* EL Supports and Resources 2025-2026

There's a lot of useful stuff on this padlet, and the owner of the padlet has said that we are free to share it with a larger audience.  So I thought I would share it here on this blog for any other TESOL teachers who are interested.

It can also be found at this link: https://bit.ly/EL-Padlet

Using Gemini Storybook to Create Graded Readers for your Classroom

(TESOL Ideas--Useful Websites)

Directions: docs, pub

As I mentioned in the previous post, I discovered this while making images in Google Gemini, and it's very useful.
Basically, you give Google Gemini a command about a storybook you want to create, and it makes it for you.

I've found it very useful for creating graded readers in my class based around CVC (consonant vowel consonant) sets.

It appears to have the usual positives and negatives of AI writing.  On the positive side, it adhered reasonably well to the prompt I gave it.  It had a coherent story, and it kept the illustrations for all the characters consistent throughout the story.

On the negative side, the story wasn't particularly interesting.  Some of the words I gave it got used in awkward ways.  The story was mostly (but not perfectly) graded to the level I wanted it.  Et cetera.

I wish it was also easy to share these storybooks once they get created.  It does give me a link to share, but it looks like it doesn't have any embedding features, so you can only access it from the link.
From my own account, I have the option to print out any storybooks that I make.  I can also save my storybooks to PDFs (using the print function).  But it looks like other people accessing the link don't have these same options.  
The PDF or print version of the book isn't great either--Google doesn't do a good job of converting the storybook to printable paper.

But who knows how all of this will improve in the future.  It looks like this is a brand new feature, so this is all early days right now.  Maybe it will get a lot easier to share these creations in the future?

Another interesting feature is that Google Gemini creates a unique story each time.  I gave it the same prompt ("create a story book for new readers based on these words: cat, sat, pat, mat, vat, bat, rat, fat, hat") in both my work Google account and my personal Google account, and it created two completely different storybooks for each.  
This can be frustrating if you fall in love with a certain version, and then can't get Gemini to recreate it.  (I actually prefer the Storybook that got created at my work account, but because of the restrictions on my Google account for work, I can't get a sharable link for  that version.)

However, if you're trying to give students a lot of different practice with a certain vocabulary set, the advantages of this are that you can have Gemini create multiple stories based on the same vocabulary set.  You could read one story on one day, and then the next day do a completely different story, but using the same vocabulary.

For example, I created a story using CVC -at words here, and then created another story here.  

I created a story using CVC -ap words here, and then another story here.  

I created a story using CVC -an words here, and then another story here.  

The possibilities for creating classroom readers are endless!

A couple more notes:
* I can't seem to figure out if these storybooks created in Gemini count against my Google account data storage limit.  (I am getting very close to hitting my 15 MB limit.)  I've searched the web for an answer on this, but can't seem to find one.  

I'm also not sure how long Gemini will keep these storybooks.  I'm assuming they will save them indefinitely, but it's not really clear to me how my creations on Gemini are stored.

* If you click on the above links to the storybooks I created, you may notice that Gemini credits me as the author on the front page.  I think this is a little bit patronizing.  (I didn't write these books--AI did.  I don't need to be credited as the author.)  But that's the way the program works, I guess.

Update: So, just after publishing this post, I was fooling around with the above links to see if they worked, and unfortunately the bottom part of each page was missing.  The full text was visible, but the bottoms of the picture got cut off.  Which in some cases is unfortunate--e.g. in this story, on the page that says "The cat sat on the mat", you can't actually see the mat in the picture.
I can still view the whole picture book on my end if I go back to Google Gemini, but I can't seem to get a good link to share it.  Which is unfortunate.  But apparently this is a new feature that is still in development, so maybe this bug will get better later on.  

I've discovered I can also share a link to the Gemini conversation which created the storybook.  For example, if you click on this link here then you should be able to see the prompt that I entered, and the full illustrations that Gemini created for each page.  But you can't flip the pages like you would in storybook mode.

