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

Announcements

<h1>Introducing Individual Student Assignments</h1>

Great news, teachers!

As of today, you can now select which individual students receive specific assignments within any class.&nbsp;

<h3>Here&#39;s how it works:</h3>

<ul>
	<li>Click on a lesson, video, or flashcard set in your Prepping or Teaching lane within any of your classes</li>
	<li>A modal will open with your assignment preferences for that lesson&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Click the &quot;Students&quot; tab in the top navigation of the modal</li>
	<li>Switch the setting from &quot;All students&quot; to &quot;Some students&quot;</li>
	<li>Select the students you want to assign the lesson to&nbsp;and remember to hit &quot;Save&quot; inside the modal before closing it</li>
</ul>

Only the selected students will see the assignment inside their class dashboard.

<div class="videoWrapper"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/C5BgjG7wtaI?si=I4waw7z14JkLaeer" width="640"></iframe></div>

We know that a lot of you have been asking for this feature for a while now. So thanks for your patience, and we hope it&#39;s a big help!

All the best, 
Ben :)

Founder, CEO at Ellii

Introducing Individual Student Assignments

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

Conferences

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

Articles

Have you heard about the&nbsp;<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/esl-talk/id1548652844" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">ESL Talk&nbsp;podcast</a>?

As described on their Apple Podcast page,&nbsp;ESL Talk&nbsp;is &ldquo;a podcast for English teachers by English teachers.&rdquo; In each episode, the hosts and their guests discuss various teaching topics, methods, and approaches pertaining to ESL teachers. It&#39;s a fantastic way to&nbsp;hone your English teaching skills&nbsp;and stay current in the field.

Here are three&nbsp;key takeaways from&nbsp;ESL Talk&#39;s episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/building-a-connection-in-the-online-environment/id1548652844?i=1000558123538" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">building a connection in the online environment</a> that you can use to strengthen your relationship with your online students.

<h2>1. Get your learners to complete a questionnaire</h2>

It can be hard to get to know someone in an online environment.

During your first class with your new students, ask them to fill out a questionnaire. Not only will this help you get to know your learners better right from the start, but it will also help you&nbsp;understand their level of familiarity with English as well as their goals for the class.&nbsp;

Here are some ready-made questionnaires you can use to get to know your students:

<ul class="resources">
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/resources/assessment-tools/2832-english-questionnaire" target="_blank">English Questionnaire</a></li>
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/resources/assessment-tools/2123-autobiography-beg" target="_blank">Autobiography &ndash;&nbsp;Beg</a></li>
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/resources/assessment-tools/2124-autobiography-int" target="_blank">Autobiography &ndash;&nbsp;Int</a></li>
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/resources/assessment-tools/2125-autobiography-adv" target="_blank">Autobiography &ndash;&nbsp;Adv</a></li>
</ul>

<h2>2. Play icebreaker games with your students</h2>

Throughout your&nbsp;first few classes together, continue to get to know your new students by spending a few minutes playing <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/key-takeaways-from-tefl-international-webinar-on-ice-breaker-games" target="_blank">icebreaker games</a> with them. Two Truths and a Lie is a perfect icebreaker game to play with a brand-new class.

<h3>How to play Two Truths and Lie</h3>

<ol>
	<li>Ask your students to write down two true statements and one false statement about themselves. Make sure you participate too!</li>
	<li>Have them take turns reading their statements out loud to the class.</li>
	<li>After they&rsquo;ve read out their statements, the rest of the class has to guess which statement was the lie.</li>
</ol>

This game will&nbsp;help you get to know your class in a really fun way, and it&#39;ll help your students learn a little bit about you as well!

<h2>3. Make time to&nbsp;talk with each other</h2>

Typically, small talk happens much more easily and naturally in a physical classroom. In an online environment, you may have to schedule time for it.

Leave a few minutes at the beginning or end of class to&nbsp;make small talk with your students. Encourage your learners to share what they did today or over the weekend and what they&rsquo;re looking forward to for the upcoming week. Make sure you open up too!

Engaging in small talk gives your students a chance to practice their speaking skills and will help you to continue building a personal connection with them.

In our <a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/functional-english/1749-making-small-talk" target="_blank">Making Small Talk lesson</a>, students review appropriate subjects as well as useful phrases for beginning small talk.

<div class="white-box">
<h5>Share your thoughts</h5>

Teachers, what do you do to build a personal connection with your online students? Let us know in the comments below.
</div>

3 Key Takeaways from ESL Talk Podcast on Building a Connection in the Online Environment

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

Teaching with Ellii

<div class="white-box">
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!
</div>

Nancy Lorenz-Vega was volunteering as an academic coach when she discovered how much she enjoyed teaching. This led her to leave her career in the corporate world and go back to school.

She&rsquo;s been a teacher for 14 years now.

&ldquo;I always thought I&rsquo;d be a good teacher but didn&rsquo;t decide to pursue it until I went back to school as an adult,&rdquo; Nancy said.

Today, she teaches English as a Second Language (ESL) both online and in person at <a href="https://pasadena.edu/" ref="noopener noreferrer nofollow" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Pasadena City College</a> in Pasadena, California. Her students are mainly at the intermediate level, but she also teaches&nbsp;students in the <a href="https://curriculum.pasadena.edu/noncredit-division/vocational-english-second-language/vesl-health-care-cert-competency/" ref="noopener noreferrer nofollow" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">VESL Health Care certificate program</a> who are hoping to work in medicine.

&quot;I try to bring my background into the lessons, utilizing my experience in the business world&nbsp;where we learn language for the workplace, as well as my early training in the arts where I teach students to speak well with good pronunciation, expression, intonation, and a wealth of vocabulary for different situations,&rdquo; Nancy explained.

<img alt="" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2932/content_Ellii_Teacher-Feature-Nancy.jpg" />

Nancy Lorenz-Vega is pictured here.

<h2>How Nancy uses Ellii to overcome the challenges of teaching</h2>

For Nancy, the most challenging part about being a teacher is tending to the needs of students at different levels within the same class.

&ldquo;Ellii helps me to do this, as I can adjust the level of some activities,&quot; she said. &quot;For instance, I can choose a topic and there may be a high-intermediate level as well as a low-intermediate or beginner version of the same article.&rdquo;

One of her favorite Ellii lessons is our <a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/grammar-practice-worksheets/1610-subject-verb-agreement" target="_blank">Subject&ndash;Verb Agreement</a> lesson from our <a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/grammar-practice-worksheets" target="_blank">Grammar Practice Worksheets</a> section.

&ldquo;There are about 17 pages of worksheets, vocabulary, rules, etc. All of the grammar lessons are wonderful and full of content,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp;

Nancy also likes our <a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/mini-debates/1308-english-globalization" target="_blank">English Globalization</a> lesson from our <a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/mini-debates" target="_blank">Mini-Debates</a> section, calling it &quot;a great discussion starter&quot; for her ESL students.

Despite the challenges that come with the job, Nancy loves being an educator and making a difference.

&ldquo;I&#39;m so lucky to teach my ESL students,&rdquo; she&nbsp;said. &ldquo;They want to learn! The students are adults who want to get ahead or learn English better to bring their skills to the workplace. It&#39;s so rewarding to be able to teach and have students so interested in the material!&rdquo;

Her advice for aspiring teachers?

&ldquo;Every class is different. Get to know your students individually&nbsp;but also as a class. What is the chemistry of the class? What do they want to learn?&rdquo;&nbsp;

<blockquote>
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 the platform&nbsp;in your classroom.
</blockquote>

Teacher Feature: Nancy Lorenz-Vega

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As we approach the end of the year, now is a good time to ponder English language teaching (ELT) trends for 2023.

When Ellii asked me to write this post, I started noting some of my own ideas. However, ELT is a huge industry. I wanted to make sure that my post truly reflected trends across the industry.

It would be all too easy to be blinkered by my own echo chamber, so I posted my question on social media.

The responses were both reassuringly similar to my own, but also rich in diverse and innovative teaching and learning methodologies.

Here are six English language teaching&nbsp;trends you can expect to see more of in 2023.&nbsp;

<h2>1. Green ELT</h2>

As the climate crisis accelerates, so&nbsp;does the interest in environmental topics in the ELT classroom.

In 2019, Dan Barber declared a climate emergency at the closing plenary of the Innovate ELT conference. Following that, Barber, Ceri Jones, Katherine Bilsborough, and Christopher Graham founded <a href="https://eltfootprint.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">ELT Footprint</a>, an ELTon-winning collaboration focused on making ELT more sustainable.

Since then, there&rsquo;s been a growing number of green ELT organizations and industry leaders getting involved:&nbsp;<a href="https://renewableenglish.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Renewable English</a>, <a href="https://green-action-elt.uk/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Green Action&nbsp;ELT</a>, and Colm Downes who published <a href="https://twitter.com/ColminIndonesia/status/1598033099161419776?s=20&amp;t=A9Da9kDC_CONPwzX-Vf2cw" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">this informative Twitter thread</a>.

The appetite for green discussions, carbon-neutral conferences, and more environmentally focused resources in ELT is growing. I&rsquo;m also noticing more integration and reference to the <a href="https://sdgs.un.org/goals" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">UN&rsquo;s Sustainable Development Goals</a>.

