E V O L V E S C H O O L: British Council TeachingEnglish 17 August 2011

TeachingEnglish Newsletter

17 August 2011

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Welcome to this week's TeachingEnglish newsletter!

In today's edition we have two exercises to get your students speaking, one looks at ways to get your whole class chatting and the other focuses specifically on getting your teenage classes communicating. As we start building up to the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics there is a quiz you can try with your students to find out how much they know.

There are plenty of contributions from our readers and you might like to get involved by letting us know whether you teach because you have to or because you want to. You can also vote in our latest poll to tell us whether you adapt your teaching style to the needs of your learners.

Best wishes

Duncan
Teaching English Team | British Council | BBC

Getting the whole class talking

The following activities are designed to get everyone talking. They can be used with all levels because the language required to communicate is determined by the students. Remember to set up and demonstrate these activities carefully before letting the class go ahead.

Olympic and Paralympic quiz

This lesson provides students with an opportunity to practise both forms and revise question words by introducing them in an Olympic and Paralympic Games quiz, and then designing questions of their own. Before the start of this class, learners should be familiar with many sports disciplines, including athletics events.
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Getting teenagers talking

Getting teenagers to use English in class can provide a considerable challenge to most teachers. This article examines some of the reasons why it can be so difficult and makes some suggestions for overcoming these problems.

Help with bachelor thesis needed (regarding bilingual programmes for teaching EFL)

I am currently writing my bachelor thesis on traditional foreign language teaching in comparison to bilingual approaches and was wondering if maybe one of you could help me with something. At the moment, I'm trying to find out whether pupils who take part in any kind of bilingual programme have less difficulties with false friends, idioms, collocations and prepositions.

Do I teach coz 'I have to' or 'I want to'?

Many of us are teachers and are proud of the fact that we are teachers and there is nothing wrong in being one or feeling proud of it. However a larger question that should trouble us would be the reason behind us being a teacher and also about our teaching objectives.

Should teachers adapt their teaching style?

Should teachers stick to their own style of teaching or should they adapt their style to reflect what their students want? Which do you think is the best approach to dealing with different teaching and learning styles?
Read more