E V O L V E S C H O O L: TeachingEnglish Newsletter 17 May 2010

TeachingEnglish Newsletter

17 May 2010

This week we would like to welcome Rania Jabr who is our latest Guest Teacher. Rania works at the American University in Cairo and will be blogging for us throughout the month.

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Welcome to another TeachingEnglish newsletter. This week we are very pleased to welcome a new Guest Teacher, Rania Jabr. You can find out more about Rania by checking out her biography and reading the answers she gave in a recent interview with TeachingEnglish.

Also this month we have a new article that will get you thinking about ways to use the internet to create tasks with real outcomes, and a web based activity that looks at using Vokis to create online animated characters. As always there is the opportunity for you to get involved by helping one of our readers with a problem. This week one of our readers would like some advice on dealing with large problematic adult classes; can you help?

Best wishes,

TeachingEnglish Team | British Council | BBC

Using web resources to create tasks with real outcomes

I consider the greatest problem facing me as a language teacher is knowing how to motivate my students: how to get them past the hurdle of seeing learning English as just another academic subject, to regarding it as developing a communication tool that will be useful for them throughout their lives.
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Creating Vokis - online animated characters that speak

Vokis are great for practising speaking skills with students. Creating an animated character and giving it a voice is real fun to do and breaks down the inhibitions that students often have when faced with recording themselves speaking in English.
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Rania Jabr - biography

I'm originally from Jordan, and started my work at AUC in 1990. My main interests are teaching reading and writing, materials development, and testing. I have regularly attended and presented at international conferences since 1990. I have also had several articles published in IATEFL's Voices and in Teacher Development and Independence SIG newsletters.

To whom it may concern

In the Caribbean students struggle to speak in Standard English rather in Creole English. This is because the mass vernacular in the English-speaking Caribbean is Creole English. I think the government of my country should introduce a program of English which is British English because American English and pronunciation is taking over. What are your views on this and how do you think my country could develop the English language?
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A large problematic adult class

I've been teaching English for 6 years now, but last year I came across the worst behaved class I have ever seen. I've been asked to teach the same course again, and find that a lot of the students are the same who caused problems in the class last year, if anyone has any advice I would really appreciate it!
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