2nd Update: Actually it looks like when I access the link on my phone (as opposed to my laptop) then I can see the full illustrations. 

Another Update: October 9, 2025: After having used this feature a lot in the past few weeks, another frustration I have is that I can't edit the texts. There are some times when I'm relatively happy with the illustrations, but want to tinker with the text a bit.  But you can't.  I imagine (hope) that in the future Google will fix this so that you can do some light editing of the text if you want to improve it.

Update July 13, 2026: In order to help out some of my colleagues at work, I created instructions to help: docs, pub

1. Go to https://gemini.google/overview/storybook/

2. Use this prompt:

Create a storybook for young ESL students to introduce vocabulary related to the topic of __________. Make sure to include the following vocabulary:__________. Remember this is for students who are learning English as a second language, so keep the language as simple as possible. 

Or this one:

Create a storybook for young ESL students to introduce vocabulary related to the topic of __________. Make sure to include the following vocabulary:__________. Remember this is for students who are learning English as a second language, so keep the language as simple as possible.  If possible, please also include some humorous elements to keep the students entertained.

Using AI to Create Images for Clarifying Grammar and Vocabulary

(TESOL Ideas--Useful Websites or Apps)

A couple weeks ago, I made a post explaining how AI could be used to make pictures to illustrate student generated sentences.  

It probably goes without saying that AI could also be used to illustrate teacher generated sentences.  But I'm going to say it anyway.
Long time ESL/TESOL teachers will no doubt be familiar with scouring Google images to find the perfect picture to illustrate your grammar or vocabulary lesson.  With simple vocabulary like "apple", of course, it was always easy to find what you were looking for.  But for more difficult vocabulary or grammar, finding the perfect picture to illustrate your lesson was a lot more difficult.  (If you look back through my archives, you can certainly find examples of me struggling to find the perfect image to illustrate my sentences.  A prime example is my jokes slideshows, but there are lots more examples I could point to.)

Well, now instead of having to find an image online, you can just create an image.  You can tell AI exactly what kind of image you want, and it will create it for you.

I've recently discovered this is very useful for teaching phonics.  I am currently teaching CVC -at words (e.g. mat, cat, rat, vat, sat, bat, hat, pat) and I was trying to find a graded reader that used only CVC -at words.  And then it occurred to me, I could just make up my own reader, by getting Google Gemini to create illustrations for my sentences.  I then copied those sentences over to a slideshow (slides, pub) to create a reader for my class.

...actually while I was doing this, Google Gemini suggested to me that I might want to create a picture book using their new Storybook feature.  And I found that the storybook feature is very useful.  But I'll talk about that in a separate post.  Stay tuned.

Using AI to Illustrate Student Generated Sentences

(TESOL Ideas--Useful Websites, Writing)

I've got a lot of mixed feelings about AI but, it is a thing that exists, and I suppose we might as well take advantage of it when it's useful.

One use of AI that I've recently realized is that it's very useful for creating pictures to show students the meaning of their sentences.  

In the past, whenever my students messed up the syntax of a sentence, I used to spend a lot of time trying to explain to my students that their sentence meant something completely different than what they thought it did.
For example, I remember back in Cambodia I taught an advanced level writing class for many terms, and the students had to write an essay on the topic of deforestation.  For whatever reason, every term several students would write something like "the trees are cutting down."  And I would always go around to the students and say, "No, no, the trees aren't the ones who are doing the cutting.  What you've written looks like this..." and then I would try to draw a picture of a tree with arms cutting something down with a saw.  I'm not much of an artist, though, so I'm not sure my students go the point.

But if I was teaching that class now, I could simply put the sentence into Google Gemini and ask Gemini to create a picture for that sentence. 

