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Teaching with Ellii

<p>World Teachers&rsquo; Day is celebrated annually on October 5 to honor teachers all around the world for everything that they do for their students.&nbsp;</p>

<p>At Ellii,&nbsp;we&rsquo;re incredibly grateful for and in awe of our global community of educators. Teaching has always been a difficult profession, and the COVID-19 pandemic has made things even harder. In the midst of yet another challenging year, teachers everywhere have continually shown dedication, perseverance, and resilience.</p>

<p>This World Teachers&rsquo; Day, we want to give one lucky teacher a <strong>free,&nbsp;1⁠⁠-⁠⁠year&nbsp;subscription&nbsp;to&nbsp;Ellii</strong>! Simply visit our&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/draws/teachers2022/enter" target="_blank">giveaway&nbsp;page</a> and fill in your information to enter. The winner will receive full access to our teaching materials and resources for an entire year.&nbsp;</p>

<p><a href="http://ellii.com/draws/teachers2022/enter" target="_blank">Enter our World Teachers&rsquo; Day 2022 Giveaway today</a>! <strong>Contest ends Tuesday, October 11, 2022</strong>. We&#39;ll reach out to the winner by email.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

<p>PS. Feel free to share this blog post with a teacher who you think deserves to win!</p>

<div class="whiteBox"><span class="label hangingLabel">Free related lesson</span>

<p class="circleThumb"><a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/holidays-events/1897-teachers-day"><img alt="an apple" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2768/content_94_Teachers-Day.png" /></a></p>

<h2><a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/holidays-events/1897-teachers-day" target="_blank">Teachers&#39; Day</a></h2>

<p>We&rsquo;ve made our Teachers&rsquo; Day lesson FREE for the entire week! In this lesson, students read about all the ways that teachers educate, support, and inspire their students. They also review nouns, verbs, and adjectives and discuss which teachers had the greatest influence on their lives.</p>
</div>


World Teachers’ Day 2022 Giveaway

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<p>There&#39;s more to communicating than using words...</p>

<p>Writers and speakers often communicate by<strong> leaving some things</strong>&nbsp;<strong>left</strong>&nbsp;<strong>unsaid</strong>. Readers learn a lot by&nbsp;<strong>reading between the lines</strong>. Similarly, when listening&nbsp;we <strong>make inferences</strong> by analyzing&nbsp;the tone and emotion in a person&#39;s voice.&nbsp;</p>

<p>And then&nbsp;there&#39;s <strong>body language</strong>.</p>

<p>Body language can mean different things in different situations. Though some gestures are more or less&nbsp;<strong>universal</strong> (e.g., a smile or frown meaning happy and sad), some gestures&nbsp;also have cultural or even generational differences. A multicultural English language class is an ideal place for&nbsp;sharing what gestures and body language mean&nbsp;in different cultures and regions around the&nbsp;world.</p>

<p>Discuss these and other examples with the students in your class. Then try some of the suggested activities with the&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/media/videos/silent-clips/body-language" target="_blank">Silent Clips</a>&nbsp;from Ellii&#39;s <a href="https://ellii.com/media/videos" target="_blank">Media&nbsp;Gallery</a>.</p>

<h2>Common body language examples and their meaning</h2>

<h3>Facial expressions</h3>

<ul>
	<li>eyes suddenly closed tight&nbsp;= I don&#39;t want to see that</li>
	<li>eyes and mouth wide open = I&#39;m so surprised</li>
	<li>rolling eyes = I&#39;m annoyed by you</li>
	<li>teeth&nbsp;clenched and head shaking quickly = Brr, it&#39;s cold</li>
	<li>looking away and shaking one&#39;s&nbsp;head = I don&#39;t want to know any more</li>
	<li>wrinkled brow = I&#39;m confused</li>
</ul>

<h3>Hand gestures</h3>

<ul>
	<li>thumbs up = Sounds good / Yes</li>
	<li>fist bump = Nice to see you /&nbsp;We did it</li>
	<li>high-five = Congratulations</li>
	<li>palm held out&nbsp;= Nice to meet you</li>
	<li>palm cupped&nbsp;= Please give me some money</li>
	<li>fingers crossed =&nbsp; Wish me luck</li>
</ul>

<h3>Other body language</h3>

<ul>
	<li>shoulder shrug = I don&#39;t know</li>
	<li>arms crossed = I&#39;m not pleased</li>
	<li>foot tapping = I need to move / Hurry up</li>
	<li>hand to forehead (facepalm) = Oops, I messed up</li>
</ul>

<h2>5 body language activities to try with your students</h2>

<p>The video clips in Ellii&#39;s&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/media/videos/silent-clips/body-language" target="_blank">Body Language</a> category are silent. Each video includes a word and an expression (e.g.,&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/video/interested" target="_blank">interested / Not bad</a>). Here are five&nbsp;ways to use this category:&nbsp;</p>

<h3>1. Review the vocabulary and expressions</h3>

<p>Teach the vocabulary from&nbsp;the video title and ask students to make a sentence describing what they see.</p>

<blockquote>
<p class="videoWrapper"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/746872096" width="640"></iframe></p>

<p class="caption">Video not playing? Your school might be blocking Vimeo, our video hosting platform. Please ask your administrator to whitelist <a href="https://vimeo.com/" nofollow="" noreferrer="" rel="&quot;noopener" target="&quot;_blank&quot;">vimeo.com</a>.</p>

<p class="caption">&nbsp;</p>

<p>He is interested in someone on his dating app.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Now ask students to pretend they are the person in the video. Repeat the expression from the video&#39;s subtitle&nbsp;(e.g., <strong>Not bad</strong>).</p>

<p>Work on&nbsp;the correct intonation and body language to express this emotion or&nbsp;meaning.</p>

<h3>2. Practice making&nbsp;predictions and inferences</h3>

<p>Have students guess what happened or what will happen next.</p>

<p><a href="https://ellii.com/video/pleading" target="_blank">Who is she pleading to?</a></p>

<blockquote>
<p class="videoWrapper"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/746871736" width="640"></iframe></p>

<p class="caption">Video not playing? Your school might be blocking Vimeo, our video hosting platform. Please ask your administrator to whitelist <a href="https://vimeo.com/" nofollow="" noreferrer="" rel="&quot;noopener" target="&quot;_blank&quot;">vimeo.com</a>.</p>

<p>She is begging her parents to use the car.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Discuss some related&nbsp;questions:&nbsp;<em>What happened? What might happen next? Has this ever happened to you? </em>You can even vote on whose prediction is most&nbsp;probable.</p>

<p>Encourage your students to think of at least three open-ended&nbsp;questions that go with the video. They can then work with a partner to answer the&nbsp;questions.</p>

<h3>3. Extend the language</h3>

<p>Though body language can say a lot on its own, we often add language to our gestures. You&#39;ll notice that in some of the videos, the people mouth&nbsp;something that you can&#39;t hear. What do your students think is being said?&nbsp;</p>

<p>Is &quot;irritated&quot; the best word to describe <a href="https://ellii.com/video/irritated" target="_blank">this silent clip</a>?&nbsp;What do you think he&#39;s saying?</p>

<blockquote>
<div class="videoWrapper"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/746917722" width="640"></iframe></div>

<p class="caption">Video not playing? Your school might be blocking Vimeo, our video hosting platform. Please ask your administrator to whitelist <a href="https://vimeo.com/" nofollow="" noreferrer="" rel="&quot;noopener" target="&quot;_blank&quot;">vimeo.com</a>.</p>

<p>You didn&#39;t pick up after your dog. I was watching out the window. How would you like it if I brought my dog to your front&nbsp;lawn?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Can your students think of <strong>another word or a better expression</strong> that goes with&nbsp;this emotion or gesture? (E.g., He is really <strong>upset</strong>.)</p>

<h3>4. Role-play</h3>

<p>After watching some of the videos, invite&nbsp;students to go on camera or go to the front of the room and act out one of the gestures. (You may need two students in some cases.) The other students or you, the&nbsp;teacher,&nbsp;can shout out the word or expression. Your online students who never turn their cameras on may even want to participate.</p>

<h4>Example</h4>

<table>
	<tbody>
		<tr>
			<td>Student&nbsp;A:</td>
			<td>[<em>Walks up to the front of the room to act out some body language from the category. Crosses her fingers and holds them up near closed&nbsp;eyes.</em>]</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Student&nbsp;B:</td>
			<td>[<em>Shouts</em>] <a href="https://ellii.com/video/thrilled" target="_blank">thrilled / We did this!</a></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Student&nbsp;A:</td>
			<td>[<em>Shakes head no.</em>]</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Student&nbsp;C:</td>
			<td>[<em>Shouts</em>] <a href="https://ellii.com/video/hopeful" target="_blank">hopeful /&nbsp;Please let this work out!</a></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Student&nbsp;A:</td>
			<td>Yes!</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Student&nbsp;C:</td>
			<td><em>[Chooses a new body gesture/expression to act out.]</em></td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

<h3>5. Observe and suggest new additions</h3>

<p>As you and your students start to&nbsp;think about body language, you will naturally begin to notice it more often.&nbsp;You&#39;ll see people&nbsp;<strong>slumping in their seats</strong>, <strong>staring out the window</strong>, and <strong>fidgeting</strong>.</p>

<p>Start a list of body language on chart paper or the board&nbsp;and add to it every time you notice a new example.</p>

<p>Get your students to think of one word to describe the emotion or meaning&nbsp;and give them one expression that goes with it.&nbsp;</p>

<p>For the expression, think of&nbsp;something a person would say out loud (e.g., [looking at the clock or a watch]&nbsp;<em>Can we go now?</em>) or something a person might only say in their head&nbsp;(e.g.,&nbsp;<em>This is so boring!</em>). This activity will encourage your students to start&nbsp;thinking in English.<br />
<br />
You can use the comments to share some ideas with Ellii for <a href="https://ellii.com/media/videos/silent-clips/body-language" target="_blank">other&nbsp;Silent&nbsp;Clips</a> (body language/gestures) to add to this video&nbsp;category.</p>