Harry Waters, founder of&nbsp;Renewable English, had this to say:

<img src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2968/content_1-Ellii-ELT-Trends-2023-Climate.jpg" />

<div class="whiteBox">Collection

<a href="https://ellii.com/search?query=environment"><img src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2955/content_The-Environment.jpg" /></a>

<h2><a href="https://ellii.com/collections/global-issues/the-environment" target="_blank">The Environment</a></h2>

From heat waves to ecotherapy, Ellii&#39;s&nbsp;Environment collection is an excellent way to teach green in 2023.&nbsp;
</div>

<h2>2. DEIB: Diversity, equity,&nbsp;inclusion &amp; belonging</h2>

Diversity, equity,&nbsp;inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) will continue to play an important part in the ELT industry in&nbsp;2023. English language teaching, by its very nature, is beautifully multicultural and diverse. Our learners represent all ages, races, genders, (dis)abilities, religions, sexual orientations, marital statuses, family backgrounds, etc.

The pursuit of equity for all is not new,&nbsp;but it will continue into 2023 and beyond. There are ever-growing discussions, webinars, and resources on making the world a fairer place.

This includes&nbsp;topics like:

<ul>
	<li>creating accessible learning materials</li>
	<li>supporting learners with special educational needs</li>
	<li>multicultural inclusion</li>
	<li>LGBTQ+ rights</li>
	<li>native-speakerism (an ideology characterized by the belief that&nbsp;people whose first language is English are best-suited to teach ELT)</li>
</ul>

Meri Maroutian set up her business, <a href="https://thenonnativespeaker.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">The Non-Native Speaker</a>, to advocate against native-speakerism in the ELT industry. English is a global language used internationally as a lingua-franca (i.e., common language). 80% of its users speak English&nbsp;as a second language. The pursuit of equity for teachers whose first language is not English and for learners to embrace their accents and own style of English usage continues.

Lottie Galpin, a DEIB&nbsp;specialist who helps editors, writers, and publishers&nbsp;create outstanding, inclusive materials, had this to say:

<img src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2969/content_2-Ellii-ELT-Trends-2023-Accessibility.jpg" />

To join the discussion and learn more about diversity and inclusion, the <a href="https://m.facebook.com/groups/321378049189535/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Reflecting Reality: Diverse and Inclusive ELT Materials Facebook group</a> is a great place to start.

<h3>Related articles on inclusive English language teaching</h3>

<ul class="resources">
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/accessibility-supporting-english-learners-with-dyslexia" target="_blank">Accessibility: Supporting English Learners with Dyslexia</a></li>
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/support-english-learners-from-refugee-backgrounds" target="_blank">6 Ways to Support English Learners from Refugee Backgrounds</a></li>
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/how-promote-mental-health-in-the-classroom" target="_blank">5 Ways to Promote Mental Health in the English Language Classroom</a></li>
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/tips-for-developing-students-digital-literacy" target="_blank">8 Tips for Developing Students&#39; Digital Literacy</a></li>
</ul>

<h2>3. Virtual reality</h2>

Talking about virtual reality (VR) feels like a moment when you realize you&rsquo;re living in the future! VR wasn&rsquo;t something I identified as an ELT trend for 2023, but it was suggested twice in the comments and has made me realize just how much I&rsquo;ve been noticing it more and more on my social feeds.

<img src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2970/content_3-Ellii-ELT-Trends-2023-VR.jpg" />

<img src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2971/content_4-Ellii-ELT-Trends-2023-Digital.jpg" />

<a href="http://www.immerse.online/blog/spain-research-reveals-benefits-of-vr-language-learning" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Research</a> has found the following benefits of VR:

<ul>
	<li>Students spoke at a higher level after using VR (B1 instead of A2).</li>
	<li>Vocabulary retention is higher with VR.</li>
	<li>VR supports the use of positional language (e.g., &quot;up there&quot;).</li>
	<li>Students retained emergent language while using VR.</li>
	<li>Anxious students were more confident when using VR rather than in class.</li>
</ul>

<h3>VR-related materials for the classroom:</h3>

<ul class="resources">
	<li class="lesson"><a href="https://ellii.com/resources/photo-prompts/4161-virtual-reality" target="_blank">Virtual Reality</a></li>
	<li class="lesson"><a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/discussion-starters/3969-the-metaverse" target="_blank">The Metaverse</a></li>
</ul>

<h2>4. Mediation</h2>

In an ELT context, mediation refers to the ability to convey meaning. Essentially, it&rsquo;s explaining concepts, knowledge, or understanding to others&nbsp;in a way that supports learning.

For example:

<ul>
	<li>relaying the information from a text</li>
	<li>describing a visual, graph, or chart</li>
	<li>summarizing a source of information (e.g., an infographic/video)</li>
	<li>translating and sharing key points</li>
</ul>

<img src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2972/content_5-Ellii-ELT-Trends-2023-Mediation.jpg" />

Including mediation activities in the classroom supports learners&#39; development of real-world skills, such as communication and note-taking.

<img src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2952/content_Ellii-ELT-Trends-2023-Mediation.jpg" />

Mediation activities and strategies&nbsp;from the <a href="https://rm.coe.int/common-european-framework-of-reference-for-languages-learning-teaching/16809ea0d4%20target=" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment</a>.

<h2>5. Life skills</h2>

As language teachers, we want our learners to succeed in the real world as well as in the classroom. This involves incorporating life skills into our classes.

Life skills are often referred to as &quot;soft skills,&quot; &quot;21st-century skills,&quot; or &quot;transferable skills.&quot; They include skills such as communication, social, academic, critical thinking, problem-solving, digital, and work.

Their importance to student success is what will keep&nbsp;them trending in the ELT industry throughout 2023.

<img src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2973/content_6-Ellii-ELT-Trends-2023-List.jpg" />

<img src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2974/content_7-Ellii-ELT-Trends-2023-analytical-critical-thinking.jpg" />

<h3>Boost your students&#39; life skills with these lessons</h3>

<ul class="resources">
	<li class="lesson"><a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/role-plays/1320-socializing" target="_blank">Socializing</a></li>
	<li class="lesson"><a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/functional-business/3852-resolving-work-conflicts" target="_blank">Resolving Work Conflicts</a></li>
	<li class="lesson"><a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/writing-in-english/3968-how-to-write-an-opinion" target="_blank">How to Write an Opinion</a></li>
</ul>

<h2>6. Task-based teaching, learning &amp; assessment</h2>

Task-based learning (TBL) has been around for years and will continue its popularity in 2023.

The approach is based on giving students a task to complete and allowing the language to emerge naturally throughout the course of the lesson.

A favorite task-based activity of mine is giving students a pile of scrap materials and asking them to work together to build a bridge. Students then collaborate in groups to construct something that&nbsp;is stable and can hold the weight of a toy car. Throughout the lesson, language such as &quot;I think we should fold this paper,&quot;&nbsp;&quot;Pass the sticky tape&quot;&nbsp;and &quot;Wouldn&rsquo;t it be stronger if we&hellip;&quot;&nbsp;emerges.

Task-based learning offers a natural way for students to use and develop their language skills. It&rsquo;s also a great way to incorporate life skills and real-world tasks into the classroom.

From an assessment perspective, it&#39;s beneficial in ensuring that assessments become part of the learning process.

Project-based learning is similar to TBL in that it gives learners a task to complete over a period of time.

<div class="whiteBox">Lesson Category

<a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/group-projects"><img src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2956/content_group-projects.jpg" /></a>

<h2><a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/group-projects" target="_blank">Group Projects</a></h2>

These project-based learning modules&nbsp;are intended as group projects that can be completed within a two- to four-week time period along with other coursework.&nbsp;The projects include research tasks and presentations that are useful for individual, peer, and group assessment.
</div>

<div class="white-box">
<h5>Share your thoughts</h5>

What English language teaching trends do you expect to see in 2023? Share your ideas in the comments!
</div>

6 English Language Teaching Trends to Watch in 2023

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Did you know that December 22, 2022, is Ellii&rsquo;s official 20th birthday?

Earlier this year, we celebrated 20 years of providing great content for great teachers by <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/introducing-our-new-name-ellii" target="_blank">changing our name</a> to better reflect who we are and what we do to empower educators.

As we wrap up our 20th year in business, we can&rsquo;t help but reflect on how far we&rsquo;ve come.

<h2>A little bit of backstory</h2>

In 2002, our CEO, Ben Buckwold, founded Ellii (formerly known as ESL Library). The idea for Ellii came out of Ben&rsquo;s own teaching experience. As a former English language teacher himself, he was no stranger to late nights of lesson planning. He knew how hard teachers had to work and how many extra hours they had to put in outside of class time.

Ben hoped that Ellii would save teachers time by taking the most time-consuming tasks off&nbsp;their plates. It&rsquo;s safe to say the platform has done just that and more.

Over the past 20 years, Ellii has grown from a small supplemental resource site to one of the world&#39;s most commonly used language teaching platforms. Today, Ellii is used in more than 10,000 schools across&nbsp;the globe.

Whether you&rsquo;re new to the platform or have been with us since the very beginning, we thank you for choosing Ellii and are&nbsp;thrilled to have you as&nbsp;part of our global community of teachers.

We&#39;re&nbsp;proud of what we&rsquo;ve built, and we can&rsquo;t wait to see how Ellii grows over the next 20 years. In the meantime, here&rsquo;s an in-depth look at Ellii&#39;s evolution over the years.

<blockquote>
<h2>Ellii over the years</h2>

1997&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;Ben started working as an English language teacher.

2002&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;On December 22, 2002, Ben founded Ellii! Back then, it was known as ESL Images and had 2,000 images and 40 lessons. The subsciption-based resource site primarily focused on visual learning content. On that same day, we launched our first GoogleAds campaign and got our very first customer as a result. That customer&rsquo;s name was Adam.

2004&nbsp;&ndash; With&nbsp;more than 200 lessons on the site, we changed our name to ESL Library, a name we kept for 18 years!

