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

Conferences

<p>We&rsquo;ve just returned from our annual trip to Toronto for the TESL Ontario Conference. This year&rsquo;s conference was at the Toronto Marriot in the Eaton Centre, and the theme was <em>Cultivating Innovation and&nbsp;Inclusion</em>.</p>

<p>Approximately 25% of ESL&nbsp;Library subscribers are Canadian, and this annual conference gives us direct access to teachers and administrators in the field. Through the teachers and presenters, we also learn more about the needs of English learners across Canada, especially&nbsp;newcomers.</p>

<p><img alt="" class="hasBorder" height="auto" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/120/content_Tara_TESL-Ontario-Conference-2019_02.jpg" width="320" /></p>

<p>In addition to having a booth where our subscribers can come and ask questions and leave feedback, we also do a presentation to share what&rsquo;s new and upcoming. This year&rsquo;s session was a packed house with only one attendee who had never used ESL&nbsp;Library!</p>

<p>Our primary goal for attending this conference each year is for research and professional development. This year we attended sessions on LINC, PBLA, literacy, online assessment, and blended learning. We also attended Gavin Dudeney&rsquo;s keynote: <em>Technology in Language Teaching (What works, What&nbsp;doesn&rsquo;t</em>).</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Some people do call it flipped learning. I still call it&nbsp;homework.</p>

<p class="attribution">&mdash;Gavin Dudeney</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Much like the international TESOL conference we attend each spring, the requests and feedback we receive at TESL Ontario help us plan our road map and choose our priorities for the upcoming&nbsp;year.</p>

<h2>Goal-Setting Updates from TESL&nbsp;18</h2>

<p>Before attending a conference like TESL Ontario, we always take some time to reflect on our goal‑setting from the previous year to check on our progress, just as teachers and learners do. Here are six goals we achieved in 2019 based on requests, feedback, and learning at last year&rsquo;s TESL Ontario&nbsp;Conference:</p>

<h4>1. Develop More Holidays &amp; Events Lessons for Low&nbsp;Intermediate</h4>

<p>At last year&rsquo;s conference,&nbsp;we had lots of requests for low‑level holiday lessons, including&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/courses/93/lessons/2948">Mother&rsquo;s Day</a>, <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/93/lessons/2738">Father&rsquo;s Day</a>, and International Women&rsquo;s Day (in editing). We&rsquo;ll continue to add lower-level versions to our holiday lessons in&nbsp;2020.</p>

<h4>2. Develop More CLB‑Aligned Materials for CLB‑2&ndash;3</h4>

<p>As requested, we&rsquo;ve&nbsp;just completed an overhaul of our <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/91/lessons">Simple Sentences</a> section, which now matches our revised <a href="https://ellii.com/flashcard_genres">flashcard</a> sets (all updated this year). We&rsquo;ve also updated our entire <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/92/lessons">Functional English</a> section with integrated tasks and tools and added some new lessons. Both of these sections have a heavy focus on benchmarks for CLB‑2&ndash;3.</p>

<h4>3. Add More Materials for Literacy (especially for numeracy)</h4>

<p>We&rsquo;ve been plugging away at our <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/118/lessons">Phonics &amp; Pronunciation</a> section all year, and we received lots of great feedback about it at this year&rsquo;s conference. We also created a number of materials specifically for <a href="https://ellii.com/collections/31/lessons">Numeracy</a>, including <a href="https://ellii.com/flashcard_genres/23/flashcard_categories/125">Numbers</a> and <a href="https://ellii.com/flashcard_genres/18/flashcard_categories/145">Money</a> flashcards as well as literacy&nbsp;lessons on <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/121/lessons">numbers, phone numbers, the date, money, and checks</a>. We also added a Word Bank lesson on&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/courses/113/lessons/2545">Banking</a>.</p>

<h4>4. Add Materials for Digital Literacy</h4>

<p>In Canada, many newcomers are unfamiliar with computers, which are needed for work, study, and community services. This year we added <a href="https://ellii.com/flashcard_genres/11/flashcard_categories/24">computer flashcards</a>&nbsp;as well as lessons for digital literacy:&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/courses/113/lessons/2489">Computers</a>, <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/92/lessons/2505">Using a Computer,</a> and <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/92/lessons/2511">Using the Internet</a>. We also made it easier for students to access ESL&nbsp;Library&rsquo;s digital tasks for homework or classwork. For an example, see <a href="https://help.ellii.com/article/140-how-to-invite-students-to-esl-library-digital-without-an-email-address">How to Invite Students to ESL&nbsp;Library (without an email address)</a>. Also see more <a href="https://help.ellii.com/category/110-digital-tools">Help Docs on Digital&nbsp;Tools</a>.</p>

<h4>5. Add Integrated Assessment for&nbsp;PBLA</h4>

<p>Another request from last year was for integrated assessment tools in our lessons. We&rsquo;ve started doing this in many of our lesson sections, including Functional English, Super Simple Questions, English Foundations, and more. We&rsquo;ve also added many self‑assessment and learner reflection tools to our CLB‑aligned lessons based on feedback we received after last year&rsquo;s&nbsp;conference.</p>

<h4>6. Create a New Grammar Section for CLB 1&ndash;2</h4>

<p>To meet this need, we created a new lesson section called <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/123/lessons">Super Simple Grammar</a>. This section has 9 lessons and we&rsquo;ll be adding a few more in 2020. If there is a beginner grammar target that you would like to see covered in this section, please let us know in the comments&nbsp;below!</p>

<p><img alt="" class="hasBorder" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/119/content_Tara_TESL-Ontario-Conference-2019_01.jpg" /></p>

<h2>Goal‑Setting at TESL&nbsp;19</h2>

<p>While attending this year&rsquo;s TESL Ontario sessions, managing the booth, and doing our own presentation, we received many useful requests, suggestions, and ideas for next&nbsp;year!</p>

<p>Here is our goal‑setting summary that we&rsquo;ll be referring to throughout&nbsp;2020:</p>

<ul>
	<li>Ensure that all new assessment tools have a check box to indicate whether the task is for skill‑using or assessment&nbsp;purposes.</li>
	<li>Focus on reading strategies and practice for all&nbsp;levels.</li>
	<li>Add higher‑level, CLB‑aligned comprehension questions to readings for CLB&nbsp;5+.</li>
	<li>Create pictorial Needs Assessment resources for&nbsp;literacy.</li>
	<li>Add more listening tasks for practice and assessment on LINC&nbsp;themes.</li>
	<li>Continue integrating grammar in our lessons as we have been doing throughout&nbsp;2019.</li>
	<li>Make it easy for a teacher to view a student&rsquo;s individual progress (e‑portfolio style).</li>
	<li>Create more writing lessons with integrated reading&nbsp;passages.</li>
	<li>Increase font size for literacy and use more visuals in our literacy&nbsp;lessons.</li>
	<li>Help ESL&nbsp;Library subscribers discover what&rsquo;s new (product features, lesson sections,&nbsp;etc.).</li>
</ul>

<p>If you were unable&nbsp;to attend this year&rsquo;s TESL Ontario Conference or&nbsp;didn&rsquo;t get a chance to chat with us last week, feel free to add your request or feedback for consideration in the comments below. You can also use our <a href="https://ellii.com/contact">Contact Us</a>&nbsp;form.</p>

<p>A big thank you to TESL Ontario and all of the presenters and&nbsp;exhibitors.</p>

<p>See you next&nbsp;year!</p>

<p><img alt="" class="hasBorder" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/122/content_Tara_TESL-Ontario-Conference-2019_04.jpg" /></p>

<p><img alt="" class="hasBorder" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/123/content_Tara_TESL-Ontario-Conference-2019_03.jpg" /></p>


TESL Ontario Conference 2019

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<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>


Tara & Tanya's Top 10 TESOL Takeaways

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<p>I&rsquo;ve just returned from the <a href="https://wida.wisc.edu/grow/conferences/annual" rel="noopener" target="_blank">2018 WIDA conference</a> in Detroit, Michigan. Despite being one of the few attendees from a non-WIDA state, I had a quick commute across the Detroit River from Windsor, Ontario. In fact, the trusty tunnel bus, which runs under the river, had me at the Cobo Center in less than 30 minutes. Throughout the week, I noticed several attendees looking across at the Canadian flag, wishing they had packed a&nbsp;passport.</p>

<p><img alt="Windsor terminal and tunnel bus" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/207/content_Tara_WIDA-2018_Windsor-Terminal-and-Tunnel-Bus.jpg" /></p>

<p class="caption">By jodelli - <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Windsor_International_Transit_Terminal_2626311587.jpg" rel="noopener" target="_blank" title="File:Windsor International Transit Terminal 2626311587.jpg">File:Windsor International Transit Terminal 2626311587.jpg</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0" rel="noopener" target="_blank" title="Creative Commons Attribution 2.0">CC BY 2.0</a>, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28943103" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Link</a></p>

<p>As head of publishing at <a href="https://ellii.com/">ESL&nbsp;Library</a>, I attended WIDA to immerse myself in academic language for ELLs, our publishing priority for 2019. Many of our new and longterm ESL&nbsp;Library subscribers teach in WIDA states, and we are often asked how our materials align with WIDA&rsquo;s philosophy, standards, and proficiencies. In addition to learning all about WIDA in order to address these concerns and requests, I attended fantastic keynotes and sessions and gained valuable information for our materials&nbsp;writers.</p>

