Discover what's new or coming soon, including upcoming lessons and resources and product feature updates. 

Announcements

<p>Are you looking for the <strong>Results</strong> page? You can now manage your classes, students, and assignments/results in one convenient location called <strong>My Classes</strong>. Here are some simple instructions for finding results and other related features:</p>

<h2>1.&nbsp;Go&nbsp;to My Classes</h2>

<p>Find&nbsp;<strong>Class Prep</strong> in the main navigation bar from any page on ESL Library. Choose <strong>My Classes</strong>.</p>

<p><img alt="" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/393/content_Screen_Shot_2020-05-27_at_10.05.40_AM.png" /></p>

<h2>2. Choose a Class</h2>

<p>Choose a class that you want to manage or view results for.&nbsp;</p>

<p><img alt="" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/397/content_Screen_Shot_2020-05-27_at_10.05.58_AM.png" /></p>

<h2>3. Toggle to the Assignments Tab</h2>

<p>Here you can view all of the assignments for this class. Click on the down arrow to open the table and view results for individual tasks and students.</p>

<p><img alt="" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/395/content_Screen_Shot_2020-05-27_at_10.06.51_AM.png" /></p>

<h2>4. Manage Students</h2>

<p>On the Students tab, you can also easily <strong>Edit Class</strong> description or <strong>Add Students</strong>. The&nbsp;More menu&nbsp;(...) allows you to&nbsp;reset a password or delete a student from your class.&nbsp;</p>

<p><img alt="" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/396/content_Screen_Shot_2020-05-27_at_10.07.01_AM.png" /></p>

<h2>5. Manage Individual Students</h2>

<p>You can also quickly preview results and profile information about&nbsp;individual students by scrolling down to <strong>My Students</strong>&nbsp;(located below My Classes on the main My Classes page).</p>

<p><img alt="" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/398/content_Screen_Shot_2020-05-27_at_10.32.11_AM.png" /></p>

<p>We hope you like this new, simpler design for managing your digital classes and results. Let us know if you need help navigating the new <strong>My Classes</strong> tables and features!</p>

<H1>Demo</h1>

<div class="videoWrapper"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9i2qIJuNAek" width="560"></iframe></div>


My Classes & Results Now Merged

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Find useful resources and tips for teaching English with interactive apps and sites.

EdTech

Learn how to make the most of your Ellii subscription with tips from our publishing team.

Teaching with Ellii

<h1>Getting Started</h1>

<p>Are you just getting started with ESL Library&#39;s digital tools and platform? Here is a list of frequently asked&nbsp;questions and answers about our digital tools. If you have another question, feel free to ask it in <strong>Comments</strong> below or click the blue question mark found in the bottom&nbsp;right corner on any page on our site.</p>

<h2>Does ESL Library have its own web conferencing platform?</h2>

<p>No. ESL Library offers printable and digitized content that you and your students can use in two ways. First, you can work together using our <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/launch-or-preview-digital-tasks">Broadcast</a> tool. To do the lessons together, you need to be&nbsp;in a live online class using a web conferencing platform like Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, or Microsoft Teams. Choose the digital lesson you want to do together. Then&nbsp;screenshare with your students as you work through the tasks. Your students do not need to log in to ESL Library for your&nbsp;live class. They just join your web conference and you launch the content. Second, you can <a href="https://help.ellii.com/article/122-how-to-assign-digital-homework">assign digital tasks</a> to your students to complete&nbsp;on their own devices. Your students do need an ESL Library account to do this (free for students). Watch&nbsp;<a href="https://help.ellii.com/article/191-video-how-to-create-classes-and-invite-students">How to Create Classes and Invite Students</a>.</p>

<h2>Do my students need an email address to sign up for a student account?</h2>

<p>No.&nbsp;You can give your students a class code&nbsp;instead of having them sign up with email. Here is a <a href="https://help.ellii.com/article/128-how-to-invite-students-to-esl-library-digital-without-an-email-address">Help Doc</a>&nbsp;that walks you through the steps. Here is a <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/students-join-with-class-code">video demo</a>&nbsp;made for students.</p>

