See you in Italy!

You may have noticed that I have not been very active on this blog this week.

That's not because I've been putting my feet up!

Image:  http://storibookdesigns.blogspot.com.es/2010/11/blog-bites-kick-up-your-feet.html

In a couple of hours, I will set off for Bilbao, where I'll be giving a seminar on 'Cambridge English First:  Exam Tips' at the British Council.

Then, on Monday, I have a very exciting trip to Italy!

I'll be giving training sessions in five different cities:

On Monday afternoon, I'll be in Turin at the Istituto Valsalice.

On Tuesday afternoon, I'll be sharing ideas with teachers in Milan at the Istituto Zaccaria.

On Wednesday morning, I'll be in Rome at the Auditorium Antonianum.

Thursday morning it's Salerno at the Mediterraneo Hotel.

And on Friday morning, I'll be in Reggio Calabria.

As you can imagine, I'm really looking forward to this trip!

And the great news is that on Monday, I'll be meeting up with Marina, who used to teach Italian at the school I managed for many years here in Santander.  She got in contact via this blog to let me know and I'm looking forward to catching up and to getting back in touch.

This blog has many readers in Italy and I hope to meet some of them somewhere in Italy next week!

You can find information on the different venues and sessions and register here.

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!

pinterest - a great tool for classes!

Yesterday evening, I was teaching the vocabulary for containers and the things usually contained in each type.

It suddenly occurred to me that pinterest could be the perfect record (and teaching and revision) tool for vocabulary areas like this.

I have created a pinboard for this topic.  You can see it here:

http://pinterest.com/annerobspain/containers-lexis/

Maybe we could start boards for the different levels of the Cambridge exams, especially for the topic areas that appear on the Cambridge English: Young Learners English Tests and the Cambridge English: Key and Cambridge English: Preliminary Tests??