids with vocabulary development as well as spelling. Here we present a selection of free worksheets on this topic:

http://www.education.com/worksheet/article/homophones-same-sounds-second/

http://www.education.com/worksheet/article/homophones-see-the-sea-second/

http://www.education.com/worksheet/article/too-two/

http://www.jumpstart.com/common/beasley-and-homophones-view

https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/homophones/homophone-clues_WBRMN.pdf

http://www.k12reader.com/worksheet/correct-the-homophones/view/

http://www.tlsbooks.com/pdf/homophones1and2.pdf

http://files.havefunteaching.com/free-worksheets/language-arts/homophones-worksheet-1.pdf

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0SPeY_PyGOodlFCMWY4ei1zUUk/edit

Listening comprehension activities with rock&pop songs

This website has very nice worksheets with lyrics of top40 songs and youtube videos from the songs attached to each entry. 

Teaching through songs with listening activities is an amazing opportunity to teach your students phrasal verbs, vocabulary terms, reported speech and passive voice rules.

Check the website here and let us know if it was useful :)

Free printable flashcards for young learners

Hello dear followers!

Today I bring an insteresting resource for those teachers who teach Vocabulary to children. This website contains many cartoon flashcards grouped by topic.

There are 100+ sets of free flashcards to print designed for curriculums for children ages 3-9 and 6-10.  These cards are excellent image quality and as such some of the files are quite large (1mb~4mb.)

For free download of the flashcards, click here.