English learning and teaching resources from the U.S. State Department

http://americanenglish.state.gov/ - American English Portal

http://americanenglish.state.gov/english-teaching-forum - English Teaching Forum

http://americanenglish.state.gov/submission-guidelines - English Teaching Forum Submission Guidelines

http://americanenglish.state.gov/trace-effects - Trace Effects game

http://americanenglish.state.gov/resources/american-english-mobile-app - American English Mobile App

Webinars

http://americanenglish.state.gov/search/solr/webinar - Webinars on American English Portal

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBQ58amRJh3anfDtob6sBSQ - Shaping Webinars on YouTube

http://shapingenglish.ning.com/main/authorization/signIn?target=http%3A%2F%2Fshapingenglish.ning.com%2F  - Webinar archive (click on “click here to join”)

MOOCs

https://www.edx.org/course/uc-berkeleyx/uc-berkeleyx-colwri2-1x-principles-2581#.VCXZS_lXAmg – Principles of Writing I

https://www.edx.org/course/uc-berkeleyx/uc-berkeleyx-colwri-2-2x-principles-4466#.VCXZYvlXAmg – Principles of Writing II

https://www.coursera.org/course/shaping1landscape - Shaping the Way We Teach English I

https://www.coursera.org/course/shaping2paths - Shaping the Way We Teach English II

Free online videos showing language teaching methods.

Here is a link to a video series produced by the U.S. Information Service that some of you may already be familiar with. 

It's important to note two things:
a) the videos are old - from the 1990s. This means that they do not reflect more recent research.
b) the videos show language teaching methods that most people would agree do not represent best practice. For example, the Audio Lingual Method is based on the (mostly false) belief that language is something that can be learned through repetition of form with limited attention to communication or meaning and that accuracy (i.e., not making mistakes) is very very important. However, researchers generally agree that this is not true. 

Similarly, the Silent Way asks learners to build communication by focusing primarily on phonemes (the basic meaningful sounds of a language). Although such a focus can be helpful, a more holistic top-down focus on communication is generally agreed to be more useful. 

The most useful video is likely to be the one on the Communicative Approach. This approach is generally supported by most recent research and most current language teaching incorporates a communicative approach.


http://americanenglish.state.gov/resources/language-teaching-methods 

Here are links to free online courses produced by major U.S. universities:


 
Harvard:  www.extension.harvard.edu

MIT : ocw.mit.edu

Carnegie Mellon: oli.cmu.edu

Yale:  oyc.yale.edu

Here is the link to some Peace Corps language teaching resources.  Free, downloadable, designed for Peace Corps Volunteers but useful for many other folks. 

http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=library.language

Teacher Development Videos

Here is a great video series available online and as DVDs

http://www.newamericanhorizons.org/

Teacher Development Videos

Here is a link to a site with some interesting videos of non-English langauge classrooms. The Swahili one is quite good.

http://startalk.umd.edu/teacher-development/videos

Teacher Training Videos

Here is a great site with lots of teacher training videos.

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/