<div class="white-box">
<h5>Now it&#39;s your turn!</h5>

<p>Use the comments to share&nbsp;an example of a gesture that&#39;s not mentioned in this list. Describe the body language and provide a word and&nbsp;expression for it in English.&nbsp;Can you or your students think of any gestures that are unique to a certain&nbsp;culture, age group, or region?</p>
</div>


Let's Teach about Body Language

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<p>On the Ellii platform, you&#39;ll find thousands of relevant lessons and several types of digital tasks where English learners can practice different skills, including reading, writing, speaking, and listening.</p>

<p>If you&#39;ve ever assigned your students a digital task through Ellii, then you may have already noticed that many digital task types get <strong>auto⁠⁠-⁠⁠corrected</strong> by the platform. That&#39;s because there&#39;s only one correct answer (e.g., fill in the blanks, multiple-choice, true or false).</p>

<p>However, there are a few task types that require <strong>manual&nbsp;scoring</strong> (e.g., writing and speaking), which can be time-consuming for teachers to grade.</p>

<p><img alt="requires manual scoring" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2598/content_Ellii_Task_Requires-manual-scoring.jpg" /></p>

<p>This means that when you assign a full lesson with multiple tasks, including open-ended speaking and writing tasks, chances are you&#39;re spending more time grading assignments than you&#39;d like to.</p>

<p>Realizing this has led us to ask&nbsp;ourselves the following question:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>How can we make this easier on teachers and reduce grading time?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Triggered by this question, the developers kick-started their&nbsp;mission to figure out a way to make some manually scored tasks auto-scorable, paving the way for Ellii&#39;s new <strong>Auto-Scoring (AI) feature</strong>.</p>

<p>Here&#39;s a behind-the-scenes look at how we developed&nbsp;Ellii&#39;s Auto-Scoring (AI)&nbsp;feature:</p>

<h2>Phase 1: Research</h2>

<p>We started by talking to the Publishing team about how these manually scored&nbsp;questions are created in digital lessons and how they work&nbsp;internally.</p>

<p>We identified&nbsp;two types of written responses:</p>

<ul>
	<li><strong>Opinion questions </strong>(or open-ended questions)

	<ul>
		<li>Example: <em>Do you like pizza?</em></li>
	</ul>
	</li>
	<li><strong>Correct/incorrect questions </strong>(or closed questions)
	<ul>
		<li>Example: <em>What is the man in the video doing?</em></li>
	</ul>
	</li>
</ul>

<p>Every month, students answer nearly <strong>half a million </strong>questions in writing.&nbsp;More than 80% of those are closed questions.</p>

<p>Since written responses&nbsp;are the most assigned task and take the most time to grade, it made sense for our team to start thinking about getting these auto-scored&nbsp;first.&nbsp;As for grammar, vocabulary, and spelling tasks, we will consider&nbsp;auto-scoring for them&nbsp;in the future.</p>

<p>After doing extensive research on written responses, our team realized we could use <strong>artificial&nbsp;intelligence&nbsp;(AI)</strong> to match the student&#39;s answer to the correct answer (i.e., the suggested answer that shows up on the platform).</p>

<p>There&rsquo;s a common term in the AI world known as <strong>Natural&nbsp;Language&nbsp;Processing&nbsp;(NLP)</strong>.</p>

<p>Wikipedia defines NLP as follows:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>&quot;. . . interactions between computers and human language, in particular how to program computers to process and analyze large amounts of&nbsp;natural language data. The goal is a computer capable of &quot;understanding&quot; the contents of documents, including the contextual nuances of the language within them.&quot;</p>
</blockquote>

<p>In short, we decided to use NLP to <strong>semantically</strong> match the student&#39;s answer to the correct answer. In other words,&nbsp;the NLP is able to gauge the meaning behind the student&#39;s response against the provided answer without having to match it word for word.</p>

<p>Here&rsquo;s an example of what a semantic match looks like:&nbsp;</p>

<p><img alt="semantic match chart" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2604/content_Ellii_semantic-match.jpg" /></p>

<h2>Phase 2: Analysis</h2>

<p>Up until this point, our research was all theory. We now needed to put it&nbsp;into practice.</p>

<p>The first thing we did was take a small sample of different types of written responses: complex ones, simpler ones, and ones where the answer is a list of items.&nbsp;Then&nbsp;we took random student answers&nbsp;for those sample questions and began analyzing them.</p>

<p>We ran multiple NLP algorithms to test them. Our developers compared student answers to the correct answer and took notes on the score&nbsp;the AI was assigning.</p>

<p>We manually analyzed all the answers one by one&nbsp;to see which algorithms made sense. Since we&#39;re developers and not teachers, we also took into account the score the teacher gave the student for a particular question.</p>

<p>In doing so, we quickly noticed that one of the algorithms was looking very promising.</p>

<p>Let&#39;s see it in action! The following examples show how writing tasks are scored by AI vs. a teacher:</p>

<h3><strong>Question 1</strong></h3>

<p><em>What happened in the boss&rsquo;s office?</em></p>

<p><strong>Ellii&#39;s suggested answer</strong></p>

<p><em>He tripped over a phone cord and fell in the boss&rsquo;s office.</em></p>

<p><img alt="suggested answers vs AI" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2600/content_Ellii_Ellii_auto-scoring-Ai.jpg" /></p>

<p>You&#39;ll notice that even if the student&#39;s answer&nbsp;doesn&rsquo;t fully&nbsp;match the Publishing team&#39;s suggested answer, the AI does&nbsp;consider the meaning behind the sentence&nbsp;and sets a score accordingly.</p>

<h3><strong>Question 2</strong></h3>

<p><em>Why does the reviewer mention food labels? Use the word &quot;disclose&quot; in your answer.</em></p>

<p><strong>Ellii&#39;s suggested answer&nbsp;</strong></p>

<p><em>The reviewer compares how app makers have to disclose what data is shared in their apps, just like how food sellers have to disclose information about what&#39;s in the food. Later he says that in their privacy label requirements, Apple doesn&#39;t ask app developers to say who they share data with. The reviewer says this is like having a nutrition label without listing the ingredients. He sums up by saying that we deserve an honest account of what&#39;s in both our food and our apps.</em></p>

<p><img alt="Complex AI Scoring" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2601/content_Ellii_Ellii_auto-scoring-Ai-1.jpg" /></p>

<p>This is a very complex question and answer.&nbsp;You&#39;ll notice the NLP service was able to compare the semantics of the student&#39;s response against the suggested answer.</p>

<h3><strong>Question 3</strong></h3>

<p><em>How does the reading end?</em></p>

<p><strong>Ellii&#39;s suggested answer</strong></p>

<p><em>The reading ends with a question worth pondering. Since it is the migrant who has to take the action and send the money home, what happens if he/she decides to cut the family off? Do his/her dependents have any way to coerce the migrant to continue funding the family back home? Imagine what happens when a migrant remarries in a foreign country. Will his/her new family agree to share the family income?</em></p>

<p><img alt="AI Score chart" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2602/content_Ellii_Ellii_auto-scoring-Ai-2.jpg" /></p>

<h2>Phase 3: Closed beta</h2>

<p>The results were very promising at this point, but we were not 100% confident about how useful this feature would be and how good the AI scoring was.</p>

<p>So we decided to do a <strong>closed beta test</strong>. This meant selecting a handful of Ellii teachers&nbsp;and inviting them to test the feature.</p>

<p>We ran the closed beta in May 2022, and teachers were very happy with it according to the feedback we received from our beta test survey.</p>

<p>Here are some notable statistics:</p>

<ul>
	<li>4,340 questions were answered and auto-scored during the month of May 2022</li>
	<li>Teachers changed the AI score&nbsp;in only 3.2% of questions</li>
	<li>66% of surveyed teachers said they would love to have this feature be permanent</li>
	<li>33% said they don&rsquo;t have a strong opinion on whether AI was useful or not&nbsp;</li>
</ul>

<p>After thoroughly analyzing the results, we&nbsp;noticed a few areas where we could improve the AI to provide teachers and their students with more accurate scoring.</p>

<p>We worked on these improvements, and now we&#39;re ready for the next phase.</p>

<h2>Phase 4: Open beta</h2>

<p>As of now, we&#39;re officially doing an<strong> open beta test </strong>of the Auto-Scoring (AI) feature. This means that Ellii teachers will be able to opt in to use this feature in their classes.</p>

<p>You&#39;ll find the&nbsp;auto-scoring opt-in checkbox when you create your class and edit&nbsp;it. Note that you need to opt in for each class and assign to students within a class in order for the AI to work.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

<p><img alt="Class Edit Settings" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2603/content_Ellii_auto-scoring-opt-in.jpg" /></p>

<div class="white-box">
<h5>Have you tried Ellii&#39;s Auto-Scoring (AI) feature yet?</h5>

<p>Share your feedback with us in the comments! Let us know what you loved and what you think needs improvement so that we can continue to make grading easier for you.</p>
</div>


Research Behind Ellii's Auto-Scoring (AI) Feature

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<p><strong>Graphic organizers</strong> are visual tools which support learners in&nbsp;processing, ordering, and recording information.&nbsp;</p>

<p>They include diagrams, flow charts, mind maps, tables, vocabulary organizers, visual calendars, and Venn diagrams.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Often, they&#39;re supported by simple icons to <strong>activate schemata</strong> and <strong>aid&nbsp;understanding</strong>.&nbsp;</p>

<p>I love using graphic organizers&nbsp;because they...</p>

<ul>
	<li>help learners to focus their ideas&nbsp;</li>
	<li>are versatile and can be adapted and reused in many&nbsp;ways</li>
	<li>use minimal text so they reduce the processing load on learners with dyslexia or literacy&nbsp;needs</li>
	<li>make information clearer&nbsp;</li>
	<li>aid memory and comprehension</li>
	<li>encourage critical thinking</li>
	<li>are engaging</li>
</ul>

