| Finding interesting motivation reading resources for | | | | handouts. TESOL teachers will find it easy to choose |
| adults and older kids can be a challenge if you are a | | | | some articles but listening to your students' feedback |
| TESOL teacher. Most books are either too long, too | | | | will help you choose ones that are more interesting for |
| difficult or not interesting. | | | | your ESL students. |
| One great tool that can help TESOL teachers and | | | | Class Reading Exercises |
| ESL students is an offshoot of Wikipedia - Simple | | | | Choosing specific articles that read well, are accurate |
| English Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple | | | | and appropriate in length, you can create handouts |
| English for easy reading. | | | | based on their content. TESOL Teachers can prepare |
| What does Wikipedia offer the TESOL Teacher? | | | | the handouts that look at the language in the text, ie. |
| | | | tense usage or adjectives; or comprehension |
| 1. It offers a simplified version of articles written for | | | | questions to test students' understanding of the article; |
| those who don't yet comprehend higher levels of | | | | or to provide stimulus for discussion or writing tasks; or |
| English. | | | | even be used for vocabulary instruction. |
| 2. A large database of (Apr. 2009) over 57000 articles | | | | Project Work: Multi-skills. |
| covering Law, Government, Arts, Science, Culture and | | | | If you have enough time and a big enough class, you |
| Religion. | | | | can set up project teams to create a podcast or |
| 3. Enough to satisfy most kinds of students. | | | | publish a newsletter. The teams can read articles in the |
| How can a TESOL Teacher use this resource? | | | | Wikipedia, then compile, write and edit different reports |
| There are three obvious ways: home reading, class | | | | for the project. For younger learners, creating |
| reading activities, | | | | appropriate artwork will allow them both a practical |
| Supplemental Reading | | | | and artistic grasp of the content. For TESOL |
| Within the considerations of the licensing of Wikipedia, | | | | Teachers, this represents a more challenging project |
| you will find that you can use articles for supplemental | | | | because you have to really know what your students |
| reading for students. For example, if you are teaching | | | | can do. |
| a course of American Culture, you may prescribe | | | | So, do check this resource out! In fact, if combined with |
| some articles as their home reading. Since most | | | | a basic grammar and vocabulary activities, you should |
| students have a PC and Internet these days, you can | | | | find it just easy to help your ESL students improve |
| simply email or print out the links to the articles in their | | | | their reading. |