E V O L V E S C H O O L: TeachingEnglish Newsletter 27 April 2011

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TeachingEnglish Newsletter

27 April 2011

You will have to wait until later in the year for our next Guest Writer, but in the meantime you can check out the archive of articles and blogposts from famous ELT names, such as Jamie Keddie, here.

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The TeachingEnglish team have just got back from the IATEFL conference in Brighton where we had a very interesting time catching up with the latest ideas in English language teaching. If you didn't make it to the conference you can still follow the action online on the British Council IATEFL website.

Now we are back, this week's newsletter has all the usual content, a lesson plan discussing cycling and an essay on how to plan a writing lesson. There is also news about a new book released by the British Council at IATEFL which contains all you need to know about starting a teaching association in your region.

Best wishes,

Duncan
TeachingEnglish Team | British Council | BBC

Cycling

In this lesson students think about and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of cycling and consider what else they could do personally to reduce their carbon emissions.

Planning a writing lesson

Writing, unlike speaking, is not an ability we acquire naturally, even in our first language - it has to be taught. Unless L2 learners are explicitly taught how to write in the new language, their writing skills are likely to get left behind as their speaking progresses.
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Running an Association for Language Teachers

The British Council and IATEFL are pleased to launch a new handbook for teachers' associations, called Running an association for language teachers. It provides advice and ideas for how associations can run themselves successfully and provide good services to their members.
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IATEFL Brighton

The 45th IATEFL Conference took place in Brighton, UK between 15th and 19th April 2011. The programme included over 400 workshops, posters, talks, panel discussions and symposiums by international presenters from over 60 countries. If you couldn't attend the conference, you can still catch up with the event online!

Poetry

Try this simple warm activity to bring some creativity into your classroom. Ask your students if there are any poets in the class and then explain that they are going to be writing a poem titled "You". The first step is to get the students thinking of someone who they either really love or that they really hate.
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Oral Presentations as a form of assessment?

Recently, a debate has arisen between the language section of the university English department where I work, and some lecturers from the literature/linguistics sections, as well as the faculty administration. Do you think presentations (still) have a place in assessing spoken English?
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