TeachingEnglish newsletter 30 January 2019

TeachingEnglish newsletter 30 January 2019 Welcome to the TeachingEnglish newsletter! We've selected a range of practical resources to help you in the classroom and ideas to help you with your professional development, which we hope you find useful. The TeachingEnglish team Becoming a better teacher Keeping up professional development as a teacher can be hard to fit into a busy timetable. This online course, broken into simple steps, will help you develop your reflective skills and improve your practice in the classroom. Join a community of others working in education, share your experiences and grow as a teacher. Read more. TIRF's 2019 Doctoral Dissertation Grants competition underway TIRF – The International Research Foundation for English Language Education – is pleased to announce its 2019 Doctoral Dissertation Grants (DDG) competition. Grants of up to US$5,000 will be made to successful applicants investigating a range of topics in English language education. The application deadline is Wednesday 24 April 2019. Language and culture: two sides of the same coin Teaching a language is not just a question of linguistic skills; culture also has a role to play. And we can say that both, language and culture, inevitably influence the other. Do our students understand the importance of culture? Read Ingrid Mosquera's post for some examples of questions we can pose in order to reflect on culture and language. New research paper by AQUEDUTO – Association for Quality Education and Training Online AQUEDUTO, an organisation promoting quality assurance for online training, has commissioned an informative review of the literature in the field of online language teacher education. Its first piece of commissioned research takes a broad look at the current state of online language teacher education (OLTE). The full paper is also available online and open access. Faith This lesson for teen and adult learners at B1/B2 level focuses on religious diversity in the UK. Students will learn vocabulary related to different world religions, discuss their own beliefs, read a text about religion in the UK and have a debate about faith schools. Be aware that this could be a sensitive topic with some students, although the lesson is approached more from a cultural studies perspective. ‌ Visit our website STAY CONNECTED ‌ ‌

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TeachingEnglish newsletter 23 January 2019

TeachingEnglish newsletter 23 January 2019 Welcome to the TeachingEnglish newsletter! We've selected a range of practical resources to help you in the classroom and ideas to help you with your professional development, which we hope you find useful. The TeachingEnglish team Ditching the plan 'Sometimes good ideas come while you are in the classroom. I don't believe that we should always be improvising, but sometimes the language you get from your students is more language than if you stick to the plan.' Read this interesting post of what happened in this teacher's classroom when she 'ditched the plan' and improvised. Draw a story Create a picture story with your young learners using this lesson plan and a story from LearnEnglish Kids. Learners will listen to a story and imagine each scene. Then they will work in groups, making colourful illustrations of key points from the story. When they finish they will put their pictures together to form a picture book version of the story. Finally, they will use the picture book to retell the story in groups. A house of mystery and secrets David Petrie presents six ways to exploit an image with your classes. He suggests one idea for each level, or approximate level, of ability, and he's taken the approach of using the image as a springboard for language production. The language comes from the learners and they work with what they've got – it's not about input, but output. Deja vu This fun speaking activity gets students to think in English and use their memory, simultaneously. It is a simple way of recycling texts previously studied in class. It works well with factual texts in EFL, texts used in CLIL lessons and quizzes related to any subject. You will need texts previously studied or quizzes completed in class, plus a few questions about factual information from the text(s). Unplanned opportunities – a lesson in culture There are often times in a lesson when an unplanned opportunity for learning – language or otherwise – arises. Think of a time this has happened. How did you adjust your plan to take advantage of it? What was the outcome? Read Sandy Millin's account of how the lesson plan went out of the window, and she had one of the best discussions ever.  ‌ Visit our website STAY CONNECTED ‌ ‌

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TeachingEnglish newsletter 16 January 2019

TeachingEnglish newsletter 16 January 2019 Welcome to the TeachingEnglish newsletter! We've selected a range of practical resources to help you in the classroom and ideas to help you with your professional development, which we hope you find useful. And don't forget our first webinar of 2019, Talking to teenagers in the English language classroom, takes place on Thursday 17 January at 17.00 UK time. The TeachingEnglish team Blue / Red / Blue (And Black): Word order issues in the EFL classroom For many learners of English, particularly those with non-Indo-European language backgrounds, English syntax can often be a nightmare. Even for speakers of Romance or Germanic languages, unmarked word order can be a challenge in English. With this simple colour system, you can encourage low-level learners to self-correct word-order errors and you can raise awareness of marked and unmarked sentences with higher-level learners. Read Gabriel Clark's latest post to find out more. CLIL: Healthy eating This activity aims to develop primary pupils' understanding of healthy, balanced eating and provides practice of basic food vocabulary and the present simple tense. It also has cross-curricular links to PE.  CLIL: Healthy living follows on from the Healthy eating activity and encourages pupils to think about how to live healthily, while giving speaking practice to practise adverbs of frequency. Mastermind session: lesson in the new format  There is a widespread illusion that modern teenagers are less sociable and more egotistical. They would rather go online than hang around with friends. But from the vantage point of the XXI century, this behavioural pattern is just normal. To teach our students to take even more advantage of networking, Natalia Moiseeva suggests introducing them to the format of Mastermind sessions - widely used by professionals and experts to share and exchange their experience and expertise. Get some tips on how to organise and run a mastermind session here. Changing lives On the theme of downshifting and the difference between rural and urban lifestyles, this lesson for teenagers at B1-B2 level consists of two case studies based on real-life stories of people living n the UK today. The stories deal with their decision to give up an apparently successful and fast-paced lifestyle for a rural life in the Peak District. The topic encourages students to talk about their own lifestyles and priorities. Checking answers When checking the answers to an exercise or activity, teachers often revert to a more traditional role whereby from the front of the room they ask students for their answers and tell them whether they are right. However, in the student-centred classroom, this important stage in the learning process could be better exploited so as to be more engaging, interactive and empowering for our learners. Find out more about how to exploit this stage. Social and emotional approaches to teaching with technology Recorded in January 2014, this webinar by Sylvia Guinan looked at helping teachers to think for themselves about creative applications of technology. It was a very practical session with examples, as well as being a kind of open-ended exploration, brainstorming and thought-provoking presentation. Find out more and watch a recording of this webinar. ‌ Visit our website STAY CONNECTED ‌ ‌

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