<p>This was my first WIDA conference, and one of the best language teaching conferences I&rsquo;ve ever attended. The conference included delicious meals and well-timed breaks with access to coffee, water, and snacks throughout the day. The app was very handy, and the session rooms were well marked and easy to find. Most importantly, the speakers were excellent, and I was able to get into all of the sessions I had scheduled. Here are some of the highlights and takeaways from this great week of&nbsp;PD:</p>

<h1>WIDA 2018 Keynotes</h1>

<p>In the opening keynote, Ofelia Garcia, an expert in bilingual education, talked about translanguaging: <em>going beyond two or more languages</em>. Garcia reminded us that language is much more than a code. Language is also culture. Garcia spoke passionately about the unfairness of America&rsquo;s current assessment practices of bilingual students, pointing out that many US students learn two language simultaneously. They do not have an L1 or L2. Yet, we evaluate them with only half of their language repertoire. As well as questioning our assessment practices, we should be mindful of how we label our&nbsp;learners.</p>

<p>On day two, Gloria Ladson-Billings [<em>below</em>] spoke about keeping our materials current, saying that culturally relevant teachers search high and low for resources (and often create their own) to ensure that students are engaged with the topics of&nbsp;today.</p>

<p><img alt="Gloria Ladson-Billings at WIDA 2018" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/208/content_Tara_WIDA-2018_Gloria-Ladson-Billings.jpg" /></p>

<p>On the final day, we heard from <a href="http://senate.utah.gov/senators/district11.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Utah Senator Howard Stephenson</a> who asked teachers to embrace digital technology and machine learning. Stephenson believes that teachers should allow digital technology to do the &ldquo;heavy lifting,&rdquo; so that teachers can concentrate on working creatively and collaboratively with their students. Senator Stephenson also shared the success of the dual-language programs in Utah and the importance of bilingual education. I have no doubt that many monolingual teachers in the audience were inspired to go home and sign up for a language learning&nbsp;class.</p>

<p>To close out the conference, WIDA family engagement specialist Lorena Mancilla shared a personal story about growing up in Chicago as an American with Mexican roots. After moving away from the comforts of her community of relatives in a Latino neighborhood and enrolling at a predominantly white school at the age of 8, Mancilla internalized the idea that she was &ldquo;different&rdquo; and that her family&rsquo;s culture was &ldquo;not appropriate.&rdquo; Through story, Mancilla challenged teachers to find new ways to enhance home, school, and community engagement in order to empower our future&nbsp;leaders.</p>

<h1>WIDA 2018 Sessions</h1>

<p>In my favorite WIDA session of the 2018 conference, <a href="https://twitter.com/RhondaBondie1">Rhonda Bondie</a> shared the value of noting two takeaways every time you learn something new. Here are just a few things I learned at three of the most useful WIDA sessions I&nbsp;attended.</p>

<h2 class="mb2">1. Student Discussions: Increasing Equity, Engagement, Access and&nbsp;Rigor</h2>

<h4>Rhonda Bondie</h4>

<p>Rhonda Bondie taught workshop participants several classroom <a href="http://www.alled.org/"> learning routines</a> (e.g., Domino, Rumors, QAPS, <span class="inlineBlock">2 X 2 X 2</span>) that can add rigor and engagement to a lesson. One common theme in the routines was allowing for increased thinking time for both students and&nbsp;teachers.</p>

<p>Bondie recommended looking at every classroom task as one of the following four&nbsp;structures:</p>

<ol>
	<li><strong>Explicit Instruction:</strong> pencils down, listen, teachers only say what students can remember without taking&nbsp;notes</li>
	<li><strong>Free Discussion:</strong> students turn and talk informally, teachers can move around and&nbsp;participate</li>
	<li><strong>Individual Task:</strong> students spend time thinking and testing themselves before they have to talk, help resources are available, all students should be able to start on their&nbsp;own</li>
	<li><strong>Group Task:</strong> structured task, has rules (e.g., only one has a pencil), has roles (e.g., reporter, recorder), teacher observes, uses appropriate seating (e.g., one strong reader per&nbsp;grouping)</li>
</ol>

<p>Note: After returning from WIDA, I tried one of the routines to get my son tying his own hockey skates, and it&nbsp;worked!</p>

<h2>2. Newcomer ELs: How Experiences Shape Self‑Identity</h2>

<h4>Jennifer Santiago</h4>

<p>In this session, graduate student <a href="https://twitter.com/DR_ESOL/status/1055575497915199488" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Jennifer Santiago</a> shared her findings on the subject of student identity. Santiago compiled research on self-identity from a group of Central American newcomers at her school. Santiago learned that many teachers made assumptions about newcomers that were not true, especially regarding newcomers&rsquo; educational background. She also discovered that many high school newcomers were not getting the career and academic counseling that they needed and&nbsp;deserved.</p>

<p>Negative experiences with teachers had a strong impact on newcomers&rsquo; self-identity. Many believed that they were &ldquo;bad&rdquo; because they struggled with English. In contrast, positive experiences with helpers around the school (e.g., a police officer) had a positive impact on their self-identity. Santiago concluded that teacher-ed programs were not focusing enough on the importance of teachers&rsquo; interpersonal skills (e.g., disposition) when working with&nbsp;newcomers.</p>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Today was an amazing day @WIDA2018! I met the iconic Gloria Ladson-Billings, presented two presentations with great colleagues, and one presentation by myself where I shared my dissertation findings. I&rsquo;m proud of all the work! Plus so much networking! ❤️<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WIDA2018?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WIDA2018</a> <a href="https://t.co/4NRQlcg1el">pic.twitter.com/4NRQlcg1el</a></p>
&mdash; Jennifer Santiago, PhD (@DR_ESOL) <a href="https://twitter.com/DR_ESOL/status/1055575497915199488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 25, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src='https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js' charset='utf-8'></script>

<h2>3. Building the Academic Identity of SIFE Through Oral Language&nbsp;Activities</h2>

<h4>Syndey Snyder</h4>

<p>By the final day, many of the attendees had tired of being active participants but Sydney Snyder&rsquo;s SIFE (Students with Interrupted Formal Education) <a href="https://getsupported.net/wp-content/uploads/SLIFE-Oral-Language-Activities-Handouts-PDF.pdf">activities</a> were engaging and useful, and we all found the energy to turn and talk one more time. In addition to going over the typical weaknesses SIFEs have (not always understanding the point of tasks, at risk of dropping out, struggling to work independently), Snyder pointed out some of their common strengths (resilience, problem solving, comfortable working in&nbsp;groups).</p>

<p>The presenter also showed an excellent video of an experienced SIFE teacher modeling good classroom practices, such as handing out <a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/assessment-tools/resources/2228-exit-slips">exit tickets</a> with sentence stems for written and oral practice. Students were encouraged to write and then vocalize their challenges and achievements to help them gain confidence and identify as academic&nbsp;learners.</p>

<h1>A Conference Near You</h1>

<p>On my way back to Windsor, I was pleased to meet up with two brave teachers from Alabama taking the tunnel bus to Canada! I offered them a few tips, and we made plans to meet up at a conference in their neck of the woods: TESOL 2019 in&nbsp;Atlanta.</p>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">When you&rsquo;re this close, you visit Canada! <a href="https://t.co/xKJwOEn81m">pic.twitter.com/xKJwOEn81m</a></p>
&mdash; Anna Suthoff (@TeachEB_Suthoff) <a href="https://twitter.com/TeachEB_Suthoff/status/1055913769128415234?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 26, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src='https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js' charset='utf-8'></script>

<p>Before TESOL in March, members of our team will be attending other smaller conferences, including TESL Ontario (Toronto) and CoTESOL (Colorado) this week. We hope to see some of you this conference season or in Rhode Island for WIDA&nbsp;2019!</p>

<p><img height="100" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/209/content_Tara_WIDA-2018_Tara.jpg" width="100" /></p>

<p>&mdash;Tara</p>


WIDA Conference 2018: Highlights & Takeaways

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<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p class="caption"><img alt="2018 TESOL " src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2200/content_tesol-2018_team-1024x768.jpeg" /></p>

<p class="caption">From left to right: Kyle (developer), Michael (developer), Taylor (accounts manager), Ben (CEO), Tanya (lead editor), Eduardo (head coder), Tara (head writer), Dan (product manager). Bottom center: Robyn &amp; Wally (creative director and her anxious&nbsp;cat)</p>

<h1>TESOL in Chicago</h1>

<p>The ESL&nbsp;Library team has just returned from our annual meet-up at the international TESOL convention. This year the conference was held in the windy city of&nbsp;Chicago! We&#39;ve come a long way since the first TESOL I attended with ESL&nbsp;Library back in 2010 when we used luggage racks as side tables. This year, ESL Library was the official sponsor of the international convention. We sponsored the prize booth and registration area. Throughout the week, we gave away three Apple Watches and several Amazon gift cards. It was a blast seeing so many TESOLers with their fingers crossed at our booth each&nbsp;afternoon. Congratulations to all of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Job81gJZxy0">lucky prize&nbsp;winners</a>!</p>

<p><img alt="2018 TESOL " src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2201/content_IMG_0527-1024x768.jpeg" /></p>

