E V O L V E S C H O O L: TeachingEnglish newsletter 02 October 2019

TeachingEnglish newsletter

02 October 2019

Welcome to the first of our new fortnightly editions of the TeachingEnglish newsletter, featuring more British Council news and resources, as well as occasional news items about other relevant events or materials that may be of interest.

Throughout the year, we will also be focusing on specific regions – European Union, Wider Europe, Central and South Asia, East Asia, Middle East and North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas (North, Central and South) and the UK – so do look out for these 'special' editions too.

The TeachingEnglish team

Plenaries at the World Teachers' Day Web Conference – Saturday 5 October

Plenary 1 – Taking flight from the intermediate plateau – looks at why learners encounter problems when moving from B1 to B2 and offers helpful strategies. Plenary 2 – Life skills: Lessons taught; lessons learnt – explores how concepts like motivation and stress management fit in a language-learning environment. Plenary 3 – Tick boxes don't matter, representation does – illustrates how representation can be better accomplished, and Plenary 4 explores our ELT footprint.

Take a look at the full programme here.

Using multilingual approaches – moving from theory to practice

This book aims to introduce important evidence relating to language learning in multilingual contexts and develop the practice of using multilingual approaches in the classroom. It has been especially designed to support teachers who teach English as a subject and for teachers who use English as the medium of instruction (EMI) in classrooms with students in linguistically diverse and often resource-poor communities.

Noah's Ark in space

This is a small-group, free-discussion activity aimed at pre-intermediate and above secondary students, in which learners are asked to decide which animals should be selected to go aboard a spacecraft in order to safeguard their survival. Suggested follow-up activities are also provided. Find out more.

What about writing stories to each other? A writing and reading project in ten steps

Have you ever thought of transforming your students into writers? Have you ever thought of developing a project in order to create a reading culture in your classroom? Ingrid Mosquera suggests that you should, and presents a project that can be adapted for different ages, combining reading and writing. Read more.

Nature poem

This short lesson plan is intended to provide a supplementary activity for primary learners who have been working on the topic of nature. Learners look at an example acrostic poem and identify its features, build another poem together by following simple stages, then work independently in order to create their own poem.

Making materials on topics that are excluded from mainstream coursebooks

Raise Up! is a charitable project that was created with a simple aim – what would a mainstream English language coursebook look like if it represented a wider range of people? In this IATEFL Materials Writing SIG and Teacher Development SIG joint webinar on 11 October, Ilá Coimbra and James Taylor will describe how the first edition of Raise Up! came to be.

Note-writing

This is an activity which is really useful for helping adult and teenage learners to write more fluently, and can also help you to diagnose problems with your students' written work and ability to formulate questions. You can use it at the beginning or end of a class as a fun filler, or as an integral part of your lesson.