The idea of trees cutting down people is of course nonsense, but I've discovered that Google Gemini is actually pretty good about illustrating nonsensical sentences.  For example if you give it a sentence like: "The hotdog is writing a book" or "The chair is riding a bike" then it will create images with an anthropomophic hotdog or chair doing those things.  

This can be good for teaching parts of speech with madlib style sentence games in which you are encouraging students to put together nouns and verbs in creative or humerous ways, and then show them the results, and I've recently used it successfully with 5th grade students.  Gemini is also pretty good with illustrating adjectives, so you can encourage students to add in extra adjectives like "The old smelly angry chair is riding a bike", and then you and the students can have fun viewing the result.

In my experience, it sometimes takes Gemini 30 seconds to a minute to generate an image, but I will use this time to get the students to tell me what kind of image they think Gemini will produce.  Then when the image does generate, we check our predictiosn agains the result.

I've also been using word cards to aid low-level students in creating these sentences, but more on that in a future post.

Make Sentences to Practice Vocabulary Words Using Quizziz

(TESOL Ideas--Any Vocabulary Set, Useful Websites)

Recently, I remarked to a colleague that I was having trouble thinking of new ideas for semi-controlled practice in my vocabulary lessons.  

Basically, in my vocabulary lessons, I had two ideas for semi-controlled practice that I used over and over again: either students are instructed to write a sentence, or, to increase the challenge, students write a sentence using the make sentences game.  But with some of the classes that I've had for a long time, the students were getting tired of these games.

"I need a new way to do semi-controlled practice for vocabulary," I said to my colleague.

He suggested I might try to make things fresh by using a website like quizziz.  

I've mentioned https://quizizz.com/ before on this blog (here and here), but in addition to what I've previously talked about, another feature is that it has questions with open-ended answers.

So, you can write in a prompt like: Make a sentence using the word "educate".

Now, there's no way for the quizziz website to determine which answers are right or wrong, and consequently the website can't award points like it normally does.  (So some of the fun game element is unfortunately removed), but students do sometimes enjoy just getting a chance to use their phones and tablets during the lesson, and it is something different.  I don't do this every lesson, but when I think students are getting sick of writing sentences up on the whiteboard, I'll make a quizziz activity for the semi-controlled practice instead.  

At the end of the quizziz activity, I can see all the sentences the students have written, and we can go over them together and discuss them as a class.

Quizziz also offers the option to put pictures in the prompts, which can make the exercise a bit more controlled.  So, instead of saying "write a sentence using the word 'educate'", you can say: Make a sentence describing this picture. Use the word "educate".

See here for an example of such an activity I made using quizziz.  (This was for a vocabulary lesson from page 83 of Impact 4).

Make Your Own Board Game from Flippity.net

And yet-another resource from Flippity.net.

Board Games can be used for  a wide variety of purposes (vocabulary, grammar, or speaking prompts.)  

In the  past, I've used it to adapt a set of speaking prompts from recently used it to review a vocabulary set from Impact 3, Unit 8, p.128-130.

Here is an example of the template (docs, pub).  And here is the link for the game play.

Make Your Own Quiz Show from Flippity.net

This is another great resource from Flippity.net.  It can be used for many things--to review vocabulary, or grammar, or even to give feedback on specific information questions from a reading exercise.

I've recently used it to review a vocabulary set from Impact 3, Unit 8, Speaking Strategy p.131

Here is an example of the template (docs, pub).  And here is the link for the game play.

I'm going to add this resource to my list of Useful Websites for Teaching.

https://www.baamboozle.com/ --  Useful Websites for Teaching English

I was talking to a colleague recently, and she mentioned that she uses the website Baamboozle in a lot of her lessons.
The name sounded familiar.  I had definitely heard this website mentioned in the teachers' room before.  (In fact, correct me if I'm wrong, but was this website a lot more popular like about 5 years ago?  I feel like I used to hear it mentioned more in the past.)

Anyway, I may be a bit late to the Baamboozle party, but I'm always looking for new tricks, so I checked the website out.