<h2>4 activities for using graphic organizers</h2>

<p>Here are four&nbsp;activity examples&nbsp;of ways you can&nbsp;use graphic organizers using Ellii&#39;s&nbsp;lessons:</p>

<h3>1. Sorting and categorizing information</h3>

<p>This activity supports learners to categorize American words. You could provide interactive feedback on this by drawing the table on the whiteboard. Then give each student a pen and ask them to add the words in the correct&nbsp;category.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Check out Ellii&#39;s&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/courses/75/lessons/2277" target="_blank">American Citizenship</a> lesson from their Living in English section.&nbsp;</p>

<p><img alt="" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2697/content_Ellii_American-Citizenship_graphic-organizer.jpg" /></p>

<h3>2. Visualizing information</h3>

<p>This activity uses a family tree diagram to check learners&rsquo; understanding of reading about a family tree. They can then draw their own family tree and describe it to other&nbsp;students.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Check out Ellii&#39;s <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/75/lessons/1655" target="_blank">Family</a> lesson from their Living in English&nbsp;section.<b>&nbsp;</b></p>

<p><b><img alt="" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2698/content_Ellii_Family_graphic-organizer.jpg" /></b></p>

<h3>3. Scaffolding conversations</h3>

<p>This lesson uses a graphic organizer to focus students&rsquo; discussions on housing. The words on the left can be used as question&nbsp;prompts.</p>

<p>To support your language learners, you could elicit and drill the questions they need to ask before they start their paired&nbsp;conversations.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Check out Ellii&#39;s <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/75/lessons/1652" target="_&quot;blank&quot;">Housing</a> lesson from their Living in English&nbsp;section.</p>

<p><img alt="" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2699/content_Ellii_Housing_graphic-organizer.jpg" /></p>

<h3>4. Finding comparisons and&nbsp;similarities</h3>

<p>Venn diagrams are excellent visual tools for comparing, contrasting, and finding similarities. They can be used to analyze information after a reading or listening task&nbsp;or to compile thoughts before a writing or speaking activity. You can ask students to draw their own or use this printable, blank&nbsp;worksheet.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Check out Ellii&#39;s <a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/107/resources/3086" target="_blank">Venn Diagram</a> resource from their Visual Learning&nbsp;section.&nbsp;</p>

<p><img alt="" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2700/content_Ellii_Venn-diagram_graphic-organizer.jpg" /></p>

<h2>Draw your own graphic organizers</h2>

<p>Graphic organizers are perfect for <strong>tailoring to your own&nbsp;needs</strong>.</p>

<p>You can draw them yourself on paper or on whiteboard and then have students copy them. You could also create your own using Powerpoint, Word, or online tools such as <a href="https://miro.com/" nofollow="" noreferrer="" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Miro</a> or <a href="https://www.mural.co/" nofollow="" noreferrer="" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Mural</a>.&nbsp;</p>

<p>The following is an example of a hand-drawn graphic organizer.</p>

<p><img alt="Five speech bubble, labled as Who, What, When, Where, Why" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2701/content_Ellii_hand-drawn-organizer.jpg" /></p>

<p class="caption">Example of a hand-drawn graphic organizer by Emily Bryson.</p>

<p>It can be used in many ways. One idea is to give students a text or audio and have them write the answers. It could also be used to prepare for a speaking or writing activity where students tell a&nbsp;story.&nbsp;</p>

<h2>Related posts</h2>

<ul class="resources">
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/7-activities-for-engaging-students-this-school-year" target="_blank">7 Activities for Engaging Students This School Year</a></li>
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/10-activities-to-increase-understanding-while-reading" target="_blank">10 Activities to Increase Understanding While Reading</a></li>
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/bell-ringers" target="_blank">Bell Ringers</a></li>
</ul>


Using Graphic Organizers for Language Skills Development

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<p>At Ellii, we enjoy&nbsp;using our creative skills to develop materials that teachers and students love! Let&#39;s go behind the scenes to see a fun project the Publishing team worked on this&nbsp;year.</p>

<h2>Genius Hour</h2>

<p>Did you know? Ellii&#39;s popular <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/136/lessons" target="_blank">Story Prompts</a> and <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/132/lessons" target="_blank">Picture Stories</a>&nbsp;sections were born out of Google&#39;s&nbsp;<a href="https://sites.google.com/a/sduhsd.net/genius-hour/what-is-genius-hour" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">Genius Hour</a> concept&nbsp;where staff are given free time to&nbsp;create.</p>

<p><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/136/lessons" target="_blank"><img alt="Story Prompts lesson section on Ellii" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2703/content_Ellii_Story-Prompts.jpg" /></a></p>

<p>Ellii&#39;s illustrators, Saori and Steve, were given creative license to come up with their own ideas for lessons while playing with some new illustration&nbsp;styles.</p>

<p>After spending time experimenting with some visual concepts, they&nbsp;worked with Ellii&#39;s writers and editors to build out templates that eventually became full lesson&nbsp;sections for beginner-level&nbsp;learners.</p>

<p><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/132/lessons" target="_blank"><img alt="Picture Stories" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2623/content_Ellii_Picture-Stories.jpg" /></a></p>

<h2>A hackathon for Ellii&#39;s Publishing&nbsp;team</h2>

<p>A few months ago, Ellii&rsquo;s Publishing team heard that our Product team of developers was going to try a hackathon, which is a time set aside for them to play with code and aim to build something fun or solve a problem.</p>

<p>The Publishing team decided they wanted to do something&nbsp;similar.</p>

<p>At the TESOL conference earlier this year, Tara, our VP of Publishing, was&nbsp;inspired by the theme of <strong>wordless stories</strong>, which came up in some&nbsp;sessions.</p>

<blockquote>
<p><strong>Wordless story:</strong> a book&nbsp;without text where the story is told solely through the&nbsp;art</p>
</blockquote>

<p>She divided the Publishing team into two groups (Wordless Video team&nbsp;and Wordless Picture Story team) to explore this idea.</p>

<p>In addition to giving creatives a chance to do something new and fun, this&nbsp;project gave team members an opportunity&nbsp;to collaborate with people they may not work with every&nbsp;day.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Here are the finished products:</p>

<h3><a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/107/resources/4187" target="_blank">Wedding Receptions</a>&nbsp;</h3>

<h3><a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/107/resources/4187" target="_blank"><img alt="Wedding receptions video lesson description" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2620/content_Ellii_Wedding-Receptions.jpg" /></a></h3>

<h3><a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/107/resources/4193" target="_blank">Think inside the Box&nbsp;</a></h3>

<p><a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/107/resources/4193" target="_blank"><img alt="Think inside the box (print version)" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2621/content_Ellii_Think-inside-the-Box.jpg" /></a></p>

<h2>Wordless picture stories and their&nbsp;benefits</h2>

<p>When each team had finished their product, they presented it to the entire&nbsp;Publishing&nbsp;team.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Here is some useful background about the <a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/107/resources/4193" target="_blank">Think inside the Box</a> wordless picture story lesson, which was inspired by an article about <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jan/28/schools-killing-curiosity-learn" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">schools&nbsp;and&nbsp;curiosity</a>.</p>

<p><strong>Lesson objective:</strong>&nbsp;To promote creativity, develop new&nbsp;vocabulary, practice basic tenses, check understanding of Wh-questions, and assess speaking skills. This story can also be used to promote social-emotional&nbsp;learning&nbsp;(SEL).</p>

<h3>How wordless lessons develop creativity and&nbsp;SEL</h3>

<p>Creativity needs to be an active part of learning&mdash;not something that&rsquo;s nice to have if time&nbsp;allows.</p>

<p><a href="https://www.iste.org/explore/5_Reasons_Why_It_Is_More_Important_Than_Ever%20_Teach_Creativity" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">ISTE&rsquo;s research</a> shows how integral creativity is in healthy socio-emotional growth.&nbsp;This applies to learners of all ages. Emotional development and self-esteem are promoted through creative learning.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>&ldquo;Teachers who frequently assign classwork involving creativity are&nbsp;[more likely to observe] higher-order cognitive&nbsp;skills.&rdquo;</p>

<p class="attribution">&mdash;<a href="https://www.gallup.com/people/item.aspx?a=100174" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">Lydia Saad</a></p>
</blockquote>

<p>Wordless stories encourage students to be the&nbsp;storyteller.</p>

<p>This kind of activity builds on&nbsp;students&#39;&nbsp;prior knowledge, activating schemata and developing language/communication&nbsp;skills.</p>

<p>For WIDA teachers, this kind of activity takes student assets into account&nbsp;as the story can be told from&nbsp;students&#39; perspective. Furthermore, the same story can also be told in many different ways&nbsp;with the target language scaffolded by the teacher (can focus on simple adjectives, tenses, questions and answers, adverbs, sequence markers,&nbsp;etc.).</p>

<h3>Wordless stories and Bloom&rsquo;s Taxonomy</h3>

<p>Ellii&#39;s wordless stories will allow&nbsp;students to develop <a href="https://www.teachthought.com/critical-thinking/blooms-taxonomy-verbs-2/" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">higher-order thinking skills</a>&nbsp;as well as to review and strengthen the lower-order&nbsp;skills.</p>

<p>Providing a cognitive challenge will help&nbsp;students develop their language and communication in addition to their socio-emotional&nbsp;skills.&nbsp;</p>

<blockquote>
<p><strong>Remember:</strong>&nbsp;<em>What happened before? Who are the characters? What did they&nbsp;do?</em></p>

<p><strong>Understand:</strong>&nbsp;Predict what will happen next. <em>Describe what&rsquo;s happening&nbsp;now.</em></p>

<p><strong>Apply:</strong>&nbsp;Organize the story and&nbsp;arrange the sequence. <em>Write a brief&nbsp;description.</em></p>

<p><strong>Analyze:</strong>&nbsp;Compare your story with a classmate&rsquo;s.<em>&nbsp;How are they&nbsp;similar/different?</em></p>

<p><strong>Evaluate:</strong> Reflect on your story.&nbsp;Go back and apply feedback from classmates and&nbsp;teacher.</p>

