E V O L V E S C H O O L: TeachingEnglish newsletter 28 October 2020

TeachingEnglish newsletter

28 October 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.

First, we are pleased to announce our next webinar on assessment, taking place tomorrow, Wednesday 28 October!

For the classroom, we have three lesson plans to suit all ages – Bonfire night, Movember and Anna's wet day out.

We also have news of the ELTons 2020 winners, a fascinating new project report on multilingualism and multiliteracy, and a free online course starting on 2 November, 'Migrants and Refugees in Education: a toolkit for teachers'.

And finally, check out the free resources available from EEF (the Education Endowment Foundation) to help support home-learning and reading at home.

We hope you find these resources useful.

The TeachingEnglish team

What do teachers want to know about assessment?

This webinar will present materials from an online toolkit on assessment and discuss the research behind it. The training materials cover assessing level and the CEFR, assessing young learners, and language assessment for learning and for teachers. Suggestions will be given as to how these materials can be used for self-study or as group work. Join us on 28 October at 12.00 p.m. UK time.

ELTons Innovation Awards 2020: Winners and awards ceremony

The ELTons Innovation Awards 2020 were held live online on Thursday 15 October. For the first time in its 18-year history, the awards ceremony was held online. On these pages, you can watch a recording of the awards ceremony, see the list of winners in each category, and get tips and ideas from all of the finalists from the ELTons Innovation Awards 2020.

Movember lesson plan

This lesson plan for teachers of adults and teenage students at level B1/ B2 raises awareness of the Movember charity. Students read about the Movember charity, discuss issues related to charities and health, then join an ‘imaginary’ online chat group to organise their own charity event.

Migrants and Refugees in Education: a toolkit for teachers

Learn how to teach and support young people across the globe affected by violence, conflict or displacement by joining this free online course, which starts on 2 November. Whether you’re a language teacher, a teacher of another subject or a volunteer working in migrant and refugee education, you’ll find ideas and strategies that you can use to better understand your learners.

Anna's wet day out

This activity trains young learners to plan a very simple story. The activity looks at the brainstorming process prior to writing, then allows learners to select ideas and guides them to the actual writing of the story through a clearly staged plan. All you need is a picture of your story hero and a board! Read more.

EEF – the Education Endowment Foundation

To help support home-learning and maximise the impact of work set, the EEF has produced a set of resources that can be shared with parents, many of whom will continue to be home-schooling.

They have also produced a handy resource: 7 Top Tips to Support Reading at Home.

Bonfire Night

Even though Bonfire Night will not be celebrated as usual across the UK due to the current circumstances, young learners will still find this lesson about one of our favourite festivals fun. It is aimed at A2–B1 students aged 10–15 and there are a variety of activities related to Bonfire Night: a jigsaw reading, discussions, designing a Bonfire Night menu, saying a rhyme and designing a poster.

Multilingualism and Multiliteracy:

Raising Learning Outcomes in Challenging

Contexts in Primary Schools across India

The Multilingualism and Multiliteracy (MultiLiLa) project was a four-year research study (2016–20) led by the University of Cambridge and a consortium of Indian and UK partners, including the British Council. The project aimed to identify whether or not children who learn through the medium of a language which is not the same as their home languages have different levels of learning outcomes from those children whose home and school languages are the same. The full research report and a summary version can be downloaded here.