You may have noticed that I haven't written anything on this blog for several days. I'm currently packing up the contents of our house - we're going to have some serious work done to it so we're moving out for a few months!!! After 22 years of living in the same house, we have accumulated rather a lot of stuff. I wanted to take advantage of the situation to have a sort-out/clear-out! It's nearly done, but has taken up rather a lot of time and energy over the past two weeks!!!
While I was going through my papers - a neverending task! - I came across a note to myself to look again at TeachingEnglish.com posters.
There are 7 'posters' - more than 'posters', they are corkboards with ideas for teaching writing, reading, vocabulary, pronunciation, listening, grammar, speaking.
You can find some good ideas on the boards - maybe some ideas that you haven't used for a while.
So, I thought I'd share the link with you via this blog. I hope to get back to writing regular posts!
Showing posts with label British Council. Show all posts
Showing posts with label British Council. Show all posts
Monday, October 28, 2013
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Where are we heading? Revisited....
Back in April 2007, I was asked to give a workshop and a session at the APPI conference in Lisbon about the situation in Europe regarding the teaching of English.
I spent a good month preparing the session because I wanted the information I was sharing to be as accurate and up to date as possible.
A lot of work, believe me, but as so often happens, I've found that the information that I discovered has come to be so useful since then. Facts like the percentage of teachers in Europe who were set to retire in the following 10 years (opening the doors to new teachers and maybe the chance to make changes in a school). I know one school locally that is doing just that. They wanted to introduce a bilingual project and teach subjects through English. As teachers retire, the new staff member they take on has a good level of English. If only this kind of forward planning could take place more often ..... .
Which brings me to what caused me to write today's post. The school year is kicking off. The number of emails I'm receiving every day has grown tremendously and suddenly. I was looking through some of them and clicked on the links in the TeachingEnglish newsletter.
One of the links took me to the
I remember drawing on the information in the previous survey when I prepared my APPI presentation.
I think it will make interesting reading for many of us. Just added it to my 'to do' list for today!
A lot of work, believe me, but as so often happens, I've found that the information that I discovered has come to be so useful since then. Facts like the percentage of teachers in Europe who were set to retire in the following 10 years (opening the doors to new teachers and maybe the chance to make changes in a school). I know one school locally that is doing just that. They wanted to introduce a bilingual project and teach subjects through English. As teachers retire, the new staff member they take on has a good level of English. If only this kind of forward planning could take place more often ..... .
Which brings me to what caused me to write today's post. The school year is kicking off. The number of emails I'm receiving every day has grown tremendously and suddenly. I was looking through some of them and clicked on the links in the TeachingEnglish newsletter.
One of the links took me to the
I remember drawing on the information in the previous survey when I prepared my APPI presentation.
I think it will make interesting reading for many of us. Just added it to my 'to do' list for today!
(Now I can cross off 'Write a blog post' from my list! Done!!!)
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Today we chat with Jane Delaney who will be delivering a talk at the Cambridge Experience Gijón
Today I have the pleasure (and the time!) to chat with my colleague Jane Delaney,
member of the Cambridge English Presenters Team who will be delivering the talk
"Getting it right in the Cambridge English: Preliminary for Schools
Speaking Test" at the Cambridge Experience Gijón , next Saturday 27th
of March at Hotel Tryp Rey Pelayo.
Jane Delaney is a primary school teacher, and lives in
Tarragona. She is an experienced Examiner, Examiner Trainer and Teacher Trainer
for Cambridge English and runs the British Council Examinations Centre in
Tarragona. She has given many workshops and sessions on Teaching Younger
Learners, and has written various materials. She is particularly interested in
CLIL and getting children and teenagers to speak and write.
 |
| Jane Delaney, delivering a presentation at the Cambridge Experience Zaragoza 2011 |
Hello Jane! Can
you tell us why did you decide to go into English language teaching?
Well, I was a teacher in England, and wanted to travel
a little bit and see more of the world before I “settled down”. I worked in
Turkey and then came to Tarragona 20 years ago, and here I still am!
Who or what
inspires you?
My children, my students, the weather. Seeing learning
taking place in unplanned moments.
What's your
all time top-tip for English language teachers?
Be flexible. Don’t follow your lesson plan or course
book slavishly. The best learning takes place in the little moments outside the
plan.
Do you have a
favourite ELT website?
A gadget you
can't live without?
My computer and mobile phone, unfortunately.
And finally,
why do you think teachers should see your talk?
Hopefully you might learn a few more activities to do
with your teenage PET students to help them through the Speaking Test!
