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

TeachingEnglish Newsletter

28 November 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
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.

Premier Skills

Communicate in two of the world's global languages - English and football

English Agenda
The British Council's UK home for ELT and research

Welcome to the latest edition of the TeachingEnglish newsletter!

This week we have a brand new lesson plan on texting and a new video-based lesson for teens about Vlog celebrities. We also have an article to help you tackle listening skills and some active listening activities for you to try.

And if you teach young learners and are looking for some tips on classroom management, join our upcoming webinar by Dave Dodgson.

And finally, take a look at the Parents section of our LearnEnglish Kids site for hundreds of free resources!

Enjoy!

Deb

TeachingEnglish Team | British Council | BBC

Texting

Students do lots of texting in their L1 and are often keen to learn how to text in English too. In this lesson students have a discussion, learn some useful texting abbreviations and read an article about texting and literacy.

LearnEnglish Teens Vlog celebrities

The latest video on LearnEnglishTeens is about Vlog celebrities and should go down well with higher level teens - CEF B2+. These young Vlog celebrities are becoming famous and making money just by sitting in their bedrooms! How do they do it? Watch the video and find out. Check out the new worksheets in the grammar snacks section too.

Making connections - classroom management with young learners - 12 December, 2pm UK time.

This webinar will look at ideas for establishing ground rules and a rapport with young learners from the very first lesson as well as ways to keep the momentum going throughout the school year. Drawing on his own experiences, Dave Dodgson will demonstrate the importance a student-centred approach incorporating their input along with their interests to help create a positive learning environment.

A framework for planning a listening skills lesson

Listening is one of the most challenging skills for our students to develop and yet also one of the most important. By developing their ability to listen well we develop our students' ability to become more independent learners, as by hearing accurately they are much more likely to be able to reproduce accurately, refine their understanding of grammar and develop their own vocabulary.

Active listening activities

Students are often asked to listen to tapes or to their teacher talking, but it can be just as useful to encourage them to listen to each other in a more active way. Learning to listen to each other more carefully can build their ability and confidence in real-life situations, in which they will need to focus on both listening and speaking. The following activities are a fun way of getting students to concentrate more and to remember information.

LearnEnglish Kids Resources

Do you teach English to young learners? Do you have children at home who are learning English? In this section you can find links to hundreds of free online English games, songs and stories. You can also print worksheets and flashcards to use at home or in the classroom.