Online training opportunities

A few years ago, maybe it was difficult for some teachers to receive training and to find out about news and developments.

Nowadays, this is definitely not the case.  With the improvements in the availability and quality of internet connections, together with the range and variety of online materials and webinars on offer, there is no excuse for us to be underinformed or undertrained.  (Well, I suppose there is one problem - the number of hours in a day!!)

http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/remade/product/it-s-time-to-personalised-blackboard-clock

I've mentioned Cambridge English TV before.  Every time I look at the youtube channel, I find more stuff.
I like the English Language Learning Tips.

(A new one - Tenses Part 2 was added just 4 hours ago)

And I regularly sign up for webinars (if I'm free at the time they're taking place) or watch recordings of them if I can't take part in the live session.

There are 24 webinars right now in the Cambridge English TV youtube playlist.

There will soon be more!  Next Monday and Wednesday, you can sign up to find out about the changes  to the Cambridge English: First and Cambridge English: First for Schools that will be coming in from January 2015.  

To register for the webinar on Monday, click on this link.

For Wednesday, click here.

Revised Cambridge English: First and Advanced from 2015

I am busy preparing seminars for various sessions in Bilbao (at the British Council) 30th October, 13th and 20th November and in San Sebastian (Lacunza-ih), 15th November.


All of these seminars are related to Cambridge English: First and/or Cambridge English: Advanced, so I thought I'd better check out the revised formats of these two exams.   (The seminars I'm giving are not about the changes but I try and make sure I'm informed in case anyone asks!)

As from January 2015, both exams will change.   Very obvious changes are:

- Candidates will take 4 papers instead of 5.  (The Reading and Use of English papers have been combined into a single paper.)

- Both exams will be shorter in total - Cambridge English: First will take 30 minutes less and  Cambridge English: Advanced will be 45 minutes shorter.

You can access the Specifications and Sample Papers for both exams:

http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/exams-and-qualifications/first/exam-update-for-2015/

http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/exams-and-qualifications/advanced/exam-update-for-2015/

I am going to look at the Sample Papers and Audio Samples in more detail now.  ...

Bye!!!!!!

Great, simple idea for Describing photos in Speaking Tests

I have just finished reading another post from the Cambridge English South East Europe Blog.

(I mentioned the tips for teaching YLE a couple of weeks ago here.)

I really liked a new tip for preparing the photo task for the Cambridge English: Preliminary exam.

Laura Casetti from Argentina submitted this tip. I thought it was great and well worth a mention on this blog.

Exam preparation idea for:
Cambridge English: Preliminary (PET), Speaking paper, Part 3

Summary:
1. Ask students to bring in a topic-related picture.
2. Divide the class into pairs and ask the students to swap pictures.
3. Ask the students to describe their partner’s picture.
4. Ask each student to describe their own picture to the class, and then explain how their partner described it.
5. Encourage the class to discuss further ideas.

Materials needed:
A picture or photo from home

Describing a personal photo
“I usually ask students to look for a picture at home, related to a given topic (usually the one we are dealing with in class), and bring it to the following class. This gives them the chance to choose a picture that, in a way, inspires them. The class works in pairs, exchanging their pictures, which, as I said before, have a topic connection.

Once they have done this, I give them a task for Part 4. After they have finished this, they are asked to tell the group how they would have described the picture they brought, and how their partner actually did this. Then, they can ask the rest of the group for further ideas.

This activity proves quite fruitful, since it allows students to open their minds to new ideas about what to say about a picture, enlarging the scope of possibilities. If this is done regularly when we finish dealing with a given topic, at the end of the course they will have a folder with their own pictures, which will be useful for revising the topics, prior to the oral interview.”

I would suggest that the same idea could be used with groups of Cambridge English: First, Advanced and Proficiency students.

With these groups, you could either ask them to bring in two related photos or they put their photos together and make pairs of photos and think of a question that could be asked in the style of the Cambridge English: First, Advanced or Proficiency photo tasks.

Useful preparation resources for Advanced Speaking

A few years ago, I subscribed to a site called Splendid Speaking.

Every week,  I received an email with a link to some resources for working on areas to develop Advanced students' speaking skills.

On the site, you can find 26 Get Speaking Task Sheets, working on different topic and functional areas. (You only get access to the Task Sheet being emailed that particular week).  You can see some of the areas covered below:

I have saved all the task sheets on my computer.
In Task 5, as well as talking about role models, the task sheet suggests a range of expressions to agree and disagree.
In Task 6, expressions for thinking out loud are considered and provided.

So, when I received an email from Splendid Speaking on Saturday telling me about a new website  for IELTS Speaking, I clicked on the link and discovered some great stuff.

In the free Weekly Vocabulary Practice, holidays and relationships have been covered so far.

And the resource that I really liked and found quite novel is the Five Minute Functions.
To date, there are two videos - Using fillers and Expressing likes and dislikes.   You can watch them on the IELTS Speaking website or on Youtube.

I would say that it's definitely a site to bookmark and revisit.

Webinars this week

I have signed up for two webinars this week.

The first, today, Monday.  I'll be connecting to the Cambridge English Language Assessment's site to attend the Webinar below:

The webinar will also take place on Wednesday morning.

From seminars, I know that correcting writing is a subject that raises a lot of discussion and interest, so I'm sure that a lot of people will be online like me.

If you can't make either of these dates or times, there is always the chance to watch a recording of the webinar and to download the slides too.

On Thursday, I'll be connecting to the Cambridge English Teacher website and the webinar by Johanna Stirling on Joined-up Listening.

