Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

Roxxem teaches new languages by integrating song lyrics with interactive learning activities for individuals and classrooms. Members choose from hundreds of songs to learn Spanish, French, Chinese, or German. Roxxem's technology features allow participants to find the right songs for their learning level, from beginner to advanced, and easily integrate into classroom learning opportunities with study games and live classroom activities. After creating a free account, search for songs, lyrics, or words. Use filters to adjust levels and maturity song content ratings. Select a song to play games, including Whack-a-Word, Play Lyric Puzzle, Learn Lesson, or Assign for HW (only available with paid accounts). Free accounts include access to all songs, personalized lessons, study games, and live classroom activities. The videos are hosted on YouTube. If your district blocks YouTube, then they may not be viewable.

Customize and share personalized Wordles based upon the popular word game, Wordle, reviewed here using Make a Custom Wordle. Enter a word of any length (unlike the original word for five-letter words only) to generate a shareable link for your word. Make a Custom Wordle also offers the option to create words in several languages, including Spanish, French, Hindi, and German. Share the link with students using email, classroom management system, or class website. When complete, copy the URL to share by pasting it into an email or your blog or classroom website.

Create and share personalized learning activities using tools found at Learning Apps. Use the templates to create tools in various formats, including games, matching exercises, puzzles, and cloze reading texts. Begin by selecting a template and choosing an option from the examples provided. Next, add information to fill in each of the parts of the template, such as title, description, image, and links or content. When finished, view the preview, then save the app to your account. Editor's note: this site includes apps that are ready to use; however, many are not in English. In addition, a small portion of instructions for building an app may be in a different language, use a translating tool such as the one found at Linguee, reviewed here, to see the directions in English.

Harness the power of videos to teach languages with TeachVid's learning resources. TeachVid uses tools to make world languages understandable using subtitles and text transcripts. Students use Learn Mode to watch videos as many times as they like, with or without captions and transcripts. Educators use Activity Mode to split activities into learning tasks that provide feedback and student progress tracking. Choose from a variety of activities including fill in the gap, ordering words to create sentences, and filling in missing letters. Free accounts offer access to featured resources and the option to create up to 5 personalized resources. If your district blocks YouTube, then the videos may not be viewable.

Learn a language through favorite music videos with LyricsTraining. This very engaging site offers an extensive collection of videos in several genres. Choose from top lyrics to begin or scroll through the home page to view new lyrics. Select a language to narrow down choices. Once you select a video, choose from four different levels - the hardest requires you to fill in all the words of the song! Choose also to fill in the blanks or select responses from the four provided options. Registration isn't required; however, it allows you to save favorites and create your own customized exercises. If your district blocks YouTube, then the videos may not be viewable.
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Symbaloo, reviewed here, has taken its popular bookmarking tool and enhanced features to provide a platform for creating virtual interactive lesson plans and learning paths. Log in to your Symbaloo account and browse the Marketplace for already created lessons, or begin creating your own. Add websites, PDFs, videos, and more onto tiles and create a game board and learning path. Follow prompts to add items to the lesson and publish when complete. Symbaloo Lesson Plans & Learning Paths also provides analytics after assigning lessons to view student progress and a calendar option to make lessons available during a chosen time frame.

Quizlet Live is a classroom quiz game for groups created by the makers of Quizlet, reviewed here. Follow directions to create and share a quiz set and assign to student teams. At least six students are needed to create and play a Quizlet Live game. When students receive the code and log in, they find other team members and begin competing. Accuracy is encouraged over speed, providing a wrong answer will send teams back to start from the beginning of the quiz.

Track learning in real-time with Quizalize. Student answers are color-coded on the teacher dashboard for ease in identifying who needs more help. Create scrambled word, multiple choice questions, and ChapGPT quizzes, and each question can have a custom timer. View reports for each student's progress and learning gaps. Create a quiz or select one from Quizalize's growing library. Quizzes can be "gamified" by showing the teacher dashboard as a leaderboard to see progress against other contestents. Quizalize works on any device with a browser and Internet connection. Sign up with an email and password. Create a quiz, assign it to classes, get a code, give it to students, and let the fun begin! The free account provides 3 classes and 5 activities.