<h2>My student forgot their username and/or password. What should I do?</h2>

<p>Go to My Classes from the top navigation bar and scroll down to My Students until you see your student&#39;s name and username/email. Click on the three dots at the end of the table and choose Reset Password. Create a new password for your student and tell your student what this temporary password is. The next time your student logs in they can use the temporary&nbsp;password you made. Then they can go to My Profile and Change Password to create their own new password that you do not know.</p>

<h2>Can I send a single invitation that goes out to all of my students?</h2>

<p>We recommend having your students sign up as a group using the class code and secret word. You can screenshare this information in a live class. Here is a <a href="https://help.ellii.com/article/128-how-to-invite-students-to-esl-library-digital-without-an-email-address">Help Doc</a>&nbsp;that walks you through all the steps. You can also <a href="https://help.ellii.com/article/113-how-to-invite-students-to-esl-library-digital">invite students individually using email</a>. They each need their own invitation.</p>

<h2>Can my students do their ESL Library homework on their mobile phones?</h2>

<p>Yes. All of ESL Library&#39;s digital tasks were designed to work on mobile devices or desktop. The Student Dashboard is also mobile-friendly.</p>

<h2>Does ESL Library integrate with Google Classroom?</h2>

<p>Yes. You can now share an assignment on Google Classroom. Simply choose a class and assign some digital tasks. Then click the Share on Google Classroom icon. When your students are logged into Google Classroom they&nbsp;will see a link that takes them to their ESL Library assigment. We are currently working on more integration features.&nbsp;</p>

<h2>Can I upload ESL Library content to Google Classroom?</h2>

<p>No. Our terms do not allow you to take our content and move it to another platform. If your students don&#39;t have their own devices to do the digital tasks, you can screenshare the content in a live class. You can also email the PDFs to your students if digital content does not exist.</p>

<h2>How can I use the audio component during live lessons?</h2>

<p>When you are teaching a live lesson and screensharing an ESL Library digital lesson, you can play the audio from your own computer or device and your students will be able to hear it as long as you don&#39;t have your headphones plugged in.&nbsp;You may want to mute&nbsp;yourself (and students) while audio is playing to reduce any echo or sound problems.</p>

<h2>Can I use ESL Library flashcards in a live class?</h2>

<p>Yes! We have a Flashcard Player that allows you to broadcast a flashcard set. <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/flashcard-player">Learn more here.</a></p>

<h2>Can I make the font size larger?</h2>

<p>We don&#39;t currently offer any features for increasing the font size of our digital materials.&nbsp;However, you can zoom in on your own screensharing program if you need to increase the text (especially useful for a formatted Reference task; please share this tip with your students). Our Flashcard Player also has two different font styles to choose from (Standard or Literacy).</p>

<h2>How can I see my students&#39; results?</h2>

<p>Go to My Classes in the top navigation and find the results for the class or student you want to see. (See&nbsp;<a href="https://help.ellii.com/article/122-how-to-assign-digital-homework">Step 10</a>.) When you click on a student&#39;s name you can see their individual student results. The results you see are in reverse order of completion within one due date. Please tell your students to complete the&nbsp;tasks in the order that you assign them.</p>

<h2>How can I give students feedback about their digital homework?</h2>

<p>A feedback and rating tool for open-ended questions is available now. You can also leave a general comment after viewing the results of each scoreable task type. On the Student Dashboard, you&nbsp;students will see a pen icon if there is feedback and ratings to view or a speech bubble icon if there is a comment to view.</p>

<h2>How can I cancel an assignment or edit the due date?</h2>

<p>Click on Class Prep in your top navigation and choose&nbsp;My Classes. Choose the class or student you want to cancel or edit an assignment for. Click on the lesson you want to edit or cancel. Click on the due date&nbsp;link on any of the assignments in that lesson. This&nbsp;will bring you back to the edit assignment page.&nbsp;Edit the due date and/or time for any task you want to change, or cancel the lesson. <a href="https://help.ellii.com/article/122-how-to-assign-digital-homework">View Step 8&ndash;9 in this Help Doc</a>.</p>