Like all of these websites, there's a basic version that you get for free, and then a more advanced version that you have to pay money for.  And, like all of these websites, I'm only going to do the free version.

The basic version appears to be somewhat of a one trick pony.  You can design quiz games suitable for doing an all class quiz using the projector.  It's very similar to Hurricane, but you can play it right off of the computer instead of having to write the grid up on the white board.

The questions are designed and inputted by the teacher, and can be about anything.  So this website is easily adaptable for any grammar point or any vocabulary set.  For reading lessons, you can input specific information questions and use it for a kind of scanning race game.

This website works best if you create an account.  (You can create a free account using your email address.)  Once you create a free account, you can create games.  You can also play the games with up to 4 teams.

However, you can still play the games in your class without creating an account.  You'll just be limited to only 2 teams in the class.

Anyway, I've created an account now, and have started created games.  My Baamboozle profile is here.  I've got a few games created, and I'm hoping to add to that in the future. 

Using quizziz.com for Reading

Last year, I linked to https://quizizz.com/ .  

At that time, I tagged it as a useful site for grammar and vocabulary, but I've recently been discovering that it also works very well in reading lessons.  

Because it allows the students to work through the questions at their own pace, it can be easily used for reading questions that require scanning for specific information.  Students scan through the text until they find the answer to the question, and then they move onto the next one.

It's a bit like Socrative in that regard.  Although quizziz seems to have a lot more bells and chimes that give students the feeling that they're playing a game.  (Although on Socrative's side, I do find Socrative more useful for tracking which individual students have missed which specific questions.  Possibly I'm missing something with quizziz, but I find Socrative more useful for trying to target which students are having problems with which questions.)

Here is a reading activity I made on quizziz.com for the reading text on Unit 2 p.26-27 in Impact 4.

https://quizizz.com/admin/quiz/6471c8dc4100ca001d3da02a?source=quiz_share

And yet another useful website for TESOL teachers is Gimkit (https://www.gimkit.com/).  This website is useful for creating games to review vocabulary sets.

In a previous post, I talked about how I had discovered the website Blooket, and then I had spread Blooket among the other teachers at my school.  

While, about a year ago, I started hearing some of my colleagues talk about a new website called "Gimkit".  Which they described as "exactly like Blooket, but much, much better."

I previously described Blooket as "just like Kahoot, but with more bells and whistles".  Well, Gimkit can safely be described as "just like Blooket, but with more bells and whistles."  (I guess this is how the world of computer apps works, huh?  Everyone is constantly trying to create an app that's better than the previous app.)

Gimkit is indeed very impressive, and some of its games are arguably better than Blooket.  (The Gimkit games are definitely more complex and involved than the Blooket games.)

The problem, though, is Gimkit really wants your money.

On Blooket, all the important features are completely free.

Gimkit only has a couple free games, and all the good stuff is behind the paywall.

And I suppose I speak for most impoverished TESOL teachers when I say that I'm not going to pay for classroom games out of my own pocket.

Nevertheless, there are a couple games on Gimkit that you can play for free, and I've been getting good use out of these free games.

The games that are freely available appear to change over time.  (Last year, "Capture the Flag" and "Snowbrawl" were free, and I got a lot of good use out of both of those games.  Now, those games are for paid subscribers only, so I've had to switch to other free games.)

A few of my colleagues have been able to get access to the premium games by signing up for free trials, but I could never get my free trial to work for some reason.  (This appears to be just some sort of glitch on my account.  Or who knows, maybe I was doing something wrong)  

I even had one colleague who claimed to just keep signing up for free trial after free trial, and claimed to be able to exploit the system that way for unlimited access to the premium games.

But all of this was last year.  I'm not even sure the free trials are still a thing at Gimkit anymore.