<p>Thank you also to our creative director Robyn and accounts manager Taylor for coordinating and designing the ESL Library booth this year. This was by far the most stylish exhibit we&#39;ve ever had, though building it involved numerous competencies from &#39;Following Instructions&#39; to &#39;Interacting with Others&#39; and &#39;Getting Things Done.&#39; Ben, Taylor, and I can forever think of the trying day before TESOL 18 as TESOL Tuesday! Robyn had her own last-minute disaster when Wally, her anxious cat, mistook her as prey just before the trip. Sadly she was unable to join us in Chicago, but she was with us in&nbsp;spirit!</p>

<p><img alt="" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2202/content_IMG_0505.jpg" /></p>

<h1>Sessions &amp; Demos</h1>

<p>Our team presented four back-to-back sessions on the first day of TESOL. It was a whirlwind of a day with live demos of our site and digital platform taking place back at the booth and in the session room. (Watch for a free digital lesson trial coming soon to all&nbsp;subscribers!)</p>

<p><img alt="2018 TESOL " src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2203/content_IMG_0514-e1522777952934-768x1024.jpeg" /></p>

<p>In one session, Ben used Japanese to show teachers how to use <a href="https://ellii.com/flashcard_genres">images</a> to elicit and reinforce language structures and vocabulary. In another session, Tanya and I officially launched ESL&nbsp;Library&#39;s NEW <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/tesol-18-yl/">YL &amp; Literacy</a> section. Thanks to all TESOL attendees who joined us for our sessions and&nbsp;demos!</p>

<h1>Professional Development</h1>

<p>In addition to presenting, Tanya and I also attended sessions about pronunciation, literacy, and the English Language Proficiency Standards. Just as we&#39;ve done with PBLA for our Canadian subscribers, we&#39;re now working on aligning our materials to the ELP Standards. It&#39;s amazing how much you can learn in a few well-planned TESOL&nbsp;sessions. Thank you to all of the presenters!</p>

<h1>Lodging &amp; Sightseeing</h1>

<p>Half of our team had a wonderful stay at W Chicago&nbsp;Hotel, which looks over the Navy Pier, while the other half stayed at the Sofitel on Chicago&#39;s Magnificent Mile. Together we enjoyed a wide variety of good food, from vegetarian and gluten-free to greasy, deep-dish pizza. We also took in some fun attractions and even hit a few dance floors! Through it all, we debated the past tense of&nbsp;&#39;<a href="https://twitter.com/ESLlibrary/status/979711152547606528">sightsee</a>.&#39;</p>

<h2>Restaurants</h2>

<p>Here are some of the restaurants we enjoyed in&nbsp;Chicago:</p>

<ul>
	<li>True Food Kitchen (delicious veggie&nbsp;fare)</li>
	<li>The Little Beet Table (100% gluten-free)</li>
	<li>Sushi Dokku (amazing food, excellent&nbsp;atmosphere)</li>
	<li>Giordano&#39;s (deep-dish pizza)</li>
	<li>The W Chicago Hotel (early morning breakfast&nbsp;smoothies)</li>
	<li>Timothy O&#39;Toole&#39;s Pub (traditional&nbsp;pub)</li>
</ul>

<h2>Attractions</h2>

<p>Sadly we didn&#39;t make it to the Winnipeg Jets game as planned, but we did take in some other attractions,&nbsp;including:</p>

<ul>
	<li>Navy Pier</li>
	<li>Redhead Piano Bar</li>
	<li>Millennium Park (to see Cloud Gate, aka &#39;the bean&#39;)</li>
	<li>Chicago Riverwalk</li>
	<li>United Center (for a Chicago Bulls game)</li>
</ul>

<p><img alt="2018 TESOL " src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2204/content_IMG_0634-1024x768.jpeg" /></p>

<h1>Takeaways</h1>

<p>One of our top priorities at this year&#39;s TESOL conference was to launch our new app and show off our digital lessons. It was great to see so many teachers excited about our digital&nbsp;content. As always, we enjoyed meeting many long-term subscribers at TESOL. In past years, subscribers have come to our booth prepared with lists of new lessons and sections they&#39;d like to see. This year, however, many were stumped when we asked them what content they have trouble finding on ESL&nbsp;Library. Some said they would have to think about it and get back to us, while others asked us for more of their favorites, including more Grammar Stories, more Phonics worksheets, and more lessons on Historic Events and Science. Several attendees expressed relief to hear that we are working on aligning our materials with the English Language Proficiency&nbsp;Standards. The highlight of TESOL this year was on Friday afternoon when the second half of our family (our hardworking coders) flew in from Winnipeg and were able to get a taste of TESOL (and an epic team picture)! As remote workers, it was a thrill for Tanya and I to welcome them at the booth (and even to meet Michael, Dan, and Kyle face-to-face for the first time). The boys helped us with the takedown of the exhibit (our quickest TESOL exit to date) before we spent a fantastic evening together exploring the great city of&nbsp;Chicago. See you in Atlanta for #TESOL19!</p>

<p><img alt="2018 TESOL " src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2205/content_IMG_0510-e1522777503706-1024x768.jpeg" /></p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>


ESL Library Sponsors TESOL 18 in Chicago

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Learn tips on how to teach grammar and usage from our editors and grammar experts. 

Grammar & Usage

<p>The ESL&nbsp;Library team had a <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/tesol-17" target="_blank">fantastic time at the TESOL 2017 conference in Seattle</a> last week! We appreciate this yearly opportunity to find out what teachers want and need from our site. We love chatting with the teachers who come to our booth, and we also enjoy attending as many sessions as we can. Last week I had the chance to attend a great grammar discussion led by Charl Norloff from the University of Colorado&nbsp;Boulder. Charl&#39;s started her session (<em>Grammar: Taught Separately or Integrated into Skills Classes?</em>) by asking participants to think about how they usually teach grammar. Do we prefer teaching grammar explicitly (presenting and explaining the grammar point separately before any practice) or implicitly (eliciting the grammar through another lesson, such as a reading passage, with no separate grammar&nbsp;instruction)?</p>

<h1>Explicit Vs. Implicit Grammar&nbsp;Instruction</h1>

<p>When Charl asked participants what their preference was, explicit or implicit grammar instruction, the response was 50/50. Some teachers felt strongly that one method was better than the other, while many others stated that a combination of both styles worked best for their students. (A combination with slightly more emphasis on explicit instruction is my personal preference for teaching&nbsp;grammar.)</p>

<h2>Learning Styles</h2>

<p>Learning styles were brought up several times. Not all students learn the same way, and while explicit instruction may work for some, implicit may work better for others. Some teachers mentioned they have tried both methods in class to see what a particular class responds to best. Other teachers were limited to the curriculum/methods set by the&nbsp;school.</p>

<h2>Difficulty of the Grammar&nbsp;Target</h2>

<p>Some teachers said they choose to teach explicitly or implicitly depending on the difficulty of the grammar point. For example, the simple past is easy enough to teach implicitly by having students find examples in a reading passage, whereas the subjunctive may not be as easy to&nbsp;spot.</p>

<h2>Difficulty Finding Materials for Teaching&nbsp;Implicitly</h2>

<p>Other teachers noted that with implicit teaching, it isn&#39;t always easy to find a passage that has multiple examples or that lists all the exceptions to a rule. Several teachers said they were forced to write passages themselves because they couldn&#39;t readily find a real-life passage with multiple examples of a grammar target, and this is very time-consuming for&nbsp;them.</p>

<h2>Meaningful Input</h2>

<p>Charl also mentioned that regardless of explicit or implicit grammar instruction, teachers need to provide a rich set of opportunities to use the grammar (i.e., meaningful input). No matter how our learners acquire the grammatical knowledge, we must follow up with plenty of speaking and writing exercise to ensure they truly grasp the grammar&nbsp;target.</p>

<h1>Putting Explicit &amp; Implicit Grammar Instruction into Action in Our&nbsp;Materials</h1>

<p>What else could the writers and editors for ESL&nbsp;Library take away from this session in terms of how we can benefit our subscribers through our grammar&nbsp;materials?</p>

<h2>Explicit Grammar&nbsp;Materials</h2>

<p>With the many teaching and learning styles out there, explicit grammar instruction will always have a place in the ELT&nbsp;realm. During this session, I realized that we are on the right track with our&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/courses/88/lessons" target="_blank">Grammar Practice Worksheets</a>&nbsp;(comprehensive grammar lessons) section. For the past two years, we&#39;ve been adding speaking and writing components to all of our new grammar lessons (and many of our older ones). As Charl mentioned, these types of exercises are valuable for knowing if our students can produce the grammar target outside of simple grammatical drill-type exercises. Our newer&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/resources" target="_blank">Grammar &amp; Usage Resources</a> (grammar charts, tips, and lists) are also handy for explicit grammar instruction (or to hand out later to&nbsp;those students who aren&#39;t quite getting the implicit&nbsp;instruction).</p>

<h2>Implicit Grammar Materials</h2>

<p>While explicit instruction is still valued, there is also an increasing demand for the implicit, communicative approach to grammar teaching and&nbsp;learning. Our <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/90/lessons" target="_blank">Grammar Stories</a> section is a great place to find ready-made&nbsp;implicit grammar lessons that present the grammar target in the context of a reading passage.&nbsp;I also realized that we should be adding a grammar component to our other four-skills lessons (such as <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/72/lessons" target="_blank">Discussion Starters</a>, <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/80/lessons" target="_blank">Famous People</a>, <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/76/lessons" target="_blank">Everyday Dialogues</a>, etc.) more often. At times, we have a short grammar exercise that focuses on something mentioned in the reading or listening passage, such as adjective clauses, tag questions, etc. We could work this type of exercise into these lessons more often so that students learn how to recognize grammar targets independently (or with less guidance, at least) and in context. During the session, many teachers suggested a reading passage followed by an exercise that asks students to find the grammar target in context (by underlining all instances of it, for example), and this is something we can easily add to our&nbsp;materials. Which&nbsp;method works best in your&nbsp;classroom?&nbsp;</p>

TESOL 2017 Session: Should Grammar Be Taught Separately or Integrated into Skills Classes?