<h2>How can I get back to the lesson itself when I&#39;m viewing results?</h2>

<p>Click on Results for any task. You will now see a link at the top of the page that says View Lesson. This will take you back to the digital tab&nbsp;on the lesson description page. If you are starting on the Digital tab and you click on a due date of a task, you will see the View Lesson link at the top of the Results table that will&nbsp;easily take you back.</p>

<h2>Can I remove students to make room for new students?</h2>

<p>Yes. Simply go to Class Prep in the top navigation bar when you are logged in at&nbsp;ellii.com. Choose My Classes. Choose a class that has students that you no longer need. From the Class List, you will see a list of students. Remove any students that are no longer in your class.</p>

<h2>Can I screenshare the PDFs during a live class?</h2>

<p>Yes. If a lesson has not yet been digitized&nbsp;or if there is a task or reference page that you prefer in the PDF version, you can simply open it on your own screen for your students to view.</p>

<h2>Can I assign the PDFs to my students?</h2>

<p>We recommend using the digital versions where available. Not&nbsp;all of our lessons and resources have been digitized and it may be necessary to email the Student PDF in this case. Our digital assignment feature currently only works with digital tasks.</p>

<h2>Can I edit the PDFs?</h2>

<p>No. We do not allow editing of the PDFs for copyright reasons.</p>

<h2>Do you collect any private information from my students?</h2>

<p>No. We don&#39;t collect or share any private information about your students. Also, it&nbsp;is not necessary for a student to use a real name or even an email address to receive ESL Library homework.</p>

<h2>Where can I learn about digital feature updates?</h2>

<p>We will post monthly <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/product-updates-for-march-2020">product updates</a>&nbsp;on our <a href="https://ellii.com/blog">blog</a>.</p>

<h2>Do you offer any help for students?</h2>

<p>Yes. We have an <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/student-faq">FAQ</a> for students who are new to ESL Library. We will also be working on some videos and a lesson. Here is some <a href="https://ellii.com/flashcard_genres/11/flashcard_categories/24">digital literacy vocabulary</a> for your students.</p>

<h1>Related</h1>

<ul class="resources">
	<li class="question"><a href="https://help.ellii.com/category/110-digital-tools">Digital Tools: Help Docs</a></li>
	<li class="question"><a href="https://help.ellii.com/category/119-digital-tools">Digital Tools: Help Videos</a></li>
	<li class="question"><a href="https://help.ellii.com/article/191-video-how-to-create-classes-and-invite-students">How-To Video: How to Create Classes and Invite Students</a></li>
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/student-faq">FAQs for Students Using ESL Library</a></li>
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/coronavirus-support">Standard Members Upgraded to Plus During COVID-19 Pandemic</a></li>
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/teaching-online-webinars">Teaching Online with ESL Library (Webinars)</a></li>
</ul>


FAQs about Teaching with ESL Library's Digital Tools 

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Tour around the ELT conference circuit as our team shares conference highlights and session reviews.

Conferences

<h1>TESOL 2019 Sessions</h1>

<p>The annual TESOL convention is the perfect opportunity for materials writers and editors to learn from the masters and keep up with the changing needs of English language teachers and&nbsp;learners.</p>

<p>Balancing our time between the booth and the classroom is always a struggle at TESOL. While we would love to spend the whole time attending sessions, TESOL is our busiest week of the year! In addition to squeezing a week‑long trip into our busy publishing schedule, we have to present our own sessions, meet with potential partners, and&mdash;most importantly&mdash;chat with teachers and subscribers in person at the&nbsp;booth.</p>

<p>This year we were fortunate enough to have Ben, Taylor, and Ginny tending the booth throughout the conference. This allowed the publishing team leads to attend more TESOL sessions than ever&nbsp;before.</p>

<p>Here are our top 10 takeaways from sessions we attended at TESOL in&nbsp;Atlanta!</p>

<p><img alt="Tara Benwell and Tanya Trusler TESOL 19" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2166/content_content_TT_Top-10-TESOL_01.jpg" /></p>

<p class="caption">From left to right: Tara (publishing director) &amp; Tanya (managing editor) at TESOL in&nbsp;Atlanta</p>