Looking for a quiz tool that is better than all the rest? Quizizz is a free tool. It works on any device: web browser, iOS, Android and Chrome apps. You can access hundreds of ready-made learning quizzes or create your own. Join as a teacher, pick a quiz, and use the code for a virtual room to give to your students. Alternatively, you can create your own quiz on Quizizz, even importing questions from excel/CSV files with just a click of a button. Students use the code to enter and submit a nickname, code name, or numerical name (students do not have to register). Quizizz now has to be marked as trusted by an administrator to be able to use it with your Google Classroom account, even if you have been using it. With Google Classroom, students can join by signing in with their Google Account with just one click. Even better, if you assign a Quizizz through Google Classroom, all your data gets updated in your Classroom dashboard. You will get notifications when students complete assignments and their responses and grades show. Teachers can choose to make their quizzes public or private. Embed images with your questions. Check or uncheck the settings, including music. You can even duplicate an existing quiz to save into My Quizizz. A created Quizizz can have randomized or non-randomized questions.

Don't miss the memes that are displayed when students answer a question; these are sure to be a hit with students. You can also customize your Quizizz by creating your own Memes. Use images of the school mascot, students' pets, or favorite game characters to create a set of ten or more memes. Click the My Memes from the top menu, then the plus symbol. You are now ready to start. Be sure to Click "Start Game" after students have entered the code. Send the game link to students (or other teachers to use with their classes) by email, website, or social media. Set time limits of 30 seconds to 5 minutes for students to answer each question. This allows more time for more complex questions. Students earn points for speed and accuracy. Unlike other sites, both teacher and students can see the questions, answers, and the leaderboard throughout the quiz. Most other tools require the teacher to project the answers and leaderboard on a whiteboard. The leaderboard can be turned OFF in this tool as well. And, what is the best part of this tool? Two separate classes can play together using this tool. Quizizz works on any web-enabled device, including smartphones and tablets, and has an iOS app.

You can now email student reports to parents (even send the student reports to multiple/all parents at once), the main navigation bar has moved from the top to the left, and there is a search bar that you can access on all pages, and now you can search both your quizzes and your reports. Quizizz is now available in Spanish and will soon be adding other languages. Don't miss their new Jungle theme with music, backgrounds, and GIFs... oh my!

Help Noah learn Spanish with Abuela, Coco, and Pequeno, his Spanish speaking friends. Navigate through interactive games and adventure videos using both Spanish and English. Don't miss the free printables. Find Noah engaged in dialogue saying words in English, a character repeats in Spanish, and Noah repeats the Spanish word. Print-out activities include: coloring a playground by Spanish numbers, learning the names of tools and eating utensils in Spanish, practice Spanish colors, and play Spanish Bingo. Turn on closed captioning to see the Spanish word as it is spoken.

This site offers English lessons for ENL/ELL students beginning from their native language. All directions and vocabulary are in their first language. Learn by clicking on the topic you would like to pursue. Listen to the pronunciation of the new vocabulary while looking at its translation. Activities that review the vocabulary include flash cards that are in the first language on one side and English on the other, tic-tac-toe games and concentration games. Quizzes show the words and phrases studied in your first language. Select the answer based on the English words and phrases heard. If computers have microphones, students can also record their own voices pronouncing the vocabulary words and then immediately listen to how they sound.
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Games to Learn English is a collection of games for ENL/ELL students or any student learning the basics of English and/or reading. Created for students of English language learners, the many activities focus on developing vocabulary, comprehension, grammar, word order, and spelling skills. Choose from interactives such as Fast Hands and Concentration to begin. Each activity includes directions for play and scoring explanations, and most have playing speed options.
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This site has many games available for downloading or using online including card games, board games, and Valentine's Day bingo. Select a category such as Vocabulary Games, Speaking Games, Grammar Games, Scoring Systems, Number Games, and others.