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<p><img alt="TESOL 2017" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2216/content_IMG_4621-1024x768.jpeg" /></p>

<p class="caption">From left to right: Tetiana (Yumi Class consultant), Tara (head writer), Ben (CEO), Tanya (chief editor), Liz (communications&nbsp;intern)</p>

<h1>Together at TESOL</h1>

<p>March is always a busy and wonderful month for the ESL&nbsp;Library team, thanks to our annual meet-up at the international TESOL convention. This year our team members were excited to gather in Seattle, Washington, where some of us met face-to-face for the first&nbsp;time!</p>

<p><img alt="TESOL 2017" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2217/content_IMG_5883-1024x768.jpeg" /></p>

<h1>Sessions &amp; Demos</h1>

<p>Our team presented four sessions at TESOL 17, including live demos of <a href="https://ellii.com">ESL&nbsp;Library</a> and <a href="https://www.yumiclass.com/#/welcome">Yumi&nbsp;Class</a> (our digital platform&mdash;currently in beta mode). Our consultant Tetiana joined us from Edmonton and led hourly demos of our sample <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/72/lessons/1245">Consumerism</a> lesson on&nbsp;Yumi.</p>

<p><img alt="" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2218/content_IMG_7373-1-1024x768.jpeg" /></p>

<p>In another session, Ben and Tanya taught teachers how to use <a href="https://ellii.com/flashcard_genres">images</a> to elicit and reinforce language structures and vocabulary (which Ben demonstrated by teaching some very basic Japanese). In my own session, I gave tips on blending authentic content with ELT&nbsp;materials.</p>

<p>Thank you to all of the attendees who joined us for our sessions and demos! And a big shout-out to our designer Robyn who made our booths, slides, and materials look&nbsp;fantastic!</p>

<p>Tanya and I also snuck away from the booth to attend sessions and roundtables about grammar, pronunciation, literacy, and refugees. Watch our blog for upcoming posts about a few of these TESOL&nbsp;sessions.</p>

<h1>Contests &amp; Prizes</h1>

<p>We had some fun giveaways this year, including an iPad Mini (<a href="https://youtu.be/Oo_2NwKDbNQ">won by Cynthia Miller</a>) and an Apple Watch (won by photo contestant Denise Lewis, pictured below). We also gave away screen cleaners and three free lessons to everyone who visited our&nbsp;booth.</p>

<p><img alt="TESOL 17" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2219/content_IMG_5911-1024x768.jpeg" /></p>

<p>Thank you to our intern Liz for running our social media photo contest and filling up our <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ESLlibrary">Facebook</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/ESLlibrary">Twitter</a>, and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/esllibrary/">Instagram</a> feeds with colorful photos of teachers from all over the&nbsp;world.</p>

<p><img alt="TESOL 17" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2220/content_collage-2017-03-28-1-1024x768.jpg" /></p>

<h1>Comfort, Food, &amp; Fun</h1>

<p>Our team had a wonderful stay at the luxurious Grand Hyatt on Pine St., where we had our daily breakfast at Ruth&#39;s Chris Steakhouse (say that three times fast). This year, we were thrilled to have access to so many great restaurants, cafes, clubs, and pubs. There was even plenty of food to choose&nbsp;from in the Convention Center&nbsp;itself.</p>

<p>Throughout the week, we enjoyed dining and touring around together as a team and with other TESOL folks, including Nathan from <em>BC Teal</em>, Ken from <em>Pearson</em>, and Eric of <em>Compelling&nbsp;Conversations</em>.</p>

<h2>Restaurants</h2>

<p>Here are some of the restaurants we enjoyed in Seattle:</p>

<ul>
	<li>The Cheesecake Factory (with its 21-page menu)</li>
	<li>Sansei Seafood Restaurant &amp; Sushi Bar (so good that we went&nbsp;twice!)</li>
	<li>Capitol Cider (100% gluten-free)</li>
	<li>Wild Ginger (delicious&nbsp;tapas)</li>
	<li>Ludi&#39;s (greasy breakfast)</li>
	<li>The Pike Pub (local&nbsp;brewery)</li>
</ul>

<h2>Attractions</h2>

<p>We didn&#39;t get a chance to go up the Space Needle or on the Great Wheel, but here are some of the attractions a few of us checked out during our fantastic week in&nbsp;Seattle:</p>

<ul>
	<li>Pike Place Market</li>
	<li>Comedy Underground</li>
	<li>GameWorks</li>
	<li>Dimitriou&#39;s Jazz Alley</li>
	<li>Chihuly Garden and Glass</li>
	<li>Cherry blossoms at the University of&nbsp;Washington</li>
</ul>

<p><img alt="TESOL 17" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2221/content_collage-2017-03-28-2-1024x768.jpg" /></p>

<h1>Take-Aways</h1>

<p>One of our top priorities at this year&#39;s TESOL conference was to do testing on our new digital lessons and platform before our summer launch. We found many teachers who offered to act as beta testers in the next few months. Many attendees also took advantage of our discount conference price and <a href="https://ellii.com/sign_up">signed up for an ESL&nbsp;Library&nbsp;subscription</a>.</p>

<p>We also enjoyed catching up with our long-term, enthusiastic ESL&nbsp;Library subscribers who shared plenty of requests (and&nbsp;hugs).</p>

<p>Some gaps we need to fill in our library include (CLIL) lessons on social studies, science, pronunciation, academic vocabulary, and English for Special Purposes. We also had a unique request for a lesson about Potato Chip Day (March&nbsp;14). We hope to fill some of these requests before it&#39;s time to meet again for TESOL&nbsp;18.</p>

<p>See you in Chicago!</p>


Our Seattle Team at TESOL 17

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<p>Last week, I met up with <a href="https://ellii.com" target="_blank">ESL&nbsp;Library</a>&#39;s CEO, Ben Buckwold, at the annual <a href="http://www.bcteal.org" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">BC&nbsp;TEAL conference</a>. Because our team is located all across Canada, conferences are the only chance we get&nbsp;to hang out in person. Ben works in our head office in Winnipeg, Manitoba, while I work in Vancouver, BC. Head writer Tara Benwell, who lives in Kitchener, Ontario, was sorely missed, but at least we&#39;d had the chance to catch up in person at the <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/baltimore-charms-the-esl-library-team-for-tesol-16" target="_blank">TESOL 2016 conference</a> in Baltimore earlier in April.</p>

<p>BC&nbsp;TEAL&#39;s&nbsp;conference&nbsp;theme was&nbsp;<em>building community</em>, and we certainly felt that to be true for us with all&nbsp;the Canadian connections we made at this&nbsp;conference!</p>

<p><img alt="BC TEAL 2016" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2170/content_ChUzdZwUcAAPod5-1024x768.jpg" /></p>

<p class="caption">Left to right: ESL&nbsp;Library editor Tanya Trusler &amp; CEO Ben&nbsp;Buckwold</p>

<h1>More&nbsp;Canadian Content</h1>

<p>If you subscribe to <a href="https://ellii.com/lessons" target="_blank">ESL&nbsp;Library</a>, you&#39;ll notice we provide <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/72/lessons/2120" target="_blank">American, Canadian, and British English versions</a> of most of our lessons. Though we have subscribers in more than 100 countries, we are a Canadian company, so we feel it&#39;s important to keep up with what&#39;s happening in the ELT field in Canada.</p>

<p>The BC&nbsp;TEAL conference provided us with a great opportunity to find out what&#39;s new with the Canadian Language Benchmarks (CLB) and to strengthen our connections with Canadian teachers and&nbsp;administrators. So far this year, we&#39;ve been hard at work adapting our lessons to better meet the needs of Canadian teachers, and this&nbsp;BC&nbsp;TEAL conference was an excellent opportunity to find out from teachers and CLB experts&nbsp;how we&#39;ve been doing and&nbsp;how we can improve even&nbsp;more.</p>

<h1>Keynote Speakers</h1>

<p>We also had a chance to finally meet one of our long-time guest bloggers, <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/author/shelly-terrell/" target="_blank">Shelly Sanchez Terrell</a>. Shelly and&nbsp;Lindsay Clandfield&nbsp;were&nbsp;the keynote speakers at this conference, and their presentations were&nbsp;as inspiring as we&nbsp;expected!</p>