The functionality of Gimkit is pretty much exactly the same as Blooket.  Gimkit is better, but the general idea is exactly the same.  So I'm not going to repeat everything I said for Blooket.  Just see my previous post on Blooket.  (And, just like on Blooket, Gimkit allows you to import quizzes from Quizlet, so that's great for me.)

To sum up: even though all the best stuff is behind the paywall, there's still a few good games on Gimkit that you can do for free, so I do still use it occasionally in my classroom.  I alternate it with Blooket.  When my students are beginning to get sick of the Blooket games near the end of term, I usually switch things up by doing some Gimkit.

Another useful website for TESOL teachers is Blooket (https://www.blooket.com/).  This website is useful for creating games to review vocabulary sets.

Blooket is like Kahoot and other websites in the sense that this is another game in which the teacher logs into the website, launches the game from their computer, gives the class a game code, and then the class goes to the join game address (https://play.blooket.com/play) and joins the game from the smart phone or other device.  In other words, this is yet another website which requires all the students to have their own devices.  (Which, of course, is nowadays not an issue in many contexts.)

I first discovered Blooket while teaching online during the Covid lockdown period.  I was covering a class for another teacher (online) and I asked the class what games they liked to do, and they answered "Blooket".  I had never heard of that game before, but the teaching assistant for that class guided me on how to go to the website and conduct that game.

I've since then introduced a number of my colleagues to Blooket, and it's taken over our school by storm.  All the teachers and students love it.

I've been describing Blooket to my colleagues as "a much more gamified version of Kahoot" or "like Kahoot, but with a lot more bells and whistles".

The bad news is that you need to create an account and log into Blooket before you can see or do anything.  I don't think you can even see the games that other teachers have created without creating an account first.  (It is possible to share links to Blooket games that you've created, but that other teacher will have to create an account before they can access it.)

The good news is that it's very easy to create an account with Blooket.  In fact, Blooket just let's you login through your Google Account, so that's what I've been doing for the past year and a half.

And the really good news is that Blooket has made it very easy to import your quizzes from quizlet into Blooket.  

If you login into Blooket, they even have step by step instructions on how to import your quizlet quizzes into Blooket.  

So if you're like me, and you already have tons of materials already created for quizlet, then it's super easy to just transfer them over to Blooket.  (Once you learn how to do it, then it takes like 2 minutes to transfer a quizlet set over to Blooket.)  I'm not sure how the people at quizlet feel about this little feature, but it works great for Blooket.

Then, once you launch the quiz, there's several game modes to choose from (I usually let the students choose), then the game code is created, the students join, and the game starts.

The teacher can decide the length of the game time before starting, but the recommended time for most games is 7 minutes, and I usually go with that.  (When you start a game, you have a choice of selecting rather the game ends after a certain amount of time, or after a certain amount of points. When I first started using Blooket, I made the mistake of selecting that the game would end after a certain amount of points.  The teaching assistant tried to warn me that this would make the game go on for far too long, and he was right.  It's usually best to just select the 7 minute time limit.)

Unlike Kahoot, once the game starts, the teacher can't actually see the questions from their end.  The teacher's screen only displays the point totals.  But the teacher can't actually see what questions the students are answering.  So, unlike Kahoot, I can't really comment on the questions or explain things when students get the questions  wrong.  I just sit at the front and do nothing.  (There are a couple game modes which are an exception to this--classic, and battle royale--which operate more like the Kahoot model.)

For this reason, I never use Blooket to introduce new vocabulary.  It's only used to consolidate vocabulary sets we've already studied. (e.g. review all the vocabulary from the previous unit, etc.)

There are days when I feel a bit funny standing up at the front of the class with nothing to do for 7 minutes while students play Blooket.  But there are also days when I quite like it--say, on a Monday morning, when Blooket gives me 7 minutes to quietly drink my coffee while the students play the game.

There is an ongoing debate in my staffroom about how useful games like Kahoot, quizlet, Blooket, etc are for language learning.

