We all do it – using songs, authentic texts, videos to jazz up the usual textbook material and to motivate and reward our students. But what material do we use most? Here is a handy infographic provided by Kaplan International Colleges which shows which are the most popular sources of authentic material for the language classroom. How many of these have you used?
http://edudemic.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/howtoteachenglish.jpg
To coincide with the launch of the film, here’s an article full of resources based on The Great Gatsby.
http://evasimkesyan.edublogs.org/2013/05/22/the-great-gatsby-class-resources/
In this article from the British Council, Barney Griffiths examines some of the problems with monitoring speaking activities in class, and offers some suggestions for improving how we go about this.
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/articles/monitoring-speaking
For more tips on speaking, see the following links:
Adam Simpson, a member of the ISTEK ELT Social Media team and well-known educator and blogger in ELT, interviewed author and teacher Jamie Keddie, who gave a concurrent keynote session at the conference. Watch the very interesting conversation they had!
In this article from the English Teaching professional blog by Chia Suan Chong we can find various ideas for exploiting viral videos from YouTube in the language classroom. She begins by giving examples of videos which have gone viral recently, then explains the phenomenon in more detail before giving some excellent ideas for things to do with these videos in class. A great way of engaging particularly teenage students.
Photo credit: Wikipedia
In this post for www.teachthought.com, Terry Heick discusses some of the advantages of project-based learning, and then examines the four most important things to take into consideration when setting up a project-based learning environment in your classroom.
http://www.teachthought.com/teaching/4-keys-to-designing-a-project-based-learning-classroom/
One of the most contentious issues in British English is that of regional accents, far more than in any other English-speaking country. There are many different accents from different parts of the UK, and people are often judged by the way they speak. In this article, based on a recent webinar, Helen Ashton investigates people’s reactions to different accents, and explains how they are perceived both in Britain and abroad.
http://blog.britishcouncil.org/2013/05/17/uk-accent-pronunciation/
Here is a link to another great article from The Guardian, which examines different ways of incorporating technology into the language classroom. It is simple and clear, ideal for teachers just beginning to explore the possibilities that technology offers for enhancing the experience of our language learners.
Copyright, Vimeo
Here’s a very useful article from The Guardian which offers ideas and resources for teachers of Modern Foreign Languages (MFL). Although most of the resources are designed for teaching foreign languages to British children, many can be adapted or copied for EFL teaching.
For further resources, click on the following links:
The Colegio Arenas Sur in Maspalomas, Gran Canaria will celebrate the II Arenas Teaching Symposium from 25th to 27th June this year. Speakers this year include Nina Lauder, Shawn Redwood, Andrea Littlewood, Igor Gavilán, Maite Molina and myself among others. The theme this year is ‘Thinking Outside the Box’.
For more information on the programme and on the speakers, click here.
For information on last year’s fantastic symposium, visit this site.
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