<p><img alt="BC TEAL 2016" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2171/content_ChKvt5DXEAAiiH_-1024x768.jpg" /></p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p class="caption">Left to right: ESL&nbsp;Library editor Tanya Trusler, keynote speaker Shelly Sanchez Terrell &amp; ESL&nbsp;Library CEO Ben&nbsp;Buckwold</p>

<p>Lindsay Clandfield spoke about&nbsp;<em>Critical Thinking in Critical Times</em>. He offered up many great activities to get English language learners to think outside the typical ELT-activity&nbsp;box.&nbsp;Find more about Lindsay and his amazing work in our&nbsp;field at <a href="http://lindsayclandfield.com" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">lindsayclandfield.com</a>.</p>

<p>Shelly Sanchez Terrell spoke about&nbsp;<em>The Power of a Goal-Minded Teacher</em>. She shared how her 30 Goals Challenge can motivate teachers to try things they haven&#39;t tried before, especially when it comes to using technology in the classroom. Find more about Shelly&#39;s engaging&nbsp;work at&nbsp;<a href="http://30Goals.com" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">30Goals.com</a>. Both Lindsay and Shelly are published ELT authors.</p>

<p><img alt="Shelly Terrell BC TEAL 2016" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2172/content_IMG_0642-1024x768.jpg" /></p>

<p class="caption">Shelly Sanchez Terrell explaining her 30 Goal Challenge for teachers</p>

<h1>BC&nbsp;TEAL</h1>

<p>We had the chance to meet many members of the BC&nbsp;TEAL board, including retiring president Shawna Williams, key conference organizers Nathan Hall &nbsp;and Alex Bale (who went out of their way to make us feel welcome), new&nbsp;president Joe Dobson, and board members Sandra Boehm and Scott Roy Douglas. Apologies to&nbsp;those I didn&#39;t get to meet and therefore didn&#39;t mention&mdash;I know it takes many people to run a successful conference such as this one!</p>

<p>The conference this year took place at the Surrey campus of Simon Fraser University (my awesome alma mater), and the location and volunteers (SFU students) were top-notch. Overall, we had a fantastic time at the sessions and events, and we enjoyed meeting teachers from across Canada and finding out how our lessons could be adapted to meet their&nbsp;needs.</p>

<h1>Sessions</h1>

<p>I attended many excellent&nbsp;sessions and I learned so much about CLB and PBLA (portfolio-based language assessment). Here are some key takeaways from the sessions I attended:</p>

<h2>1. Understanding &amp; Creating Assessment Tools&nbsp;(PBLA)</h2>

<p><em>with Lisa Herrera, Caroline Pendleton &amp; Claire&nbsp;Pinkett</em></p>

<ul>
	<li>CLB is about improvement and keys to success, not about pass or fail, so we are moving away from numeric assessment. (E.g., a score of 9/10 isn&#39;t helpful for the student if the mistake was a key element to success&mdash;for instance, if you missed filling out a key part of a bank loan application, you wouldn&#39;t get the loan even if the rest was filled out&nbsp;correctly.)</li>
	<li>Low levels of CLB need learner-friendly language on the&nbsp;assessments.</li>
	<li>Comprehension tasks should not just check for content&mdash;they must be clearly linked to CLB criteria in the&nbsp;assessment&nbsp;tool.</li>
	<li>For split-level classes, put assessment criteria for each level on separate sheets so students only focus on the criteria that&#39;s relevant for their&nbsp;level.</li>
</ul>

<h2>2. Community Building and Growing Intercultural Competence in Language&nbsp;Classrooms</h2>

<p><em>with Taslim Damji</em></p>

<ul>
	<li>Community can be defined as a sense of belonging, and it applies to the classroom as well as the outside&nbsp;world.</li>
	<li>Intercultural competence is the ability to move between cultures with sensitivity and&nbsp;respect.</li>
	<li>Say to students, &quot;This is the way it will work for you in this country,&quot;&nbsp;not &quot;This is the right way to do&nbsp;it.&quot;</li>
</ul>

<h2>3. Writing Effective CLB Aligned Comprehension&nbsp;Questions</h2>

<p><em>with Lisa Herrera</em></p>

<ul>
	<li>The goal when writing comprehension questions is to try to measure if students can complete a real-world task goal in the real world at the standard of their CLB&nbsp;level.</li>
	<li>Make the wording of questions simple and clear so students know what&#39;s being&nbsp;asked.</li>
	<li>Matching/sequencing questions are good for skill-building but not great for&nbsp;assessment.</li>
	<li>Use True/False questions sparingly because they&#39;re difficult to write&nbsp;well.</li>
	<li>Fill-in-the-blanks are good for detail&nbsp;questions.</li>
	<li>Short answers are good for single&nbsp;ideas.</li>
	<li>Multiple-choice questions are great for checking&nbsp;students&#39; knowledge&nbsp;(i.e., they might know the answer, but they can&#39;t always produce it, which is problematic in other types of&nbsp;questions).</li>
	<li>There are not a lot of CLB materials out there right now. (This is where <a href="https://ellii.com" target="_blank">ESL&nbsp;Library</a> comes in very&nbsp;handy!)</li>
</ul>

<h2>4. Assessment Tools That Support Student Growth in the&nbsp;Classroom</h2>

<p><em>with Svetlana Lupasco &amp; Shawna&nbsp;Williams</em></p>

<ul>
	<li>Use assessment to&nbsp;<em>develop&nbsp;</em>skills, not to <em>test</em>&nbsp;skills.</li>
	<li>Desconstruct assessment into a series of manageable&nbsp;steps.</li>
	<li>Be sure to engage students in feedback, and follow up on the assessment/feedback.</li>
</ul>

<h2>5. Integrating PBLA into Your Everyday Classroom</h2>

<p><em>with Pat Marilley-Bodner &amp;&nbsp;Astrid&nbsp;van&nbsp;der&nbsp;Pol</em></p>

<ul>
	<li>Good guidelines to follow for PBLA: Include 8&ndash;10 artefacts (assessments) per month if you teach full-time (5 days or 15/hrs/wk);&nbsp;include 6&ndash;8 artifacts if you teach part-time.</li>
	<li>Each real-world task can include multiple artefacts, so aim for 2&ndash;4 real-world tasks&nbsp;per&nbsp;month.</li>
	<li>Use the <a href="http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pdf/pub/language-benchmarks.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">CLB book</a> for guidelines for assessment&nbsp;tasks.</li>
</ul>

<h2>6.&nbsp;In general:</h2>

<ul>
	<li>There was a great deal of talk in many of the sessions of moving away from numerical and pass/fail scoring vs. measures such as&nbsp;<em>achieved, achieved with help, needs improvement</em>;&nbsp;<em>just beginning</em>, <em>on my way</em>, and <em>success&nbsp;</em>(Lupasco); or&nbsp;images of a seed, a sprout, and a plant (Williams). The purpose is to get students to think of success in terms of accomplishing a real-world task and not a grade. Because not all teachers have implemented this&nbsp;change, we at ESL&nbsp;Library have tried to create <a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/assessment-tools/resources/2129-speaking-task-assessment-form" target="_blank">assessment templates that offer both&nbsp;choices</a>.</li>
</ul>

<ul>
	<li>The focus of all Canadian LINC classes should be on real-world task goals. There is an important shift&nbsp;from typical classroom textbooks/activities to real-world tasks that would&nbsp;happen outside the classroom. Everything, from&nbsp;skill-building tasks to skill-using tasks and assessment tasks, should apply to real-world tasks. (This seems like a lot of work for teachers, so <a href="https://ellii.com" target="_blank">ESL&nbsp;Library</a> will strive&nbsp;to create or&nbsp;adapt more&nbsp;lessons&nbsp;that focus on real-world&nbsp;tasks!)</li>
</ul>

<h1>Pecha Kucha</h1>

<p>My first Pecha Kucha was a lot of fun. Pecha Kucha is a six-and-a-half-minute presentation where the speaker&nbsp;has only 20 seconds to talk about each slide. There is an emphasis on silliness and fun with these kinds of presentations, and the BC&nbsp;TEAL Pecha Kucha presentations were no&nbsp;exception!</p>

<p><img alt="BC TEAL 2016" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2173/content_IMG_0618-1024x768.jpg" /></p>

<p class="caption">Shelly Sanchez Terrell giving her Pecha Kucha on funny would-be&nbsp;apps for teachers (vacation app: yes!)</p>

<p class="caption"><img alt="BC TEAL 2016" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2175/content_IMG_0619-1024x768.jpg" /></p>

<p class="caption">A funny and touching Pecha Kucha tribute to retiring BC&nbsp;TEAL president Shawna Williams (image of Shawna and current BC&nbsp;TEAL president Joe Dobson)</p>

<h1>BC&nbsp;TEAL 2017</h1>

<p>Next year marks BC&nbsp;TEAL&#39;s 50th anniversary, and the <strong>CarnivEAL</strong>&nbsp;(love this idea!) conference will take place at Vancouver Community College. Our ESL&nbsp;Library team will be on hand to reconnect with Canadian teachers and have some more fun with the BC&nbsp;TEAL board members. Between now and then, please <a href="https://ellii.com/contact" target="_blank">contact us</a> with any other CLB requests or needs. Our goal is to make teachers&#39; lives easier, so we love hearing from our subscribers to find out what they want and&nbsp;need!</p>