<h2>1. Kahoot! Is a Hoot</h2>

<p>We attended several sessions on digital tools where presenters talked about and demonstrated how they used Kahoot! in the classroom. As we continue to make improvements to our own <a href="https://help.ellii.com/article/132-video-digital-platform-webinar">digital platform</a>, we learned the importance of offering a competitive element. Kahoot! can be used for gathering prior knowledge, checking comprehension, and reviewing or assessing content. We love that students can also create their own&nbsp;Kahoots!</p>

<blockquote>
<p>&ldquo;Technology can give learners a voice they may not have had&nbsp;before.&rdquo;</p>

<p class="attribution">&mdash;Jennifer McGraner</p>
</blockquote>

<h2>2. Words Are Wordy</h2>

<p>In a session by Frances Boyd of Columbia University, we were reminded that knowing a word goes far beyond knowing its meaning and form. Boyd described English as a &ldquo;combo of high-flown and down-home words.&rdquo; To really learn a word, students need to notice it, retrieve it, and use and create with&nbsp;it.</p>

<p>Beyond learning the meaning and word form, she suggested that students record syllable stress, multiple meanings, collocations, root, affixes, origin, and more in their vocabulary notebooks (something she requires all of her learners to&nbsp;keep).</p>

<p>Boyd also pointed out that &ldquo;most textbooks don&rsquo;t do much after teaching pre‑vocabulary.&rdquo; Here are four good practices Boyd&nbsp;shared:</p>

<ol>
	<li><strong>F</strong>ocus on target words with frequent, short&nbsp;activities.</li>
	<li><strong>A</strong>ctivate learner autonomy (require a vocabulary&nbsp;notebook).</li>
	<li><strong>C</strong>reate teachable moments (words are&nbsp;everywhere).</li>
	<li><strong>T</strong>each strategies (ignore, infer,&nbsp;investigate).</li>
</ol>

<p>Boyd also reminded us that students are much more likely to learn a new word in context if they know 90-95% of the words surrounding it. This is a helpful reminder for our materials&nbsp;writers.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>&ldquo;Things that stick in your mind are simple, unexpected, and linked to&nbsp;story.&rdquo;</p>

<p class="attribution">&mdash;Frances Boyd</p>
</blockquote>

<h2>3. Students Measure Progress by Speaking&nbsp;Ability</h2>

<p>We were wishing an ESL&nbsp;Library representative had been invited to join Joe McVeigh&rsquo;s publishing panel for the session on <em>Current Trends in ELT Publishing</em>. The panel was made up of leading editors from Pearson, Cambridge, Oxford, National Geographic, and Pro&nbsp;Lingua.</p>

<p>While we would have loved to add our voice, for the most part we felt validated by what the panelists had to share. Rather than following ELT publishing trends over the years, we&rsquo;ve been setting them! Our subscription-based model that has been in place for the past 17 years is finally being adopted by many of the large publishing&nbsp;houses.</p>

<p>Laura Le Dr&eacute;an described how ELTs today want more flexibility from publishers rather than the traditional textbook units. Teachers want to be able to &ldquo;take a little bit of this and a little bit of that&rdquo; and use digital when it suits them. We thought this described ESL&nbsp;Library pretty&nbsp;well!</p>

<p><img alt="TESOL 19 slide" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2167/content_content_TT_Top-10-TESOL_02.jpg" /></p>

<p>Jeff Krum pointed out that one thing publishers often forget is that ELLs measure their progress by how well they can speak. We couldn&rsquo;t agree more! Our goal for our digital platform is to focus on pair and group speaking practice, and we&rsquo;re working on many new task types that will give learners more opportunities to&nbsp;speak.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>&ldquo;Anything you measure&nbsp;improves.&rdquo;</p>

<p class="attribution">&mdash;Jeff Krum</p>
</blockquote>

<p>In 2019 we&rsquo;ll also be working on adding more <a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/104/resources">assessment tasks and tools</a> to our library for both print and&nbsp;digital.</p>

<h2>4. Language Learning Projects Offer Student&nbsp;Autonomy</h2>

<p>We&rsquo;ve all had students who need or want extra work. Some are a bit behind their peers while others are way ahead. In an excellent session by Sharon Graham and Deborah Pfeifer, we learned tips on motivating learners to create their own individualized learning plans using these five&nbsp;guidelines:</p>

