For starters, an online school almost always costs less to the student.  For instance, if you’re pursuing your degree through an online school, you’ll only have to pay for tuition and books.  Other costs, particularly those associated with living on campus, are eliminated.  Likewise, the expense of traveling to the school in the first place won’t apply to you.

But even at the high school level, the economy is arguing in favor of an online school. When gasoline prices starting shooting up, in addition to the cost of feeding students at high schools,  many school districts started considering dropping one day of school per week.  Students would simply attend class four days, and have an extra hour or two added to each day.  These districts would do wise to consider, however, that high schools which have adopted a distance learning approach have been saving on the gasoline and food expenses for quite some time.  Few school districts have yet embraced this approach, yet the few who are experimenting with it are finding it promising.

Online Continuing Education is also growing rapidly.

Incidentally, there are already all distance-learning high schools available, although in most cases, these will cost more money than they will save.  Still, many parents find the convenience and the control over their kids’ education worth the investment.  And it’s actually less expensive than a private education.

In fact, for the most part, it’s hard to argue with the fact that online education saves money.

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Some students who come from other countries have had very little schooling in their native country so they have no basic skills in their own language – in reading or speaking – making it all that more difficult for them to learn English. Many cannot even write in their own language so it is a harder transition for them. Flash cards are easier because they are a slower process which allows them to play catch up so to speak and learn to read, write and speak all at the same time.

Flash cards teach them the alphabet and numbers along with common words and phrases that they will encounter in day to day life – such as:  filling out applications for employment, telling time, getting directions, shopping for food or clothing, how to rent a car or apply for a driver’s license. It will take them through daily activities making it easier for them to gain employment and to learn day to day skills needed.

With the flash cards available online it is easy for pre-literate students to have access to these tools that will allow they to not only learn to speak English but be able to write and read and enjoy their life in their new country. As they improve they will be able to move on to other more advanced tools but for a beginner flash card exercises will be ideal and they can learn at their own pace without feeling pressured in a class that is more advanced than they are.

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When just starting to learn to read English you can use exercises that can be found online to help you – some are games like Bingo that will help you with your letters and numbers as well as telling time and knowing prices. Other exercises help with the calendar – days of the week and months and takes you through easy ways to remember.

Phonics exercises will give students the sounds of the letters because like any other language English has its idiosyncrasies that can cause confusion and often does even with native English speakers! Other exercises focus on specific areas that you might need in your daily life: health issues, how to talk to a doctor, how to read a medicine label or deal with a specific illness like diabetes.

The importance of reading is essential for anyone who resides in the United States to be able to effectively function. Online exercises, reading the newspaper and going to the library will all help to improve your reading skills so that you can easily get a job, go to the dentist, look for an apartment or shop for a particular type of clothing. You will be able to read ads and answer them for employment.

In a new city you will need to get around so learning how to read a map is essential to carry on with your day to day activities. Don’t be left behind – keep your reading skills up to speed and you won’t be left behind!

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Having some survival activities that can get you over the hurdle of those painful first weeks will make life easier and each day you will find your English skills improving. The computer is an amazing tool that can help anyone do just about anything and offers all types of exercises that will test your abilities until you can excel.

A slider puzzle allows you to move words around in a sentence until it is correct. This is particularly good for sentence structure as often translation from one language to another can be fractured and awkward when it is translated literally so instead of saying: Where is the bathroom? You end up saying: bath room is where?

Still other activities allow the participant to correct mistakes in a sentence, learn when to capitalize and when not to and when to use question marks or exclamation marks as opposed to periods. Many of the exercises are multiple choice and others are fill in the blank. There are travel related quizzes or ones related to particular aspects of daily life: going to the market, to the bank, to the doctor – and words and phrases associated with each.

There are exercises that test listening skills, pronunciation and grammar and vocabulary and some associated with slang expressions and idioms that might be encountered. The list is endless of types of survival exercises that will be lifesavers for ESL students everywhere.

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First of all, you need to get their attention and keep them motivated. The only way to achieve this is to present them to the things they like, which sounds easier than it is.

In the second place, you are dealing with children that are just starting to develop their verbal skills, and find hard to manage abstract concepts. Therefore, your imagination and creativity will be your best tools to capture their attention in a way that results to be both entertaining and educative. Let’s mention a few ideas that will be of much help to you.

Observe and follow. It will always be positive to add new activities and games in the class, but to start up, begin taking firm steps and start with the games you know the kids already know and enjoy in their native tongue. This first part of the adaptation process will be only on one aspect, they will try to adapt to the new language to enjoy an activity they already know they will have fun with. Once they feel more comfortable with the new language and considering how short their attention span is, you should move on and suggest variations to that game and keep them motivated.

Build confidence in the young learners.  Ask them questions and expect simple answers, and when an answer is given do not hesitate to correct it gently. Show that you understood in the first place, that they are actually communicating, so do it repeating the answer you were given but adding the necessary corrections or rephrasing what the kid just told. If told, for example “ My name Tom” you can simply nod and say “yes, your name IS Tom, and my name IS xxx”. This way you are reinforcing the children that they are on the good path, and also correcting the mistakes.

Encourage group interaction. Do not make it a relationship between the teacher and the group or the teacher and each student. On the contrary, you shall encourage group communication; stimulate the children to make their best to communicate with the classmates in the new tongue. Sit in rounds for example, and start with a question that the children on your right should answer. That kid shall repeat the same question to the kid at his right. Or you can divide the number of students by two colours and yellow group will start asking or telling something or pointing at a body part, and red group will answer, comment or name the pointed part.

