TeachingEnglish newsletter 24 April 2019

TeachingEnglish newsletter 24 April 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 to join us on Thursday 25 April for a webinar on developing extensive reading skills with Ceri Jones. The TeachingEnglish team Mother Earth Day In this lesson, children learn about the United Nation’s Mother Earth Day, celebrated on 22 April each year, however it could be used at any time. Students brainstorm ideas about the things our planet gives us and make their own drawings with text or posters to share their ideas. The lesson is suitable for primary students aged 6-8 years at all levels. Innovations in education: Remote teaching Remote Teaching is a collection of articles, research papers and case studies that offer practitioners and policymakers insight into live online language teaching and teacher training. Many of the chapters focus on Ceibal en Inglés, an innovative programme teaching primary children in Uruguay. Others take a more general view. It is free to download and of interest to anyone involved in language teaching via videoconferencing. Understanding Language: Learning and Teaching What is language? How do we learn meaning in a new language? What is easy and hard about learning another language? And what is the best way to teach other languages? This free online course, developed by the British Council and University of Southampton, suggests some answers to these questions. Start date: 29 April. Find out more. How to measure the effectiveness of your lessons if nobody controls you Freelance teachers can easily fall victim to their professional freedom if they do not reflect on the effectiveness of their work. For any teacher working freelance it might be a serious challenge to evaluate the effectiveness of their course without peer supervision and control. It is vitally important to develop methods enabling them to see whether they are leading the students in the right way or may have already gone astray. Find out how one online teacher has managed this by developing a list of rules. Stories and poems Check out our section on stories and poems to use in the secondary classroom with your learners aged 13-17. You may be especially interested in stories to develop the pyschosocial behaviour of your students, using such stories as The Ex-footballer, Sewing Day, or The Guitar. Gender and sexuality in ELT – inclusive education vs. queer pedagogy 'After more than half a century of profound social change and legislative reform across much of the world, issues of gender and sexuality remain problematic in English language teaching and in education more generally.' This IATEFL plenary talk looks at some of the reasons behind the continued reinforcement of heteronormativity in ELT materials, tests and teacher training, as well as possible ways forward. ‌ Visit our website STAY CONNECTED ‌ ‌

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TeachingEnglish newsletter 17 April 2019

TeachingEnglish newsletter 17 April 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 Getting the reading habit: extensive reading  Join us on Thursday 25 April for a webinar on developing extensive reading skills with Ceri Jones. Extensive reading is so valuable in so many different ways, and supporting students as they become confident, happy readers can be both challenging and immensely gratifying. In this session we’ll explore a range of activities that help our students discover the pleasure of reading in English.  Creativity and innovation This lesson for teenage learners at B2 level is designed to mark World Creativity and Innovation Day on 21 April. However, it could be used at any time of year, as this is not specifically mentioned. The lesson begins by looking at what is involved in being creative. The students then do a range of reading activities, and the lesson finishes with a creativity task, followed up by a final discussion. Hornby Teacher Association Project Scheme – call for proposals Annually, the Hornby Trust offers around 12 awards to support teacher professional development projects. There are two categories of awards, one to support teacher associations and one to support Hornby Scholarship alumni. This year, the award for teacher associations has been renamed the Hornby Trust Teacher Association Project Scheme, and the deadline for applications is 15 June. Find out more about both categories here. Addressing human trafficking and slavery in the classroom According to the Global Slavery Index 2018, over 40 million people are enslaved today, and of those, ten million are 17 years old or younger. So, why focus on raising awareness of trafficking and slavery in our classrooms? Why is this relevant and important to the well-being of our teenage and young adult learners? Find out why by reading this week's featured article by Judy Boyle.  Step-by-step to creative writing Creative writing is a skill and not a task. Like any skill, it needs conscious effort and constant practice to improve and be polished. Discover some practical and useful strategies to help students to overcome their hesitation in writing and enhance their creative writing skills in this week's featured blog post. Developing teachers and enabling reform and internationalisation in higher education This week's featured talk from IATEFL Liverpool 2019 looks at factors involved in creating institutional change and effective teacher development programmes at HE level. Zhanna Sevastianova and Simon Borg draw on findings from research studying the impact of the five-year 'English for Universities' project, delivered in 32 universities across Ukraine. They explore factors which enabled policy dialogue and institutional change to take place, and lessons learned. ‌ Visit our website STAY CONNECTED ‌ ‌

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TeachingEnglish newsletter 10 April 2019

TeachingEnglish newsletter 10 April 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 A matter of location: The use of maps in the English class Maps can be a very important tool in the development of descriptive language. If we can transmit to our students the importance of the setting in a story, we will be able to turn their attention to detail when choosing a location and describing it. For that purpose, there are several online resources available. Find out more about such online resources, a CLIL activity using maps and ideas for extension activities in this blog post. Engaging with reading-skills development Register for this three-hour, self-study module to identify effective strategies that will help you develop reading skills in your learners. Improve the performance of your learners and see how a focus on reading skills helps your learners come on in leaps and bounds. This module is suitable for teachers and teaching assistants working in English language teaching with all age groups. It is also available at half-price in April 2019! Creating an inclusive school environment In this publication we have drawn together research and learning from around the world, in papers which highlight the need for inclusive education and some of the steps being taken to implement it. The settings brought to life here reveal the work of teachers, leaders and policy makers in geographically and culturally diverse situations. In each of the chapters we see the challenges they face and the significant efforts they make to ensure access to, and engagement with, a quality education for all children. Easter Children love learning about festivals and the way other people celebrate them. It’s also fascinating for them to compare how they celebrate the same festival in their own country. Easter is widely celebrated by children across the world, and it is interesting from a cross-cultural point of view to develop at least a few activities related to eggs, bunnies and hot cross buns!  And if you teach teenagers, try these lower-level activities to develop vocabulary and reading skills, or this Easter reading task that helps students to reflect on special occasions in their own culture. Poetry activities your students will love 'Who said that Poetry was too complex and boring? I would like to share some activities that make poetry straightforward and even fun.' Read Loli Iglesias's post to learn more about factors to consider when integrating poetry in the language class. Addressing challenges in especially low-resourced parts of the Global South – Hornby scholars This recorded presentation from the 2019 IATEFL Conference starts from the assumption that in order to solve educational problems, you first have to understand their true nature. Each of the Hornby scholar presenters reports on how they have explored a specific issue arising from a lack of resources in an institution or area of their home country. They describe the context, discuss the data that they obtained and suggest possible ways forward. ‌ Visit our website STAY CONNECTED ‌ ‌

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