New look Teaching Resources Website

At seminars I have given, especially when using the great resources that I have found on the Cambridge English Teaching Resources Website, several teachers have commented that they found the Website difficult to navigate.

So, today I am delighted to pass on the news that the website has been revamped and reorganised.  Certainly, the start-up page is a lot less cluttered and more dynamic.

I would encourage you to visit the site if you haven't done so or haven't been there for a while.  There are some fantastic ideas and suggestions and materials. Like this one below, submitted by a teacher called Andy (a very active contributor to the Website)

"Sometimes we need an excuse to do nothing"

Driving to Madrid in May, I took this photo.  (I must add that I wasn't driving the car!!!)

I shared the photo via Facebook and added a question:  Who will win the battle - the sun or the clouds?

After weeks and weeks of cold and rain (or was it months?), the sun has finally won the battle.  It's been glorious here for the past two weeks.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/topics/weather-and-climate/clouds-dew-fog-and-steam/

Look at the above collection of words connected with clouds and weather.  As Gavin Pretor-Pinney says in his Ted talk 'Live with your head in the clouds',  clouds get a bad rap.

I have just watched his talk (you have to watch, otherwise you'll miss the fantastic pictures of clouds he shares).  Apart from learning a bit more about clouds and the way they form, I also approved of his suggestions:

“the exotic can be found in the everyday”

"step outside, pay attention"

"cloudspotting legitimises doing nothing"

"sometimes we need an excuse to do nothing"

For me, summer is the only time of the year when for an hour or two, I manage to do exactly that - nothing.....

That explains why I'm not writing blog posts as frequently as I should.....  My head is in the clouds.....

http://ittrainingtips.iu.edu/category/getting-started

Are you a typical ELT teacher?

Top on my list of things to do today was to write this post!  I have been meaning to sit down and write all week, but have lots of things to finish off and wrap up for the testing I've been doing and each day ended with no blog post written!  So today, I'm going to start off by writing this post, then move on to tidying up my study!!!


One of the things I've been planning to write about is the survey I took part in.
A few weeks ago, I filled in my answers to the Snapshot Survey by Cambridge English Teacher.   They wanted to form a picture of what being an English teacher is like.



And 2 weeks ago, I received an email telling me that the results of the survey had been uploaded to the Cambridge English Teacher website.

I was not one of the teachers who said they had ended up in ELT 'accidentally', but I never intended making a career of it!  After a year in France as a assistant, I came to Spain to teach for a year and 28 years later, my Spanish 'year' is still in progress!  I have several teacher friends who say the same!

You can download the results of the Snapshot Survey as a pdf file.  It would be useful for class I feel - students could work out the original questions and interview you and see if their teacher is 'typical'!