Ann Raimes has taught and written for ESL and multilingual students for more than twenty-five years. She served as Chair of the CUNY ESL Task Force in 1993- 94, a group of twenty faculty members charged with making recommendations about ESL instruction across the CUNY system, which has 250,000 students. She has spoken at conferences around the world and has published numerous articles on ESL teaching, including topics such as writing theory and practice, trends in the field, composing processes, grammar, teaching methodology, the TOEFL Test of Written English, and evaluation of research. The ESL/Multilingual links and resources available in this ESL Center are among the Web sites she has found most helpful and useful.

Ann Raimes' ESL Tip Sheets

Significant features of difference from English are noted on these Tip Sheets for each of the ten languages.

• ESL Tip Sheet 1: Arabic
• ESL Tip Sheet 2: The Chinese languages
• ESL Tip Sheet 3: Farsi (Persian)
• ESL Tip Sheet 4: French (and Haitian Creole)
• ESL Tip Sheet 5: Japanese
• ESL Tip Sheet 6: Korean
• ESL Tip Sheet 7: Russian
• ESL Tip Sheet 8: Spanish
• ESL Tip Sheet 9: Thai
• ESL Tip Sheet 10: Vietnamese

Language Guide to Transfer Errors

Sometimes errors in writing a new language can occur when you are grappling with new subject matter and difficult topics. You concentrate on ideas and clarity-- and because no writer can do everything at once, you fail to concentrate on editing.

The following language guide sets out several problem areas for multilingual/ESL writers. It shows grammatical features (column 1) of specific languages (column 2) that when transferred to English lead to an error (column 3). The guide covers neither all linguistic problem areas nor all languages; that would take volumes. Rather, it lists a selection, with the aim of being useful and practical. Use the guide to raise your awareness about your own and other languages.

Dave's ESL Café

This site is well known and frequently visited by ESL, EFL, and multilingual students and teachers around the world. Stop by for Cafe news, bookstore browsing, chat, discussion, frequently asked questions, a graffiti wall, an idiom page, a photo gallery, a quiz center, a web guide, and much more.

ESL Home Page

From the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, this site page is for ESL learners who want to learn English through the World Wide Web. Many people have created ESL learning materials for the Web. This home page links you to those ESL sites and other interesting places. The variety of materials will allow you to choose something appropriate for yourself.

ESL at Houghton Mifflin

Online activities, textbooks, and dictionaries provide students with a wide array of innovative resources. XPRESLINK is an Internet activity designed to help students develop language skills from authentic web sites. Sites organized by topics--with questions at beginner, intermediate, and advanced language levels--are provided to stimulate student discussion and writing.

ESL Language Resources

Visit this site to link to any of the following:

• Foreign & Domestic News
• Foreign Language and Culture
• Foreign Language Resources on the Web
• Language Links
• Language Resources on the WWW
• Languages through Yahoo
• Multi-Language Sites--lists

ESL on the Net

Here's a wealth of connections to ESL Links and Guides, ESL Places to Visit, Computer-Assisted language Learning Sites. Online Publishing and Journal, Software, MUDS and MOOS, Usenet Newsgroups, Discussion Lists, and a bibliography of Internet-related articles of particular interest to ESL students and instructors.

Lingua MOO

A MOO is a MUD (Multi-User Domain) Object Oriented environment, or virtual educational community, where you can not only communicate in actual time but also add to a virtual world by building new rooms and other objects. Lingua MOO, at the University of Texas at Dallas, is a learning environment for students and a broader community for research and collaboration. Lingua MOO is a text-based virtual reality where you can create your own spaces and interact with people from around the world in synchronous time. Go to the Courtyard where you can easily get to all the various resource centers in the MOO. These include "A Help Kiosk," "Lingua House," "The Comoonity," and a library. When you visit Lingua MOO you must connect as a guest. You are bound to have a great experience.

SchMOOze University

SchMOOze University has a diverse student population where people studying English as a second or foreign language can practice English with other learners. Visit this MOO for opportunities for one-on-one conversations, group conversations, and access to language games, an online dictionary, and more. SchMOOze University welcomes ESL and EFL students and everyone else who is interested in cross-cultural communication. You'll find abundant MOO reference documents and articles as well as links to other ESL/EFL related pages.