I myself have made a lot of use of quizlet over the years in my own language study--both to learn Vietnamese and to study TESOL terminology.  I've found that quizlet is very useful for helping me to memorize certain terminology--for example, words that have a simple definition, or a one-to-one correspondence with the L1.  For example, "dog" is "cho" in Vietnamese, "cat" is "meo" in Vietnamese, etc.  Those kind of simple definitions are very useful on quizlet.

Longer definitions or more abstract words don't work as well, however, because after a certain point my brain doesn't really pay attention to the meaning of the definition, it just looks for other clues.  For example: "This is the definition that's really long, so it's this word" or "this is the definition that's really short, so it's this word" or "this is the definition that's got a blank in the middle, so it's this word", etc.

I think all of this applies to Blooket as well.  (My Blooket sets are, after all, simply imported from my quizlet sets.)  Blooket/Quizlet can be potentially very useful for memorizing words with simple definitions, but less useful for longer definitions.

But I do have to confess, these days I just primarily use Blooket to help me manage late students.

Blooket is a 7 minute game that students can join in on at any point during the game.  So if a student walks into class late, they can just see the game code and join the game without disrupting the class.

(There are a couple game modes which do not allow late joiners--Blookrush, Battle Royale--but most of the game modes allow students to join at any time.)

The game code is displayed on the computer screen throughout the entire game, so if you're using a projector for your computer screen, students can already see it.  But just to make it super obvious, I always write the game code in really big numbers on the white board.  So as students come in late, I just point them to the game code on the white board.

In my context, in the 8:00 am class I usually have very few students on time, so I just run the Blooket for the first 7 minutes to allow students to trickle in late without disturbing the class. 

Yet another useful website for teachers is Socrative (https://www.socrative.com/ ).

I found out about this website from my colleagues.  It's been very popular in the staffroom that I currently work in.

It is one of those websites where you have to create an account before you can access anything.  (Without an account, you can't even access activities that other people share with you.)  But creating the account is easy to do, and it's absolutely free--at least for the basic version.

The primary drawback to the basic account is that it only allows you to save 5 quizzes in your library at one time.  If you want to create more than 5 quizzes, you need to delete one of your old quizzes first.  

This isn't a problem if you're never planning on re-using your quizzes.  But if you are like me, if you like saving and archiving all of your material so that you never have to plan the same lesson twice, then it can be annoying.  (Although you can sort of get around this by saving the questions and answers on a Google doc.  Then you only have to copy and paste the questions and answers to re-create the quiz.)

[You could always pay for the premium version, and be able to store unlimited quizzes in your Socrative library.  But I long ago decided that, as a matter or principle, I would never pay extra money to use a website in the classroom.  There are already so many other free websites out there. And besides, as an English Teacher, I'm not exactly a rich man.  Although you can always try to convince your school to pay for the premium account.]

Anyway, once you've created the quiz, you launch it, and the students go to gosocrative.com and enter the room code.  (This is yet another website, like Kahoot or Quizziz, etc, where the teacher starts the game from the classroom computer, and the students join the game from their smartphone or other device.  In other words, you would only want to use this website in a class where everyone had devices.  In my context, it is assumed nowadays that all students have smartphones on them, so it's not a problem.  In fact if anything, the problem is too much smartphone use during class, and so a lot of my colleagues say that one of the reasons they like to use websites like Socrative is in order to occupy the smartphones, so that students aren't checking social media during the lesson instead.)

Anyway...

the primary benefit of Socrative is that I can see my students answers displayed on my computer screen in real-time.  Which makes it easy to give feedback in real-time.  "Everyone has number 1 correct.  Good job class.  John, check number 2 again.  Alice, you wrote too much for number 3.  I only need the name of his job.  I don't need you to copy the whole sentence." etc.

