EnglishBridges is part of the Worldbridges Network, a long-running project built around global conversation, multi-perspective education, and ethical commerce. The network was founded by Jeff Lebow, an educator, longtime expat, and the person who has been buying “bridges” domains since the days of Netscape and AltaVista. A few bridges have been active at various points, but many have remained dormant for years. EnglishBridges is one of the sites now waking up.
The long-term goal is for EnglishBridges to become a hub for anyone learning or teaching English: a directory of related services, sites, and tools; a forum where people can ask questions and get answers from other humans, not just algorithms; event listings, including practice sessions and other real human-to-human teaching and learning opportunities; a section for teachers covering job listings and employment discussion; and a section for students covering study opportunities and other experiences relevant to English learners. Human interaction sits at the center of that plan. This is not meant to be just a materials repository.
To whatever extent business is conducted here, now and as it develops, we want to promote fair trade, decent treatment of human workers, and the fairest possible compensation to those who produce content, teach, or keep things running.
For now, most of what’s on the site is lesson units. Lessons come in three types: Content Lessons, a reading plus vocabulary, comprehension, and discussion activities, are tagged by level and audience, but you can mix levels and audiences as desired. Grammar Lessons focus on a single, multi-level grammar point and include a guide, diagnostic, and practice activities. Test Prep lessons focus on specific TOEIC and IELTS sections, and provide grammar and strategy guides with related practice activities. Materials are posted with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Visitors are free to use or modify them accordingly.
The directory, forums, and event calendar are online, but not yet very active. In the future, we plan to create a section for content creators to share their posts, but that will not be set up for a little while. Registration is open, so feel free to register and post in any active sections. All are welcome to explore what’s here, make contact with questions or ideas, and use any of the lesson materials you find useful.
Thanks for visiting,
Jeff
The EnglishBridges Guy
EnglishwithJeff.com