<p><strong>Create:</strong> Propose the next part of the story. <em>What happens&nbsp;next?&nbsp;</em></p>
</blockquote>

<h3>Task types in Ellii&#39;s Think inside the Box&nbsp;wordless lesson</h3>

<p>Every task type plays a specific role&nbsp;in developing your students&#39; literacy skills and supporting their language-learning journey.&nbsp;</p>

<h4>Warm-Up Questions</h4>

<ul>
	<li>serve&nbsp;to activate prior knowledge</li>
	<li>take&nbsp;into account student assets and backgrounds</li>
	<li>provide&nbsp;a hint as to what the content is going to be&nbsp;about</li>
</ul>

<h4>Image Match</h4>

<ul>
	<li>provides some of the language students will encounter and&nbsp;use</li>
	<li>allows for&nbsp;students to interact with the&nbsp;vocabulary</li>
	<li>encourages students to&nbsp;ask&nbsp;questions</li>
</ul>

<h4>Picture Story</h4>

<ul>
	<li>enables&nbsp;students to use the language and respond to the prompts</li>
	<li>encourages creativity and collaboration&mdash;students can work together or individually to think of the story</li>
	<li>encourages the target language&nbsp;(the teacher can direct this however they see fit&mdash;e.g., parts of speech, colors, sequence markers, Wh-questions,&nbsp;etc.)</li>
</ul>

<h4>Speaking Task</h4>

<ul>
	<li>encourages&nbsp;students&nbsp;to remember what was discussed in&nbsp;class</li>
	<li>allows students to reproduce the story with their own ideas</li>
	<li>gives students a chance to use their own&nbsp;creativity</li>
</ul>

<h2>Virtual classroom and&nbsp;in-person classroom ideas for wordless&nbsp;lessons</h2>

<p>These activities can be modified for either context. Students in an <strong>online&nbsp;classroom</strong> can work together in breakout rooms in&nbsp;synchronous class sessions. The teacher can share their screen and then assign the tasks to students individually or in pairs/small&nbsp;groups.</p>

<p><strong>In-person or face-to-face (F2F) classes</strong> can use the digital activities easily by projecting the images onto a screen and encouraging students to collaborate. Live F2F classes can also take advantage of the in-person element by encouraging role-plays&nbsp;and then acting out&nbsp;the&nbsp;storyline.</p>

<p>Regardless of whether students are in virtual or live classes, creativity can be encouraged in many&nbsp;ways.</p>

<p>Ask students to find a real box (tissue box, TV box, etc.) to use as a prop for their story. Adding a tactile or kinesthetic approach&nbsp;can help facilitate learning by engaging other&nbsp;senses.</p>

<div class="white-box">
<h5>Share your thoughts!</h5>

<p>Wordless stories and videos are a tool that you can adapt and use to fit your students&#39; learning goals and objectives.</p>

<p>By taking student assets into account and engaging creativity, the teacher encourages students to take part&nbsp;in their own &quot;Genius Hour.&quot;&nbsp;Teachers, give it a try! Let us know what your students&nbsp;created.</p>
</div>


Wordless Lessons: An Innovation Project

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

Articles

<div class="white-box">
<p>This article is part of a series of posts highlighting our community of teachers around the world. We hope you find their stories interesting and&nbsp;inspiring!</p>
</div>

<p>Since 2003, Rick Powell has been busy traveling the&nbsp;world.</p>

<p>He&rsquo;s spent time in several cities in Europe and South America&nbsp;before finally settling down in Mexico. To financially support his travels, Rick spent his time cooking professionally and teaching&nbsp;English. However, since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, he made the decision to drop his cooking job and solely focus on&nbsp;teaching.</p>

<p>Today&nbsp;Rick teaches online from Mexico City. He mainly teaches adults at the low-intermediate to advanced levels who are interested in improving their English for work or in preparation for a move&nbsp;to the United&nbsp;States.</p>

<p>Like many teachers,&nbsp;a&nbsp;typical day of teaching for Rick begins with a lot of coffee. Then he opens his computer and heads straight to&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/discover" target="_blank">Ellii</a> and <a href="https://www.notion.so/product" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Notion</a> to plan out his lessons for the&nbsp;day.</p>

<p>&ldquo;I also look at my news channels on YouTube because many of my students are interested in US politics and culture,&rdquo; said&nbsp;Rick. &ldquo;I use videos during&nbsp;class.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Classes start at 10:00 am&nbsp;with his last class of the day sometimes ending as late as 10:00&nbsp;pm.</p>

<p>&ldquo;There are breaks, thankfully,&rdquo; said Rick. &quot;I take lots of short walks, even around the block, so that I stay alert and&nbsp;fresh.&rdquo;</p>

<h2>How Rick uses the Ellii platform with&nbsp;students</h2>

<p>Recently, Rick used our <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/133/lessons/4189" target="_blank">Supreme Court Overturns Roe V. Wade</a> lesson in&nbsp;class.</p>

<p>&ldquo;I use the <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/133/lessons" target="_blank">That&#39;s News to Me</a> section a lot. There have been some good conversations,&rdquo; he&nbsp;said.</p>

<p>Check out Rick&#39;s&nbsp;text response below to learn more about why he loves Ellii and how he uses it with his&nbsp;students.</p>

<p><iframe allow="autoplay *; encrypted-media *; fullscreen *;" height="400px" src="https://www.videoask.com/axle8u41hw8k5wu2ztr9xc643m7k35duz98ns8kv" style="border: none; border-radius: 24px" width="100%"></iframe></p>

<h2>Overcoming challenges in and out of the&nbsp;classroom</h2>

<p>Getting students to speak up in class and complete their homework outside of class have&nbsp;been two&nbsp;of Rick&#39;s biggest challenges of&nbsp;late.</p>

<p>&ldquo;It has been hard getting some students to speak at any length and, since my students are all working professionals, to get them to do homework and study vocabulary on their own,&rdquo; he&nbsp;admits.</p>

<p>Despite these challenges, Rick still finds teaching incredibly&nbsp;rewarding.</p>

<p>&ldquo;I love it when my students recognize and benefit from their own progress after giving their first presentation or running an international meeting in English, or publishing their first article in English, or getting accepted to an American university&mdash;all of which have happened.&rdquo;</p>

<p><strong>His advice for aspiring teachers?</strong></p>

<p>&ldquo;Be fearless when teaching slang, idioms, and colloquial English,&quot; he said.&nbsp;&quot;Students are very interested in sounding as native (and sometimes as hip and cool) as possible. And make them laugh!&rdquo;</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Want the chance to be featured in our Teacher Feature series? Visit our&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/blog/20th-anniversary-giveaway" target="_blank">20th Anniversary Giveaway</a>&nbsp;blog post&nbsp;to tell us why you love Ellii and how you use it in your classroom.</p>
</blockquote>


Teacher Feature: Rick Powell

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<div class="white-box">
<p>This article is part of a series of posts highlighting our community of teachers around the world. We hope you find their stories interesting and&nbsp;inspiring!</p>
</div>

<p>Sophie Collin was introduced to English at a very young&nbsp;age.</p>

<p>She grew up in a bilingual household in Quebec, Canada, where she often spoke English with her&nbsp;father.</p>

<p>At school, she excelled in her English classes and enjoyed speaking English with many of her&nbsp;friends.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Hence, as far as I can remember, I foresaw my career as an English language teacher,&rdquo; said&nbsp;Sophie.</p>

<p>After receiving a bachelor&rsquo;s degree in English Literature and working for more than 20 years in an English-speaking corporate role, Sophie decided to take the leap and pursue&nbsp;teaching.</p>

<p>Since 2015, she&rsquo;s been teaching ESL&nbsp;and Business English to adults from the A1 to C2 (Beg &ndash; Adv) levels in the Laurentians region of&nbsp;Quebec.</p>

<h2>A week in the life of a Quebec English teacher</h2>

<p>For Sophie, a typical week involves about 15 hours of teaching spread out over four days. She teaches groups and individuals both in person and online. Class time varies from 90 minutes to three hours a&nbsp;day.</p>

<p>&ldquo;My career as a teacher has been nothing less than gratifying,&rdquo; Sophie said, smiling. &ldquo;What I find most rewarding is to hear learners&rsquo; testimonials about how my teaching has been beneficial and impactful to&nbsp;them.&rdquo;</p>

<p><img alt="Sophie Collin, a smiling middle-aged woman with side-swept bangs and round metal-framed glasses." src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2512/content_Ellii_Teacher-Feature_Sophie-Collin.jpg" /></p>

<p class="caption">Sophie Collin is pictured here.</p>

<h2>How Sophie uses Ellii</h2>

<p>Sophie discovered Ellii when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Like many teachers, she had to pivot from teaching in person to teaching&nbsp;online.</p>

<p>&ldquo;I discovered through word of mouth the amazing website that is Ellii and immediately became a member,&quot; said Sophie, who quickly adopted the platform and now relies on Ellii for all her class&nbsp;curriculums.</p>

<p>&quot;I eagerly await&nbsp;the weekly newsletter so I can read <em>What to Teach This Week,&quot; </em>she said, excitedly.&nbsp;Sophie admits there&#39;s not a week that goes by where she doesn&#39;t use Ellii&#39;s educational materials, from the readings found in the lessons to the grammar&nbsp;exercises.</p>

<p>&quot;This state-of-the-art teacher&rsquo;s platform is simply a lifesaver, especially for last-minute classes and online teaching&nbsp;tips.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Her favorite Ellii lessons always involve an educational&nbsp;reading.&nbsp;</p>

<p>&ldquo;I love the reading lessons about historical or current information,&quot; said Sophie. &quot;Just today we read and learned about <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/93/lessons/1852" target="_blank">Victoria Day</a> in Canada&mdash;the why,&nbsp;the who, and the what are always appreciated by my audience. It allows them to learn new vocabulary as well as ignite&nbsp;conversations.&quot;</p>

<p>Check out Sophie&#39;s&nbsp;video response below to learn more about why she loves Ellii and how she uses it with her English language&nbsp;learners.</p>

<div class="videoWrapper"><iframe encrypted-media="" src="https://www.videoask.com/atpb1xbznxge4g64zf2i428mx869o3f243ua6y44"></iframe></div>

<blockquote>
<p>Want the chance to be featured in our Teacher Feature series? Visit our&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/blog/20th-anniversary-giveaway" target="_blank">20th Anniversary Giveaway</a>&nbsp;blog post&nbsp;to tell us why you love Ellii and how you use it in your&nbsp;classroom.&nbsp;</p>
</blockquote>


Teacher Feature: Sophie Collin

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Posts describing lessons or activities for the ESL classroom.