Of course my CELTA tutor would say that this is what teachers should be doing anyway: monitoring students answers and microteaching during a reading activity.  But it's always awkward to look over the student's shoulder, and you can only see one student at once, and it's often hard to get around the whole room.  With Socrative, I can see all the answers clearly displayed right there on my computer screen.

The danger, though, is because I'm stuck upfront at the classroom computer, I find myself calling out to students from across the room when they have the wrong answer.  Which has the potential to embarrass some of the more sensitive students.  Something to keep in mind when using this website.

There are, of course, any number of ways alternative ways you could manage it.  (e.g. only congratulating students with correct answers, stepping away from the computer to quietly talk to students with wrong answers, etc.)  You can use your own judgement.

In my staffroom, a number of my colleagues like to use Socrative for listening lessons.  In these lessons, they share the audio file with the students electronically through the school website.  The students download the audio file on their devices, and listen to the audio with headphones.  While listening, they answer the questions on Socrative.

My colleagues are fond of this approach, because if the students get a question wrong, the teacher can see it on the computer, and give them immediate feedback.  The student can then rewind the audio to the appropriate part, and re-listen as many times as they need to get the answer.

My colleagues are really fond of this approach because it allows the students to control how often they listen to the audio, and at what pace they answer the questions.  (i.e. it's supposed to build learner autonomy).

I've never actually done a listening lesson like this, just because I keep imagining all the potential for things to go wrong.  (At least one student in the class is going to forget to bring his headphones, right?  Someone else is probably going to have trouble downloading the audio file, etc.)  But my colleagues claim to have had great success with these Socrative lessons.  I may try it out one days.

So far, I have been using Socrative for reading lessons.  

I usually use it once, possibly twice, a term, but no more than that.  It's the kind of thing where the novelty of it is really fun for the students at first, and it can be a great way to add some variety to my lessons. But once the students get used to it, the novelty factor wears off quickly, and then it's time to try out other activities instead.

To see an example activity, HERE is a link to a Socrative Activity I made for Unit 7 Reading 2: Alaska's Pebble Mine: Minerals vs. Nature p.193-199 from Q: Skills for Success: Reading and Writing 4.  You won't be able anything unless you create an account.  Also, with apologies, I'll probably end up deleting it in 6 months because I'll need the space in my library to make new quizzes.  But the questions and suggested answers can still be found on this Google Doc HERE, so it should be easy to recreate the quiz again with a little copying and pasting.

1. Besides the living, breathing resources of Bristol Bay, what other kinds of resources are there?

the inorganic resources--oil and gas and mineral deposits

2. What is special about the copper deposit discovered in Bristol Bay?

It is the largest known untapped copper resource in the world

3. Why is the Pebble Mine project controversial?

It could harm the fishing industry

4. What would be the positive effects of building the Pebble Mine?

create jobs and bring in revenue

5. How do most Alaskans feel about the Pebble Mine project?

oppose the mine

6. What three different groups united together to ask the Federal Government to intervene?

commercial fisherman, native tribes, and concerned citizens

7. According to Gine McCarthy, what two things would Pebble Mine have a bad effect on?

On Bristol Bay watershed and its abundant salmon

8. Who was happy about the EPAs decision in 2014?

the environmentalists

9. Who was not happy about the EPAs decision in 2014?

the Pebble Partnership

10. Why does Tom Collier believe that the EPA did not act fairly?

He believes they have been unduly influenced by environmental advocacy organizations

11. What will the company trying to build Pebble Mine do about the results?

Not going to give up / continue to try and gain the EPA's approval to move forward

12. What is Bill Sherwonit’s job?

Nature writer

Another useful website for TESOL teachers is: https://wordwall.net/

This website became very popular at my school during the Covid-19 shutdown.  Teachers liked it because it was very easy to create word matching games on, and then very easy to share with the students once these games were created.  

Unlike websites like Kahoot or Quizlet Live, students didn't need to enter any sort of game code, they just got the linke (or scanned the QR code) and they were good to go.

