E V O L V E S C H O O L: Juli 2012

TeachingEnglish Newsletter

18 July 2012

Regular readers will know that the TeachingEnglish website has hosted a number of Guest Writers. Why not have a look at our archive where you can find articles and blogs by ELT luminaries such as Adrian Underhill, Carol Read and Michael Swan.

LearnEnglish Teens

Welcome to our new website with material especially designed for teenage learners.

LearnEnglish Kids
Children can develop their English skills with topic-based games, songs, stories.

LearnEnglish Central
Develop your English, with language games, downloads, stories and articles.

BritLit
The aim of BritLit is to help teachers from around the world to exploit English literature in the ELT classroom.

Welcome to the latest edition of the TeachingEnglish newsletter. Do you ever use computer games to teach English? This week we have Kyle Mawer's informative webinar on this fascinating topic. Paul Millard's video tip demonstrates how to draw animals on the board - a must for primary teachers.

For the classroom this week we have a lesson about the Olympic Park for London 2012, a lesson on how the UK is planning to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, and for your business students, a lesson plan on the importance of social networking.

You might be interested in our article on reflective teaching which explains why self-observation and self-evaluation can help us in our classroom practices.

The TeachingEnglish newsletter will be taking a break for August but we will be back in September.

See you in September!

Sally

TeachingEnglish Team | British Council | BBC

How to draw animals

Do you teach young learners? Would you like to be able to draw animals on the board? British Council teacher Paul Millard demonstrates how to draw a variety of farm animals, sea animals, and other wild animals quickly and easily in this video tip.

Webinar: Computer games and language aims

Many teachers are beginning to experience the benefits of using computer games in the classroom. This talk by Kyle Mawer aims to build on this and share insights, experience and knowledge of this ever expanding field.

Olympic Park - sports, stadiums, and legacy

In this lesson students read about the Olympic Park for London 2012, and its buildings and facilities. They discuss the stadiums and the sports, but also consider the broader long-term legacy of the Olympic Park project.
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Green is Great

This lesson is about sustainability and how the UK is planning to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The lesson involves checking what vocabulary students already know in this topic area, then teaching typical collocations relating to reducing emissions and alternative energy sources.

Socialising 3: Social networking

Why is it that when you go to a conference or business gathering, everyone else seems to know each other already? At least part of the answer seems to be social networking: getting to know business contacts online, before you meet face to face for the first time.
Read more

Reflective teaching: Exploring our own classroom practice

Reflective teaching means looking at what you do in the classroom, thinking about why you do it, and thinking about if it works - a process of self-observation and self-evaluation. By collecting information about what goes on in our classroom, we can explore our own practices.