TeachingEnglish newsletter 30 August 2017

TeachingEnglish - the global home for teachers 30 August 2017 Welcome to the TeachingEnglish newsletter In many parts of the world a new school year is about to begin, so this week we have activities and other resources to get you and your learners off to a flying start. For those of you who teach kids, especially those of you who are new to teaching kids, we have an article to help you cope with your first lessons. If you teach teens, why not start with classroom rules and rewards by downloading our posters and badge builders? And for teachers of adults, we have a getting-to-know-you activity focused on using question tags. We also have two practical blog posts on the topics of differentiation and designing materials for teaching and training. And finally, find out about how to motivate the unmotivated by watching a recording of this week's featured seminar. We hope you find these resources useful. Deb TeachingEnglish team Teaching kids Teaching children takes a great deal of skill, patience and preparation, so this first tip is all about getting prepared and how to cope in your first few lessons. In this article you can get some practical ideas for your first lessons, in addition to some classroom management tips. Read the article Teaching teens Why not start a new term by downloading our classroom rules poster for your secondary classroom? Or, alternatively, print out versions with blank speech bubbles and give them to your students as a first class activity. You can also motivate your teenage learners with our badge builders by encouraging them to earn skills and behaviour badges. Learn more about the posters and badge builders Teaching adults 'Getting to know you question tags' is a communicative activity to practise using question tags with rising intonation when you are not sure that your ideas are right. Learners prepare a series of statements about another person in the class. They then confirm their ideas by asking this person using tag questions. There are two worksheets: one focuses on pronunciation and the other on question tag formation. Go to the activity Development Phil Wade's latest blog post - Differentiation is the spice of life - suggests some excellent strategies for multi-level classes. Read about how he managed to teach a diverse group of learners, ranging from almost complete beginners to bilingual, by creating, developing and adapting the course content, and how he taught it. Find out more about the differentiation strategies he explored, along with their pros and cons. Read more Events Do you have problems with attendance? Do your students seem to have no interest in learning? In this seminar, 'Motivating the unmotivated', Ken Wilson outlines ten ways to create an atmosphere that makes students want to come to class.    Watch a recording of this seminar Magazine In this post, 'Do we write materials OR Do we design them!', you can read about the experience and reflections of a teacher/teacher trainer designing and writing activities and materials for the classroom and the training room. You can also use the stages of the training session and download the CLIL lesson plan. 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 August 2017

TeachingEnglish - the global home for teachers 23 August 2017 Welcome to the TeachingEnglish newsletter The TeachingEnglish newsletter is back after a short break with more ideas and resources for you and your learners. This week we have a fun activity for kids to review vocabulary and an imaginative project for teens which involves designing a mobile phone. For adults, we feature Learning Circles as a means of getting your students to speak with each other in English. We also feature two blogposts this week: 'A teacher's ventures into tech!' and 'International Festival of Teacher-research in ELT 2017'. And, finally, if you missed last month's topical discussion forum on the usefulness (or not) of 'learning styles', you can now watch a recording of this event. We hope you find these resources useful. Deb TeachingEnglish team Teaching kids 'Definitions - Get rid of it' is a fun activity which you can use in a variety of ways to review vocabulary. For example, learners can match words to definitions or to opposites. All you need is a set of prepared cards and a hat or a bag.    Go to the activity Teaching teens In this lesson, students work together to design the next generation mobile phone. They should be encouraged to be as imaginative as they can. This activity can be used for all levels and could be extended to a mini-project for younger students.  Go to the activity Teaching adults Getting students to use English with each other is a problem which is often difficult to overcome. Learning Circles are one way to help students recognise the importance of using English and to motivate them to do so in the classroom. Find out more about the benefits of Learning Circles, the principles underpinning a successful English Learning Circle and how to set one up. Find out more Development The aim of the Learning styles discussion forum was to summarise and critique the current debate around learning styles. Three presenters - Carol Lethaby, Philip Kerr and Phil Dexter - gave short, 20-minute presentations providing insight, clarification and opinion on the debate from varying standpoints. Following the presentations, the issue was explored in more depth with a question and answer session. Watch a recording of this interesting webinar Events The International Festival of Teacher-research in ELT 2017 brings together teacher-researchers from around the world to share their ideas. Even teachers who teach in difficult circumstances and who have limited access to classroom resources or cannot attend teacher conferences due to costs can be part of an international virtual ELT environment. Find out more about how you can participate in this festival by reading Yasmin Dar's blogpost. Read more Magazine Every day teachers around the world have to deal with digital natives, i.e. their young students who were born and raised in technology and for whom it is part of their daily life. This is not always the case though for us, who most of the time are digital immigrants trying to understand the uncharted places we find ourselves in. So how can teachers help their learners develop their digital literacy skills and use the language in a socially appropriate way?  Find out more by reading this blogpost 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 02 August 2017

TeachingEnglish - the global home for teachers 02 August 2017 Welcome to the TeachingEnglish newsletter For the classroom this week we have a new lesson for teens and adults to mark Left Handers Day on 13 August, a lesson for kids - 'Using opposites' - and an article on using social media in the classroom. We announce our latest blog of the month winner - Mike Astbury for his post 'Make and Do - Collocation Revision'. We also have a blog post on managing multilingualism in the classroom. And finally, if you haven't already, why not take a look at our ELT research database? We hope you find these resources useful. Deb TeachingEnglish team Teaching kids This is a lesson designed to help learners understand and remember opposite adjectives. Many of the techniques used here could be used for teaching other words or adjectives too. The lesson aims to introduce simple adjectives for describing people and things, to match the written and spoken form of simple adjectives and to help the learners remember the words using mime and drawing. Go to the lesson plan Teaching teens Do you use social media in your classroom? If not, take a look at this article about ways in which you can use social media with your students. There are plenty of suggestions on how to use blogs and Twitter, together with some useful background information and advice. Read more Teaching adults Designed to fit in with Left Handers Day on 13 August, but usable at any time of the year, this lesson explores what it is like to be left-handed - the advantages, the disadvantages and the prejudices left-handers may face. The lesson begins with an optional video and then leads into a reading text in the style of an online article at C1 level. Students then carry out two exam-style tasks: matching summaries to paragraphs and identifying if statements about the text are true or false. Go to the lesson plan Development Do you know about our ELT research database? The British Council Directory of UK ELT Research provides a database of ELT research carried out over the last six years and has three main aims: to share information generally in the area of UK-based ELT research; to promote interchange among researchers in the UK and other countries; to publicise and make research available to the broader constituency of ELT professionals worldwide. You can search the database or download a PDF version. Find out more Events Our featured blog of the month for June 2017 goes to Mike Astbury and his post 'Make and Do - Collocation Revision'. This post features a fun game for practising 'make' and 'do' collocations. It is highly adaptable for other grammar points and easy to prepare. This month's shortlist also includes advice on using film in class, an article looking at bias in hiring native over non-native English speaker teachers, a collated list of recommended podcasts for English language teachers and a list of ten games using PowerPoint. Read more Magazine Multilingual classes are a reality. For any teacher, it is a huge challenge and a work in progress. A multilingual classroom is both a benefit and a drawback, but it is also a reality, so we have to cope. There are various techniques which we can use, depending on the age of the children and on the attitude of the parents. Read more about how to manage bilingualism and multilingualism in this blog post. 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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