<ol>
	<li>goal</li>
	<li>materials</li>
	<li>plan</li>
	<li>method</li>
	<li>criteria for measuring progress</li>
</ol>

<p>As Pfeifer and Graham demonstrated with their research, students who create their own plans are more likely to follow&nbsp;through.</p>

<div class="white-box">
<p>Watch for an upcoming LLP resource in our <a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories">Resources</a> section!</p>
</div>

<h2>5. The Purpose of the Citizenship Test Is Not Just to Pass a&nbsp;Test</h2>

<p>In an excellent session by Domminick McParland from the Office of Citizenship, we learned some useful tips about the US Naturalization Test. For the Civics portion of the test, McParland recommended teaching learners thematically rather than just focusing on the 100 questions. As he pointed out, the goal of the test is to prepare immigrants for life in their new country. Rather than just memorizing answers, he suggests teaching learners about the history, geography, and laws of the country they are going to be living in. The English they learn will help prepare them for the other parts of the&nbsp;test.</p>

<div class="white-box">
<p>Check out our <a href="https://ellii.com/collections/30/lessons">Americana Lesson Collection</a>, which has all sorts of theme-based lessons, including an <a href="https://ellii.com/collections/30/lessons/2277">American Citizenship</a>&nbsp;lesson.</p>
</div>

<p>On the other hand, McParland pointed out that test day is NOT the day for your students to show off their knowledge. If a question asks for one answer, they should not give more than one. There are no bonus points and the officer decides if the first answer is right or&nbsp;wrong.</p>

<p>The reading and writing portion of the English test is now on a tablet, so it is recommended that teachers include some digital literacy in their lessons. For the writing portion, students have to use a stylus or their finger to write the dictated sentence (they don&rsquo;t&nbsp;type).</p>

<p>The speaking part is the hardest part. When it comes to the N‑400 form, it is imperative that learners know all of the vocabulary on it. They can&rsquo;t rely on answering &ldquo;No&rdquo; to a question such as &ldquo;Are you a habitual drunkard?&rdquo; if they don&rsquo;t know what the question means. The officer can ask test-takers to explain their answer at any&nbsp;time.</p>

<p>Here are some useful insider tips for preparing your students for the citizenship&nbsp;test:</p>

<ul class="spaced-list">
	<li>Focus on Part 12 of the N‑400 (it&rsquo;s the most&nbsp;difficult).</li>
	<li>Remind your students to always tell the&nbsp;truth.</li>
	<li>Practice asking an officer to repeat or rephrase a question (and remind students that they are allowed and encouraged to advocate for themselves during the test, including asking for a manager if&nbsp;necessary).</li>
	<li>An abbreviated word will not be accepted for the dictated sentence in the writing&nbsp;section.</li>
	<li>Practice writing with a stylus or finger on a&nbsp;tablet.</li>
	<li>On the reading test, students can fail for pausing too long. Practice reading questions out loud. (Students are not required to answer the question they read out&nbsp;loud.)</li>
</ul>

<h2>6. Grammar Has an Authentic Purpose</h2>

<p>We learned some useful tips in a session about grammar and TBLT (Task-Based Language Teaching) by Jennifer Brown, Emma House, Zach Meyer, and Megan Wright. They teach an intensive English program that focuses heavily on grammar practice. Using the TBLT approach, they have integrated real‑world activities into their program, including writing thank-you notes and cover letters, and they base target structures off those tasks (e.g., using gerunds after the phrase &ldquo;Thank you&nbsp;for&hellip;&rdquo;).</p>

<p>While the jury is still out on just how effective TBLT is for language learners, the presenters found that their students were much more engaged in learning when they used the TBLT approach. Their students appreciated using the grammar as a tool for communicating for an authentic purpose rather than just mindlessly writing down sentences featuring the grammar&nbsp;target.</p>

