Are you a teacher or tutor in the Portland area? Do you have questions or ideas you wish you could bounce off another language instructor?
Well, look no further. The Portland ESL Network Facebook Discussion Group, is a public Facebook group designed just for that purpose! All Portland area teachers and tutors are invited to join, share ideas, questions, and opportunities for supporting English language learning.
The ESL Network was founded, and is managed by Heidi Dryden. The Network's main page, lists all ESL programs in the greater Portland area, and is updated quarterly by volunteers.
As part of the Network's main effort, the Discussion Group has grown to nearly 500 members. The purpose of the group is to provide an open, safe, and welcoming forum for Portland area ESL tutors and teachers of all levels to find and share helpful resources relevant to the topic of teaching.
For example:
- Do you have a good resource for teaching punctuation?
- Have you ever wondered whether your Portuguese-speaking students can understand French, Spanish, or Italian?
- Have you found a great online resource about financial aid resources for students?
These, and dozens of other interesting topics can all be found for free on the group website. All you have to do is join.
As Portland ESL Network volunteer Linda Bonder recently explained, a few months ago she was working with a student from Vietnam, and was wondering if anyone had any tips or tricks for teaching pronunciation for Vietnamese students in particular. She decided to post the question to the group's Facebook page, and was pleasantly surprised when she quickly received several helpful suggestions.
What Linda, and others in the Portland ESL Network want you to know: anyone can join the group and post. In fact, the Facebook discussion is enhanced as more individuals join and post their questions and ideas. Some members may hesitate posting, thinking perhaps they don't have enough experience to suggest a resource. But Linda emphasized, the "Facebook Discussion Group is not limited to a particular subset of teachers. Even if you think everybody knows the answer to your question, or is already aware of that resource, it doesn't matter. If it's a resource you like, post it!"