See you online!  (Or in person in San Sebastian on Friday!)

Yesterday, I was along the coast in San Sebastian (for the second time in a week!).   Beautiful city (in fact, the first city I visited after I first came to Spain all those years ago to work in Madrid!)

Yesterday, I was there to give two seminars:  Teaching Cambridge English: Advanced for the First Time and Teaching Cambridge English: First for the first time.

Many of the participants attended both sessions.  I knew this was going to be the case, so I made sure that the sessions complemented each other and didn't repeat materials or ideas.  I also knew that 95% of the people who were coming WEREN'T new to either of these exams, but rather, had come along for advice and ideas for them to train teachers new to the exams.

Near the end of the second session, on First, I asked different groups to discuss their ideas, tips and advice for each of the five Papers of the Cambridge English: First exam, using this handout.  (I adapted this from a document for IELTS I downloaded from Usingenglish.com here.)  Precisely, I wanted to draw on their experience and expertise (there was a lot of this in the room, believe me!)

What I suggested to the people at the seminar was that I would share this document via the Teaching Together Blog.  Then, I will write up the suggestions that the groups in San Sebastian came up with and consider each of the five Papers in five separate blog posts.

It would be great if readers of this blog could also send in their ideas!  We can learn so much from each other!

Spain seen from two sides

After watching the news yesterday evening, I switched on the computer to take a look at the photographs that have been submitted to Antena 3, the Spanish TV news channel's website, in response to the article and the pictures that appeared in the New York Times on September 24th:

Spain Recoils as Its Hungry Forage Trash Bins for a Next Meal

(See this and the other photos here)

One of the biggest criticism's of the photos is that they paint a very one-sided picture of Spain and they are all in black and white.

There are 150 photos on the antena3.com website.  They are all in colour - some of them are very colourful indeed.

After looking through all the photos, my teacher's brain began thinking about how I could use them in class.

One way would be to use a couple of them to illustrate ways of completing three different sentences about Spain:

1  Spain, the perfect place to ...

 (ride a bike)

2  In Spain, we still have ......

 (bubbles and smiles)

3  Visitors to Spain should see:

(Granada)

As a follow-up, students could be asked to find three images of Spain to submit to Antena 3 for the campaign (1 picture for each sentence).

And the pictures make great material for the speaking tests for Cambridge English: Preliminary, First, Advanced and Proficiency.  Either the teacher or each student/pair of students could choose a pair of related pictures and then be asked to write the intoductory rubric (and follow- up question) for the pair of photos.

For example:  (For Cambridge English: First Speaking Practice)

I'm going to give you two photographs.  Both your photos show people from different generations spending time together.  I'd like you to compare your photos and to say what things the two people in each picture can learn from each other.   You have about a minute for this.

I hope you enjoy looking at the (Antena 3) photos as much as I did, as well as reflecting on the photos from the NYT.

  

Just one thing

If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, which one would it be?

If you could choose only one place to live for the rest of your life, where would you choose?

If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?

If you could only kiss just one person for the rest of your life, who would it be?

If you could only support one team for the rest of your life, which team would you support?

If you could watch just one film for the rest of your life, what film would you choose?

If you could look at just one piece of art for the rest of your life, which one would you select?


These seven questions appear in an interactive campaign for Volkswagen Golf VII.  onething.com

All onething.com users can create their own profile and share their answers with their friends via the Facebook, Twitter and Google+ social networks

I thought these questions would be great for use in class.

I suggest you could start with a bit of grammar practice (very useful for Part 2 of the Cambridge English: First and Advanced exams), by showing students the questions with the relative pronouns deleted then they have to supply who, which, where, what.  

To stimulate discussion, students could watch the video below and see the different answers given to three of the questions:

Then, students could choose their answers individually before sharing and discussing them with their classmates.

Finally, they could compare their choices with the most popular answers to each question.

In Spain, the most popular song is Imagine.

The most popular food is pizza.

61% said they would prefer to live abroad.

Women are quicker then men at saying who they would prefer to kiss.  (Average time taken = 2 seconds!)

Pulp Fiction, Titanic, Forrest Gump are among the most cited films.

And Mona Lisa is by far the most popular work of art.

Learn and play!

As I write this post, my computer is playing some jazzy music to me.  Why? Because I've just been trying out Academy Island!  What exactly is that, you may ask?  It's a game!  I'll paste the description provided by Cambridge ESOL (I couldn't describe it better myself!)

What is the game about?

An unknown alien life form who landed on earth today has had to learn the English language to get by in a range of social situations... Don't panic, it's just the plot of Academy Island – a new social media game from Cambridge experts designed to help learners improve their English language ability.

Where can I find the game?

Academy Island is a free educational game aimed at English language learners. It’s available from the University of Cambridge ESOL Examination’s (Cambridge ESOL) official Facebook page – which currently has over 120,000 fans.

What do players have to do?

Players of Academy Island have to progress through different difficulty levels by helping the alien use English in a range of situations such as shopping in a bakery and visiting places such as an art gallery and library.

Who wrote the game?

A team of language experts from Cambridge ESOL who work on the actual exam papers came up with the questions and tasks to ensure they were pitched at an appropriate level for learners of English. They worked closely with TAMBA – an award-winning digital marketing agency who specialise in social media games. Players who take on the Academy Island challenge can post their scores on a global leader board through their Facebook profile.

From what I have seen (I haven't had time - yet! - to visit all the places on the Island - the language level is quite high - I would say that for students preparing for Cambridge English: First and above.

Try it out and post your results!