Building Community at the BC TEAL 2016 Conference

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<p>The ESL Library team had a great time at the <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/baltimore-charms-the-esl-library-team-for-tesol-16/">TESOL 16 convention</a> in Baltimore, Maryland! We were usually manning our booth or leading sessions of our own, but I had the chance to attend a wonderful session about getting learners to recognize patterns in language. These tips are too good not to pass on! Try them with your students and watch their inner linguists&nbsp;emerge.</p>


<table class="horizontal">
	<tbody>
		<tr>
			<th>Session Title:</th>
			<td><a href="https://thinklikelinguists.wordpress.com/session-powerpoint/">Teaching Students to Think Like a&nbsp;Linguist</a></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<th>Presenters:</th>
			<td><a href="http://jcurtis@roosevelt.edu">Jane Curtis</a> &amp; <a href="http://smclaugh@roosevelt.edu">Susanne McLaughlin</a>&nbsp;from Roosevelt&nbsp;University</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

<p>Jane Curtis and Susanne McLaughlin started their wonderful session by reminding us what linguists do&mdash;they study language by looking at the structure, meaning, and context. They reminded us that language is systematic. It has rules for form, meaning, and&nbsp;use.</p>

<p>This is great&nbsp;news for English language learners who sometimes think our language is random and chaotic! In my experience, all learners like knowing the rules to minimize their own mistakes and better comprehend the language. But rather than simply teaching a rule to a student, the presenters challenged us to teach students to figure out the rules&nbsp;<em>for themselves</em>. This is far more rewarding and far more likely to be&nbsp;retained.</p>

<p>Jane and Susanne gave the &quot;double consonant rule in past tense endings&quot;&nbsp;as a prime&nbsp;example.</p>

<p>For lower-level learners, give students a list of base verbs and past endings, such&nbsp;as:</p>

<table class="horizontal">
	<tbody>
		<tr>
			<td>rip</td>
			<td>ripped</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>wait</td>
			<td>waited</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>stop</td>
			<td>stopped</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>push</td>
			<td>pushed</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

<p>(See Jane and Susanne&#39;s <a href="https://thinklikelinguists.wordpress.com/session-powerpoint/">presentation slides</a> for the complete&nbsp;list)</p>

<p>Now ask students what they notice. When a student comes up with the correct rule (CVC syllable takes a double consonant), make it fun by calling it &quot;(student&#39;s name)&#39;s&nbsp;rule.&quot;</p>

<p>For higher-level students, take this basic rule a step further with a list like&nbsp;this:</p>

<table class="horizontal">
	<tbody>
		<tr>
			<td>listen</td>
			<td>listened</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>repair</td>
			<td>repaired</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>edit</td>
			<td>edited</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>commit</td>
			<td>committed</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

<p>What will your students notice? (This might even stump native speakers!) After a while, one of your learners will notice that only stressed CVC syllables take a double&nbsp;consonant.</p>

<p>The presenters discussed how this methodology can be applied to&nbsp;other grammar points, such as gerunds/infinitives, commas with adjective clauses, and modals. (See their <a href="https://thinklikelinguists.wordpress.com/session-powerpoint/">presentation</a> for these other examples and&nbsp;worksheets.)</p>

<p>This way of thinking also goes beyond grammar! Jane and Susanne gave examples for other language targets, such as reading genres and speaking&nbsp;patterns. For example, the presenters suggested having students read through several short stories of a particular genre and getting them to notice the similar elements in that genre (e.g., settings, character types, the plot, the element of surprise.&nbsp;etc.).</p>

<p>The session ended with a summary of their main points and&nbsp;observations:</p>

<ul>
	<li>grammar rules are not&nbsp;random</li>
	<li>students&nbsp;<em>can</em> learn to&nbsp;notice</li>
	<li>students <em>can</em> learn to discover, analyze, and&nbsp;generalize</li>
	<li>meaning matters</li>
</ul>

<p>Jane and Susanne were kind enough to prepare a website with all the info from their presentation, including the slides, worksheets, and contact info: <a href="http://thinklikelinguists.wordpress.com">thinklikelinguists.wordpress.com</a></p>

<p>Will you try teaching your students to think like a&nbsp;linguist?</p>

Teaching Students to Think Like a Linguist

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<h1>Classrooms of the Future</h1>

<p>The ESL&nbsp;Library team has just returned from Baltimore after the annual TESOL convention. 2016 was <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/comma-confusion-greeting-birthday/">TESOL&#39;s 50th anniversary</a>, and ESL Library played an important role as an Event Partner at the <strong>TESOL Classroom of the Future</strong>&nbsp;exhibit. During our Classroom of the Future presentation, CEO Ben Buckwold used our most recent <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/72/lessons/2120" target="_blank">Discussion Starters</a> lesson to showcase a paperless feature that is coming soon for ESL Library subscribers and online tutors. It was great to test out our work in progress with a live audience using one of our very own lesson&nbsp;plans.</p>

<p><img alt="TESOL 16" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2193/content_IMG_0006.jpg" /></p>

<p>Though this year&#39;s anniversary theme was <strong>Reflecting Forward</strong>, allow me to reflect back for a moment on our fantastic week at&nbsp;TESOL.</p>

<h1>Our Team</h1>

<p>Our team arrived in Maryland from Toronto, Winnipeg, and Vancouver. We were joined by our first official ESL Library Ambassadors &mdash;teachers who subscribe to our site and volunteered to share their enthusiasm about it in Baltimore. Throughout the week, we met attendees from all over the world, including this adorable librarian from Tanzania who won our hearts and our grand prize&mdash;an Apple&nbsp;Watch!</p>

<p><img alt="TESOL 16" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2194/content_IMG_5909.jpg" /></p>

<p class="caption">From left to right: CEO Ben Buckwold, Apple Watch winner Saida (librarian from Zanzibar Public Library), editor Tanya Trusler, writer Tara&nbsp;Benwell</p>

<h1>Baltimore</h1>

<p>Attending teaching conferences is a great way to explore the world. Here are some things we loved about&nbsp;Baltimore.</p>

<ul>
	<li><strong>Little Italy</strong>&nbsp;&ndash; Now we know why they call Baltimore &#39;Charm City.&#39; This part of the city had delicious food and charming restaurants with meals that were big enough to bring some home for&nbsp;lunch.</li>
</ul>

<p><img alt="TESOL 16" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2195/content_IMG_5920.jpg" /></p>

<p class="caption">We had numerous Compelling Conversations with TESOL pal Eric Roth&nbsp;(left)</p>

<ul>
	<li><strong>The Inner Harbor&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;</strong>Though the air was crisp for April, the sun came out a few times, and we enjoyed a walk around the historic seaport. Tanya and I took a tour of the USS Constellation, the last all-sail warship built by the US Navy whose main mission was to disrupt the slave trade. We warmed ourselves up with some traditional crab soup at the T&iacute;r na n&Oacute;g Irish Bar &amp; Grill.&nbsp;Yum!</li>
</ul>

<p><img alt="Baltimore tall ship" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2196/content_IMG_5937-1.jpg" /></p>

<ul>
	<li><strong>Fells Point&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;</strong>After the conference we enjoyed hanging with locals and listening to live music. Bands played everything from La Bamba to&nbsp;Metallica!</li>
	<li><strong>The Gallery Mall&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;</strong>It was pretty convenient to have a mall attached to our hotel. Even though we&#39;re TESOL pros by now, we always forget something important, such as a mouse pad or extension cord. (Note to self: Remember packing tape next year. Fed Ex charged us $21 USD for two&nbsp;rolls.)</li>
	<li><strong>Uber&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;</strong>This was a convenient, informative, and inexpensive way to get around Baltimore. I can&#39;t wait to give the service a try here in&nbsp;Canada.</li>
</ul>

<h1>What we liked about the TESOL&nbsp;16 Convention</h1>

<ul>
	<li><strong>The location&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;</strong>As mentioned above, Baltimore&#39;s Inner Harbor was beautiful and&nbsp;charming.</li>
	<li><strong>The TESOL app&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;</strong>Last year we didn&#39;t open the program. This year, we saved the paper and didn&#39;t even grab a&nbsp;program.</li>
	<li><strong>The heat&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;</strong>Even though the Expo Hall was in the basement, we didn&#39;t freeze like we normally do at&nbsp;TESOL.</li>
	<li><strong>The sessions&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;</strong>With three of our own sessions and two booths to man, we only had time to attend a few sessions, but this year we picked the right ones! All of the teachers we spoke to seemed satisfied with the ones they attended as well. (Check out this review of <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/selfie-videos-ell/" target="_blank">Teaching English with Selfie Videos</a>.)</li>
	<li><strong>The ELT authors&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;</strong>We met and chatted with the lovely <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3nEFcTamts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Sybil Marcus</a>, author of <em>A World of Fiction</em>, and my long-lost friend Jeremy Harmer (who I hadn&#39;t seen since IATEFL in Brighton back in&nbsp;2011).</li>
	<li><strong>The ice cream break&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;</strong>Our TESOL friend Sam delivered it to us, so we didn&#39;t even have to leave our&nbsp;booth.</li>
</ul>

<p><img alt="TESOL 16" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2197/content_IMG_5863.jpg" /></p>