<p>Our Functional English and Writing sections would be useful for teachers who want to give TBLT a try in their classrooms. For example, teachers could use our <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/92/lessons/1739">Saying Thank You</a>, <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/74/lessons/2365">How to Write a Note</a>, or <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/74/lessons/2102">How to Write a Cover Letter</a> lessons. One of the main goals of our <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/88/lessons">Grammar Practice Worksheets</a> section is to include as many speaking tasks as possible in order to practice the target in a more authentic&nbsp;context.</p>

<p>When it comes to authentic materials, teachers have a habit of pointing out the grammar in context. At higher levels, learners should should be encouraged to identify the targets they&rsquo;ve learned in the language they encounter. Students can use real-world audio, video, and articles to &ldquo;spot grammar in the&nbsp;wild.&rdquo;</p>

<p><img alt="Tara Benwell and Tanya Trusler TESOL 19" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2168/content_content_TT_Top-10-TESOL_03.jpg" /></p>

<h2>7. Suprasegmentals Are Superior</h2>

<p>In an informative session on pronunciation, Nihat Polat presented the findings he and colleague Laura Mahalingapappa gathered after a comprehensive review of current pronunciation research. An overall finding was that accuracy should never be the main goal&mdash;comprehensibility (overall speech patterns) and intelligibility (how much is understandable) should. This means that our students (and teachers!) should never try to &ldquo;get rid of&rdquo; their lovely accent. It might be difficult to convince our students of this, but a reminder might help improve their confidence and refocus their pronunciation&nbsp;goals.</p>

<p>Many teachers conduct pronunciation lessons that focus on only one or two sounds (segmental). Yet another conclusion reached by analyzing current research was that suprasegmentals (intonation, stress, etc.) are more important to pronunciation than segmentals (sounds/words).</p>

<p>While ESL&nbsp;Library&rsquo;s <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/118/lessons">Phonics &amp; Pronunciation</a> section does include phonics stories with the sounds in context (where students listen and say a story using stress and intonation), the majority of our pronunciation practice is geared towards individual sounds and minimal pairs. We resolved to develop lessons specifically on stress and intonation this&nbsp;year!</p>

<h2>8. Explicit Vocabulary Instruction Offers Best&nbsp;Results</h2>

<p>Having recently developed a comprehensive lesson on <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/88/lessons/2800">Verb Collocations</a> and with plans to develop many more, we were very interested in attending this well-researched session by Marijana Macis and Suhad Sonbul. Attendees may have been surprised to learn that direct vocabulary instruction (explicit learning) resulted in a much higher retention rate in study after&nbsp;study.</p>

<p>In their own study, the presenters also compared spaced (words repeated several times in a lesson) and massed (words presented only once) learning of vocabulary words. Their results showed that students retained vocabulary through explicit spaced learning to a significantly higher degree that the other conditions. In fact, their students&rsquo; scores in the incidental massed condition went down! They surmised that when an item is spaced out, it becomes encoded in memory in different contexts and is therefore better retained in&nbsp;real life.</p>

<p>How can you practice spaced, explicit vocabulary in your classrooms? The presenters suggested&nbsp;using:</p>

<ul>
	<li>apps</li>
	<li>quizzes</li>
	<li>cumulative tests and assessments</li>
	<li>pair work to discuss previous class concepts/vocabulary</li>
</ul>

<p>The presenters concluded by saying they found that recycling vocabulary five or more times yielded the highest retention&nbsp;rates.</p>

<p>In our <a href="https://ellii.com/lessons">lessons</a>, we almost always include a vocabulary preview, the words in context in the reading, two vocabulary review activities, and the words in context in the listening, so we were happy to hear that the presenters&rsquo; findings corresponded to what we do in our materials. And with ESL&nbsp;Library&rsquo;s new <a href="https://help.ellii.com/article/132-video-digital-platform-webinar">digital platform</a>, there are even more ways to present and practice vocabulary in your&nbsp;classroom!</p>

<h2>9. Old-School Grammar Instruction Improves&nbsp;Accuracy</h2>

<p>How should you present grammar in class? Should you use grammar notes/charts/instruction or teach it communicatively via grammar in context/task-based activities? This topic has been debated for as long as we can remember. Presenter Richard Oandasan examined past research and then conducted his own study in search of a definitive&nbsp;answer.</p>

