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Educator's Paradise

Rated 4.75 out of 5, based on 55 reviews
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La Conner, Washington, United States
About the store
I have three decades of experience mentoring fellow teachers one-on-one, through in-services, as an ESL teacher trainer for Oxford Seminars, and as a conference presenter for TESOL EVO, and VWBPE. Currently, I am developing and delivering online ESL courses at SLESL.net that make use of situational role-playing, games, mysteries, and machinimas.
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Preview of Trial Facts for the Killing of Mr. Griffin

Trial Facts for the Killing of Mr. Griffin

A murder is described and other information about trials is given to enable your students to act as the witnesses, criminals, lawyers, and judge. Some students will need a lot of help preparing trial questions, and the teacher will most likely need to be the judge, but higher level students can take over all the roles, and a video of their trial is a wonderful souvenir for them.
Preview of Survival Game

Survival Game

A fun way for students to learn important emergency survival facts and to get students talking. Students can play as individuals or as teams that must come to a consensus on what they think the correct answer is. I like to have students or team representatives move to different parts of the room designated as the A, B, and C answer choices. Give each team a point on the board for every correct answer; or, if the students are playing as individuals, you may want to give them some token, like a
Preview of Diagramming Practice with Lines and Answer Key

Diagramming Practice with Lines and Answer Key

Decades ago we diagrammed sentences to help us understand their structure. Not all students like to do this, but mathematical-logical students love it (see Gardner´s 8 types of intelligence.) Diagramming is useful to show if we have complete or incomplete sentences, whether a given word in a sentence should be an adverb or an adjective, how prepositions always need objects, etc. On this worksheet I´ve included a series of sentences that move from being very simple to being very complex, and I´ve
Preview of Adjectives for People

Adjectives for People

An extensive alphabetical list of positive adjectives for describing people. There are at least five adjectives for every letter of the alphabet, although the adjectives for the letter “x” all begin with “ex.” I use this as a tool to help students with a getting-to-know-you exercise where they must think of an adjective that describes themselves in a positive way and that also starts with the first letter of their names. If the students have trouble coming up with an adjective I may give t
Preview of Complete Collection of Body Part Idioms

Complete Collection of Body Part Idioms

16 idiom slideshows referring to body parts have been collected into this single PowerPoint. The individual body part slideshows are available separately elsewhere in my store, but you'll save $2.50 by buying this complete collection. There are 2 slides for each of the 225 idioms. The first slide contains a picture based on a literal interpretation of the idiom and the idiom used in a sentence. Elicit suggestions from students as to what the idiom may mean. Then show the next slide which gives t
Preview of Who Killed My Daughter PowerPoint, Facts & Predictions Worksheet, & Test

Who Killed My Daughter PowerPoint, Facts & Predictions Worksheet, & Test

Lois Duncan is a famous author of teen novels. One of her novels, I Know What You Did Last Summer, was made into a movie. However, when Duncan's daughter was murdered, real life came too close to the fiction she was writing. She wrote one more book--Who Killed My Daughter? Have the students fill out the Facts and Predictions Worksheet while they read the book. The PowerPoint sums up all of the most important details. It can be shown as a model of PowerPoints students might make, or it can
Preview of Common Note-Taking Shortcuts & Notes for  Lecture on American vs British English

Common Note-Taking Shortcuts & Notes for Lecture on American vs British English

Students need practice taking notes. Too often they try to write down every word, they don't use enough abbreviations, and they don't interact to what they're hearing while they are listening. So here is a list of many note-taking shortcuts and an efficient notetaking form, plus my notes on a practice mini-lecture I give on the differences between American and British English.
Preview of How-To Speech Ideas, Requirements, and Models

How-To Speech Ideas, Requirements, and Models

It is appropriate to teach some public speaking skills to ESL students in addition to conversation practice. The easiest first speech is a how-to speech since it is usually relatively short and uses visual aids that help keep the speaker focused and give the audience something to stare at besides the speaker. In this file there are a list of many possible how-to speech topics, grading criteria, planning tools, and a visual aid example.
Preview of Verona Daily News—Example of a Newspaper Project for a Different Time Period

Verona Daily News—Example of a Newspaper Project for a Different Time Period

Give your students background on Shakespearean times with this two-page newspaper, or use this as an example of a project students could do while working on literature or the history of different time periods. Includes articles on local crime, inventions, fashion, entertainment, and celebrities.
Preview of Restaurant Roleplay Cards

Restaurant Roleplay Cards

12 roleplay cards for issues that could arise related to restaurants, plus a map of where to place students for the roleplays. Give all the students their cards privately and circulate to answer any questions. Students should not show their cards to each other. Then have the students outside the restaurant start the roleplay. Once they have been seated in the restaurant or moved past it, the waiters take over, then the other customers, then the manager. So this is several roleplays rolled into o
Preview of Vocabulary Assessment with Game Board and Roleplay Spinners

Vocabulary Assessment with Game Board and Roleplay Spinners

If you are uncertain of the real level of your students, you may wish to use this PowerPoint to quickly check how much they know in several basic categories. The 20 slides are arranged from the most basic elements to more complex ideas. You may randomly point to different items on each slide while calling on different students, or you may wish to print out the slides and make spinners or game boards with them. Alternatively, you could select several slides/spinners that groups of students must u
Preview of Romeo and Juliet Discussion Questions

