E V O L V E S C H O O L: TeachingEnglish newsletter 10 June 2020

TeachingEnglish newsletter

10 June 2020

Welcome to the latest edition of the TeachingEnglish newsletter!

The British Council is committed to supporting teachers and teacher educators during the Covid-19 crisis. To this end, this week we bring you news of a webinar looking at conducting research into English language teaching in challenging contexts and a recording of a panel event on the challenges of remote learning. We also bring you two blog posts focused on overcoming the challenges of teaching online.

And for the classroom – online or face-to-face – we introduce three lesson plans for primary, teenage and adult learners.

We hope you find these resources useful.

The TeachingEnglish team

ELT research across fracture lines: Themes and methods for difficult times and under travel constraints

Join us on 17 June 2020 for this webinar looking at conducting research into English language teaching in challenging contexts. Drawing on the insights of contributors to the British Council’s edited volume on English across the fracture lines, this webinar will focus on possible themes and methods for researching (English) language use and (English) language education in times of restricted travel and insecurity due to political, environmental and/or health emergencies. Find out more and register.

Get to know the neighbours

Students are led through a series of activities to create profiles for imaginary characters who live in the same neighbourhood. The lesson then brings these characters together at a neighbourhood party, where students can practise asking and answering simple questions about work, family, hobbies and so on. Use this lesson in online or face-to-face delivery with lower-level adults and teenagers to develop fluency skills and review adjectives of personality.

Overcoming the challenges of online teaching

The debate has been raging for some time now about the efficacy of online teaching over classroom teaching. With lockdown and Covid-19, we now have the unique opportunity to experience online teaching. Every step poses challenges, and we as teachers are definitely overcoming them. Read more about the challenges of online teaching and how to overcome them in this useful blog post by a secondary teacher from India.

Holidays

In this lesson, learners talk about holidays and holiday activities. They initially meet vocabulary through a pre-lesson task, then they practise and extend the vocabulary through listening and speaking activities. Use this lesson, specifically designed for online classes, with primary students at CEFR level A1–A2 to talk about holidays and holiday activities.

Four questions – and answers – about teaching English online

There are so many challenges facing us as we move to teaching our students online. And, since this situation is likely to be with us for quite a while, what are some ways to overcome them? In this blog post, Larry Ferlazzo looks at four questions that he has been facing in his teaching Beginning English Language Learners and Intermediates, and his responses. You will also find links to many other useful resources.

Benefits of being bilingual

Use this lesson with adults or older teenagers with CEFR level B2 and above in online or face-to-face teaching to focus on the benefits of being bilingual or multilingual. The lesson begins with a few statements about bilingualism. The students decide if these are true or false and then read a text to check their ideas. Having discussed the topic of the text, the students move on to look at impersonal report structures.

The challenges of remote learning through online classrooms and resource hubs – panel event

With many school buildings closed, remote learning could mean website, app, text, phone, radio or TV broadcast. How are teachers responding to this challenge in different contexts? Watch a recording of this panel event, with speakers from around the world, followed by a question-and-answer session.