Phonics + Gifs = Learning

We are the go to place for phonics related materials! Gif Lingua has a full slate of phonics related books that teachers can use to present the sounds and spelling of English.  Teachers can turn off the sound or text and use the gifs to support their own teaching of each sound of English. Every […]

Help Us Translate Books!

We have done so much work with so few resources! Gif Lingua has almost 3,000 leveled readers in the library.  All English. Now, we’d like to start translating the books into other languages and we need your help! Your help translating will allow students of other languages to freely access and learn both content knowledge […]

The Importance Of Current Events

Current events are so important!  They are something all teachers should use as a material in the classroom – to foster knowledge of the world, practice writing, improve reading and so much more! On Gif Lingua, we “gif wrap” the news each week so students can review the main news stories with fun, motivating gifs.  […]

Simple Text

Gif Lingua was created to provide simple reading material for both struggling and “reluctant” readers and ELLs (English language learners).   There was just a dearth of such material despite research showing that providing strong contextual and textual support (through leveled text,  images, audio, tools to support understanding) is key to improving students’ enjoyment and comprehension […]

The Gif Lingua “Way”

Bukowski famously said, “Never try. The trying gets in the way.” This could be our motto. We know now that the research tells us that when we “try” and memorize, repeat, order and control our learning experiences – we get in the way and the brain just doesn’t do its thing near as well as […]

Gif Lingua Goes WebM

Gifs are great!  They play in almost any environment and their “looping” quality actually facilitates learning. Zajonc’s Mere Exposure Effect is well proven and valid as an educational design feature. Shifting Attention is a concept that also has high validity for educational designers. When we view something repeatedly, we shift our attention and notice different […]

What did your students learn today?

We aren’t big fans of multiple choice quizzes nor the typical comprehension questions given out after reading.  It goes against the tenents of Extensive reading / watching. Further, it just doesn’t nurture students who become life long learners and readers.  Lastly, that time could be better spent enjoying more books! However, sometimes it is good […]

Extensive Reading Tips

We at Gif Lingua are all about extensive reading (or what we like to call – Extensive Watching.). We recently came across a nice ebook full of handy tips on how to best implement an ER program at your school. And it’s free! Extensive reading has research proven benefits for students, especially for language learners. […]

Blended Learning With Gif Lingua

We believe that reading interesting materials about interesting topics is the key to student engagement and acquisition of language. Input. Gif Lingua perfectly supports any classroom English language teacher and can be used in several ways. 1. Pre-lesson. If you know you are going to teach “the family” next lesson, assign students the book, quizzes […]