TeachingEnglish newsletter 25 January 2017

TeachingEnglish - the global home for teachers 25 January 2017 Welcome to the TeachingEnglish newsletter This week we celebrate Chinese New Year with a new lesson plan for kids, language and skills activities for teens, and an interactive skills lesson for adults on the theme of festivals. We feature two blog posts this week - 'Sailing in Uncharted Waters', which describes how one teacher overcame new classroom challenges, and 'How do you progress from being a teacher to a materials writer?' for all you budding writers. We also have a recording of an interesting presentation which explores ways of applying cinema, and potentially film-making, to the classroom as a means of enhancing student engagement with issues of citizenship. And finally, there's still time to register for both of our new moderated courses: 'Discovering classroom management' and 'Discovering language and interaction'. We hope you find these resources useful. Deb TeachingEnglish team Teaching kids Our latest lesson plan for kids looks at Chinese New Year. In this lesson children learn about Chinese New Year customs. They are introduced to some expressions for speculating that will be practised in context when they play a board game in small groups. At the end of the lesson children find out which Chinese zodiac animal they are. Go to the lesson plan Teaching teens Dragon dances, acrobats, fireworks, a parade ... London is buzzing with excitement at Chinese New Year. There are lots of activities for your teens to practise language and skills around the theme of Chinese New Year on LearnEnglish Teens. If you have access to technology in your classroom, why not plan a lesson around these self-access activities for your learners?    Find out more Teaching adults With the Chinese New Year fast approaching, why not explore the theme of festivals with your adult learners? This integrated skills lesson for B1 level adult or older teen students offers the opportunity to read and learn about different festivals and invent an exciting new one. Go to the lesson plan Development There is nothing quite like using materials that you have written yourself with your learners. Of course many teachers also go beyond writing materials for their own classes and start to produce them for a wider audience. Seeing your name in print is a proud moment for any aspiring writer. Read Lizzie's blog if you want to make the step from teacher to materials writer. Read more Events This presentation 'Using cinema to engage young people with citizenship' by James Clarke, explores ways of applying cinema, and potentially film-making, to the classroom as a means of enhancing student engagement with issues of citizenship and self in relation to students' wider communities and related concerns. A report of the seminar is also available to freely download. Go to the recording Magazine "2016 was a year of change. A lot of people found their lives being completely different, had to deal with a lot of changes and were forced to start anew. I was one of them." Read this blog post 'Sailing in Uncharted Waters' to find out how one teacher managed to overcome new challenges, find fresh motivation and become a more creative practitioner. 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 18 January 2017

TeachingEnglish - the global home for teachers 18 January 2017 Welcome to the TeachingEnglish newsletter This week we announce two new moderated courses starting on 26 January - Primary: Discovering language and interaction and Discovering classroom management. For the classroom we have an interesting blog post on using Instagram with high and low-level students to encourage interaction and communication. For younger learners we have a lesson plan on the topic of weather, and some tips and activities to get your students using English in the classroom. We also have an interesting post about an alternative method of teacher collaboration and observation that benefits both the teacher and the learners. And finally, if you would like help with identifying and working with dyslexic learners, watch a recording of Sally Farley's seminar. We hope you find these resources useful. Deb TeachingEnglish team Teaching kids In this lesson, learners sing a song, do a series of activities to practise weather vocabulary and make a weather chart to practise question forms and short answers to talk about the weather. For homework they record the weather for a week and then talk about it in the following class. Go to the lesson Teaching teens Getting students to use English in the classroom is one of the biggest challenges of teaching. This article gives some useful tips and ways to create opportunities for simple communication in English lessons, as well as activities to encourage English in the classroom. Go to the article Teaching adults Research, information exchange and collaboration are common in most EFL lessons. Sometimes the key focus is a new grammar point, a theme or area of vocabulary, Instagram can cater for two aspects at the same time: sharing the students' production visually and their engagement, data and point of view in the comments. Read Raquel Gonzaga's post to find out how to use Instagram to encourage students to research, interact and share content. Read more Development We are pleased to announce that our two new moderated courses 'Primary: Discovering language and interaction' and 'Discovering classroom management' start on 26 January. Each course takes 15 hours to complete and consists of 4 modules. Find out more about these courses Don't forget that we also offer two free modules to help you on your CPD path - 'Getting started' and 'Understanding Special Educational Needs (SEN)'. Read more Events In this seminar, 'Identifying and working with dyslexic students', Sally Farley debunks several myths about Dyslexia and shows how, through the right teaching strategies, dyslexic learners can become successful language learners.    Watch a recording of this seminar Magazine 'Successful teacher collaboration - Two teachers - Two roles - One class' is a post about an alternative method of teacher collaboration and observation that benefits both the teacher and the learners. Find out how two colleagues decided to collaborate to combine classes in a context where there is no mentoring or coaching system and little peer observation, and how they benefited and developed from the experience. 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 11 January 2017

TeachingEnglish - the global home for teachers 11 January 2017 Welcome to the TeachingEnglish newsletter! Welcome to the first 2017 edition of the TeachingEnglish newsletter. We start the New Year with a number of professional developmental resources. Take a look at our online training opportunities, and register for our upcoming webinar 'Which training? What kind of development?' which will help you select the training or professional development path most relevant to you. This week we also announce our blog topics for January and February, and invite you to become a TeachingEnglish registered blogger yourself. For the classroom we have a fun activity for kids to develop listening practice and pronunciation awareness; a selection of games and activities to practise personality adjectives for all ages; and an activity for A2 adults to practise listening and speaking skills. And finally, don't forget to register for the free TESOL Electronic Village Online (EVO) course, for those teaching in difficult circumstances in developing country contexts. We hope you find these resources useful. Deb TeachingEnglish team Teaching kids Try this little game 'Broken telephone' to help your young students with their listening practice and develop pronunciation awareness. Using sentences with words that may sound similar to others, like working (walking), learners have fun while realising the value of proper pronunciation. Go the activity Teaching teens Our featured blog of the month for November 2016 goes to Cristina Cabal and her post 10 Games and Activities to Practise Personality Adjectives. Cristina's post features some great ideas for practising personality adjectives. There are listening, writing and speaking activities for all ages and levels. Why not try some of these activities with your teenage learners? Find out more Teaching adults 'Break up' is an activity suitable for A2 students and provides short listening practice based around a telephone message from a woman to her friend. The message relays information about the break-up of a relationship. Students will predict vocabulary, listen to the conversation and role-play the dialogue to practise their speaking skills. Go to the activity Development Start the new year by taking an online training course with the British Council and you'll be training with the world's English experts. Assess your skills online with our exclusive self-assessment tool and choose from over 60 self-study modules or full tutored courses to develop your knowledge and skills to take your teaching to the next level. Explore our unrivalled range of courses and support to meet your exact learning needs. Find out more Events With so many online development opportunities, it can be difficult to know where to start. Our webinar 'Which training? What kind of development?' with Zoe Tysoe on 12 January will look at how to reflect on your current teaching and carefully select relevant professional development for you. You'll be introduced to the British Council's self-assessment tool, and you'll take away links to free and paid-for training modules and other useful resources. Find out more about this webinar Magazine Why not start the new year by becoming a TeachingEnglish registered blogger? We start 2017 with four new blog topics around the broad theme of Continuing Professional Development (CPD). Our new topics include a focus on action research, mentoring, looking back at challenges from the last 12 months and teaching in difficult circumstances. 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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