Activities

<p>Did you know?&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/courses/88/lessons" target="_blank">Grammar&nbsp;Practice&nbsp;Worksheets</a> (affectionately referred to as GPWs by our publishing team) are used by more teachers than any other lesson section on our&nbsp;site.<br />
<br />
GPWs provide clear, thorough explanations of <strong>grammar&nbsp;targets</strong>. They also include a variety of writing tasks and group activities that give students confidence to put the structures into practice when they&#39;re producing the language on their&nbsp;own.</p>

<p>Our subscribers flock to this section no matter if they&#39;re teaching beginners or advanced learners, introducing or reviewing a grammar&nbsp;target.<br />
<br />
Here are a few warm-up and follow-up activities for&nbsp;exploiting the grammar lessons from&nbsp;our <strong>Grammar Practice Worksheets</strong> section to ensure that your students come away with a full understanding of the target at&nbsp;hand.</p>

<h1>Warm-up activities</h1>

<p>These activities take place before you hand out the GPW.</p>

<p>The first two&nbsp;grammar activities&nbsp;appeal to students who have an <strong>inductive </strong>learning style. In other words, these students respond best when grammar is presented in context or naturalistically. This type of presentation is called<strong> implicit</strong> instruction, and the focus is on&nbsp;meaning.</p>

<p>The third grammar activity is geared toward students who learn best through<strong> explicit&nbsp;</strong>instruction with a focus on&nbsp;form.</p>

<p>Let&#39;s get started!</p>

<h2>1. Present the target structure in context</h2>

<p>Students will often discover patterns and use their analytical skills to understand grammar rules when they&#39;re introduced to a target structure in&nbsp;context.</p>

<p>It&#39;s&nbsp;not necessary to point out the structure to students as they read or listen. The goal is for students to make connections between the patterns and the meaning of the text, often on a subconscious&nbsp;level.</p>

<p>Try it out:</p>

<ul>
	<li><strong>For lower-level students</strong>, Ellii has two sections with readings that focus on a particular grammar structure and present it in context: <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/90/lessons" target="_blank">Grammar&nbsp;Stories (⁠⁠Beginner&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;Intermediate⁠⁠)</a> and <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/129/lessons" target="_blank">True&nbsp;Grammar&nbsp;Stories (⁠⁠Beginner&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;Low&nbsp;Intermediate⁠⁠)</a>. Since these lessons also include an audio recording of the readings, you may choose to present the material&nbsp;aurally.</li>
	<li><strong>For more advanced students</strong>, the authentic readings found in <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/133/lessons" target="_blank">That&#39;s&nbsp;News&nbsp;to&nbsp;Me</a> may be more appropriate. For example, the following paragraph from the lesson&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/courses/133/lessons/4083" target="_blank">The&nbsp;Mysterious&nbsp;Cheese&nbsp;Theft</a> provides exposure to the <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/88/lessons/1601" target="_blank">passive&nbsp;voice</a>:</li>
</ul>

<blockquote>
<p>&quot;But milk doesn&#39;t turn into cheese on its own. It has to be prepared, acidified,&nbsp;curdled, cut, pressed, and drained in a lengthy process that takes almost a whole day, van Dorp said. Next, it gets shaped into its signature round figure and put into a salt bath for one to two days. A week is then spent&nbsp;coating&nbsp;and drying it. Finally, the wheel is placed on a shelf to mature for at least three months, after which it&#39;s ready to go into the belly of a happy&nbsp;customer.&quot;</p>

<p class="attribution">&mdash;&quot;Thieves strike in the Netherlands with heist of $22,000&mdash;in cheese.&quot; April 14, 2022. &copy; The Washington Post.</p>
</blockquote>

<h2>2.&nbsp;Ask a question that uses the target structure</h2>

<p>When you ask a question that uses the target structure, students become aware of the language they need to answer&nbsp;it.</p>

<p>If you&#39;re preparing your students for a grammar lesson on the&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/courses/88/lessons/1595" target="_blank">past&nbsp;progressive</a>, you can ask, &ldquo;What were you doing at 10⁠⁠:⁠⁠00 last&nbsp;night?&rdquo;</p>

<p>Students may try to use the simple past tense in their answer but will recognize that their response does not match the&nbsp;question.</p>

<h2>3.&nbsp;See what students already know</h2>

<p>Most of our GPWs include a quiz at the end of the&nbsp;lesson.</p>

<p>Have students take the quiz before you begin the lesson. Their results can be used as a pacing&nbsp;guide.</p>

<p>If students do well on the quiz, you can approach the grammar lesson as a review. If they do poorly, you will need to spend extra time on the <strong>Notes </strong>section&nbsp;and going over the answers of each&nbsp;task.</p>

<p><strong><img alt="Image of highlighted notes section in Past Progressive Lesson " src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2445/content_Ellii-teacher-note-grammar-quiz.jpg" /></strong></p>

<h1>Follow-up activities</h1>

<p>Recycle the warm-up activities&nbsp;by using these follow-up activities to check and reinforce students&#39; understanding of the target&nbsp;structure.</p>

<h2>1.&nbsp;Have students review the&nbsp;text you used to present the structure in&nbsp;context</h2>

<p>This time, have students circle all the instances where the structure is used. As an extra challenge, have them explain why it was&nbsp;used.</p>

<p>If you had students just listen to the text the first time, play the recording again and have students raise their hand each time they hear the grammar&nbsp;target.</p>

<h2>2. Ask the same question</h2>

<p>See if students can apply the target structure to their&nbsp;answer.</p>

<p>At this point, it&#39;s okay to correct students or to ask them to pause and answer the question again if they make mistakes using the grammar target.</p>

<h2>3. Have students retake the&nbsp;quiz</h2>

<p>Compare their scores to the quiz before they did the lesson and after. Seeing their scores improve will give students a real confidence&nbsp;boost!</p>

<div class="white-box">
<h5>Share your thoughts</h5>

<p>What activities do you have your students do before and after they complete a Grammar Practice Worksheet?&nbsp;Please share your ideas in the comments&nbsp;below.</p>
</div>


Maximize the Benefits of Grammar Practice Worksheets with Warm-Up & Follow-Up Activities

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<div class="white-box">
<p>This article is part of a series of posts highlighting our community of teachers around the world. We hope you find their stories interesting and inspiring!</p>
</div>

<p>Camila Mu&ntilde;oz was working as a translator when she had an epiphany.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Working as a translator in different places made me realize that, not only is English crucial for any job, but also that people are very intimidated when it comes to learning and speaking the language,&rdquo;&nbsp;said Camila.</p>

<p>This is what made her decide to teach English.</p>

<p>&quot;I wanted to show people that learning English can be hard at the beginning (like anything you try for the first time), but when you know the basics and how it works, you can have a lot of fun!&rdquo;</p>

<p>Camila&#39;s been teaching for almost five years now.</p>

<p>She started out teaching in an in-person setting, but when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she moved to teaching online.</p>

<p>&ldquo;It&#39;s&nbsp;been great!&rdquo; she said enthusiastically. &ldquo;I discovered that I could teach students from everywhere. Teaching online has been wonderful because not only does it save traveling time (and costs!), but it also allows me to use the interactive tools on the Ellii platform.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Currently, Camila teaches English remotely from her home in Concepci&oacute;n, Chile.</p>

<p>Her students live in different cities all over the country, ranging from pre-school age to adults. Most of her students are at the beginner and intermediate levels.</p>

<p><img alt="Camila Muñoz, a smiling woman with long hair, glasses, and a plaid shirt sitting at her desk holding an Ipad and headphones." src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2437/content_Teacher-Feature_Camila-Munoz.jpg" /></p>

<p class="caption">Camila Mu&ntilde;oz&nbsp;is pictured here.</p>

<p>For Camila, a typical day of teaching starts at 9:00 am. She spends her mornings planning her afternoon and evening lessons. Once that&rsquo;s done, she looks over completed homework tasks.</p>

<p>Lessons take place from 3:00 pm until 7:00 pm.</p>

<p>&ldquo;This is when I have the most fun since I get to teach and connect with my students,&rdquo; she said.</p>

<h2>How Camila uses Ellii in the classroom</h2>

<p>Camila loves how organized Ellii is and finds the platform incredibly useful.</p>

<p>&ldquo;I use many of the <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/82/lessons" target="_blank">Famous Things</a> lessons since I can decide which one to use depending on my students&rsquo; interests and they can practice the four skills when we use them,&quot; said Camila. &quot;There are so many topics and choices. It&rsquo;s truly amazing!&rdquo;</p>

<p>Her students also really enjoy the role-play activities.</p>

<p>&ldquo;They can have so much fun with them, and it&rsquo;s great speaking practice,&rdquo; she said.</p>

<p>Check out Camila&#39;s&nbsp;text response below to learn more about why she loves Ellii and how she uses it with her students.</p>

<p><iframe allow="autoplay *; encrypted-media *; fullscreen *;" height="400px" src="https://www.videoask.com/afyoi8plwzah1ak07n7r8xkbphl42b4sk7tqyh4b" style="border: none; border-radius: 24px" width="100%"></iframe></p>

<h2>The challenges of teaching groups</h2>

<p>For Camila, teaching groups can be challenging.</p>

<p>&ldquo;When it comes to group sessions, one of the major challenges is to make sure every student understands what the lesson is about,&quot; she said.</p>

<p>Camila admits that sometimes&mdash;especially when there are many students in the class&mdash;it&rsquo;s hard for teachers to make sure everyone is able to learn.</p>

