TeachingEnglish newsletter 30 November 2016

TeachingEnglish - the global home for teachers 30 November 2016 Welcome to the TeachingEnglish newsletter! This week we announce two very special workshops on using Shakespeare as a tool for English language learning. Both workshops take place on Thursday, 1 December. Register now! For the classroom we have more festive activities for your younger learners, a lesson based on 'A Christmas Carol' and a fun pronunciation game for your teens and adults. We have also have news of The Visual Arts Circle - a new Professional Community of Practice made up of language teaching professionals. And this week's featured talk from the Teaching for Success online conference is Briony Beaven's 'Teacher Stories'. And finally, don't forget tomorrow's EnglishAgenda free webinar - 'Engaging ears, eyes, brains and minds: Authentic listening at every level'. We hope you find these resources useful. Deb TeachingEnglish team Teaching kids This Christmas lesson uses the theme of Christmas to develop learners' vocabulary. It includes an introductory song, a focus on clothes words, a review of question and short answer forms using 'has got', and a labelling and colouring activity. There are suggestions for some other follow up Christmas activities. Go to the lesson plan Teaching teens In this lesson students read an extract from 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens and examine the characters in the text. They then discuss the theme of festivals as preparation for a writing task on the same topic. The lesson is suitable for teen and adult students at B2 level. Go to the lesson plan Teaching adults Rhyming blockbusters is a game to practise the vowel and diphthong sounds of the English sound system and the various ways in which these sounds are spelt. This is done through asking learners to identify words that rhyme, a challenging exercise for low levels, especially if the words are homophones (same sounds but different spelling). There is also a blank grid so you can adapt the game to your own learning aims. Go to the game Development This week's featured talk from the Teaching for Success online conference is Briony Beaven's 'Teacher Stories'. In this talk Briony sketches out the background to storytelling for teacher and teacher educator development, including clarifying the role of narrative in learning. She also illustrates how teachers and educators can create a collaborative learning space that links personal experiences of teaching and training to the realm of public knowledge.  Watch a recording of the talk Events Join us on Thursday 1 December at 10.00 am UK time for two very special workshops on using Shakespeare as a tool for English language learning. The workshops will be streamed live from the British Council School in Madrid and are brought to you by two renowned teacher educators Jamie Keddie and Chris Lima. Attending the online workshops will provide English Language Teachers with the tools and knowledge to make Shakespeare's works come alive in the classroom to improve the experience for students of all ages and contexts. Find out more Magazine Launched at the Image Conference 2016 in Malta, The Visual Arts Circle is a Professional Community of Practice made up of language teaching professionals. The Visual Arts Circle was established with the belief that incorporating visual arts is an extremely effective way of improving the quality of teaching and learning, particularly in the field of language teaching. Through the process of sharing information and experiences with the group our members learn from each other, and have an opportunity to develop personally and professionally. Read more You have received this newsletter because you registered on our website or previously showed interest in British Council news. If you wish to opt out of future newsletters please unsubscribe here.

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TeachingEnglish newsletter 23 November 2016