Thanks Jane! It has been a pleasure to chat with you!
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Great blog(s) for Cambridge English: First!
Yesterday, I was at the British Council, Bilbao for a 2 hour seminar on the theme of:
'Planning and teaching short exam courses'
I really enjoyed the session - there were some teachers I've met at previous seminars in Bilbao, plus some new faces. Great to share ideas with you all! Thanks for coming!
When planning the session, I decided to take the Cambridge English: First exam as the focus for the course we were going to plan.
We looked at the English Profile website - the Vantage pdf document that can be downloaded via a link there, at the Vocabulary Profile and various other useful resources for material to guide us with our course content and focus planning.
One point that all of us at the session agreed on is the need to offer students the opportunity to practise and study outside the classroom (especially with students that you may only see once a week for example).
We looked at various online resources for doing this. I've mentioned some of them on this blog before - mailvu, IH Bristol...
Interestingly, when looking around the web at what is available for teachers and students to prepare and practise for Cambridge English: First, I discovered that there is a British Council Bilbao blog for Cambridge English: First!
The blog has posts on different aspects of the exam and some practice materials based on authentic texts.
I also showed the teachers in Bilbao a blog about Cambridge English: First that I discovered recently.
This blog, by Claudia Ceraso is (in her own words)
An afterclass meeting point for all First Certificate in English StudentsI like the mixture of advice for the different parts of the exam and the fun links.
Why not visit Claudia's blog and the FCE British Council Bilbao blog yourself and see what you think!
Friday, July 20, 2012
As usual, I received an email this week with the TeachingEnglish newsletter.
As I read through the summaries of the featured content from the TeachingEnglish website, two things immediately caught my eye.
Paul Millard explains (without speaking!) how despite failing his school art exam at 16,
Paul shows us how to draw animals and how changing the size and/or shape of the body especially, we can use similar forms to draw different animals.
Now I don't know about you, but I am reluctant to draw on the board except for some animals like sheep, fish and pigs. I have these three animals well-rehearsed. Like Paul, I use a cloud to draw a sheep. I'm sure if I watch Paul's video a few more times, pausing it to copy his shapes and techniques, I could expand my repertoire!
Looking around the web after watching Paul's video, I came across a couple of useful resources to share with you:
At http://www.meddybemps.com/letterary/letterzoo.html, you can see how to use letters to build 4 animals. The letters needed to put together a cat, snail, bird and caterpillar are provided. Students could then produce their own 'letter animals'.
And on the Harptoons site, you can learn to draw lots of animals using letters and numbers.
Let's see if this summer I can find the time to doodle and practise drawing and develop my board drawing skills!
As I read through the summaries of the featured content from the TeachingEnglish website, two things immediately caught my eye.
Paul Millard explains (without speaking!) how despite failing his school art exam at 16,
Paul shows us how to draw animals and how changing the size and/or shape of the body especially, we can use similar forms to draw different animals.
Now I don't know about you, but I am reluctant to draw on the board except for some animals like sheep, fish and pigs. I have these three animals well-rehearsed. Like Paul, I use a cloud to draw a sheep. I'm sure if I watch Paul's video a few more times, pausing it to copy his shapes and techniques, I could expand my repertoire!
Looking around the web after watching Paul's video, I came across a couple of useful resources to share with you:
At http://www.meddybemps.com/letterary/letterzoo.html, you can see how to use letters to build 4 animals. The letters needed to put together a cat, snail, bird and caterpillar are provided. Students could then produce their own 'letter animals'.
And on the Harptoons site, you can learn to draw lots of animals using letters and numbers.
Let's see if this summer I can find the time to doodle and practise drawing and develop my board drawing skills!
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Teaching English Radio
Today I wanted to mention a section of the Teaching English website. (Another of the sites I'm subscribed to and visit regularly.
Teaching English Radio
There are 15 minute radio programmes on a particular theme.
9 themes have been covered so far:
1 Planning your lessons
2 Teachers supporting each other
3 Finding and creating worksheets
4 Using group work in larger classes
5 Pair and group work in practice
6 Developing teachers' language
7 Using English in the classroom
8 Teaching new language
9 Teaching reading
Then, they can download a worksheet which summarises the ideas discussed in the radio programme and also contains some ideas for thinking about/discussing. For example, this is the Programme Summary from Finding and creating worksheets:
Programme Summary: Using real-life materials is motivating for students. It provides a very real context for practising English. Our students are also a rich resource as we found out in this programme.