I have to confess I was never a huge fan of Wordwall for the reason that it was difficult for me as a teacher to verify that the students were actually playing the game. (Or at least, it was difficult for me to verify in an online class.  Now that we're back face-to-face, I can just look over their shoulder and check.)  There is an option for students to write their name on the top scorer section, but it's optional, and in order for me to check it while the students are playing, I need to keep refreshing the page.

Nevertheless, a lot of the supplemental material that my colleagues are creating these days is on Wordwall, so I thought I should share the website here.

Another useful website for TESOL teachers is: https://quizizz.com/

As with my post on Kahoot.com, I suspect a lot of other teachers are way ahead of me on this one.  

At my school, this website is very popular with a lot of my colleagues, and I myself am only just barely beginning to get started with it.

At the moment, I haven't created any quizizz myself, but have only used ones that my colleagues have created or found.  It seems to be possible to use already created quizizz without creating an account.  (Or sometimes I just log in with my Google account--which is another option.)

Also as with Kahoot, be aware that these game require the students to have their own devices (smart phones or iPads, etc), in order to play along.

It's somewhat similar to Kahoot, but there is an option for the students to work through the questions at their own pace while the teacher's computer displays the evolving total scores.  Students seem to like it.

Update: October 1st, 2025: The website has changed its name to Wayground: https://wayground.com/admin

A really useful website for TESOL teachers: https://kahoot.com/

I've linked to individual quizzes from this website several times over the past few years (HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE).  But it recently occurred to me that I never introduced the website generally on this blog before.  So here we are.

Actually in my context, Kahoot has become so commonplace at the schools that I work at that I had just assumed everybody everywhere already knew about it.  But then recently it occurred to me that games and activities that are incredibly common in one context are often unknown in another context.  So I should probably introduce this website.

If you aren't already using it, it's worth checking out.  It's incredibly versatile both for grammar and vocabulary.  

Although if by some strange chance you've not encountered it before, be aware that it does require the students to have their own devices.  In other words, the students will all need to have their own smart phones or iPads or whatever in order for the game to work.

My own profile is here.  On my profile is both the Kahoot quizzes that I've created, and also quizzes that I've duplicated from other teachers.

I'm going to index this website in my list of Activities that can be used for Any Grammar Point, Activities that can be used for Any Vocabulary Set, and Useful Websites.

Matching Game at flippity.net

I'm late in linking to this, but several months ago a colleague of mine alerted me to https://www.flippity.net/ as a great resource for teaching online.

Unfortunately, shortly after he alerted me to it, flippity.net started having problems as a result of the Google security upgrade.  (Flippity.net relies on Google spreadsheets.)  The website owner explains all about it HERE.  (This is, I believe, the same security upgrade which changed the links to all of my Google Drive Folders.)

But although some parts of flippity.net are still having problems, the matching game seems to still be working fine.  I know this because I've used it several times in the past few months.  Very useful for studying vocabulary sets.  And much easier to work with than the Pelmanism for Google Slides game I posted last year.

Here is a Kahoot Quiz I found on the present perfect and present perfect continuous.  (original HERE and my duplicate here--create, play).

I used it in my own class as a controlled when teaching a lesson on the present perfect and present perfect continuous, and it worked well. 

Here is a Kahoot Quiz I found on past simple and present simple passive voice.  (original HERE and my duplicate here--create, play).

I used it in my own class as a controlled when teaching a lesson on the past simple passive, and it worked reasonably well. 

Wheel of Names--Phrasal Verbs

This is a link to an online activity using phrasal verbs.  Students click on the wheel to spin it.  Then they have to make a sentence or story using the phrasal verb that comes up.  I used this in a lesson of mine for phrasal verbs, and it worked reasonably well.

Here is a Kahoot Quiz I found on phrasal verbs.  (original HERE and my duplicate here--create, play).

I used it in my own class as a controlled when teaching phrasal verbs, and it worked reasonably well.