Learning English (or any new language) requires student focus, repetition, and practice, so it’s easy to see why students may often feel disengaged or even bored in the classroom. This is why ESL teachers love to try off-the-wall ways to liven up their classes and infuse some enthusiasm into the topic. Continue reading
Category Archives: Instructional Design
Create Visual Interactive Activities with Quizlet Diagrams
Quizlet Diagrams

A commonly used tool for teaching and learning vocabulary are labelled visuals. Labelled visuals are especially important for lower-level language learners when visual examples of concrete vocabulary items are essential for conveying meaning. They are also helpful in teaching English for Specific Purposes, such as studying the parts of an electric motor. However, learning parts of a scene, diagram, chart, illustration, photograph or a map is often boring and tedious for language learners, but the Quizlet Diagram feature can make this much more interesting for learners.
Effective Online Tools & Resources for Teachers and Learners
Over the past two years, I have been attending a lot of webinars, presentations, conferences, dialogues and online courses. I’ve also been reading blogs and articles as well as doing presentations and writing blogposts. I’ve gained knowledge and collected remarkable resources. Tools like the ones below can help us design tasks that will engage and motivate our learners.
#CDNELTCHAT & #TESLONCHAT : JOIN THE CHAT ON THURSDAY!
If you can, join @Jessifer ‘s webinar earlier on Feb 25 as this will be the basis for our chat (but not essential): https://asuevents.asu.edu/content/design
Below is a recap of the January 26 chat written by #CdnELTchat moderator Jennifer Chow.
Tools and Resources for Online Teaching (Part 1)
In this article, I am going to share some of my ideas about how to keep Google Classroom neat and organized, as well as how to use Jamboard as an effective whiteboard.
Tools and Tips
Google Classroom
Google Classroom (GC) has become the primary instructional platform for most teachers in Ontario since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. I like it and I hate it. I like it because it is such a powerful platform for teachers to deliver content to students. I hate it because it can sometimes be messy and challenging when it comes to organizing content. It took me a while, but I found a way to organize it.
Summary of the #InstructionalDesign discussion with Anna Bartosik
December 11th, 2020 marked our final #teslONchat of the year. We gathered on Twitter to discuss Instructional Design with Anna Bartosik (@ambartosik). Anna is a doctoral candidate, an instructional designer, a teacher, and a teacher trainer. Anna develops online and blended courses and works on curriculum development. Her interest in self-directed professional development informs her work as a teacher and instructional designer, but also inspired her research of teacher professional development on social media platforms, like Twitter.
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