<p>&quot;Since students are often embarrassed or don&rsquo;t want to share their answers in front of the whole class, the challenge that&nbsp;we must overcome as teachers&nbsp;is to give our students a safe learning environment that will allow them to learn and share more,&rdquo; she explained.</p>

<p>Camila finds that teaching young children can be just as challenging.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Also&mdash;and especially with preschool students&mdash;it&rsquo;s very challenging to keep them motivated and get their attention,&quot; she said. &quot;Therefore, we need to find different strategies to make learning a fun and engaging experience.&rdquo;</p>

<h2>When teaching becomes a self-fulfilling experience</h2>

<p>Despite these challenges, Camila finds being a teacher incredibly rewarding.</p>

<p>&ldquo;I love when my adult&nbsp;and teenage students, who were once terrified to speak English, realize that it wasn&rsquo;t that hard and that they&rsquo;re able to communicate and do things,&quot; she said. &quot;[They can] . . . enjoy&nbsp;their favorite TV show or listen&nbsp;to their favorite artists and actually understand&nbsp;what they are saying.&quot;</p>

<p>Camila says her favorite part&nbsp;about teaching her pre-school students is that they&#39;re like little sponges because &quot;they soak&nbsp;everything up and learn super fast.&rdquo;</p>

<p>She describes teaching English as one of the most self-fulfilling experiences she&#39;s had.</p>

<p>&ldquo;I never thought teaching could bring me and my students so much joy,&quot; she said. &quot;As a translator and somebody that loves language and teaching English, being able to share what I know and make it easier for others has been an amazing experience.&rdquo;</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Want the chance to be featured in our Teacher Feature series? Visit our&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/blog/20th-anniversary-giveaway" target="_blank">20th Anniversary Giveaway</a>&nbsp;blog post&nbsp;to tell us why you love Ellii and how you use it in your classroom.</p>
</blockquote>


Teacher Feature: Camila Muñoz

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<h2><a id="scope-and-sequence"></a>What is a scope &amp; sequence?&nbsp;</h2>

<p>A scope and sequence is a planned curriculum for a book,&nbsp;course, or&nbsp;program. The <strong>scope</strong> refers to the <em>range</em> or <em>breadth</em> of material. The <strong>sequence</strong> refers to the&nbsp;<em>order</em> in which the content is meant to be used.</p>

<p>A curriculum or program may be&nbsp;organized by <strong>grade</strong> or <strong>proficiency level</strong>. In some cases, it&#39;s organized by <strong>subject matter&nbsp;</strong>(e.g., science)&nbsp;or<strong> theme </strong>(e.g., community).&nbsp;Ellii, on the other hand, is more of a content library than either a ready-made program or curriculum. However, we do have ready-made pathways to help if you are looking for more structure. Keep reading!</p>

<p>In this post, you&#39;ll find answers to the following frequently asked questions about Ellii:</p>

<ul>
	<li><a href="#ellii-s-s">Does Ellii have a scope and sequence?</a></li>
	<li><a href="#courses">Does Ellii have ready-made courses?</a></li>
	<li><a href="#teaching-order">Does Ellii have a&nbsp;suggested&nbsp;teaching order?</a></li>
	<li><a href="#curriculum">Can I create my own curriculum with Ellii?</a></li>
	<li><a href="#targets">What targets and themes should I focus on for each Ellii level?&nbsp;</a></li>
	<li><a href="#levels">What if I don&#39;t know what Ellii level my students are?&nbsp;</a></li>
	<li><a href="#assessment">Can I assess my students&nbsp;with Ellii?&nbsp;</a></li>
</ul>

<h2><a id="ellii-s-s"></a>Does Ellii have a scope &amp; sequence?</h2>

<p>If you&#39;re used to using a textbook series, you may be wondering where to find Ellii&#39;s scope and sequence information.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

<p>Ellii (formerly ESL Library) has 2,500+ ready-made <strong>lessons</strong> and <strong>resources</strong> as well as&nbsp;4,000+&nbsp;<strong>flashcards</strong>. We also have <strong>videos</strong>, <strong>prompts</strong>, and other <strong>activities </strong>for teaching English&nbsp;for every <strong>age</strong>, <strong>level</strong>, and <strong>need</strong>. Our in-house publishing team adds new content daily based on teachers&#39; requests and needs.</p>

<p>Teachers from all over the world use Ellii in a variety of ways. Ellii materials can be used...</p>

<ul>
	<li>in <strong>traditional</strong> classrooms</li>
	<li>in <strong>online</strong> and <strong>hybrid</strong>&nbsp;classes</li>
	<li>to <strong>complement</strong> an existing&nbsp;curriculum (e.g., further practice with a&nbsp;target or theme)</li>
	<li>to <strong>build </strong>a&nbsp;curriculum</li>
	<li>to&nbsp;<strong>supplement&nbsp;</strong>a curriculum (e.g., lessons on holidays, current events, etc.)</li>
	<li>to focus on a certain <strong>macro</strong>&nbsp;(e.g., reading) or <strong>micro</strong>&nbsp;(e.g.,&nbsp;grammar) skill</li>
</ul>

<p>Teachers also use Elli with a variety of types of English learners. Teachers use Ellii with...</p>

<ul>
	<li><strong>adult</strong> newcomers who require&nbsp;<strong>life skills</strong>&nbsp;and foundational English content</li>
	<li>&nbsp;<strong>K&ndash;12</strong>&nbsp;or <strong>higher-ed</strong> students who need English for <strong>academic purposes</strong></li>
	<li><strong>1:1 learners&nbsp;</strong>who need to learn English for specific purposes, such as&nbsp;<strong>workplace English</strong> or <strong>conversation English</strong>,<strong>&nbsp;</strong>or for improving a particular skill</li>
	<li><strong>multilevel</strong> classes</li>
</ul>

<p>At Ellii, we believe teachers know their students best! Rather than developing a single program that may or may not work for all students in a class, we focus on creating&nbsp;high-quality materials&nbsp;for every age, level, and need.</p>

<p>However, if you aren&#39;t sure what you need, we do offer mini-courses, collections, and a suggested teaching order for some sections.</p>

<p>Read on for Ellii tools and features that make planning easier.</p>

<h2><a id="courses"></a>Does Ellii have ready-made courses?</h2>

<p>Yes, and this area of Ellii is growing quickly. Visit our <a href="https://ellii.com/packs?page=1" target="_blank">Courses &amp; Study Packs</a> area and watch this library&nbsp;grow.&nbsp;</p>

<p><strong>Example Courses &amp; Packs</strong><br />
<br />
Here are just a few of our ready-made Courses &amp; Packs:</p>

<ul>
	<li><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/ell-grammar-curriculum" target="_blank">Grammar Courses 1&ndash;9</a>&nbsp;(Grammar)</li>
	<li><a href="https://ellii.com/packs/?category=43&amp;page=1">Ellii Up A &ndash; E</a> (General English) - More coming soon.</li>
	<li><a href="https://ellii.com/packs/simple-present/materials" target="_blank">Simple Present Power Pack</a> (Grammar)</li>
	<li><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/112/lessons" target="_blank">Pre-Employment</a>&nbsp;(Workplace)</li>
	<li><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/135/lessons" target="_blank">Functional Business</a>&nbsp;(Workplace)</li>
	<li><a href="https://ellii.com/packs/english-at-work/materials" target="_blank">English at Work</a>&nbsp;(Workplace)</li>
	<li><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/122/lessons" target="_blank">Travel in English</a>&nbsp;(Dialogues)</li>
	<li><a href="https://ellii.com/packs/essay-essentials/materials" target="_blank">Essay Essentials</a>&nbsp;(Academic)</li>
	<li><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/77/lessons" target="_blank">Everyday Idioms 1</a>&nbsp;(Vocabulary)</li>
	<li><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/79/lessons" target="_blank">Detective Series 1</a>&nbsp;(Vocabulary)</li>
	<li><a href="https://ellii.com/packs/medical-matters/materials" target="_blank">Medical Matters</a> (Life Skills)</li>
	<li><a href="https://ellii.com/packs/banking-basics/materials" target="_blank">Banking Basics</a>&nbsp;(Life Skills)</li>
	<li><a href="https://ellii.com/packs/pioneers-of-progress/materials" target="_blank">Partners in Progress</a>&nbsp;(Academic)</li>
	<li><a href="https://ellii.com/packs/moon-time/materials" target="_blank">Moon Time</a>&nbsp;(YL)</li>
</ul>

<p>Here is a scope &amp; sequence for Ellii Up A&ndash;E (low beginner). More courses in this General English (4 skills) category are coming soon.</p>

<p><a href="https://ellii.com/packs/?category=43&amp;page=1" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/4951/content_Ellii-Up-A-F-Curriculum_chart_D.jpg" style="width: 1200px; height: 1062px;" /></a><br />
<br />
Please <a href="mailto:hello@ellii.com">get in touch</a> if there&#39;s a specific course or pack that would be helpful for your students. Be sure to mention their age, level, and specific needs.&nbsp;</p>

<h2><a id="teaching-order"></a>Does Ellii have a&nbsp;suggested&nbsp;teaching order?</h2>

<p>Ellii&#39;s materials are divided into lesson and resource sections.</p>

<p>Within one section, you will find content that&#39;s formatted in a similar way.</p>

<p>Some of Ellii&#39;s lesson sections have a built-in teaching order. We don&#39;t recommend only using content from within one section (unless it&#39;s a serial). However, we do recommend that you teach&nbsp;targets&nbsp;at the recommended proficiency level.</p>

<p>Here are some sections that have a&nbsp;<strong>Teaching Order</strong>. (This may not be the default sort filter, so you will need to change the category sort&nbsp;filter&nbsp;to Teaching Order.)&nbsp;</p>

