Volunteer Training Resources

Next steps

BLC important topics for your classroom

• BLC's 5-minute videos: building class community, teacher talk & student engagement, homework, feeling students' stress, handling absences & tardiness, guarding student privacy, student Zoom cameras

More resources by type & topic

Overarching teaching tips

• Retrieval Practice: helping students remember (from Cult of Pedagogy)

• What I learned about teaching English from Russian 101, by Linda Bonder 

Building class culture / group dynamics

• Understanding the impact of task design on learners’ willingness to speak 

• Increasing impact with assistant teachers (a short presentation)

• Enhancing learner self-confidence, from Oxford University Press

• Creating Positive Group Dynamics, from Oxford University Press 

Instructional examples (videos)

• New American Horizons. Teaching ESL to Adults: Classroom Approaches in Action - 12 teacher training videos of classes in action 

• Skill-based teaching demonstrations, by Ventures (teaching writing, reading, grammar, listening, etc)

• Linda's TESOL - two short sample online classes

• Putting English to work: list of videos with topic labels, playlist for the whole series

Teaching pronunciation

• Great, clear pronunciation videos: Elemental English

• Techniques for teaching pronunciation (from BLC)

• Teaching -ed pronunciation - a sample lesson, and materials

• Rachel's English: about linking words, reduced words, understanding what you hear 

• Eva Easton - great videos about specific pronunciation issues

Teaching reading 

• Letter sounds and spelling patterns, learner videos by Amy Grant

• Alphabetics - integrating reading instruction above the beginner level, by Kaylin Wainwright 

• Helping struggling readers - synthesized information for teachers, by Amy Grant

• 11 alternatives to Round Robin Reading - ways to get students to effectively participate in reading activities in class,  by Edutopia

• Supporting English Learners with Dyslexia, from Ellii

Teaching with technology

Zoom & WhatsApp

• • Setting up breakout rooms in Zoom, by Linda Bonder

  • Share only a portion of your screen, by Amy Grant

  • Basic “How to Use WhatsApp” - 3 minutes, by Amy Grant

  • Step by step: Creating and using a class WhatsApp group

  • Zoom, WhatsApp, and more - short video guides by Minnesota Literacy

  • Using Ventures Presentation Plus with Zoom, video

Games

• Creating Wordwall games (and other helpful videos)

• Making Flippity games

The Google Suite

• • Step-by-step Google Drive & Docs

  • Getting started with Google Slides (it's like Powerpoint) 

Beaverton Library: tech classes and one-on-one help

Workshops 

• Minnesota Literacy has many workshops throughout the year. See what's coming up and videos of past events. 

• Portland Literacy Council. Join their mailing list to learn about upcoming workshops.

• ProLiteracy webinars: what's coming up and videos of past events.