2006&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;We launched EnglishAvenue, a companion site that solely focused on children&rsquo;s content.

2008&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;One month after Apple launched the App Store, we released Conversation English, the first English learning app in the world. It ranked number 1 in education apps and made the list of top 50 overall apps in several countries.

2010&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;One month after the iPad was released, we released a series of iPad language learning apps.

2013&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;We renamed EnglishAvenue to SproutEnglish.

2018&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;We merged ESL Library and SproutEnglish into one platform under the ESL Library brand,&nbsp;gearing our content to learners of all ages. We also hit 1,000 lessons! We began offering digital interactive versions of our content and launched student accounts too.

2021&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;We hosted our <a href="https://ellii.com/conference/2021" target="_blank">first virtual conference</a> to explore current teaching trends and the future of education technology.

2022&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;We <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/introducing-our-new-name-ellii" target="_blank">changed our name to Ellii</a> to better reflect who we are, what we do, and how we&rsquo;ve changed. We also published our 2,000th lesson, hit 10 million views on<a href="https://www.youtube.com/@Ellii" target="_blank"> our YouTube channel</a>,&nbsp;and hosted <a href="https://ellii.com/conference/2022" target="_blank">ElliiCon2022</a>, our second virtual conference&nbsp;where we explored strategies for building stronger relationships with students.
</blockquote>

Celebrating & Looking Back on 20 Years of Ellii

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At a recent language conference in Quebec (<a href="https://www.speaq.org/en/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">SPEAQ</a>), I was able to connect with teachers from both ends of the experience spectrum. I talked to teachers&nbsp;who have been in the field since the 1980s&nbsp;and some who were just starting their careers.&nbsp;However, there was one thing we all had in common&mdash;a thirst for knowledge and a desire to improve.

Perhaps it&rsquo;s because for many years I taught a specialized language training course with a major home renovation retailer that I keep returning to the toolbox metaphor, but it just seems like an accurate description. As teachers, we all carry around our tried-and-true resources, whether they&#39;re digital goodies or that dog-eared&nbsp;grammar textbook that we can&#39;t bring ourselves to throw out.

The toolbox we bring into the classroom our first year is fairly light. It&rsquo;s packed with a great deal of theory and observation. That&rsquo;s a good starting point. However, observing a more experienced teacher&rsquo;s classroom is a fantastic way to expand your horizons. It&rsquo;s a tradition that I wish could be extended past the training period.

<h2>Pineapple Charts</h2>

Some K&ndash;12 schools have implemented&nbsp;the system of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/pineapple-charts/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener">Pineapple Charts</a>. For this observation technique, teachers let each other know when they&#39;re going to be doing something interesting or innovative in their classroom&nbsp;by adding the day and time of the activity to a chart found in a common area such as the&nbsp;teacher&#39;s lounge, copy room, etc.&nbsp;If an activity catches a&nbsp;colleague&#39;s&nbsp;eye, they&#39;re free&nbsp;to join the class&nbsp;and observe the activity in progress.&nbsp;

Of course, this approach could only work if there were a way to juggle classroom schedules or&nbsp;arrange a supply teacher, but what an amazing way to share meaningful best practices with your staff.

Pineapple Charts were all&nbsp;the rage before COVID. I&#39;m curious to know if teachers have found a way to continue this virtually, or if they have brought it back into their in-person classrooms.

<h2>Sharpening our tools</h2>

As we gain experience, our toolboxes expand. We test out some tools, find some that become our all-purpose, go-to resources, and over time, we discard the ones that are no longer effective.

One such outdated tool springs to mind.&nbsp;

The seasoned teacher might&nbsp;remember the L1 penalty jars.&nbsp;Penalty jars were meant to force learners to use English. Students&nbsp;would have to pay a dime&nbsp;or a quarter&nbsp;if they were &ldquo;caught&rdquo; speaking&nbsp;in another language.&nbsp;

I think back on that approach now&nbsp;and wonder what message we were sending our learners by punishing L1 use. There are more effective ways to encourage use of the target language without having to shame the learner.

My toolbox now includes&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/blog/how-to-use-microsoft-immersive-reader-on-ellii" target="_blank">Microsoft&#39;s Immersive Reader,</a>&nbsp;which is available in all of Ellii&rsquo;s digital reading tasks. This tool enables learners to...

<ul>
	<li>use embedded picture dictionary images</li>
	<li>isolate parts of speech</li>
	<li>listen to the reading</li>
	<li>toggle between the target language and their L1</li>
</ul>

While ultimately the goal is for the learner to not have to depend on a translator, having the immersive reading experience as a set of training wheels can help in the language learning process.

In fact, a recent <a href="https://ontesol.com/blog/how-to-teach-english/l1-in-the-esl-classroom/using-the-mother-tongue-in-the-english-language-classroom/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">article</a> on the OnTESOL website states the following:

<blockquote>Research has shown that switching between languages and translation happens instinctively to all language learners, and the L1 is actually an important resource in the second language (L2) learning (Cook, 2001; Woodall, 2002). ... Furthermore, in situations where the students&rsquo; L1 was not even allowed in private spaces and there were punishments for using the mother tongue, Goldstein (2003) found that students simply did not speak, used their L1 quietly, and felt a sense of shame when they were punished for using their own language.</blockquote>

<h2>What&#39;s in your toolbox?</h2>

This past year has been one of renewal and hope. I&#39;ve had the opportunity to overhaul my teaching toolbox&nbsp;and share it with teachers across the country. What are some of your favorite tools?&nbsp;Which ones have started collecting dust (remember the SMART board&nbsp;or &ldquo;clickers&rdquo;?), and what tools are you excited to crack out of their clamshell packaging?

Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Examining Your Teacher Toolbox

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

Grammar & Usage

When I was editing Ellii&rsquo;s <a href="http://ellii.com/courses/93/lessons" target="_blank">New Year&rsquo;s lesson plans</a>, I started to question the use of New Year&rsquo;s, New Year, and new year.

When do we use the possessive form of &quot;New Year&#39;s&quot;?

Also, there are instances where the words &ldquo;new&rdquo; and &ldquo;year&rdquo; shouldn&rsquo;t be capitalized. Confusing, right?

With the holiday around the corner, your students might be asking you about this very soon. I did a bit of research to find out what the style guides and dictionaries suggest, and I thought I&rsquo;d share the results with you.

Here are some teaching tips for when to write New Year&rsquo;s, New Year, and new year so you and your students can ring in the new year right!

<img alt="Happy New Year" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2905/content_Happy-New-Year_Ellii.jpg" />

<h2>&quot;New Year&quot; vs. &quot;new year&quot;: Let&#39;s talk about capitalization</h2>

It can be tricky for English learners to understand the difference between &ldquo;New Year&rdquo; and &ldquo;new year.&rdquo; Why is New Year capitalized in certain instances and not others?

This breakdown should make teaching the difference to your students much easier.

<h3>When to capitalize &quot;New Year&quot;</h3>

Capitalize New Year&nbsp;when you&rsquo;re referring to the January 1 holiday.

For example:&nbsp;

<ul>
	<li>Happy New Year!</li>
	<li>My sister sent me a card wishing me a happy New Year all the way from Mexico.</li>
</ul>

<h3>When to lowercase &quot;new year&quot;</h3>

Lowercase new year&nbsp;when you&rsquo;re referring to the year as a whole.

For example:

<ul>
	<li>It&rsquo;s the first day of the new year, so let&rsquo;s&nbsp;celebrate!</li>
	<li>The new year is a great time to start new projects.</li>
	<li>He&rsquo;s decided to quit smoking since it&rsquo;s a new&nbsp;year.</li>
</ul>

<div class="whiteBox">
<img src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2907/content_lightbulb.png" />

<h2>Remember this trick!</h2>

If you use an article (&ldquo;a&rdquo; or &ldquo;the&rdquo;), you should lowercase &ldquo;new year.&rdquo;
</div>

<h2>When to use &quot;New Year&#39;s&quot;</h2>

Use the possessive form New Year&rsquo;s&nbsp;when you&rsquo;re referring to December 31 or January 1, or when you&rsquo;re describing celebrations, resolutions, or activities made on New Year&rsquo;s Eve or New Year&rsquo;s Day.

For example:

<ul>
	<li>New Year&#39;s Day</li>
	<li>New Year&#39;s Eve</li>
	<li>We&#39;re celebrating New Year&#39;s at grandma&#39;s this year.</li>
	<li>I spent the night thinking about my New Year&#39;s resolutions.</li>
	<li>Try these Christmas and New Year&#39;s classroom activities.</li>
	<li>It was a fantastic New Year&#39;s celebration.</li>
</ul>

According to The Chicago Manual of Style, when the words &ldquo;eve&rdquo; and &ldquo;day&rdquo; are present, we clearly need the possessive form &ldquo;New Year&rsquo;s.&rdquo; Think of it like a shortcut&mdash;instead of saying &ldquo;New Year&rsquo;s Eve,&rdquo; we can simply say &ldquo;New Year&rsquo;s.&rdquo;

But what about when &ldquo;eve&rdquo; and &ldquo;day&rdquo; aren&rsquo;t present? People sometimes forget to include the &rsquo;s when it should probably be included.