Set good bases when starting to work with a group of young children: watch them and follow their interests, build self-esteem on them and stimulate the interaction between the students.  Only keeping them interested, secure and part of a whole will assure an individual and group development.

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Many people like to listen to music but often can’t understand what the musicians are saying or really understand what the song is all about. You can learn to understand and speak English by listening to special podcasts that focus on learning songs so that you will easily be able to sing along when you hear that song the next time! Other exercises have you listen and repeat phrases that are used every day and will be invaluable. These types of exercises can work wonders at improving your English skills and can be fun as well.

Podcasts are offered in a variety of topics besides singing songs and can be informational as well as educational from the standpoint it will assist an ESL student with their English learning. Some podcasts offer jokes in a way that makes you understand the meaning of the joke – in other words you will know when to laugh at the punch line! Often trying to translate a joke gets lost because there is no meaningful way to make someone understand a joke in their native language.

Podcasts also are used for the latest news and information so you can listen on a daily basis to get data that might otherwise be difficult to understand if you heard it on the radio or the television as the broadcaster speaks so rapidly. These are specially aimed at ESL students who are learning English so they are at a slower pace and easier to understand.

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Most of the games are multiple choice where you have a one in four chance of being right. Or you can ask the computer – which is a little bit like cheating – and it doesn’t always give you the right answer anyway so you might as well guess. As you answer questions correctly, you then qualify to go the next level until you are a Super Star of English!

You can go online and look for games that will improve your grammar, improve your spelling, ask you questions like – which is the smallest of these three objects or animals and which is the largest? You can be challenged about what to find in a garden, in a kitchen, in a bathroom or you can learn which is a noun or a verb. You can be asked to name different types of fish or to put words into categories.

Still other games are crossword puzzles or offer different types of challenges to test your knowledge of words, phrases, geography and general knowledge in many different areas. These word games will be invaluable in providing improvement of your English and will also help you in knowing more about your adopted country and its customs and its people and places. As you improve you will move more quickly through each game but if you continue to do these types of exercises you will see a huge difference in your ability to communicate effectively in English.

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You can make it much easier for yourself if you start using online sources that assist you and all you have to do is sit at home on your own computer.  So take the challenge out of your learning and start using some of the activities that will help you immensely.

Just like teachers give quizzes and other tests to their students you can take these online without the pressure of getting a good score and it will be fun as well. These tests are in the style of word games or word puzzles that can be multiple choice or fill in the blank and as you score better and better you go on to the next level of challenges. These types of activities are also ideal for learning slang expressions, proverbs and other things like learning synonyms or antonyms but often in topics that are more appealing than a classroom style.

Some of the tests involve pictures so that you can match the word with the picture. Others test your vocabulary with nouns, adjectives, verbs, colors and numbers and days of the week or the month. These are subjects that you will encounter every day and the more you do these exercises the more familiar you will become making you learn English but in a much more interesting and fun way!

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So how do you learn more English nouns?  There are several things you can do that are quite fun.   One of the best ways is to use a dictionary.  After you’ve identified the nouns in a sentence, if you don’t know the noun, look it up in a dictionary that translates to your own native language.  Then try to invent as many sentences as you can using your newly learned noun.  If you don’t know enough English words to use the nouns in a complete English sentence, then start out by making a sentence with your own native language, and then insert the English noun in the right place.

Some people, especially those who have already learned some English, also find it challenging and fun to look up these new nouns in an English only dictionary.  Read the definition and see if there are any words you recognize.  Then see if you can figure out what the definition of the unknown noun is.  It can be tough, so if you get stumped, don’t be afraid to ask an English tutor or teacher to help you.

By the way, if you’re reading a book or article, don’t stop each time you encounter a word that you don’t understand.  Many times, if you keep reading, the sentences that follow will help you figure out the meaning of the word.  The more important thing is that you understand as much about the entire chapter, story or article as possible.  Feel free to write down the unknown words, and then later, you can look them up in a dictionary.

Finally, remember that new words are not something that you will automatically remember.  You must use your new words or you will forget them.  So write them in new sentences, say them in sentences, listen to them over and over.  Eventually these words will become part of your growing English vocabulary.

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It’s been proven many times that younger learners can learn complex subjects more easily than adults.  This includes learning a second language.  In fact, the Critical Period Hypothesis support this idea.  This simply states that there is a certain span of years in which learning language takes place much more naturally and smoothly.  Science has shown that the best age for learning language is within the first decade of a child’s life.  It’s at this time that the brain is most flexible.

Some parents worry that their children will get confused or mixed up by trying to learn more than one language.  This is simply not true.  There are time when they might intentionally mix them up just because they find the word or phrase in one language easier than in another, but this will not cause any longterm language disability.  On the contrary, a bilingual cihld, according to studie, will be up to a year more advanced than other two or three year olds in thinking skills.

These young years are the best years for exposing your children to the English language.  In fact, many experts say you should be exposing them to English before they turn five. That’s because at age five, they will already start having more difficulties in learning another language.  Ideally, a child should learn his or her native language and the second language–English–at the same time.

So how do you get your child to learning English if you don’t speak it well yourself?  The best way is to hire a private tutor.  By bringing in a tutor for two or three hours a week, your child should be able to learn his or her new language at a good pace. Who knows:  Maybe they will even inspire you to try learning their new language along with them!

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