<p class="caption">Above: Tanya and Tara pose with Twitter pal <a href="http://twitter.com/joemcveigh">@JoeMcVeigh</a> who starred in TESOL&#39;s The Wizard of Oz (a musical romp reflecting on 50 years of&nbsp;TESOL)</p>

<h1>What TESOL attendees loved about ESL&nbsp;Library</h1>

<ul>
	<li>The demo of our digital platform. Teachers can&#39;t wait until they can actually start using it in&nbsp;class.</li>
	<li>Our <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/74/lessons/2053" target="_blank">How to Tweet</a> lesson from our Writing in English&nbsp;section.</li>
	<li>Our small publishing team. &#39;There are only five of&nbsp;you?&#39;</li>
	<li>The NEW <a href="https://ellii.com/resources" target="_blank">Resource&nbsp;Section</a>.</li>
	<li>The Flashcard Library. (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbuvHnzfai8&amp;index=5&amp;list=PL0MvnNQjMzmbCk_AEw6JNaf8EoD5ATs5L" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">NEW demo&nbsp;available.</a>)</li>
	<li><a href="https://ellii.com/pricing" target="_blank">Our affordable subscription price</a>. (Equal to a cup of coffee per&nbsp;month.)</li>
	<li>Our multi-teacher pricing. Administrators love that they can <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zueU6MO_tIU&amp;list=PL0MvnNQjMzmbCk_AEw6JNaf8EoD5ATs5L&amp;index=7" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">manage sub-accounts</a> when teachers come and go from their programs and&nbsp;schools.</li>
	<li>The accessibility. &#39;Yes, teachers use ESL Library in&nbsp;China!&#39;</li>
	<li>The art in our lesson plans. We love it&nbsp;too!</li>
	<li>Sprout English. Teachers love that we have a sister site with materials for young&nbsp;learners. (Now merged with ESL Library.)</li>
</ul>

<p><img alt="TESOL 16" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2199/content_IMG_5885.jpg" /></p>

<p class="caption">Above: New subscribers from California Crosspoint High School</p>

<h1>What TESOL attendees want to see on ESL Library</h1>

<p>We love getting feedback from our long-term subscribers. After many years at the TESOL booth, I can even wave at these enthusiastic members from afar. Here are a few of their requests.</p>

<ul>
	<li>more lessons on social justice and civil rights (watch for an upcoming lesson on the Underground&nbsp;Railway)</li>
	<li>beginner-level materials that are graded for low-beginner rather than high-beginner</li>
	<li>digital lessons that can be used in an online tutoring scenario (Coming&nbsp;soon!)</li>
	<li>the option to drag flashcards into digital&nbsp;lessons</li>
	<li>videos</li>
	<li>support for using the flashcard library (check out our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0MvnNQjMzmbCk_AEw6JNaf8EoD5ATs5L" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">how-to&nbsp;demos</a>)</li>
	<li>visuals for practicing&nbsp;sequencing</li>
	<li>more <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/90/lessons">Grammar Stories</a> (check out our newly designed&nbsp;section)</li>
	<li>the ability to have one subscription to ESL Library and Sprout English (We hear&nbsp;you!)</li>
</ul>

<p><img alt="TESOL 16" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2198/content_Screen-Shot-2016-04-13-at-5.13.32-PM.jpg" /></p>

<p class="caption">Above: New Sprout English subscribers, Rosanna and Ana. This program director made customized journals for her&nbsp;teachers! One of my most memorable moments of the week was spotting long-term subscriber Laura Jacob across the Expo Hall. When I caught up with her she had this to say about ESL&nbsp;Library&hellip;</p>

<blockquote>&#39;You are the future.&#39;</blockquote>

<p>Thank you Laura and all of the other great teachers we spent time with in Baltimore, including Eric, Ken, Stephen, and all of the ESL Library Ambassadors! And a big thank you to Ben for inviting us to tag along with him every year at TESOL and for being the best storyteller in ELT. We shared enough laughs to get us through until next&nbsp;year. <strong>See you in Seattle for TESOL&nbsp;17!</strong></p>


Baltimore Charms the ESL Library Team for TESOL 16

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<h3>Building Bridges Without Crossing Borders</h3>

<p>Every March, the ESL Library team attends the annual TESOL convention. In recent years, the convention has taken us to many American cities, including Boston, Philadelphia, Dallas, and Portland. This year the convention was in Toronto, Canada. This was convenient for our little publishing team. We didn&#39;t have to cross any borders (funny, since &#39;Crossing Borders, Building Bridges&#39; was the TESOL theme this year), and we were able to meet local subscribers and publishers to learn more about what Canadian teachers want and need. TESOL 15 was also an opportunity for us to welcome new and old publishing and teaching friends to our home and native land. As always it was a fun, educational, and productive week at TESOL. Here are a few highlights from this year&#39;s trip.</p>

<h3>What we loved about Toronto</h3>

<p>Our team came from as close as Waterloo and as far as away as Vancouver. It was much easier to find our way around this year, and we had no trouble using our cell phones.</p>

<ul>
	<li>The food. There was no shortage of delicious food this year. Our favorite restaurant was a Thai place called <a href="http://www.khaosanroad.ca/" target="_blank">Khao San Road</a>.</li>
</ul>

<p><img alt="TESOL 15" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2208/content_IMG_0002.jpg" /></p>

<ul>
	<li>The convenience. It was a cold week in Toronto, and the indoor PATH came in very handy. We didn&#39;t even need coats!</li>
</ul>

<p><img alt="Toronto" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2209/content_IMG_5647.jpg" /></p>

<ul>
	<li>The view. We stayed next to The Metro Toronto Convention Centre. The view from the 39th floor at the Delta was spectacular.</li>
</ul>

<p><img alt="Toronto" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2210/content_IMG_6684.jpg" /></p>

<h3>What we loved about the TESOL 15 Convention</h3>

<ul>
	<li>The sessions. We attended useful sessions on teaching vocabulary, learning the <a href="http://www.language.ca/">Canadian Benchmarks</a> system, keeping young learners moving, and more. We also gave our own presentations about ESL Library and <a href="http://www.sproutenglish.com/">Sprout English</a>.</li>
	<li>The TESOL app. We didn&#39;t open the heavy book we received at the registration desk this year. Maybe it&#39;s time to go paperless?</li>
	<li>Free ice cream.</li>
</ul>

<p><img alt="TESOL 15" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2211/content_IMG_0003.jpg" /></p>

<h3>What teachers loved about ESL Library</h3>

<ul>
	<li>Our booth. We matched our booth to our website design this year, and our creative efforts paid off. Even the TESOL organizers came by to offer compliments.</li>
</ul>

<p><img alt="ESL Library Booth TESOL 2015" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2212/content_IMG_4057.jpg" /></p>

<ul>
	<li>The T-shirts. We wore colorful ESL Library tees to promote the cheerful and approachable nature of our team. This was a big hit!</li>
	<li>Our <a href="https://ellii.com/">new site</a>. The feedback was very positive, and it was a pleasure to showcase the redesigned lessons and features.</li>
	<li>The convenience. A number of enthusiastic teachers came by to tell us that ESL Library had saved their lives. Nicoya from the Applied Language Institute in KC, pictured below with our designer Robyn, told us she used ESL Library exclusively when her textbooks didn&#39;t arrive for six weeks.</li>
</ul>

<p><img alt="TESOL 2015" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2213/content_IMG_4080.jpg" /></p>

<ul>
	<li>Our new filter system.</li>
	<li>The <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/88/lessons">Grammar Practice Worksheet</a>s. Teachers love the new format and wide variety.</li>
	<li>The <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/74/lessons">Writing Section</a>. &#39;Yes, we have Academic English materials!&#39;</li>
	<li>The new <a href="https://ellii.com/flashcard_genres/">Flashcard Library</a>. It was so easy to demo this section this year.</li>
	<li>The price. Teachers and administrators love that <a href="https://ellii.com/pricing">ESL Library is only $55</a> per year. &#39;And that&#39;s for everything?&#39;</li>
</ul>

<p><img alt="TESOL 2015" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2214/content_IMG_0008.jpg" /></p>

<h3>What teachers want to see on ESL Library</h3>

<p>One of the most important reasons to attend the TESOL convention is to talk with teachers face-to-face. Here are some of the requests and suggestions we received this year.</p>

<ul>
	<li><a href="http://www.language.ca/">Canadian Benchmark</a> materials</li>
	<li>Materials on punctuation</li>
	<li>More beginner-level materials like our new <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/80/lessons" target="_blank">Barack Obama (beginner)</a></li>
	<li>Academic Word List lessons</li>
	<li>The option to print with Canadian/American spelling</li>
	<li>Better options for using ESL Library with online students</li>
	<li>More <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/75/lessons">Living in English</a> lessons (update older ones)</li>
	<li>Interactive lessons with student access</li>
	<li>The ability to comment on our blog as a signed-in ESL Library member</li>
</ul>

<p>I looked back at last year&#39;s post and was happy to see that we made many things happen after <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/tesol-portland">TESOL 2014</a>! In fact, 2014 was probably our most productive year. Share your own requests in the comments below, and help us build the site that teachers need.</p>

<p><img alt="TESOL 2015" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2215/content_IMG_0004.jpg" /></p>

<p>Our team from left to right: writer Tara Benwell, designer Robyn Shesterniak, editor Tanya Trusler, and CEO Ben Buckwold</p>