For example, when I wrote a blog post called &quot;<a href="https://ellii.com/blog/7-christmas-and-new-years-classroom-activities" target="_blank">7 Christmas and New Year&rsquo;s Classroom Activities</a>,&quot; I chose to write &ldquo;New Year&rsquo;s.&rdquo; Why? Because I was&nbsp;thinking of the holiday &ldquo;New Year&rsquo;s Day,&rdquo; and I was&nbsp;simply dropping the word &ldquo;day&rdquo; like you would when you say &ldquo;Christmas&rdquo; (instead of &ldquo;Christmas Day&rdquo;).&nbsp;

<a href="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/post/blog_printable/New-Years-Vs-New-Year-Vs-new-year_Ellii.pdf" target="_blank"><img alt="Learn the difference between New Year's, New Year, and new year." src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2908/content_New-Years-Vs-New-Year-Vs-new-year.jpg" /></a>

<a href="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/post/blog_printable/New-Years-Vs-New-Year-Vs-new-year_Ellii.pdf" target="_blank">Print this cheat sheet</a> for your English language learners.

<h3>What the research says</h3>

What do the dictionaries have to say about &ldquo;New Year&rsquo;s&rdquo; vs. &ldquo;New Year&rdquo;?&nbsp;

Merriam-Webster&rsquo;s Collegiate Dictionary has an entry for &ldquo;New Year,&rdquo; but states that usually &ldquo;New Year&rsquo;s&rdquo; is used.&nbsp;

Oxford Canadian Dictionary of Current English does not have an entry for &ldquo;New Year&rdquo; but does have an entry for &ldquo;New Year&rsquo;s,&rdquo; so clearly they advise using &ldquo;New Year&rsquo;s.&rdquo;&nbsp;

<h2>Final thoughts on &quot;New Year&#39;s,&quot; &quot;New Year,&quot; and &quot;new year&quot;</h2>

I would use &ldquo;new year&rdquo; when following an article (&ldquo;a&rdquo; or &ldquo;the&rdquo;), and I would use &ldquo;New Year&rsquo;s&rdquo; in all other cases, aside from the expression &ldquo;Happy New Year.&rdquo;

(Note: &ldquo;Happy New Year&rsquo;s&rdquo; is also possible, but not as common in North America.)&nbsp;

<div class="white-box">
<h5>What do you think?</h5>

What do you normally say: &ldquo;Happy New Year&rdquo; or &ldquo;Happy New Year&rsquo;s&rdquo;? Leave your comments in the section below. Happy New Year, everyone!
</div>

<h2>Sources</h2>

<ul>
	<li>The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition, section 8.89.</li>
	<li>Merriam-Webster&rsquo;s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition, entries such as &ldquo;New Year.&rdquo;</li>
	<li>Oxford Canadian Dictionary of Current English, 1st edition.</li>
</ul>

Editor&#39;s note:&nbsp;This post was originally published in December 2012 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

&nbsp;

New Year's Vs. New Year: Learn the Difference

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&#39;Tis the season when people greet each other and wish each other well more often than usual.

Most English-speaking countries use certain vocabulary, expressions, and greetings for wishing each other a happy holiday. Your students will appreciate learning these English holiday expressions, idioms,&nbsp;and other common phrases. What&rsquo;s more, you can make this into a productive lesson by teaching them when to capitalize holiday-specific terms.

If you have a multicultural class, have students compare English holiday idioms and festive expressions with what they say in their own languages.

Ready to start teaching your students some fun holiday-related vocabulary and expressions in English? Let&rsquo;s dive in&hellip;

<ul>
	<li><a href="#vocabulary">Holiday vocabulary</a></li>
	<li><a href="#idioms">Holiday idioms and expressions</a></li>
	<li><a href="#greetings">Holiday greetings</a></li>
	<li><a href="#slang">Holiday slang</a></li>
</ul>

<img alt="English holiday vocabulary: Christmas, Hannukah, New Year's Eve." src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2921/content_Holiday-Expressions_Ellii.jpg" />

<h2><a id="vocabulary"></a>Holiday vocabulary: Learn the basics</h2>

Before we <a href="#idioms">jump into holiday-related expressions</a>, it&#39;s important to first introduce&nbsp;your language learners to some holiday vocabulary.

Review the spelling and capitalization of these common holidays with your students:

<ul>
	<li dir="ltr">Christmas Eve</li>
	<li dir="ltr">Christmas Day</li>
	<li dir="ltr">Christmastime</li>
	<li dir="ltr">Christmas morning</li>
	<li dir="ltr">Christmas dinner</li>
	<li dir="ltr">Boxing Day</li>
	<li dir="ltr">Kwanzaa</li>
	<li dir="ltr">Chanuka/Hanukkah</li>
	<li dir="ltr">New Year&#39;s Eve</li>
	<li dir="ltr">New Year&#39;s Day</li>
</ul>

<img alt="English holiday idioms and expressions: feel stuffed, get into the holiday spirit, snowed in." src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2922/content_Holiday-Idioms_Ellii.jpg" />

<h2><a id="idioms"></a>Holiday idioms and expressions for better conversation</h2>

Students love learning idioms and expressions for many reasons&mdash;they&rsquo;re commonly used in conversations, movies, etc., and they&rsquo;re fun to learn, especially when <a href="https://ellii.com/resources/visual-learning/2185-holiday-idioms-expressions" target="_blank">accompanied by funny, literal illustrations</a>! Recognizing and using idioms also helps learners improve their overall fluency.

We&rsquo;ve compiled a list of eight familiar holiday idioms and expressions for you to teach this season.

After reviewing, you could follow up by asking if they know any others, having them draw their own literal illustrations, or having them include as many as they can in dialogues they write and perform in pairs.

<h3 dir="ltr">1. The more the merrier</h3>

Meaning: the more people there are, the more enjoyable the event will be

Example: A: &ldquo;Do you mind if I bring my friends along?&rdquo; B: &ldquo;Not at all! The more the merrier!&rdquo;&nbsp;

<h3>2. Be / feel stuffed</h3>

Meaning: to be full after eating a heavy meal

Example: No more turkey for me, thanks. I&rsquo;m stuffed!

<h3>3. Deck the halls</h3>

Meaning: to decorate the inside of your home for the holidays

Example: This weekend I will deck the halls with lights, shiny tinsel, and mistletoe.

<h3>4. Snowed in</h3>

Meaning: unable to leave because there&rsquo;s too much snow&nbsp;

Example: My house is out in the country, so sometimes I&#39;m snowed in for a week or so.

<h3>5. Get into the holiday spirit</h3>

Meaning: to feel joyful during the holiday season

Example: Sherry baked gingerbread cookies and put on some Christmas music to help her get into the holiday spirit.

<h3>6. Scrooge / Grinch</h3>

Meaning: a grumpy and unkind person who doesn&rsquo;t like celebrating the holidays

Example: He wouldn&rsquo;t even let me put on some holiday music. What a Scrooge!

<h3>7. Be there with bells on</h3>

Meaning: to be eager and more than happy to do something or go somewhere

Example: I asked him if he was coming to the party. He told me he&rsquo;ll be there with bells on!

<h3>8. Ring in the new year</h3>

Meaning: to celebrate the end of the previous year and the beginning of the new one

Example: Carlos plans to ring in the new year with his three best friends.

<img alt="4 holiday greeting cards in English." src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2919/content_Holiday-Cards_Ellii.jpg" />

<h2><a id="greetings"></a>Holiday greetings for cards, emails, or texts</h2>

Holiday greetings are spoken to friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, and even strangers on the street or in stores. These expressions are also written in cards, emails, text messages, etc.&nbsp;

When written, many people follow the holiday greeting with an exclamation mark (e.g., Happy Holidays!). Note: &ldquo;Happy Holidays&rdquo; and &ldquo;Season&rsquo;s Greetings&rdquo; are usually capitalized, but &ldquo;Happy holidays&rdquo; and &ldquo;Season&rsquo;s greetings&rdquo; are also possible.

Your students will likely appreciate knowing how to wish each other well in English during the holiday season.

Spread the joy with these popular English holiday greetings:&nbsp;

<ul>
	<li>Happy Holidays (more neutral as it includes all winter holidays)</li>
	<li>Season&rsquo;s Greetings (more neutral and formal)</li>
	<li>Merry Christmas (common in American and Canadian English)</li>
	<li>Happy Christmas (common in British English)</li>
	<li>Happy Chanukah/Hanukkah (Jewish festival also known as &ldquo;The Festival of Lights&rdquo;)</li>
	<li>Happy Kwanzaa (celebration that honors African heritage in African American culture)</li>
	<li>Happy New Year (<a href="https://ellii.com/blog/when-to-write-new-years-new-year-and-new-year target="_blank">&ldquo;Happy New Year&rsquo;s&rdquo; is a common mistake people make</a>)</li>
</ul>

Are your students planning on sending greetings cards or emails to their family or colleagues this holiday season? Try this festive activity: Have your students <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/how-to-write-holiday-greetings-cards-in-english" target="_blank">write a holiday greeting card in English</a> using their favorite holiday greeting.

<div class="whiteBox">
<img src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2907/content_lightbulb.png" />

<h2>Keep in mind!</h2>

People might be celebrating a variety of holidays during this season. If you&rsquo;re not certain if a colleague or acquaintance celebrates Christmas, choose a neutral greeting such as &ldquo;Happy Holidays&rdquo; or &ldquo;Season&rsquo;s Greetings.&rdquo;
</div>

<img alt="" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2923/content_Shorten-Holiday-Expressions_Ellii.jpg" />

<h2><a id="slang"></a>Holiday slang words every student should know</h2>

It&rsquo;s important for English learners to become familiar with holiday slang (slang is short for &ldquo;short language&rdquo;). These common, every day expressions and phrases are often used in informal settings.

Teaching them some fun holiday slang will help students improve their fluency as well as their conversational skills.