<p>Past research results showed that communicative language teaching (CLT) can negatively affect students&rsquo; attitudes toward successful language learning. Many studies deemed CLT&nbsp;&ldquo;insufficient.&rdquo;</p>

<p>After seven weeks of form-focused grammar instruction, Richard&rsquo;s study participants demonstrated statistically significant improvements in grammar&nbsp;accuracy.</p>

<p>However, Richard acknowledged that explicit knowledge does not necessarily convert to implicit knowledge of real‑life communicative&nbsp;functions, and he suggested that proficiency in a language is not solely affected by a particular kind of instruction. At ESL&nbsp;Library, we strive to give teachers options on how they can present the grammar target. We include grammar notes/review at the beginning of our <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/88/lessons">Grammar Practice Worksheets</a> lessons (that teachers can choose whether or not to use), while the lessons in our <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/90/lessons">Grammar Stories</a> section show the target in context. Our goal is to provide teachers and students with variety in how they teach and learn&nbsp;grammar.</p>

<p>Richard&rsquo;s key recommendations were:</p>

<ul>
	<li>use explicit instructions in grammar&nbsp;classes</li>
	<li>integrate form-focused grammar instructions with communicative&nbsp;activities</li>
</ul>

<p>As Richard stated, one thing is for sure&mdash;students need a lot of grammar&nbsp;practice!</p>

<blockquote>
<p>&ldquo;Output is as important as&nbsp;input.&rdquo;</p>

<p class="attribution">&mdash;Richard Oandasan</p>
</blockquote>

<h2>10. Assessment Can Empower&nbsp;Students</h2>

<p>Debora Nacamuli Klebs and Esther Vasquez led a lively session on effective assessment and feedback techniques. At ESL&nbsp;Library, we&rsquo;ve been adding more and more materials to our <a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/104/resources">Assessment Tools</a> resources, so we were delighted to hear how valuable assessment tools can be as well as get some ideas for future resources and lessons during this&nbsp;session.</p>

<p>Here are some the presenters&rsquo; key takeaways about&nbsp;assessment:</p>

<ul>
	<li>Praise effort, not just&nbsp;results.</li>
	<li>There is a difference between not knowing something and not knowing something&nbsp;<strong>yet</strong>.</li>
	<li>Don&rsquo;t overdo the praise or overload students with&nbsp;corrections.</li>
	<li>With formative assessment, feedback and adjustments are&nbsp;important.</li>
	<li>Try &ldquo;two stars and a wish&rdquo; (i.e., give students two good things and one thing that needs&nbsp;improvement).</li>
	<li>Remember to &ldquo;close the loop&rdquo; (i.e., review and recap at the end of the&nbsp;lesson).</li>
	<li>Try using <a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/104/resources/2228">Exit Slips</a> to close the&nbsp;loop.</li>
	<li>Instead of asking &ldquo;Do you understand?&rdquo; ask &ldquo;Which is right, A or&nbsp;B?&rdquo;</li>
	<li>In tests, try including a &ldquo;What I studied that you didn&rsquo;t ask&rdquo; section for bonus&nbsp;points.</li>
	<li>Believe in your&nbsp;students!</li>
</ul>

<p><img alt="Tara Benwell and Tanya Trusler TESOL 19" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2169/content_content_TT_Top-10-TESOL_04.jpg" /></p>

<h1>Home of the Braves</h1>

<p>We are so grateful to have been able to attend and sponsor TESOL 2019 in Atlanta this year. We always love having the opportunity to meet current subscribers and many other teachers/administrators, give away great prizes, get inspired from all the excellent sessions, and explore a new&nbsp;city.</p>

<p>We are already looking forward to next year&rsquo;s conference in Denver, Colorado! TESOL 2020 will be a big one for us. It will be Tara&rsquo;s 10th and Tanya&rsquo;s 8th TESOL conference. Atlanta will be hard to beat, but we&rsquo;ve heard great things about the friendly people and fresh mountain air in&nbsp;Denver.</p>

<p>See you next year!</p>

<p>Tara &amp; Tanya</p>


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