Projects for Pre-Teens and Teens

Web-based Resources for English Language Teaching & Learning
Leslie Opp-Beckman and Bonny Tibbbitts, University of Oregon 

Article 

Lesson Plans, Teaching Tips and Interactive Web Sites 

If you are interested in projects, you can use a search function and type “project” as a keyword. You will find projects suited for all kinds of situations and age groups and for both online experiences and for use without a computer. Most of the resources are free, but a few are not. Following are some sites for finding projects.

Awesome Library
http://www.awesomelibrary.org/language.html

• This site contains information about several languages. There are links for "Bilingual" and "ESL" and "Lesson Plans". You will need to scroll down to find the English lessons.  

BBC Educational Resource
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learning/

• This site has options for activities for several age groups. If you choose "school" and a particular subject area, you will get a list of interactive web sites and descriptions of what they do and who the intended audience is (e.g. parent, teacher, student). There is a button at the bottom of the page to guide you to lesson plans. 

Enchanted Learning
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/Home.html

• This site has resources for gathering content for young learners. It has vocabulary building materials, lessons and projects. Some of the site is devoted to on line learning.     

Gateway to Educational Materials
http://www.thegateway.org/

• The Gateway to Educational Materials is a Consortium effort to provide educators with quick and easy access to thousands of educational resources found on various federal, state, university, non-profit, and commercial Internet sites. You can browse through lists organized by subject; keywords; subject, title, or grade level. Be sure to limit your search to free materials. 

Global School Net
http://www.globalschoolhouse.org/pr/

• This is a project registry. There are hundreds of projects listed here for all ages and all subjects. Some are on line projects, some are not. Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the search function. 

Story Arts
http://www.storyarts.org/index.html

• This site uses story-telling as a teaching and learning tool. The site includes an explanation of how storytelling can be effective, and has rubrics for assessing listening and speaking skills. 

Youth Net
http://www.youth.net/welcome.html

• The resources here are not specific to ESL. They would be good resources for information on projects and for web sites for young people. Most of the projects here are possible without a computer; however, the people who maintain the site would like for results of projects to be published so that other people participating in the project can see what other schools around the world are doing.      

Directories 

UNESCO’s Youth Voluntary Projects
http://www.volunt.net/

Youth Projects
http://www.ncl.org/index.html