Here are two holiday words that are often used as slang:

<h3>Prezzies</h3>

This shortened form of &ldquo;presents&rdquo; is heard more and more these days. Both &ldquo;prezzies&rdquo; and &ldquo;pressies&rdquo; are pronounced preh zees (/ˈprɛ ziz/). The difference in spelling depends on where you live.

<ul>
	<li>prezzies (preferred spelling in North American English)</li>
	<li>pressies (preferred spelling in British English, but prezzies is also common)</li>
</ul>

<h3>Xmas</h3>

&ldquo;Xmas&rdquo; is the shortened form of &ldquo;Christmas&#39;&#39; and is pronounced eks&nbsp;muhs (/&#39;ɛks məs/). Xmas is most commonly used in informal settings, especially when writing to close friends and family. It&rsquo;s not so common in everyday verbal conversations.

<ul>
	<li>Xmas (singular noun)</li>
	<li>Xmases (plural noun)</li>
</ul>

<div class="whiteBox">
<img src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2907/content_lightbulb.png" />

<h2>Keep in mind!</h2>

Some people might be offended by the abbreviation of &ldquo;Christ&rdquo; to &ldquo;X&rdquo;&nbsp;because it puts the focus on commercialization instead of on Christ, the religious figure at the center of this Christian holiday. When in doubt, don&rsquo;t abbreviate.
</div>

<h2>Related materials</h2>

We&#39;ve got you covered for holiday lessons and fun!

<ul class="resources">
	<li class="collection"><a href="https://ellii.com/collections/holidays-events/december-holidays" target="_blank">December Holidays collection</a></li>
	<li class="flashcards"><a href="https://ellii.com/flashcard_genres/21/flashcard_categories/20" target="_blank">Christmas flashcards</a></li>
	<li class="flashcards"><a href="https://ellii.com/flashcard_genres/21/flashcard_categories/137" target="_blank">New Year&#39;s flashcards</a></li>
	<li class="resource"><a href="https://ellii.com/resources/warm-ups-fillers/2221-how-to-make-a-paper-snowflake" target="_blank">How to Make a Paper Snowflake</a></li>
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/gingerbread-door-classroom" target="_blank">Make a Sweet Gingerbread Door for Your Classroom</a></li>
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/how-to-write-holiday-greetings-cards-in-english" target="_blank">How to Write Holiday Greeting Cards in English</a></li>
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/difference-between-sleigh-and-sled" target="_blank">Sleigh Vs. Sled: What&#39;s the Difference?</a></li>
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/merry-christmas-or-happy-holidays" target="_blank">&quot;Merry Christmas&quot; or &quot;Happy Holidays&quot;? Let&#39;s Debate!</a></li>
</ul>

Editor&#39;s note: This post was originally published in December 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

English Holiday Idioms, Expressions & Other Common Phrases

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In many countries, December is a month of festivities. There&rsquo;s <a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/holidays-events/1854-christmas" target="_blank">Christmas</a>, <a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/holidays-events/1857-chanukah" target="_blank">Chanukah</a>, <a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/holidays-events/1873-new-year-s" target="_blank">New Year&#39;s</a>, and <a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/holidays-events/1856-kwanzaa" target="_blank">Kwanzaa</a> to be celebrated, and undoubtedly some I&rsquo;ve missed.

I teach multicultural classes in the largest college in Scotland. My learners get two weeks off for their winter break, which is traditionally based around Christmas and New Year&#39;s. Their spring holidays are also scheduled around Easter.

However, many of my learners do not celebrate these events, so it&rsquo;s important to make the holidays as inclusive as possible. Here are a few different ways I like to promote inclusivity in the classroom during the festive season.

<h2>Use holiday-inclusive language</h2>

Using the terms &quot;winter&quot; and &quot;spring&quot;&nbsp;is one way to help everyone feel ownership towards the holidays. Ask your students which winter&nbsp;holidays or spring holidays they like to celebrate at home.&nbsp;

<h2>Introduce students to different holidays and celebrations</h2>

Most of my learners are new(ish) to Scotland and are curious about the celebrations. They often ask for <a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/holidays-events" target="_blank">themed lessons</a> when it comes to Christmas, Valentine&rsquo;s, Easter, and Halloween. Introducing and exploring one festival can be a great way to start discussions on special events that&nbsp;are important to them.

For example, in this&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/holidays-events/1946-christmas" target="_blank">Christmas lesson</a>, you could ask learners to consider what vocabulary or items they associate with their own celebrations.

<a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/holidays-events/1946-christmas" target="_blank"><img src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2911/content_Christmas-Lesson_Ellii.jpg" /></a>

You could refer to other Ellii <a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/holidays-events" target="_blank">Holidays &amp; Events&nbsp;lessons</a>&nbsp;or <a href="https://ellii.com/search/flashcards?query=holidays&amp;button=" target="_blank">flashcards</a> when you do this. They&nbsp;have a comprehensive bank for almost every holiday imaginable&mdash;Holi, Nauruz, Diwali, Bastille Day, Waitangi, Cinco de Mayo, Lunar New Year, etc.

Here&rsquo;s some vocabulary practice from the <a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/holidays-events/3552-ramadan" target="_blank">Ramadan lesson</a>:

<a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/holidays-events/3552-ramadan" target="_blank"><img src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2912/content_Ramadan-Lesson_Ellii.jpg" /></a>

<h2>Encourage students to share&nbsp;how they celebrate different events</h2>

As with any &quot;cultural&quot; lessons, I always add the caveat that everyone celebrates in their own personal way.

For example, at Christmas, the menu doesn&rsquo;t always include turkey, nor does every household decorate a tree. I do neither of those things, though I do visit my family and give small gifts.

I love asking my learners to discuss how they celebrate different events in their own unique ways. This gives them an opportunity to consider individual differences. It also provides an opportunity for them to share their own holidays with the rest of the class.

Of course, some of my learners have lived in Scotland for so long that they have adopted some of the traditions.

I know many people of different religions who receive gifts from Santa, find the biggest tree possible, and couldn&rsquo;t possibly celebrate December 25 without a turkey. This all makes for delightfully rich class discussions.

<h2>Ideas for teaching about holiday inclusivity year round&nbsp;</h2>

You don&#39;t need to wait for December to start sharing holidays and celebrations in class. Creating an atmosphere of cross-cultural curiosity allows students to learn about the world&nbsp;whenever it naturally comes up in discussions.&nbsp;

Here are a few&nbsp;ideas to help you&nbsp;support&nbsp;learners to share their own celebrations, no matter the time of year:

<ul>
	<li>Ask them to bring in an item that&#39;s important for one of their holidays. Give them time to talk about it and encourage the other learners to ask questions.</li>
	<li>Host a food event!&nbsp;Ask learners to bring food they eat on special days. Facilitate discussion.</li>
	<li>Create a class calendar of events. Ask students to add their special days.</li>
	<li>Watch a film, video, or documentary about their special events. Facilitate discussions.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>

<h2>Related resources&nbsp;</h2>

<ul class="resources">
	<li class="collection"><a href="https://ellii.com/collections/holidays-events/december-holidays" target="_blank">December Holidays</a></li>
	<li class="lesson"><a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/everyday-idioms-2/1781-12-home-for-the-holidays" target="_blank">Home for the Holidays</a></li>
	<li class="lesson"><a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/holidays-events" target="_blank">Holidays &amp; Events</a></li>
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/how-to-write-holiday-greetings-cards-in-english" target="_blank">How to Write Holiday Greeting Cards in English</a></li>
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/christmas-in-argentina" target="_blank">Christmas in Argentina</a></li>
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/merry-christmas-or-happy-holidays" target="_blank">&quot;Merry Christmas&quot; or &quot;Happy Holidays&quot;? Let&#39;s Debate!</a></li>
</ul>

<div class="white-box">
<h5>Share your thoughts</h5>

How do you make teaching about holidays and special events inclusive? Share your comments below! We&rsquo;d love to hear from you.
</div>

&nbsp;

Inclusive Festivities: How to Value Every Learner's Holidays

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<h2>Total lesson score</h2>

December 1, 2022: Teachers can now see the student&#39;s total lesson score for the assignment after a&nbsp;task is completed. If there are tasks with more than one attempt, the total score can be switched from First to Best. Clicking on the&nbsp;&quot;i&quot;&nbsp;icon opens a modal with the full details of the scoring. Learn more about scoring with this <a href="https://help.ellii.com/article/263-how-a-total-score-is-calculated" target="_blank">Help Doc</a>.&nbsp;

<hr />
<h2>New lesson page</h2>

October&nbsp;19, 2022:&nbsp;Ellii&#39;s lesson page has a new look! It&#39;s now cleaner and simpler to navigate. This improved design allows you to toggle between the lesson&rsquo;s overview, digital tasks, and PDF&mdash;all in one place. You can seamlessly present content interactively, in class and online. Read more about it in our <a href="https://help.ellii.com/article/210-how-to-use-the-lesson-landing-page" target="_blank">Help Docs</a>.

<hr />
<h2>New writing task design</h2>

September 5, 2022:&nbsp;Ellii&#39;s writing task type (Open-Ended Questions) has a new design that matches the updated design of the Speaking task! Students can now read the reference on a split screen while answering comprehension questions. A Hide reference toggle is also available if students want to see the writing box in full.

<hr />
<h2>New Speaking task design</h2>

<h2><img alt="" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2715/content_Ellii_New-Speaking-Task-Design.jpg" /></h2>

September 1, 2022:&nbsp;Ellii&#39;s Speaking task has a new look and feel! References are no longer in a modal. Students can now see the reference prompt (question, photo, illustration, reading, or audio) on the screen at all times as they create their recording.