TeachingEnglish - the global home for teachers 23 November 2016 Welcome to the TeachingEnglish newsletter! This week we announce the winner of our October blog of the month award, which goes to ELT Connect and their post 10 activities - Using Pictures in Class. For the classroom, we have an interesting and informative article on alternatives to traditional whole-class feedback, ideas to help 'train' your students in basic oral skills, and a lesson to get your younger learners ready for the festive season. This week's featured talk from the Teaching for Success online conference is Clare Fielder's 'Efficient and effective strategies for written feedback'. And finally, don't miss a free webinar taking place on Thursday 1 December - Engaging ears, eyes, brains and minds: Authentic listening at every level. Register now to avoid disappointment. We hope you find these resources useful. Deb TeachingEnglish team Teaching kids As the festive season approaches, why not get your younger learners to make some Christmas presents or decorations. In this lesson children practise Christmas words with flashcards and online games. They then make a Christmas craft, and enjoy a Christmas song or story. Go to the lesson plan Teaching teens The term feedback can apply to a number of classroom situations and procedures, but here it refers to a range of techniques employed by the teacher to facilitate responses from the students to an exercise or task. Take a look at this useful article 'Conducting Feedback on Exercises and Tasks' to discover how alternatives to traditional whole-class feedback can encourage greater student communication and involvement. Go to the article Teaching adults Photos such as this one - waiting for a plane - provide great opportunities for conversation with any level of English student. Most English exams touch on basic oral skills, such as description, instruction, narration, hypothesis and opinion. To help 'train' the students for this, a photograph is a great starting point. For this activity, it is useful to have a number of different pictures all of a similar theme. Go to the activity Development This week's featured talk from the Teaching for Success online conference is Clare Fielder's Efficient and effective strategies for written feedback. Clare discusses and demonstrates practicable strategies including ways of marking learners' errors, as well as conducting successful peer review, delivering feedback with technology, and making the student-teacher feedback dialogue more constructive and efficient.   Watch a recording of this talk Events In this free webinar 'Engaging ears, eyes, brains and minds: Authentic listening at every level' taking place on Thursday 1 December, Lewis Lansford looks at how teachers can help students at every level to engage with authentic input. Using TED Talks as examples, Lewis looks at the brain science related to listening and offers practical tips for how to create success-oriented lessons for the classroom at any level. Find out more Magazine Our featured blog of the month for October 2016 goes to ELT Connect and their post 10 activities - Using Pictures in Class. A picture speaks a thousand words! Get your students speaking just as many by using these fun, picture-based communicative activities from ELT-Connect. Read more You have received this newsletter because you registered on our website or previously showed interest in British Council news. If you wish to opt out of future newsletters please unsubscribe here.

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TeachingEnglish newsletter 16 November 2016

TeachingEnglish - the global home for teachers 16 November 2016 Welcome to the TeachingEnglish newsletter! This week we have a NEW article on Assessment for Learning, and a range of assessment activities for you to try with your young learners and teens. Also for the classroom we have a simple board game to get your kids talking, and a NEW lesson plan for adults and teens to develop lateral thinking skills, cooperation and communication skills. This week's featured talk from the Teaching for Success online conference is John Simpson's 'Using multilingual approaches'. And, we have two NEW thought-provoking and informative blog posts on the themes of exam practice and project assessment. Finally, don't forget to register for our latest webinar 'Teaching English in large classes - a sociocultural approach', which will take place on 19 November at 1.30 pm UK time. We hope you find these resources useful. Deb TeachingEnglish team Teaching kids 'Talking topics' is a simple board game which provides an excellent way to give students a bit of free speaking practice. You can choose your own topics based on those you've covered in lessons or topics of interest to your learners. Simply download and print off a copy of the board and fill in the squares. Alternatively, learners could work in groups to prepare boards for each other. Go to the activity Teaching teens Although Assessment for learning, or AfL, is nothing new to mainstream education in the UK, in the world of ELT it remains a less familiar and practised approach. So, what is AfL and why is it important? Can it improve students' results? What does it involve? Read the article to find out more And if you would like to try some AfL activities with your learners, you can find suggestions here. Teaching adults 'The mystery of the sand' is a lesson based around a 'teacher-less task', a lateral thinking puzzle where students have to work together to first sequence a story and then solve a puzzle. The lesson should help to develop lateral thinking skills (a creative way of thinking which is often considered to be part of critical thinking), improve co-operation between students and provide plenty of speaking practice as well as focusing on sequencers. Go to the lesson plan Development This week's featured talk from the Teaching for Success online conference is John Simpson's 'Using multilingual approaches'. The benefits to individuals and societies of being multilingual are increasingly recognised. However, what does this mean for schools and classrooms? John looks at the three main challenges to using multilingual approaches and suggests ways of addressing each.  Watch a recording of this talk Events As many classes are now sitting down to begin a year of study that will take them off to exam success in June next year, it is worth thinking about what it is that they need in order to achieve that success. The answer to that question will obviously differ depending on the students, but the one thing that none of them will need or benefit from is exam practice. Read David Petrie's blog post 'Exam classes - keeping the balance' to learn more about how to help your students succeed. Read more Magazine After using project-based learning for 6 years and a few trial-and-error takes on project assessment, Vicky Saumell decided to stick with rubrics for assessing project work. Find out more about what rubrics are, how to create them, and some of the benefits of using them by reading Vicky's latest blog post 'Using rubrics to assess projects'. Read more You have received this newsletter because you registered on our website or previously showed interest in British Council news. If you wish to opt out of future newsletters please unsubscribe here.

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