Teaching English

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Featured blog from January

2 February 2012 - 12:49pm
Copyright British Council 2012

This month, our featured blogger is Sandy Millin.

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Dickens!

1 February 2012 - 4:30pm
Copyright British Council 2012

Next week we will be celebrating the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens! In preparation for this we have been creating teaching materials based on Dickens texts.

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Using texts constructively: what are texts for?

1 February 2012 - 10:24am
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Text use may seem a dull topic after all the exciting matters that other guest writers have dealt with recently.

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ESP SIG and TESOL ESP IS online discussion

31 January 2012 - 10:30am
Copyright TESOL

TESOL ESP IS and IATEFL ESP SIG would like to invite ELT professionals from around the work to embark on a first joint online discussion titled English for Specific Purposes (ESP) around the world

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Approaches to teaching grammar

25 January 2012 - 3:30pm
I prefer a deductive approach 4% (6 votes) I prefer an inductive approach 14% (19 votes) I use a mixture of both 79% (108 votes) I use another approach 2% (3 votes) Total votes: 136

This month we'd like to know how you approach teaching grammar.

Teaching grammar is an important part of language teaching and there are different ways of approaching it - but which ways do you find most effective for you and your students?

A deductive approach is one where the teacher directly presents the rule to the students.
An inductive approach is where the teacher encourages the students to work out the rule for themselves through relevant examples.

How do you approach grammar teaching?

 

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The Inca: A lost society

25 January 2012 - 3:16pm
CopyrightiStock_000007835158XSmall.jpg Support for ESOL teachers

The topic of history and heritage could be inherently problematic for some learners, and the tribal element of this plan, and the atrocities involved with downfall of the Inca tribe, may be distressing for those who have experienced such events in their own lives.

This is a reading lesson based on a text about Inca society. Reading can be a very solitary activity, but this lesson has been designed to maximise the amount of communication and interaction among the students,

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Worldwide survey on use of learners' own language

19 January 2012 - 6:09pm
Northumbria University logo

Would you like to contribute to a worldwide research project?

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Using poems to develop productive skills

19 January 2012 - 10:53am
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You and your students might already enjoy reading and listening to poetry in your own language and perhaps in English too. Poems are, after all, authentic texts.

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Carapace

19 January 2012 - 10:52am
Copyright TeachingEnglish 2011

A young Sri Lankan woman needs some advice. Her mother wants her to marry a rich man that she has never met, but what does her boyfriend think?

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Superlative noughts and crosses

19 January 2012 - 10:52am
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I like to use this activity to promote the use of the superlative form. It utilises a well-known game that students find stimulating and fun to play.

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Disabled Access Friendly

12 January 2012 - 2:19pm
Copyright Disabled Access Friendly

The Disabled Access Friendly campaign aims to sensitise students to issues affecting people with mobility disability.

Disabled Access Friendly

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All about me

11 January 2012 - 3:03pm
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This lesson provides students with a live listening on the topic of the teacher’s personal interests and opinions. The students then use this as a model to chat about similar topics with their classmates using basic tenses and a variety of structures.

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Blogathon 2012

11 January 2012 - 1:30pm
Copyright British Council 2012

The TeachingEnglish Blogathon starts on 16 January 2012!

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Featured blog of the month

5 January 2012 - 3:56pm
Copyright British Council 2012

The latest featured blog comes from David Petrie, based in Portugal. We enjoyed his series of entries in December, with a rather seasonal title - the 12 days of geekmas.

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Second International conference for English language teacher educators

3 January 2012 - 12:57pm
Copyright British Council 2012 Country:  India

The second international conference for English language teacher educators will be held from 3 to 5 March 2012 at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre, Hyderabad.

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Powerpoint for teachers

21 December 2011 - 11:00am
Copyright TeachingEnglish 2011

This is something I've already blogged about - if you have the right facilities in your classroom, powerpoint can be a very useful addition to your teaching toolkit. 

If you're interested in some of the technques mentioned here, there's another video that explains how to create the 'word bank':  http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/rob-lewis/powerpoint-teachers-part-2 

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IATEFL competition for teachers in Brazil

19 December 2011 - 4:22pm
Copyright BRAZ-TESOL

The International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language - IATEFL - holds an international conference in the United Kingdom every year. The event attracts over 2000 ELT professionals from more than a 100 countries who attend talks, workshops and symposiums, have the chance to meet leading writers and linguists and exchange ideas with professionals from all sectors of ELT. 

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Vocabulary and autonomy

15 December 2011 - 10:25am

This article looks at ways to improve your students' abilities to both explore, store and use vocabulary.

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