Parents

Classes for Adult English Languages Learners
Free classes for Adults wanting to learn or improve their English. Online courses and family courses are also offered.

Dave’s ESL Café
This is probably the most famous ESL site on the web. Don’t be put off by the simple graphics. For that reason, it loads like lightening and there’s a lot here. This site is geared primarily for students, but for teachers there is an ESL IDEA PAGE and also a TEACHER FORUM to share ideas. On this page you will find detailed ideas on how to teach using charades, games, humor, etc.

Interesting Things for ESL Students
This site has many activities for ESL students that can be adapted for conversation club. An excellent site using pictures to start conversations is “Reading Signs in English” with excellent visuals.

Sounds of American English - The Phonetics Flash Animation Project
This website shows diagrams of English sounds and pictures of people speaking English. You can see where your lips and tongue should be for each sound. Click on vowels or consonants and then each category.

Encarta Online Dictionary
This is part of the Encarta Encylopedia site. It explains the major senses of a word clearly and pronounces the word for you. Its strengths is in the many non-standard words like hand plant (skateboarding slang) or 24/7, that you might here on the street and not find in most dictionaries.

Practicing Minimal Pairs
This site allows you to practice listening to minimal pairs. Minimal pairs are words that are pronounced alike except for one sound. They are often hard to hear even for native speakers.

http://www.esl-lab.com/
Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab
This site provides listening exercises for a range of topics and levels. Listen to conversations ranging from greetings to buying a car. The site includes pre-listening and post-listening activities such as interactive quizzes.

Everyday English in Conversation
Listen to native speakers talk about many topics. Follow through the lessons at your own pace.

ESL Gold
This site is great for teachers and students. For beginners, start in your own language to learn how to use the site.

Top ESL Site
This site provides links to 60+ ESL sites for jobs, learning English, teaching English, media, and many other resources.

Maryland Parent Information Resource Center
http://www.mdpirc.org/index.html