<p><strong>See you next year in Baltimore!</strong></p>


Highlights from TESOL 2015 in Toronto, Canada

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<p>The Red River Press team had a fantastic trip to Portland, Oregon, for the annual TESOL convention. In fact, on our flight home, in the middle of a game of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jotto" target="_blank">Jotto</a>, CEO Ben Buckwold revealed that it was our most successful TESOL trip to date! In addition to our two product presentations, we had valuable chats with teachers, subscribers, and other exhibitors. The positive feedback we received from those who toured <strong>ESL Library</strong> and <strong>Sprout English</strong> helped confirm that our little team is certainly on the right track. We returned home to Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Toronto inspired to make big things happen. Here are some highlights from our trip! (Scroll down for video.)</p>

<h3>What we loved about Portland</h3>

<ul>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">The mild <strong>weather</strong>: Despite the rain, it was much warmer than Winnipeg and Toronto! Everything was green instead of white.</span></p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">The <strong>food</strong>: We enjoyed Peruvian, Indian, Thai, and Japanese cuisine, as well as a home-cooked meal from one of our TESOL exhibit pals. Thanks, Nancy! If you&#39;re ever in Portland, check out Andina, Pok Pok, and Saucebox. (And no, we never made it to Voodoo Doughnuts. Shame on us!)</span></p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">The <strong>weirdness</strong>: Statues of gourds on every corner! So many bridges...</span></p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">The <strong>vibe</strong>: Portland felt a lot like Vancouver. Nobody was rushing around in business suits. The cherry blossoms were out!</span></p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">The <strong>hospitality</strong>: Servers, cab drivers, and hotel staff were pleasant and helpful. </span></p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;"><strong>Powell&#39;s Books</strong>: One hour before closing is not the best time for a couple of language nerds to enter a city of books. We&#39;ll be back!</span></p>
	</li>
</ul>

<p>What we loved about TESOL</p>

<ul>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">The <strong>teachers</strong>: We met so many interesting people from around the world, including people we have known for a long time through <a href="http://twitter.com/ESLlibrary" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, but have never met in person.</span></p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">The complimentary <strong>transportation</strong> passes: We used the train and the bus, and saved our feet from too much walking after hours at the booth.</span></p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">The <strong>Oregon Convention Center</strong>: The session rooms were easy to find for once! The food was decent, too.</span></p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">The <strong>free wifi</strong>: We didn&#39;t have to search around for hot spots! We were connected at all times inside the convention center. Coming from Canada, this was very handy for our team.</span></p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">The <strong>sessions</strong>: Even though we were at the booth most of the time, we caught a few excellent presentations by brave teachers and authors. More on these soon...</span></p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">Our booth neighbors: Whether we were sharing snacks, or choosing raffle winners for each other, it was great to have <strong>Brain Pop</strong> nearby!</span></p>
	</li>
</ul>

<p>What teachers loved about ESL Library</p>

<ul>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">The business <strong>hours</strong>. Our site is available 24/7.</span></p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">The <strong>accessibility</strong>. You can access our sites worldwide, including in many countries where teaching resources are very limited.</span></p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">The nice <strong>price</strong> for conference attendees. (They deserve it for taking time out for PD! Many spend their own money to go.) </span></p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">The <strong>convenience</strong>. Many teachers came by just to tell us how many hours we save them. </span></p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">The <strong>subject</strong> matter. We cover topics that many textbooks don&#39;t.</span></p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">The customer <strong>service</strong>. Our office replies to every inquiry. We take requests and fill them, too!</span></p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">Our kid sister site for teachers of young learners. It was <strong>Sprout English</strong>&#39;s big debut!</span></p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">Our free <strong>podcasts</strong>. Teachers loved that students don&#39;t need a log in code to listen.</span></p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">Our giveaways. This year we gave away four <strong>iPod shuffles</strong>! </span></p>
	</li>
</ul>

<p>What teachers want to see on ESL Library</p>

<ul>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;"><strong>Academic English</strong> materials</span></p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">Materials for <strong>absolute-beginner adults</strong></span></p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">More <strong>digital materials</strong>/apps that students can use in a computer lab or on tablets. (This is coming very soon. We showed a sneak preview to a few subscribers, and they told us that this was exactly what they needed!)</span></p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">An easy way to <strong>search</strong> for materials based on level (A new version of our site should be ready by summer. It has fantastic search functionality. You&#39;re going to love it! We do.)</span></p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">More <strong>stories</strong> for English learners.</span></p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">The option to <strong>sign up for both</strong> Sprout English and ESL Library with one log in. (We&#39;re thinking about it.) </span></p>
	</li>
</ul>

<p><span style="font-size: 16px;">Next week we&#39;ll be blogging about our trip to New York City for the <a href="https://shortyawards.com/6th/esllibrary" target="_blank">Shorty Awards</a>! Wish us luck. </span>&nbsp;</p>

<p>PS - In case you were wondering, I won that game of Jotto! Bring on the word games. Stay tuned for a review about an awesome session I attended at TESOL 14.</p>


Highlights From TESOL 14 in Portland

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Stay up-to-date with ELT trends and ideas with articles from experts and teachers in the field.

Articles

<h1>Say It Plainly</h1>

<p>Last weekend, I had the chance to attend the <strong>Plain Language Association International 2013 Conference</strong> in Vancouver, BC. From October 10 to 13, this inspiring, informative conference brought together more than 500 people from many different fields who are all interested in making communication as clear as can be.</p>

<p>The main message was that whether you&#39;re a teacher, a literacy professional, a government worker, or a lawyer, you should try to speak and write in a way that is clear&mdash;plain and simple!</p>

<h1>What Is Plain Language?</h1>

<p>Plain language involves keeping your audience in mind at all times, and the goal is to write to be understood by all your readers. There are guidelines you can follow, such as using the pronoun &ldquo;you&rdquo; and avoiding jargon and the passive voice, but the success of any document is measured by how well your readers understand it.</p>

<p>As English teachers, we are all already familiar with the concept of plain language. We continually strive to speak and write in a way that our English learners will understand. For more information about what plain language is and what the conference was all about, read the conference host&#39;s <a href="https://plainlanguagenetwork.org/plain-language/what-is-plain-language/">definition of plain language</a>&nbsp;website or see my summary of the conference in this BCBusiness&nbsp;online&nbsp;magazine article:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.bcbusiness.ca/your-business/say-it-plainly#!">Say It Plainly</a>.</p>

<p>While the conference covered a wide variety of topics like the future of plain language (it&rsquo;s becoming more and more popular all over the world) and ethics in plain language (such as the right to understand all forms and documents), I want to focus on some sessions that relate directly to English&nbsp;teaching.</p>

<h1>User-Testing</h1>

<p>Kate Harrison Whiteside, one of the conference cofounders, led a panel presentation called <em>Successfully Integrating Plain Language</em>. During the presentation, she mentioned that user-testing was key to ensure understanding. This relates directly to us teachers because we need to carefully monitor understanding when using new materials in class.</p>

<p>I find the best way to do this is by circulating as students are working (whether it&rsquo;s individually, in pairs, or in groups). Often students won&rsquo;t volunteer that they are confused by the material. But when you circulate, you can quickly assess who is getting it and who isn&rsquo;t, and offer help to those who need it at that time or after&nbsp;class.</p>

<h1>Getting Feedback</h1>

<p>Terri Peters, a plain language trainer, also emphasized that talking to a lot of people for feedback is invaluable. As a teacher, I agree. At my old school, we did student evaluations once a month that included a written rating and a counseling session. But sometimes I found it beneficial to talk to students throughout the semester, especially after the first week of class, to make sure everyone was keeping up and not feeling frustrated with the&nbsp;material.</p>

<h1>Reading</h1>

<p>Diana Twiss, of <em>Decoda Literacy Solutions</em>, talked about what makes people effective readers and how plain language can model this. Teachers can use her findings in their classrooms to help students understand the reading portion of a lesson more clearly.</p>

<p>First, teachers should always tell students what they will learn in the reading (i.e., the <strong>purpose</strong>) before they read.</p>

<p>Second, providing some <strong>background information</strong> about the reading topic before students read helps all levels of learners get more out of the reading.</p>

<p>Third, using <strong>headings</strong> helps students piece the information together more easily. If the reading you&rsquo;re doing with your class doesn&rsquo;t have headings, you could always make a photocopy and write them in yourself before presenting the reading to students.</p>

<p>Finally, <strong>summarizing</strong> the key points after the reading will help students put it all together in their minds. For other reading tips, check out <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/reading-lessons-interactive">3 Ways to Make Reading More&nbsp;Interactive</a>.</p>

<h1>Grammar</h1>

<p>Linda Comerford, in her session <em>Creating Clarity with Grammar</em>, presented her audience with some interesting statistics. Did you know that English has <strong>over 600,000 words</strong>? On average, that&rsquo;s four times more than other languages.</p>

<p>She often tells this to her students when they are feeling discouraged in order to remind them that they&rsquo;re not alone in thinking English is hard. She also mentioned that <strong>16&ndash;18</strong> is the number of words that your brain can hold onto when forming a sentence. So, for teachers, it&rsquo;s important to speak and write in sentences that don&rsquo;t exceed this amount, and we should encourage our students to do the&nbsp;same.</p>