After they finish the recording, students simply slide to the next screen to review and submit. (Students can also trash their recording from the first screen and start again.)

You may want to run through the new style with your students so that they understand how to delete, edit, and submit their speaking tasks.

Watch for a similar design improvement coming to our writing and comprehension tasks soon!

<hr />
<h2>Auto-Scoring (AI) open beta</h2>

August 29, 2022:&nbsp;Following a successful closed beta round of testing, we&#39;ve&nbsp;officially launched an open beta test of our Auto-Scoring (AI) feature for open-ended writing questions. Ellii teachers can now opt in to use this feature in their classes to save time on grading digital tasks.

You&#39;ll find the auto-scoring opt-in checkbox when you create your class and edit it. This feature currently only works for comprehension-style writing questions where Ellii&#39;s Publishing team has provided suggested answers. These tasks will be auto-graded if you opt in, however, as a teacher, you can always edit the score if Ellii Bot doesn&#39;t grade something to your liking.

Note that you need to opt in for each class and assign to students within a class in order for the AI to work. <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/research-behind-ellii-auto-scoring-ai-feature" target="_blank">Learn more...</a>

<hr />
<h2>That&#39;s News to Me Flashbacks</h2>

August 24, 2022: The That&rsquo;s News to Me category has a new section called Flashbacks. There, teachers can find all older news articles. <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/133/lessons#:~:text=HIGH%20INT%20%E2%80%93%20ADV-,Flashbacks,-100th%20Anniversary%20of" target="_blank">Take a look...</a>

<hr />
<h2>Videos and flashcards in Media Gallery</h2>

<img alt="Ellii Media Gallery page" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2716/content_Ellii_Media-Page.jpg" />

August 15, 2022: You can now <a href="https://help.ellii.com/article/262-how-to-find-videos" target="_blank">find and play videos</a> without going into lesson tasks. You will find a brand-new <a href="https://ellii.com/media/videos" target="_blank">Media Gallery</a> in our Materials drop-down menu. In the Media Gallery, you&#39;ll see tabs for Flashcards and Videos.

Videos are organized by sections and categories within sections,&nbsp;just like flashcards. When you click into a video, you can see which lesson(s) it&#39;s found in as well as a list of similar videos.

Watch for more Media Gallery updates coming soon!

<hr />
<h2>Student Dashboard 6X faster</h2>

August 15, 2022: We&#39;re constantly making improvements on the student side that teachers may not notice! Our developers have been working diligently to improve&nbsp;the performance of the Student Dashboard for the hardest-working students at Ellii. Those who have a lot of assignments on their dashboard should now notice a sharp increase in performance.

<hr />
<h2>Ellii Bot recommendations</h2>

August 2, 2022:&nbsp;Up till now, we&#39;ve&nbsp;recommended content for you based on your preferences and&nbsp;our calendar features. Now we&#39;re also using machine learning to recommend content that you may be interested in based on teacher behavior. You&#39;ll see Recommended by Ellii Bot on your Classroom&nbsp;page for these types of recommendations.

Our developers will continue to improve these recommendations as we learn more about machine learning.

<hr />
<h2>Grade band preferences on or off</h2>

July 18, 2022: If you teach adults, you may not want to see suggested grade bands on Ellii materials. You can now go into your Account settings and turn off Grade Bands in the Grade Band Preference area.

<hr />
<h2>Organization Reports</h2>

July 8, 2022: Ellii Organization account users with admin access can now view the <a href="https://ellii.com/organizations/management/reports" target="_blank">Reports Page</a>! Under Organization on the top menu, there is now an option called Reports. There, admins can see all the data related to their account and connected teachers. The data goes as far&nbsp;back as January 1, 2022 and can be exported as a CSV file.

Please note that the Manage Teachers page has been renamed to Team and has been moved to the Organization dropdown.

<hr />
<h2>Copy Ellii Folders</h2>

July 5, 2022: Teachers can now copy an <a href="https://ellii.com/folders/published" target="_blank">Ellii Folder</a> by selecting &ldquo;Copy to My Folders&rdquo; in the more options menu.

<hr />
<h2>Collections index view</h2>

<img alt="Ellii Collections page with new view selected" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2560/content_Ellii_New-View-for-Collections.jpg" />

June 23, 2022: The Collections page has a <a href="https://ellii.com/collections" target="_blank">new view</a>! Teachers can now see the sub-pages in each category without clicking on the main page, making it easier for you to find the content you want&mdash;fast.

<hr />
<h2>Class Sharing</h2>

June 22, 2022: Teachers and other educators who are part of an Organization account can now share classes! Co-teachers of a class are able to manage assignments, add feedback, grade work, view student participation, and more. <a href="https://help.ellii.com/article/259-how-to-share-classes?utm_campaign=Site+Update%3A+Class+Sharing+%E2%80%93+Teachers+in+an+organization+account&amp;utm_content=Site+Update%3A+Class+Sharing+%E2%80%93+Teachers+in+an+organization+account&amp;utm_medium=email_action&amp;utm_source=customer.io" target="_blank">Learn more&hellip;</a>

<hr />
<h2>Ellii&#39;s on Spotify</h2>

<img alt="Ellii’s Spotify profile and playlists " src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2562/content_Ellii-on-Spotify.jpg" />

June 22, 2022: We recently launched a Spotify account! Teachers can pair our playlists with lessons found on the Ellii platform for a more engaging learning experience. <a href="https://open.spotify.com/user/dmq8qckunpt5o3g9ixyupia0a" target="_blank">Get started&hellip;</a>

<hr />
<h2>Equivalency Scale: ELD (1&ndash;6)</h2>

June 13, 2022: We added numeric proficiency levels (ELD 1&ndash;6) to our Equivalency Scale. These proficiency levels align with WIDA&rsquo;s proficiency levels (Level 1&nbsp;Entering, Level 2&nbsp;Emerging, Level 3&nbsp;Developing, Level 4&nbsp;Expanding, Level 5&nbsp;Bridging, Level 6&nbsp;Reaching).&nbsp;K&ndash;12 teachers who want to see these levels on Ellii filters and labels can select ELD &amp; Ellii in their account settings. <a href="https://ellii.com/equivalencies" target="_blank">Take a look&hellip;</a>

<hr />
<h2>Task Score</h2>

April 11, 2022: Open-Ended Questions and Speaking digital tasks now have a Task Score. If at least one question requires teacher scoring, a Partial Score warning is displayed so that the teacher knows that they need to manually import a score.

On the student side of the platform, they will see a warning symbol to indicate that their displayed score isn&rsquo;t final.

<hr />
<h2>Assignment Manager</h2>

April 6, 2022: The new Ellii Assignment Manager will allow teachers to easily assign tasks to their students with a simplified view. Teachers can also now leave their students a note with their homework! <a href="https://help.ellii.com/article/122-how-to-assign-digital-homework?utm_campaign=Site+Update+%E2%80%94+Assignment+App&amp;utm_content=Site+Update+%E2%80%94+Assignment+App&amp;utm_medium=email_action&amp;utm_source=customer.io" target="_blank">Learn more&hellip;</a>

<hr />
<h2>Microsoft&#39;s Immersive Reader tool</h2>

April 4, 2022: Microsoft&rsquo;s Immersive Reader tool is officially available on Ellii! This highly requested digital tool helps learners improve their reading, writing, and comprehension skills by reading the text out loud. It can also be customized to offer students a more personalized reading experience. <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/how-to-use-microsoft-immersive-reader-on-ellii" target="_blank">Learn more&hellip;</a>

<hr />
<h2>ESL Library is now Ellii!</h2>

March 14, 2022: ESL Library is now Ellii! We changed our name to better reflect who we are in today&rsquo;s English language landscape, which is one of the most widely used content and courseware platforms for English teachers in the world. <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/introducing-our-new-name-ellii" target="_blank">Learn more&hellip;</a>

<hr />
<h2>New Flashcards page</h2>

February 17, 2022:&nbsp;The Flashcards page has a whole new look! This redesign will make it easier for you to search through our flashcard categories and sections, create flashcard sets, and link to individual&nbsp;flashcards. <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/how-to-use-our-flashcards" target="_blank">Learn more...</a>

<hr />
<h2>Archiving Classes</h2>

February 10, 2022:&nbsp;You can now archive classes!&nbsp;Archiving a class allows you to hide a class without losing all the data associated with that class. In other words, you&rsquo;ll still be able to see previous results and feedback from that class, even after you&rsquo;ve archived it.&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/blog/new-year-new-updates" target="_blank">Learn more...</a>

<hr />
<h2>Classroom page&nbsp;</h2>

February 10, 2022:&nbsp;The My Classes page is now called &ldquo;Classroom.&rdquo; It also has&nbsp;a brand new look! You&rsquo;ll notice three tabs for Classes, Students, and Assignments, allowing you to toggle between them with ease. <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/new-year-new-updates" target="_blank">Learn more...</a>

<hr />
<h2>Updated navigation bar</h2>

February 10, 2022:&nbsp;We updated our platform&#39;s navigation bar to make it easy to find what you&#39;re looking for. You&#39;ll now see:

<ul>
	<li>Materials, which remains unchanged</li>
	<li>Class Prep, which has replaced Saved;</li>
	<li>Classroom, which reflects what was formally the My Classes page.</li>
</ul>

<a href="https://ellii.com/blog/new-year-new-updates" target="_blank">Learn more...</a>

<hr />
<h2>Collections in Search</h2>

<img alt="One search result for &quot;shapes&quot; on the Ellii website, with the collections tab selected" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2561/content_Ellii_Collections-in-Search.jpg" />

February 10, 2022:&nbsp;Collections now appear in your searches!&nbsp;You can also filter the material type to see only collections using the Collections tab on&nbsp;the search results page.