<ul>
	<li><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/123/lessons" target="_blank">Super Simple Grammar</a></li>
	<li><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/110/lessons" target="_blank">Super Simple Questions</a></li>
	<li><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/92/lessons" target="_blank">Functional English</a></li>
	<li><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/88/lessons" target="_blank">Grammar Practive Worksheets </a>(Teens &amp; Adults) or <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/116/lessons" target="_blank">Fun Grammar Lessons</a> (YL)</li>
	<li><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/89/lessons" target="_blank">Basic Grammar Sentences</a></li>
	<li><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/90/lessons" target="_blank">Grammar Stories</a></li>
</ul>

<p>Note that if you choose the&nbsp;Teaching Order sort filter in our&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/courses/93/lessons" target="_blank">Holidays &amp; Events</a> section, you will see the content sorted by calendar order.</p>

<h2><a id="curriculum"></a>Can I create my own curriculum with Ellii?&nbsp;</h2>

<p>Yes! You can save and create your own materials to build a curriculum&nbsp;that meets the needs of your class or even one student.<br />
<br />
Learn all about how to use the <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/introducing-elliis-lesson-planner" target="_blank">Lesson Planner</a> here.</p>

<p>More:&nbsp;</p>

<ul>
	<li><a href="https://help.ellii.com/article/217-how-to-use-folders" target="_blank">How to Use Folders</a></li>
	<li><a href="https://help.ellii.com/article/63-how-to-create-flashcard-sets" target="_blank">How to Create &amp; Save Flashcard Sets</a></li>
</ul>

<p>We recommend using our <a href="https://ellii.com/collections" target="_blank">Collections</a> to find content from all different sections based on the <strong>theme</strong>, <strong>target</strong>,&nbsp;<strong>subject, </strong>or<strong> competency.&nbsp;</strong>You can then filter by <strong>level</strong> or <strong>age</strong>. When you click into the content, you can save it to your folder of choice.</p>

<p>Here are some popular ways to use some of our Collections:&nbsp;</p>

<ul>
	<li>Find content by <a href="https://ellii.com/collections/new-content" target="_blank">What&#39;s New</a></li>
	<li>Find content by <a href="https://ellii.com/collections/grammar" target="_blank">Grammar Target and Level/Age</a></li>
	<li>Find content by <a href="https://ellii.com/collections/academic-subjects" target="_blank">Academic Subject&nbsp;and Level/Age</a></li>
	<li>Find content by <a href="https://ellii.com/collections/clb-competencies" target="_blank">CLB</a> or <a href="https://ellii.com/collections/casas-competencies" target="_blank">CASAS</a>&nbsp;competency</li>
</ul>

<h2><a id="targets"></a>What targets and themes should I focus on for each level?&nbsp;</h2>

<p>Here are some suggested targets, themes, and learning objectives for each proficiency level. Visit our<a href="https://ellii.com/equivalencies" target="_blank"> Equivalency Scale</a> for more information about levels.</p>

<table>
	<tbody>
		<tr>
			<th>Ellii level</th>
			<th>Suggested grammar targets</th>
			<th>Suggested themes</th>
			<th>Learning objectives</th>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Pre&nbsp;Beg</td>
			<td>be, have, simple present, nouns, adjectives, yes/no questions, can</td>
			<td>colors, shapes, letters, numbers, signs</td>
			<td>identify letters and some numbers, count, read signs, understand very familiar everyday words or expressions (survival English)&nbsp;</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Low Beg</td>
			<td>be,simple present, singluar &amp; plural nouns, articles, pronnouns, imperative verbs</td>
			<td>familiar objects, food, daily routines, animals, family, body, familiar verbs, people, community</td>
			<td>say and read high-frequency words with visual support, describe everyday actions, describe familiar people and things, read and say short sentences, give date and time, give commands or warnings, describe daily routines</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>High Beg</td>
			<td>modals of ability - present, present progressive, simple present vs. present progressive, adverbs of frequency, prepositions of time, prepositions of place, parts of speech, simple past, there is there are, yes/no questions, wh- questions, adjectives</td>
			<td>stories, surveys, fables, shopping, restaurants,&nbsp;directions, travel, short narratives (fiction and non-fiction), health</td>
			<td>listen and read along to short stories, ask and answer simple questions, give personal information, write simple sentences,&nbsp;listen and comprehend more familiar information, understand and give directions</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Low Int</td>
			<td>modals of ability - past, count vs. non-count nouns, quantifiers, possessive nouns, articles, adverbs of manner, prepositions, simple future, subject-verb agreement, pronouns, gerunds and infinitives, modals of advice, modals of possiblity, present perfect, present perfect progressive, comparatives</td>
			<td>workplace, sports, holidays and culture, fashion, biographies, education, school</td>
			<td>describe future plans, describe likes and preferences, follow and describe procedures, compare and contrast, make suggestions, discuss unreal situations and possibilities, understand information on less familiar topics, recognize informal English</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>High Int</td>
			<td>present perfect, present perfect progressive, modals verb collocations, first conditional, equative, second conditional, comparative and superlative adjectives, comparatives, present perfect, present perfect progressive, modas of necessity and obligation, conjunctions</td>
			<td>current events, workplace, relationships, environment, historic events, soft skills</td>
			<td>discuss complex issues, offer a personal response, use academic and business vocabulary,&nbsp;work independently in groups, understand more natural everyday English, critical thinking</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Adv</td>
			<td>tag questions, past progressive, future progressive, phrasal verbs, passive, causative verbs, third conditional, past modals, adjective clauses, adjective phrases, adverb clauses, passive causative, direct and reported speech, embedded questions, past perfect, past perfect progressive, subjunctive, noun clauses, future perfect, future perfect progressive</td>
			<td>psychology, technology, politics, business, media, human rights, social justice, crime and punishment, law</td>
			<td>debate and discuss controversial topics, work on projects, read some authentic materials, argue, understand and use collocations and phrasal verbs, comprehend information at natural speeds, understand more idiomatic language and slang</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

<h2><a id="levels"></a>What if I don&#39;t know what level my students are?&nbsp;</h2>

<p>Try&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/104/resources/4226" target="_blank">Ellii&#39;s Placement Test</a>&nbsp;(60-minute, 4-skills) or <a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/104/resources/4164">Ellii&#39;s Placement Quiz</a> (30-minute, M/C). You can also use&nbsp;our <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/introducing-our-new-grammar-tests" target="_blank">Grammar Tests</a>&nbsp;and <a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/125/resources/2872" target="_blank">Language Scenes</a> for placement.&nbsp;</p>

<h2><a id="assessment"></a>Can I assess my students&#39; progress with Ellii?</h2>

<p>Ellii offers <strong>formative</strong> assessment opportunities in every lesson. In the digital versions, you can view your students&#39; results. (Some tasks require manual scoring by the teacher.)&nbsp;<br />
<br />
Each lesson section offers a different approach to assessment. Some lessons include a formal assessment task at the end.</p>

<p>For example, all of our <strong>Grammar Practice Worksheets</strong> lessons have a quiz to check the understanding of the target. Other lesson sections, such as&nbsp;<strong>Functional English</strong>, have assessments at the end of the lessons with ready-made rubrics.</p>

<p>We also have ready-made generic&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/104/resources" target="_blank">assessment tools</a> that you can use or adapt to your own needs. You&#39;ll also find <strong>summative</strong> assessments in our&nbsp;mini-courses and some&nbsp;serials.&nbsp;</p>

<h2>What leveling and standards does Ellii align with?</h2>

<p>Teachers all over the world use Ellii for a variety of ages and levels, so we do not stick with one specific system. We have an <a href="https://ellii.com/equivalencies" target="_blank">Equivalency Scale</a> to help you out and we try to tag our content with every search term imaginable. Some teachers use <strong>CEFR</strong> levels and others use <strong>CLBs </strong>or&nbsp;<strong>ELDs</strong>. Others use something more aligned with specific assessments, such as <strong>CASAS</strong>&nbsp;competencies or&nbsp;<strong>NRS</strong> levels.&nbsp;In your <strong>Account</strong> settings, you can choose to view Ellii&#39;s levels and correlations in a few different ways. We are&nbsp;always adding new tags and filters, so let us know what you or your program needs! The Focus area of our lessons also includes <strong>modalities</strong> that may be useful for you to see.&nbsp;<br />
<br />
<em>We hope you find everything you need!&nbsp;</em></p>


Scope & Sequence FAQs

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<div class="white-box">
<p>This post is part of our monthly&nbsp;<strong>Student Showcase series</strong> where we highlight teacher creativity and show off the amazing work students are doing around the&nbsp;world!</p>

<p>Since June 21 is officially the start of summer in the Northern Hemisphere and the start of winter in the Southern Hemisphere, we&rsquo;re challenging English language teachers around the world to do one of these seasonal activities&nbsp;with their students in&nbsp;class.</p>
</div>

<h2>June&#39;s Student Showcase challenge: Changing seasons</h2>

<p><iframe allow="camera *; microphone *; autoplay *; encrypted-media *; fullscreen *; display-capture *;" height="600px" src="https://www.videoask.com/fspla9jmh" style="border: none; border-radius: 24px" width="100%"></iframe></p>

<p>The beginning of a new season is always exciting, isn&rsquo;t it? There are so many fun seasonal activities that we can only do at a certain time of year. What are you looking forward to this&nbsp;June?</p>

<p>To answer this question, we&rsquo;ve come up with some activities that you can do in class with your students to celebrate the changing&nbsp;season.</p>

<p>Start by completing&nbsp;one of the activity challenges&nbsp;below. Then&nbsp;upload your students&rsquo; work through the video above or send it to <a href="mailto:hello@ellii.com?subject=June Student Showcase">hello@ellii.com</a> with a brief description for a chance to be featured in our follow-up Student Showcase blog&nbsp;post!</p>

<p>We want to see how different teachers around the world are adapting the same activity to other class and community&nbsp;realities.</p>

<h2>Activity 1: Vocabulary builder for young &amp; beginner learners</h2>

<p>If you&#39;re teaching young learners, we have great vocabulary-building resource activities you can use in class for both <a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/126/resources/2958" target="_blank">summer</a> and <a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/126/resources/2957" target="_blank">winter</a>!</p>

