E V O L V E S C H O O L: Januari 2011

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TeachingEnglish Newsletter

27 January 2011

Our Guest Writer this month is Michael Swan, author of Practical English Usage. He's been getting some bees out of his bonnet this week on his blog here.

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Hello and welcome to another TeachingEnglish newsletter. Michael Swan is still with us and he has been blogging away about some common misconceptions in teaching. Why not visit his blog to let him know what you think.

Also this week there's plenty for you to try in your classroom; a new lesson plan in our UK languages and Cultures series looking at Northern Ireland and a jigsaw reading activity that is suitable for level B1 and above. There are some new tech tips from Nik Peachey and a request for help from one of our readers: have you ever used Skype to teach English? If so maybe you can give our reader some advice. Finally there is news of a new competition which will take the winner to this year's IATEFL in Brighton.

Best wishes,

Duncan
TeachingEnglish Team | British Council | BBC

What do you know about Northern Ireland?

This lesson is part of a series of plans based on interviews with people from around the UK.This one focuses on Northern Ireland. This is a challenging text which combines reading with listening. There are also some internet research tasks for those with access to the internet. The text included in this lesson touches on some sensitive issues, so it may be better to look carefully at it first and decide whether it is suitable for your students.
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Jigsaw Reading

This is a reading and speaking activity that provides practice in giving clear instructions and explaining the rules of a game. As an extension activity students can play the games.
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Some more bees

Michael Swan is releasing more bees from his bonnet, his selection this week are, 'Doing things and teaching things', 'Being realistic', 'Prioritising' and 'Giving bad lessons is OK'
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3 more tasks to teach yourself to teach with technology

At the end of 2010 I published the first 5 tasks in a series to help teacher learn how to use technology with their students. Now I would like to add 3 more tasks to that collection. The first few tasks are all quite simple to lay the ground work and get teachers started. As the series progresses I hope to get on to more adventurous tasks. Please feel free to use these tasks yourself or to share or use them for teacher training.
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Teaching English through Skype

Have you ever taught English through Skype? If so, how did you go about it? Any ideas? I've been offered a job to teach English through Skype and I don't really know how to do it. I wouldn't like the lessons to be boring or useless.

Turkey ELT Blogathon

Over the next few weeks, you'll be able to follow a number of blogs on TeachingEnglish which are part of an exciting competition for teachers of English in Turkey. The British Council Turkey ELT team is inviting English teachers in Turkey to a very challenging race, the ELT Blogathon 2011. The winner of the ELT Blogathon will attend the week-long IATEFL conference in the beautiful English city of Brighton.
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