<hr />

Feature Releases & Platform Updates 2022 

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Posts describing lessons or activities for the ESL classroom.

Activities

Spelling can be super tricky for English language learners. There are plenty of examples of English words with silent letters&nbsp;or sounds that&nbsp;can be spelled in a multitude of ways.

In class, it can be helpful to draw attention to spelling patterns and irregularities as they emerge. You could also use Ellii&#39;s <a href="https://ellii.com/lessons/phonics-stories" target="_blank">Phonics Stories</a> to focus on certain sounds and spellings.

In order to practice each word and commit it to memory, it&rsquo;s important to give students plenty of chances to spell in class.&nbsp;

In this post, I&rsquo;d like to explore six&nbsp;of my favorite spelling games and activities that make learning English&nbsp;fun for students at all levels. I&#39;ve effectively used these spelling activities with adults and young learners. You may need to adapt them slightly for your class.

Let&#39;s get started!

<h2>1. Spelling relay</h2>

This spelling relay activity&nbsp;is a great way for students to work together and support each other.&nbsp;

Put students in teams and ask them to line up at the whiteboard. Make sure to give them one marker per team. Then tell students&nbsp;they must spell words by writing only one letter each before passing the marker to their teammate. The team that spells the word correctly first (and doesn&rsquo;t cheat) is the winner.

Shout out the word you&#39;d like them to spell (or ask a student to do this). Ensure each student only writes one letter before passing it to their teammate. Encourage teams to work together to help each other to spell the words correctly.

<div class="white-box">
<h5>Multiple ways to adapt</h5>

You could adapt this spelling activity by having students pass one piece of paper or a mini-whiteboard and one pen around their group&rsquo;s table.

Younger learners may also like to run from their team to the whiteboard and back from a particular point in the classroom.
</div>

<h2>2. Spelling circles</h2>

This fun game is a great way to improve spelling and pronunciation.

First, ask students to stand in a circle. Then shout out a word and ask them to spell it out loud&nbsp;as a group. Moving from one student to the next, each student says a letter until the word is spelled.

For example, to spell &quot;pin,&quot;&nbsp;the first student says the letter &quot;p,&quot;&nbsp;the next student says &quot;i&quot;&nbsp;and the third student says &quot;n.&quot;&nbsp;You could ask the fourth student to say the word &quot;pin.&quot;&nbsp;The fifth student could then suggest another word,&nbsp;and then the activity continues.

If English learners&nbsp;choose the wrong letter, you could ask them to spell the word from the beginning. Ask the class to support them as they do this and make the circle as collaborative as possible.

<div class="white-box">
<h5>Want to up the engagement level?</h5>

Passing a ball between the students as they spell can add an extra element of fun!
</div>

<h2>3. Phonics spelling scrunch</h2>

If you&#39;ve been practicing a few different sounds&nbsp;in class, write each on a piece of paper and scrunch it into a ball. For example, you might have sounds like&nbsp;/ay/, /sh/, /ch/, /th/, /ee/, /oo/, etc.

Give each student one of the balls (you can have duplicates of the same sound). Then ask one student to throw their ball to another student. That student picks up the ball, opens the scrunched paper and has to say a word with that sound (e.g., If /ay/&nbsp;is written on the paper, they could say the word&nbsp;&quot;day&quot;).

<div class="white-box">
<h5>Add an extra challenge</h5>

To make the phonics activity more challenging, you could ask students to say a sentence with their chosen word.

When that student says the word, write it on the board to add additional support and opportunity to read the word. Then ask them to throw their ball to another student.
</div>

Continue this activity until all students have thrown their ball of scrunched-up paper and said a word or a sentence.

<h2>4. Full-body spelling</h2>

I got the full-body spelling&nbsp;activity from Johanna Stirling&rsquo;s wonderful book, <a href="http://thespellingblog.blogspot.com/p/book-teaching-spelling.html" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Teaching Spelling to English Language Learners</a>. She demonstrated this activity&nbsp;at the <a href="https://www.iatefl.org/conference/home" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">IATEFL conference</a> many moons ago, and it still stands out as the most fun session I&rsquo;ve ever attended.&nbsp;I do it every year with my adults, so don&rsquo;t let anyone tell you it&rsquo;s just for kids!

Ask students to work together to spell each word. You can do this in groups or as a whole class.

In groups: You&rsquo;ll need at least one person for each letter of the word you want to spell (e.g., If you want to spell &quot;house,&quot;&nbsp;you&rsquo;ll need five students).

Ask students to use their bodies to spell each word. For example, a student might make the letter &quot;i&quot;&nbsp;by standing up straight and reaching their arms to the ceiling with their palms together. For &quot;n&quot;&nbsp;a student may stand facing to the side of the class and touch their toes.

As a whole class: Shout out a word and ask students to work together to spell it.

<div class="white-box">
<h5>Try this alternative</h5>

In teams, you could whisper a word to each team and ask them to spell it. The other team then has to guess what the word is.
</div>

<h2>5. Missing letters</h2>

For this spelling activity, write some of the letters from an English word on the whiteboard. Leave spaces for the missing letters. For example:&nbsp;_nsw_r.

Students can add the missing letters in their notebooks or directly on the whiteboard. Encourage students to help and support each other.

This spelling game works particularly well when removing vowels and leaving consonants.

<div class="white-box">
<h5>Try this alternative</h5>

Scramble the letters and ask students to put them in the correct order.
</div>

<h2>6. Tactile spelling</h2>

This&nbsp;tactile spelling activity is&nbsp;great for learners who are developing their handwriting skills. There are two options:

Option 1: Bring some sugar, salt, or flour to class. Give each student a plate and a pile of your chosen powder. Ask students to spell words in English using their fingers.

Option 2: If your&nbsp;students are comfortable with each other, you could ask them to work in pairs and spell words on each other&rsquo;s backs. One student writes a word on the other student&rsquo;s back, and that student has to guess the word.

<h2>Related resources</h2>

<ul class="resources">
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/see-and-spell" target="_blank">See &amp; Spell: Interactive Spelling and Listening Practice for Beginner English Learners</a></li>
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/spelling-variations-in-ellii-materials" target="_blank">Why We Use Spelling Variations in Our ELT Materials</a></li>
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/typing-and-spelling" target="_blank">Fun Web Games &amp; Resources to Help ELLs with Typing and Spelling</a></li>
</ul>

6 Spelling Games & Activities That Make Learning English Fun

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Have your students ever mixed up &ldquo;sleigh&rdquo; and &ldquo;sled&rdquo;? Whether they&rsquo;ve just started learning English or have been speaking it for years, &ldquo;sleigh&rdquo; and &ldquo;sled&rdquo; are two winter-related words that many people still get confused.

That&rsquo;s because both sleds and sleighs are winter vehicles that work in a similar way. So how can you tell them apart?

In this blog post, I&rsquo;ve outlined the differences between sleigh and sled with some examples so that your students always know exactly when to use each term!

<img alt="Two men sitting in a horse-drawn sleigh on snowy night." src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2895/content_Sleigh_Ellii.jpg" />

<h2>What does &quot;sleigh&quot; mean?</h2>

A sleigh is a big, box-like, open-air vehicle on two ski-like runners that can transport people over snow and ice.

The main difference between a &quot;sleigh&quot; and a &quot;sled&quot; is that a sleigh is almost always pulled by a horse or a team of horses (or reindeer, if you&#39;re Santa Claus).

<div class="white-box">
<h5>&quot;Sleigh&quot; can serve different functions in a sentence:</h5>

<ul>
	<li>Noun: sleigh, sleighs</li>
	<li>Verb: sleigh, sleighed, sleighing (Note: The verb&nbsp;sleigh is not common and best avoided.)</li>
</ul>
</div>

<h3>Examples of &quot;sleigh&quot; used in a sentence</h3>

<ul>
	<li>The Smith family rode around the lake in a horse-drawn sleigh.</li>
	<li>This hotel package includes dinner and a sleigh ride along the snowy trails around the village.</li>
	<li>Every year, Santa Claus travels across the globe in a sleigh drawn by reindeer.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>

<img alt="Two children sitting on a wooden sled going down a snowy hill." src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2896/content_Sled_Ellii.jpg" />

<h2>What does &quot;sled&quot; mean?</h2>

A sled is a small, open-air vehicle that is flat-bottomed or on two ski-like runners. One or two people can ride a sled down a snowy hill. Sleds can also be pulled by a person or a team of dogs.

<div class="white-box">
<h5>&quot;Sled&quot; can serve different functions in a sentence:</h5>

<ul>
	<li>Noun: sled, sleds, sledder</li>
	<li>Verb: sled, sledded, sledding</li>
</ul>
</div>

<h3>Examples of &quot;sled&quot; used in a sentence</h3>

<ul>
	<li>My dad surprised me with a bright red sled for my birthday this year.</li>
	<li>Catherine went dog-sledding in Alaska last winter.</li>
	<li>Mount Orford created a fun path for sledders to speed down.</li>
	<li>Two kids sledded down a nearby hill, and their cries of delight echoed in the cold January air.</li>
</ul>

&ldquo;Sled&rdquo; also sometimes gets confused with another related term: <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/toboggan?show=0&amp;t=1417644631" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">toboggan</a>. A toboggan is a type of sled with a flat bottom and a curved front edge. One or two people can ride a toboggan down a snowy hill.

It&rsquo;s best to only use the word &ldquo;toboggan&rdquo; when talking about a specific type of sled.