<p>For&nbsp;this activity, get your students to color in the picture and label it with the related vocabulary&nbsp;words.</p>

<div class="white-box">
<p><strong>Summer Vocabulary:</strong> sand, crab, waves, sandcastle, sunglasses, sun, starfish, seagull, towel, beach ball<br />
<br />
<strong>Winter Vocabulary:</strong> scarf, snowflake, mitten, snowball, beanie, snowman, snowshoes, ice skates, sled, snowboard</p>
</div>

<h3>Summer Scene Coloring Picture</h3>

<p><img alt="Summer scene coloring activity page: Three people building sandcastles on a sandy beach by the ocean." src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2442/content_Summer.jpg" /></p>

<h3>Winter Scene Coloring Picture&nbsp;</h3>

<h3><img alt="Winter scene coloring activity page: Girl throwing snowballs to boy on skates, child sledding, boy building snowman holding a snowboard, old man snowshoeing." src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2443/content_Winter.jpg" /></h3>

<h2>Activity&nbsp;2: Adverbs of frequency for intermediate learners</h2>

<p>Take advantage of the theme of changing seasons to teach your intermediate students about <strong>adverbs of&nbsp;frequency</strong>.</p>

<p>Use our <a href="http://ellii.com/resource_categories/103/resources/2234" target="_&quot;blank&quot;">Adverbs of Frequency</a>&nbsp;lesson and then try this activity to learn more about how your students spend their time during the winter and&nbsp;summer&nbsp;seasons!</p>

<p>This activity can be done in class or online. Get started by&nbsp;following these three simple&nbsp;steps:</p>

<h3>Step 1</h3>

<p><strong>In class:</strong> Distribute five&nbsp;slips of paper to each student and have them write an action on each slip. Provide them with examples such as &ldquo;sleep under the stars,&rdquo; &ldquo;play ice hockey,&rdquo; &ldquo;plant flowers in the garden,&rdquo;&nbsp;etc.</p>

<p><strong>Online:</strong> Have your students write five&nbsp;actions on a piece of paper or in a private document on their computer or device. Provide them with&nbsp;examples such as &ldquo;sleep under the stars,&rdquo; &ldquo;play ice hockey,&rdquo; &ldquo;plant flowers in the garden,&rdquo;&nbsp;etc.</p>

<h3>Step 2</h3>

<p><strong>In class:</strong> Collect the slips of paper and mix them up. Divide your students into groups of four or five. Then divide up the slips and hand them out to the&nbsp;groups.</p>

<p><strong>Online:</strong> Divide your students into groups of four or five and send them into breakout rooms. If this isn&#39;t possible, you can always do this activity together as an entire&nbsp;class.</p>

<h3>Step 3</h3>

<p><strong>In class:</strong> Have your students take turns picking up a card and forming a question using &ldquo;how often&rdquo; and &ldquo;in the winter/summer.&rdquo; Each group member should then answer using an adverb of&nbsp;frequency.</p>

<p><strong>Online:</strong> Have your students take turns using the actions they wrote down to&nbsp;form a question using &ldquo;how often&rdquo; and &ldquo;in the winter/summer.&rdquo; Each group member should then answer using an adverb of&nbsp;frequency.</p>

<h3>Example</h3>

<table class="horizontal">
	<tbody>
		<tr>
			<th>Student&nbsp;1:</th>
			<td>How often do you go swimming in the summer?</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<th>Student&nbsp;2:</th>
			<td>I <strong>often</strong> go swimming in the summer at my cottage.</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<th>Student&nbsp;3:</th>
			<td>I <strong>never</strong> go swimming in the summer because I don&rsquo;t know how to swim!</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<th>Student&nbsp;4:</th>
			<td>I <strong>usually</strong> go swimming in my backyard pool when the weather is nice.</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

<p>Check out this&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/blog/adverbs-of-frequency" target="_blank">blog post</a>&nbsp;to&nbsp;learn&nbsp;more about&nbsp;adverbs of frequency and how to teach them to your&nbsp;students.</p>

<div class="white-box">
<h5><strong>Submit your students&rsquo; work and&nbsp;get featured</strong></h5>

<p>Complete one of the activity challenges listed above, and then send over your students&rsquo; amazing projects to <a href="mailto:hello@ellii.com?subject=June Student Showcase">hello@ellii.com</a> by&nbsp;<strong>June 28, 2022</strong>. Don&rsquo;t forget to give us a brief description of your students&rsquo;&nbsp;work!</p>

<p>We&rsquo;ll select a few submissions at random and feature them at the end of the month in our follow-up Student Showcase blog post. We can&rsquo;t wait to see what you come up&nbsp;with!</p>
</div>

<h2>Related</h2>

<ul class="resources">
	<li class="collection"><a href="https://ellii.com/collections/everyday-topics/weather" target="_blank">Weather &amp; Seasons</a></li>
	<li class="flashcards"><a href="https://ellii.com/flashcards/weather-nature-environment/weather-seasons" target="_blank">Weather &amp; Seasons</a></li>
</ul>


Student Showcase: Changing Seasons Challenge

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<p><a href="https://www.edutopia.org/blog/scaffolding-lessons-six-strategies-rebecca-alber" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Edutopia describes scaffolding</a> as &ldquo;breaking up the learning into chunks and providing a tool, or structure, with each&nbsp;chunk.&rdquo;</p>

<p>In other words, scaffolding makes it easier for students to learn new concepts and master tasks because it breaks down the lesson into smaller, more manageable steps. Think of it like using training wheels when learning how to ride a&nbsp;bike.</p>

<p>One of the biggest benefits of incorporating instructional scaffolding is that it provides a welcoming and <strong>supportive learning environment</strong> for&nbsp;students.</p>

<p>Other benefits of instructional scaffolding:</p>

<ul>
	<li>Engages learners and motivates them to want to learn more</li>
	<li>Increases the likelihood students will achieve their instructional&nbsp;goal</li>
	<li>Improves problem-solving and comprehension skills</li>
	<li>Opens the door for peer-teaching and learning</li>
	<li>Minimizes student frustration</li>
</ul>

<p>As Ellii&rsquo;s Chief Impact Officer, I work with English language administrators all over the US. I know that scaffolding lessons is a very time-consuming process for teachers. There&rsquo;s also the potential to assign tasks that don&rsquo;t match the student&rsquo;s abilities, which can hinder&nbsp;success.&nbsp;</p>

<p>So it comes as no surprise that one of the questions I get asked the most is, <strong>&ldquo;Does Ellii provide scaffolded instruction for&nbsp;students?&rdquo;</strong></p>

<p>The answer is yes!</p>

<p>The Ellii platform is specifically designed for English learners (ELs). This means that all the lessons are already scaffolded for ELs, allowing for a more <a href="https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/gradual-release-responsibility/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">gradual release of&nbsp;responsibility</a>.</p>

<p>Here&rsquo;s how Ellii incorporates instructional scaffolding in lesson plans to save your teachers time and support student&nbsp;learning:</p>

<h2>Warm-up questions</h2>

<p>Ellii lessons often start with warm-up&nbsp;questions.</p>

<p>These warm-up questions activate prior knowledge, which help your teachers assess what their students already know. Students also build the background knowledge necessary for understanding the text they&rsquo;re about to&nbsp;read.</p>

<p>Having a conversation at the beginning of a lesson does more than just get your students talking. It also helps them make connections between the material and their own lives, <strong>increasing their motivation to&nbsp;learn</strong>.</p>

<h2>Vocabulary preview</h2>

<p>Content-focused Ellii lessons also begin with a vocabulary&nbsp;preview.</p>

<p>Typically, students are asked to either match up a word with its meaning or fill in the&nbsp;blanks.</p>

<p>Front-loading vocabulary gives students the opportunity to review the vocabulary they will later encounter in the text. This <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/pre-reading-activities-to-boost-comprehension" target="_blank">pre-reading activity</a> helps students better understand a reading, especially one that has a lot of new&nbsp;vocabulary.</p>

<h2>Visual learning</h2>

<p>Many Ellii lessons include pictures, videos, and <a href="https://ellii.com/flashcards" target="_blank">flashcards</a> to further engage students and help them grasp the material. These visual aids can be used with the lesson or on their own as a single&nbsp;activity.</p>

<h2>Reading &amp; listening activities</h2>

<p>During the reading component of the lessons, students hone their reading and listening skills. They have the option of reading the text themselves or using <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/how-to-use-microsoft-immersive-reader-on-ellii" target="_blank">Microsoft&rsquo;s Immersive Reader</a> to hear the language modeled for&nbsp;them.</p>

<h2>Writing &amp; speaking tasks</h2>

<p>After the reading, it&rsquo;s time to put their learning to the&nbsp;test!</p>

<p>Ellii lessons include&nbsp;plenty of vocabulary review and opportunities for students to show what they&rsquo;ve&nbsp;learned.</p>

<p>Through comprehension questions, vocabulary practice, grammar exercises, personal reflections, dialogues, role-plays, discussion questions, and speaking tasks, teachers can check for understanding while students practice writing and using English out&nbsp;loud.</p>

<p>ELs don&rsquo;t have to complete every activity either. Teachers can choose to focus on one specific skill if they&nbsp;like.</p>

<h2>Key takeaways</h2>

<p>It&rsquo;s important to encourage students to work independently. Teachers should only help their students with activities that are beyond their&nbsp;abilities.</p>

<p>Additionally, teachers should assign tasks that match the student&rsquo;s skill level. Activities that are way beyond their capabilities can cause stress or frustration. Same applies to tasks that are below their&nbsp;capabilities.</p>

<p>Lastly, while independent learning is important, teacher-student interaction is just as essential. Open conversation with students allows teachers to address questions and to tailor their instruction for more personalized&nbsp;learning.</p>

<blockquote>
<p><strong>Ready to get started with Ellii?</strong></p>

<p>If you&#39;re a teacher or part of a school or an adult education organization, please contact Lei at <a href="mailto:lei@ellii.com">lei@ellii.com</a>.</p>
</blockquote>


Instructional Scaffolding: How Ellii Supports Student Learning

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