Romeo and Juliet Discussion Questions

Ten discussion questions/writing prompts to help connect what happened in Romeo and Juliet’s time to modern life. Discuss the questions in class, assign them for journal writing, or put them on exams as essay questions.
Preview of 45 Tongue Twisters

45 Tongue Twisters

A collection of 45 tongue twisters on a one-page handout plus several charts showing which sounds or sound contrasts are particularly troublesome for speakers of different languages. Often the problem for our ELL students is that English has sounds that don't exist in the students' native language, so a list is included in this file of those English sounds not found in specific other languages.
Preview of Student Field Trip Proposals—Project Example

Student Field Trip Proposals—Project Example

Students love taking field trips, but the time and paperwork required can deter many teachers from taking their students on these trips. To allow the students to understand the many factors that must be considered and to have a say in the process, I created a field trip proposal project. The students work in teams to prepare PowerPoints that sell their ideas for a class trip. A vote is then held for which trip should actually be taken. The teacher may wish to have several classes go on the f
Preview of Microsoft Publisher for Dummies

Microsoft Publisher for Dummies

Microsoft Publisher is easy to use software that students are not nearly as exposed to as PowerPoint. It can be used to make brochures, timelines, newspapers, and many more printed materials that will be useful to students while they are in school and later when they enter the business world. If you are not familiar with Microsoft Publisher or want some simple instructions that students can refer to, I’ve included in this zipfile simple instructions in three Microsoft Publisher formats-- a bro
Preview of Heart Idioms PowerPoint

Heart Idioms PowerPoint

English language learners of all levels love to learn idioms, and learning idioms is a fun way to begin a class before moving on to more substantial grammar-based work. Do 3-5 idioms per day so as not to overwhelm the students. There are 2 slides for every idiom. The first slide contains a picture based on a literal interpretation of the idiom and the idiom used in a sentence. Elicit suggestions from the class as to what the idiom may mean. Then show the next slide which gives the explanation
Preview of Dog Idioms PowerPoint

Dog Idioms PowerPoint

English language learners of all levels love to learn idioms, and learning idioms is a fun way to begin a class before moving on to more substantial grammar-based work. Each slide in this PowerPoint contains a picture based on a literal interpretation of an idiom, the meaning of the idiom, and the idiom used in a sentence. Do 3-5 idioms per day so as not to overwhelm the students. Crisp, beautiful, and humorous graphics. A PowerPoint containing all the animal idioms in one place is s
Preview of Romeo and Juliet Unit

Romeo and Juliet Unit

All of my Romeo and Juliet files bundled together at a reduced price. Includes: Lecture Notes on Shakespeare's Life, the Middle Ages vs. the Renaissance, and Elizabethan Theatre; Medieval Speak; Romeo and Juliet Discussion Questions; Romeo and Juliet Vocabulary; and the Verona Daily News—An Example of a Newspaper Project for a Different Time Period.
Preview of Grocery Store Conflict--Roleplay Cards

Grocery Store Conflict--Roleplay Cards

12 roleplay cards for issues that could arise related to shopping in a grocery store, plus a map of where to place students for the roleplays. Extra students can observe or become other customers in Cashier #2’s line or elsewhere in the store. If half the class is observing, have them take over the acting for a second run through of the scenes.
Preview of Five Pronoun Rules, Pronoun Exercises, and a Pronoun Auction

Five Pronoun Rules, Pronoun Exercises, and a Pronoun Auction

There are many rules related to pronoun usage in English. I’ve simplified the most common rules into one basic rule with four exceptions and come up with an auction activity to cement these rules into memories. The basic pronoun rule covers 90% of all pronoun usage. Exceptions, in general, drive students crazy. But tell the students that they should be happy there are any rules, since a lot of English usage must simply be memorized. Think about all the irregular verbs and plurals and the di
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About the store

Experience

I have three decades of experience mentoring fellow teachers one-on-one, through in-services, as an ESL teacher trainer for Oxford Seminars, and as a conference presenter for TESOL EVO, and VWBPE. Currently, I am developing and delivering online ESL courses at SLESL.net that make use of situational role-playing, games, mysteries, and machinimas.

Teaching style

Flipped classroom, integrated technology, task-based learning, project-based learning, gamification of learning

Awards & shining teacher moments

Multiple machinima awards, most notably the 2012 MachinEVO award for Best Second Life Animation and the ISTE Awards for Best Film by College Students and Best Acting. For examples of my work, go to: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL02C042E023737F19&feature=mh_lolz .

My own education history

M.A.: Teaching English as a Foreign Language, American University in Cairo; B.A.: Political Science with a minor in Rhetoric, University of California at Berkeley; and A.A.: Public Speaking, Cerritos Community College, Norwalk, CA. Plus 30 units of additional graduate coursework including: UC Riverside courses on teaching online; Ball State University courses on teaching journalism; University of New Mexico courses on incorporating technology into teaching; and Colorado University and CSU San Bernardino courses on reading and writing instruction.

Additional biographical information

PROFESSIONAL STRENGTHS: teacher development, online instruction, curriculum design, intercultural issues , writing/editing, and machinima production.