<div class="white-box">
<h5>Share your thoughts</h5>

In North America, the words &ldquo;sleigh,&rdquo; &ldquo;sled,&rdquo; and &ldquo;toboggan&rdquo; are all quite common. What&#39;s the most common term where you live? Share it in the comments section below.&nbsp;Happy Holidays!
</div>

<h2>Related</h2>

Get into the holiday spirit and find lots of related vocabulary in our winter holiday lessons!

<ul class="resources">
	<li class="lesson"><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/93/lessons/1946" target="_blank">Christmas - Beg</a></li>
	<li class="lesson"><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/93/lessons/1854" target="_blank">Christmas - Low Int &ndash; Int</a></li>
	<li class="lesson"><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/93/lessons/1853" target="_blank">Christmas - High Int &ndash; Adv</a></li>
	<li class="lesson"><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/93/lessons/2096" target="_blank">New Year&#39;s - Beg</a></li>
	<li class="lesson"><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/93/lessons/1873" target="_blank">New Year&#39;s - Low Int &ndash; Int</a></li>
	<li class="lesson"><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/93/lessons/1857" target="_blank">Chanukah</a></li>
	<li class="lesson"><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/93/lessons/1856" target="_blank">Kwanzaa</a></li>
	<li class="lesson"><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/93/lessons/1913" target="_blank">Festivus</a></li>
	<li class="lesson"><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/93/lessons/1904" target="_blank">Boxing Day</a></li>
</ul>

Editor&#39;s note: This post was originally published in December 2014&nbsp;and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Sleigh Vs. Sled: What's the Difference?

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These posts are written for learners of English themselves. Find learning tips and ideas for learning English.

For Students

Did you know that the writers who create Ellii lessons and resources are all English teachers or former teachers?

That&#39;s just one of the reasons we love receiving poetry, stories, and paragraphs&nbsp;that students write while doing Ellii lessons.&nbsp;

In our <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/93/lessons/1885" target="_blank">Remembrance Day / Veterans Day lesson</a>, we challenge students to write acrostic poetry and share it with our team. Check out this year&#39;s submissions as well as the poems from years past.

<h2>2024 Student Poetry</h2>

Here is a new poem submitted by Bryna Gerakos, an ESL Instructor at Hudson Adult Learning Center

<blockquote>
Veterans, we are 
Eternally grateful 
To you 
Excellent service 
Remembering and honoring you 
And we will 
Never forget you 
So, thank you very much!

By Gabriela Sanchez, Johanna Ortega, Dunia Caal, and Lin Yangzheng.
</blockquote>

&nbsp;

<h2>2023 Student Poetry</h2>

Here is a new poem that was submitted by Ms. Anderson&#39;s 4th Period Intermediate ELD Class:

<blockquote>
Memories of Silence for Their Sacrifice 

Remember the lives of soldiers

Everything stops for

Memories of silence

Enormous Alliance

Moments before disaster

Bullet dodging when Death calls your name

Remember the lives of the soldiers who sacrificed

Anniversary of the soldiers who fought for peace

November 11th is the Day of Remembrance

Color of poppies reminds &quot;we kept this promise&quot;

Everything for peace
</blockquote>

<hr />
And here is a poem that was submitted by Ms. Anderson&#39;s 6th Period Intermediate ELD Class:

<blockquote>
 
Peace for Veterans 

Represents all the soldiers globally

Every soldier that fought in War

Memories of lost ones

Event for remembering the veterans that fought for peace

Memorial is a way to remember someone

Be polite to Veterans

Remembering our loved ones

Allied forces fought for our peace

No veterans should be disrespected

Celebrate memories with loved ones

End war
</blockquote>

<h2>2022 Student Poetry</h2>

We love these moving acrostic poems we received&nbsp;from Betul Ozer Budak&#39;s LBS (Literacy and Basic Skills)&nbsp;class.

<h3>Poem #1</h3>

<blockquote>
Veterans Day...

Every November, we remember.

Trumpets play &quot;Last Post&quot; ...

Eleven o&#39;clock: a moment of silence ...

Red poppies people wear

After the war, people were happy but

Never forget the soldiers who died

Soldiers who fight ...

By Asmae Dadi, Ebtesam Rashed, and&nbsp;Helen Ada
</blockquote>

<h3>Poem #2</h3>

<blockquote>
Poppies everywhere

On our hearts

People&#39;s stories

Poppies everywhere

Yesterday&#39;s memories

By&nbsp;Ebtesam Rashed and&nbsp;Helen Ada
</blockquote>

<h3>Poem #3</h3>

<blockquote>
Remembrance

Every year we remember them.

Many soldiers died in the war.

Every 11 November is Remembrance Day.

Many people have a ceremony.

Birds of peace carrying olive branches

Remind us the young soldiers.

At 11 o&#39;clock the war ended but

Nobody forgot the soldiers.

Ceremonies we have for them;

Each of us is proud of them...

By&nbsp;Aisha Ankaa,&nbsp;Cuc Thi Nguyen, and&nbsp;Ebtesam Rashed
</blockquote>

Here are a few wonderful Remembrance Day poems from Kosta Stojanovic&#39;s LINC 4/5 class at Coll&egrave;ge Bor&eacute;al in Toronto, Canada.

<h3>Poem #4</h3>

<blockquote>
Red poppies bloom on each breast

Earth remembers it&#39;s heroes

Many great-grandparents were there

Every soldier lives to wonder why

Memories of War that never stray

But someone is shooting again and again

Remembrance poppies are red, not signifying blood of soldiers

And their stories never see the light of day

Need of peace is worldwide

Children want to live in love

Every day can be better,&nbsp;if everyone has remembrance

By Elvira Shootca
</blockquote>

<h3>Poem #5</h3>

<blockquote>
Raise your head off the ground

Everyone is proud of you

My heart is like a galaxy

Even though you&#39;re not here I feel you

My heart belongs to you

Breathe in the morning of victory

Raging about war

Army protect the people

Never make me feel sad

Ceremony for your courage

Everyone will always remember

By Mandana Hodhodynejad
</blockquote>

<h3>Poem #6</h3>

<blockquote>
Rmember our soldiers

Enlist the soldiers

Making our world into peace

Everyone who died in the wars

Memorial never forget

Brothers who bled just

Respect our fallen soldiers

Armistice day

November 11th armed weapons fall silent

Celebrate the soldiers

Enjoy freedom in happiness and peace

By Dilek Tas
</blockquote>

<h2>2021 Student Poetry</h2>

<h3>Poem #1</h3>

This beautiful acrostic poem was sent in by Sherry and&nbsp;Kathleen&#39;s class:&nbsp;

<blockquote>
Vests of soldiers carry valued human beings

Emotions of appreciation echo when we commemorate every year on November 11

Treasures you have done for us are countless as we are free

Echos of your contributions are hard to describe out loud.

Remembering you veterans

Appreciating your efforts

Nations will never forget you for

Sacrificing your lives to give us freedom.

By Antonio, Cecilia, Huda, Jingyuan, and Yunyi
</blockquote>

<h3>Poem #2</h3>

Here&#39;s another poem that was submitted by an intermediate LINC class.

<img alt="Remembrance Day Poem by LINC students" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/1879/content_Remembrance-Day-Poem.jpg" />

<h2>2020 Student Poetry</h2>

Here are some poetry submissions we received in November 2020 from a low-intermediate&nbsp;LINC class in Toronto, Ontario. Thank you to Kosta and his class for sharing this writing with us!

<h3>Poem #1</h3>

<blockquote>
<h3>Remembrance Day</h3>

Essential day

Many people lost a loved one

Ended of the war must be done

Be peaceful, remember the war

Against the war, no more the war

Celebrate the peace

Everyone will be happy

By Momoko, Anibal and Zhi Sheng
</blockquote>

<h3>Poem #2&nbsp;</h3>

<blockquote>
<h3>Very important</h3>

Eating and drinking

Tomorrow it&#39;ll&nbsp;be coming

Email to me

Remember it

Answer and reply

Notice it on your calendar

Send it to me

By Coco
</blockquote>

<h3>Poem #3</h3>

<blockquote>
<h3>Remembering our veterans</h3>

Enormous respect

Many left behind the family who were

Eager to see them again

More peace, no war

By wearing the poppy we remember,

Each that fell

Rising like the sun every day

Don&#39;t forget them

Anually we honour the past

Yesterday is not forgotten

By Milena Nessi
</blockquote>

<h2>Poem #4</h2>

<blockquote>
Red color

Email me

May I have&nbsp;

Enough for me

Many years

Best of luck

Raise your hand

At a time

Never mind

Call me

Excellent place

By Israt, Alice, and Coco
</blockquote>

<h2>Poem #5</h2>

<blockquote>
Voters are protesting

Eat your food

Trumpet is a bass horn

End your day in a happy way

Remembrance Day is a poppy day

Are you okay

No one here

Can you hear?

By Rania, Gadha, and Milena
</blockquote>

<h2>Pronunciation Work</h2>

Here is some pronunciation work these writers did while working on their poetry from our <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/93/lessons">Holidays &amp; Events</a> lesson. We&#39;re so happy to see students working with <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/130/lessons/3352">pronunciation symbols</a>. We&nbsp;hope you&#39;re enjoying our <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/130/lessons">Pronunciation</a> lessons, too.&nbsp; 
&nbsp;

<img alt="" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/1070/content_Screen_Shot_2020-11-26_at_4.22.13_PM.png" />

Keep up the great work, LINC class! And most importantly, thank you for remembering our veterans.

<h2>&nbsp;</h2>

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