Teachers can use songs, humour, real objects and simple drawings and if we need to find colourful images for posters or flash cards we can cut them out of magazines. Newspapers are a very cheap resource and provide material for craft, as well as a variety of written texts. We hope you’ve heard some ideas to adapt for your teaching situation .
These programmes would provide great material and stimulus for teacher training and development. They would also provide useful language input for trainees.
Friday, April 13, 2012
British Council Seminar on choosing and using resources
Yesterday, I received my weekly newsletter from British Council Teaching English. (Another site I'm subscribed to).
If I have time, I look through the areas mentioned in the newsletter as soon as it arrives and click on the links to find out more about them. (If not, the email gets transferred to my 'subscriptions' folder
and stays there till I have time to look at it properly!)
I decided to have a look at the email this morning when I switched on my computer and clicked on the link to
This took me to the Seminars section of the Teaching English website. I clicked on:
I then watched Dot Powell, Project Manager for ESOL Nexus in a seminar with teachers discussing the criteria we need to apply when we are choosing and/or preparing resources for students.
Dot then provided examples of resources and applied the criteria with the teachers at the seminar.
The seminar lasts just under 20 minutes, but I found it so interesting and well-presented, that the time just flew by.
I then paid a quick visit to the ESOL Nexus website.
The site is targeted at a particular group of ESOL learners:
But I have just tried out a couple of activities from the site and I think that many of them would be useful and relevant to our students.
There are many listening activities and the Magazine articles seem interesting.
I liked the several of the poems in the Poems and Stories section. I hadn't come across the No poem before!
I hope you will visit the Nexus site too and find it useful. (Most of the stuff there is for higher level learners.
In a few minutes, I will look at the teachers section of the site - maybe for a future post......?
The British Council has lots more seminars on its website. Here is the direct link to the start up page.
If I have time, I look through the areas mentioned in the newsletter as soon as it arrives and click on the links to find out more about them. (If not, the email gets transferred to my 'subscriptions' folder
and stays there till I have time to look at it properly!)
I decided to have a look at the email this morning when I switched on my computer and clicked on the link to
|
This took me to the Seminars section of the Teaching English website. I clicked on:
I then watched Dot Powell, Project Manager for ESOL Nexus in a seminar with teachers discussing the criteria we need to apply when we are choosing and/or preparing resources for students.
Dot then provided examples of resources and applied the criteria with the teachers at the seminar.
The seminar lasts just under 20 minutes, but I found it so interesting and well-presented, that the time just flew by.
I then paid a quick visit to the ESOL Nexus website.
The site is targeted at a particular group of ESOL learners:
ESOL Nexus
Welcome to the ESOL Nexus page for learners. The materials here have been specially designed and identified for learners who are working and making their home in the UK.
We are sure you will find lots of interesting and motivating activities here which will help you to improve your English in lots of different ways, understand more about UK culture and learn more about UK society and work.
|
But I have just tried out a couple of activities from the site and I think that many of them would be useful and relevant to our students.
There are many listening activities and the Magazine articles seem interesting.
I liked the several of the poems in the Poems and Stories section. I hadn't come across the No poem before!
I hope you will visit the Nexus site too and find it useful. (Most of the stuff there is for higher level learners.
In a few minutes, I will look at the teachers section of the site - maybe for a future post......?
The British Council has lots more seminars on its website. Here is the direct link to the start up page.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Spaniards on the move
A friend sent me an article from the ABC newspaper on Sunday evening. The title of the article was Spanish kingdom. An English title to an article written in Spanish in a Spanish newspaper. (Apologies to those of you reading this entry who do not speak Spanish - but have a go at reading it anyway!)
The article talks about the fact that last year, over 25,000 Spanish people started paying into the British National Insurance scheme.
On a recent visit to London, I myself was witness to the large proportion of shop, pub, hotel and restaurant staff from Spain working there.
From the first day I set foot in Spain, I have always been impressed by the hard work and initiative shown by the vast majority of Spanish people I have met. My personal experience definitely throws into doubt the stereotype of the Spanish being people who leave everything to 'mañana', drop everything for a siesta.
Although some of the people featured in the ABC article are working in bars and restaurants, others are working and getting on well in professions such as graphic design, translation and interpreting, accounting, computing, etc.
The figure of 25,000 Spanish people joining the existing number of Spaniards already working in the UK is on top of the 40,000 people from Spain who go to the UK each year to take a language course. This is the figure given in the English Language Market Report:Spain, prepared by the British Council for UK ELT providers.
Spain, the country where I live and (mainly) work, is facing challenges to its economy. Let's hope that the country rises to the challenge in a way similar to the Spanish people featured in the ABC article!
Ánimo!
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