Course Materials

Course Materials 

You will have several student accounts that will allow you to gain access to all course materials. Upon registration, each student will receive 2 emails instructing them on how to create student accounts for Canvas and Ellii. Please find a brief description of our course materials below. 

Canvas (Online Classroom)

Canvas is a premier learning management system in the United States employed by many Universities and large school districts across the country including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, and Houston Independent School District (the 4th largest school district in the country).

We use Canvas as our ONLINE CLASSROOM. All Course Materials can be found on the platform.

What is Canvas?

Canvas is our online classroom. You will find the entire course curriculum housed in Canvas. 

This means you will find all class assignments and reference materials located on Canvas such as:

Links to Ellii.com, Peardecks, .pdf’s (worksheets), links to multi-media resources, course textbooks, Linguahouse .pdf’s and audios with transcripts.

 

Additionally, on Canvas, you will find your Attendance records, Grades, and the Course Syllabus.

Description of Tools and Class Materials located in Canvas?

  • Peardecks (Lessons in the form of Interactive Google Slides) Students can write directly on slides and type answers to posed questions per slide. All student work is automatically visible to the course instructor. Students can also view classmates responses by question when the teacher shows student response view in class. Peardeck lessons commonly include authentic YouTube videos integrated into the lesson, vocabulary, reading, and writing practice.
  • Interactive .pdf files of many of the Peardeck, Ellii and, Linguahouse lessons. (From a computer), students may type, highlight, and otherwise mark-up all .pdf files in Canvas.
  • Ellii links: For each Interactive Ellii lesson that is incorporated into the curriculum, students will find an assignment placeholder in Canvas. Once the student opens the assignment in Canvas, they will find a link that will take them to their Ellii student account along with the name of the specific assignment. Once in Ellii, students can complete all activities associated with the assignment.

Ellii (Interactive Lessons)

Typically 8 – 12 activities are included within each Ellii lesson.

These activities are composed of the following:

Instructive Videos (with subtitles)

Dialogues (with transcripts)

Reading Passages (with audio)

Interactive Practice Exercises: 

  • vocabulary activities (matching, drag and drop, pairing phrases)
  • multiple-choice questions
  • open-ended questions
  • Short answer responses
  • partner work
  • role-play assignments
  • speaking questions that require students to record a verbal response

Quizlet (Interactive Vocabulary Practice)

Students will sign up for a Free Quizlet Vocabulary account.

We commonly use quizlet in class to practice new vocabulary.

Quizlet is an excellent tool for increasing and improving our vocabulary.

It includes the following features: 

Whole Class Competition: The quizlet app allows students to compete with one another in vocabulary practice activities during class.

Flashcards (with audio)

Learn (students practice choosing the correct definition for the term)

Test (Questions: fill in the blank, true/false, matching, written)

Match (Pair the vocabulary word with the correct definition)

All Vocabulary activities are scored immediately after each question to inform the student of what was incorrect as well as correct answers 

As a class, we will add more and more vocabulary sets into our Quizlet Vocabulary accounts throughout the cycle. Students have 24/7 access to their Quizlet accounts. They can practice with any of the above activities as often and as much as they would like at times most individually convenient for each student.

Class WhatsApp Group

Upon registration, you will be added to our class WhatsApp group. All students participating in the course as well as the course instructor are in this chat group. Here, you can practice speaking English with your classmates, leave audio responses to some class assignments, and the course instructor will use WhatsApp to communicate important class information including daily homework assignments and reminders that class has started. If you ever have any questions, you can message the course instructor through the WhatsApp group or direct any of your questions to your classmates.