E V O L V E S C H O O L: British Council TeachingEnglish 13 February 2013

TeachingEnglish Newsletter

13 February 2013

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Welcome to the latest edition of the TeachingEnglish newsletter!

This week we have information about the IATEFL ESP SIG pre-conference event.

For the classroom we have an article and lesson plan on using classroom journals, an activity to get you started on class surveys and a very interesting video to get you thinking about your use of colours and fonts when preparing your board or presentations.

And, finally, we have an article which looks at the arguments for and against classroom testing.

Enjoy!

Deb

TeachingEnglish Team | British Council | BBC

IATEFL 2013: ESP SIG Pre-conference event

The IATEFL ESP SIG Pre-Conference Event (PCE) will take place on 8 April 2013 in Hall 3A of the Arena and Convention Centre, Liverpool. This event will provide an opportunity to share cutting-edge advances in relevant sub-areas of ESP, and to point where some of these 'specialisms' overlap with other ones, and where they remain distinctively unique and different.

Class journals

Students often write in their English classes, following a specific genre in order to do so: the informal email; a job application letter, etc. Of course, it is important that they learn this kind of writing (which is usually essential for exam success), but it doesn't always encourage them to write for the sake of writing, and to get used to writing in a more relaxed and creative way.

Class journals

This lesson plan looks at one way class journals might be set up in order to introduce students to the idea and to get them working with journals The kind of class journal described here is designed to get the students writing freely in a range of different ways. The emphasis is on fluency, as opposed to any kind of genre writing, and could be compared to the kind of oral fluency activities done with students.

A class survey

Doing surveys can be a useful way of getting your students to interact, produce question forms and collect and analyse real information. This survey has been designed for younger learners and is based on the theme of school subjects.

Presentation for teachers

Do you think about colours, fonts and grouping when you use a board or prepare a presentation? Watch and listen to Tony's ideas and leave your comments.

Testing - why bother?

This article will ask why we test learners of English. Before I start, let's get some terminology straight. I'm not talking about

exams. We as a society need exams. But tests? And by "test" I mean anything that looks or acts as a test, and that hasn't been designed by experts at a national level. Do they need to exist? Most teachers say yes. Let's look at some of the arguments why.