tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61570211864925065572012-02-15T22:38:21.244ZThoughts, Ideas, Activities and Waffle about Teaching EFL.Abouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13906040203602069047noreply@blogger.comBlogger781100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157021186492506557.post-33848268661158981922012-02-13T23:27:00.001Z2012-02-13T23:28:22.298Z

This is a game that kids can't seem to get enough of. I've been using it for a long, long time so the book I found it in, may well be out of print by now. I'm pretty sure, if my memory serves me well, that I did in fact get it from a book but for the life of me I can't remember which one. It's a really simple game: Draw a river on the floor You choose one child to be Mr Crocodile Mr Crocodile

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Wo sind ihren Kollegan? That’s how my last Germany lesson started. A little voice inside me almost laughed, we are falling fast, like tourists on a cheap holiday package holiday. There were 18 of us signed up at the beginning. Only Six are still alive. The teacher´s question was followed by a short dictation which we duly noted down. We spent a couple of minutes trying to analyze the new word of

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Before it's too late, here is a little song and game that I use with my very young learners. It's a song about autumn and you can use it in conjunction with Sue Heap's book "Wait and See". You sing it to the tune of "I'm a little Teapot" , it goes like this: I'm a little squirrel, small and fast, these are my hands and this is my tail, when I'm very hungry, I like eating nuts, Give me one and

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I'm back to working in an academy after a break of a few years, and it's that time of the year when parents come in to ask about courses. This week, I was asked to speak to a father about his 5 and 8 year old. Now, silly old me had forgotten the mad (IMHO) questions people ask. I remember in my first year of teaching I was asked "When will my child be bilingual?" I kid you not. This child was

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The Scenario At some point during our career we get one of those classes that are made up of mixed abilities. By mixed abilities, I mean different levels within the same class, not students who are good at writing and others who are good at listening. Of course, I understand that within a level descripter such as Intermediate there are more and less capable students.  I'm talking about a class

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This is a post I wrote back in February. I didn't post it then. It seems the right time now, as I've not been here for a while. I'd love to say that it's because I've been writing a book or taking part in an International conference but nothing so grand as that only the beach. Life is a balancing act it seems. Last night after dinner whilst my boyfriend was watching football , I sat in the

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This time I interviewed Guido (a.k.a @europeaantje). I met Guido on Twitter, and had the pleasure of tweeting him this year , at  the TESOL Spain Convention in Madrid in March. Guido is from Belgium but lives in Sevilla , you can find him on twitter and he has a toolshed somewhere too. Many thanks to Guido because he took the time to be interviewed, even though he's planning a big move! A big #

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Everyday it seems there's a new TEFL blog spring up from somewhere. It's quite hard to keep track of them all, I have enough trouble trying to post something here on my own blog, maintain some kind of presence on Twitter and keep up with all blogs I follow with my Google Reader. So, in an attempt to keep up with the flow of new blogs and to help others find their way to them, I thought I'd share

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As part of Brad's PLN Interview challenge, I interviewed Michelle Worgan. Michelle and I have known eachother for more than 10 years (I think), we knew eachother before blogging and Twitter, in the days of summer school and cassette recorders.  Here are the five standard questions with two more thrown in for good measure! Many thanks to Michelle for agreeing to do the interview. 1) If your

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I have to admit that although I love telling stories in class to young learners, I'm very reluctant to ask adult students to do creative story writing activities. Last week I tried a story writing activity in class with a group of mixed level (Al-C1) adult students (who are all teachers). Motivated by the #ELTchat on storytelling I gave it a go. I vaguely remember using different pieces of music

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Once upon a time there were a group of teachers who got together and formed a group of professionals on twitter discusssing topics relevant to ELT. On Wednesday 18th May in the evening session we discussed: The use of ‘storytelling’ in class, (real storytelling, reading stories to our learners, using storybooks with YL and teenagers, digital storytelling).  I have to say when I saw the topic , I

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These little monsters are my latest excuse for NOT blogging! I found them dumped at the rubbish bins in my village. There are times when polite words fail me. They're as ugly as sin, but I love them already. Now, the search for a forever home begins.

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A big, big thank you to the "great"  Shelly Terrell for  including me in her Young Learner blog Carnival. I'm very happy to be mentioned alongside all of those other great bloggers and teachers.  Thank you so much!

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Content and Language Integrated Learning CLIL is one of the 'Buzz' words in ELTing and mainstream education today. Many people, publishers included have a vested interest in CLIL. Jeremy Harmer wrote a piece on CLIL on his blog recently questioning it's worth. It got me thinking about CLIL and the problems on the front line. I've just checked my google reader and seen that the #ELTchat I missed

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I readily admit that I couldn’t punctuate my way out of a paper bag. It wasn’t something that I was taught at school and I don’t seem to have really picked it up along the way. I remember when I first started teaching, I tried to memorize punctuation rules, but that didn’t go very well! This week an advanced teenage student of mine asked me if she could use “however” in a mid clause position

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Every Wednesday on twitter at 12pm and 9pm GMT a group of like minded individuals get together on Twitter to discuss relevant issues in English language teaching. If you can't make the chat or if you don't feel comfortable chatting through this medium, take a look at the ELT chat wiki where you'll find summaries of all the discussions. They're available in PDF format so you'll be able to print

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made on Wondersay - Animate text with style Thanks to Richard for sharing this cool web tool. It's very simple to use. Have a go!

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I saw a nifty tech tool over on Paul Braddock's blog the other day, which got me thinking about a lesson I did last year on DREAMS with a group of Upper Intermediate adults. Here are a list of links and ideas from other people that I've used in some way to create great lessons. Many thanks to the authors for their inspiring lesson plans. Some of you may be familair with these lessons but if

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This is a copy of FWD message that I received from an English teacher recently. Should we be laughing or crying? Esta trascripción, aunque parezca exagerada, es verídica y exacta. Esto me pasó dando una clase con 1º ESO (12 años) un jueves a 5º hora. Sólo es un ejemplo.Los nombres de los alumnos son ficticios para que su ignorancia quede en la intimidad de la clase. Yo: Bueno chicos, hoy vamos

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Money and luxury were the themes of a lesson I team taught last week ,with my friend Sally. I enjoyed the class and I think the Ss did too so, I thought I'd share it. We always teach the first class of our short courses together. We choose a topic and then we plan. Sally chose the topic "LUXURY" motivated, by her sons bringing her a coffee in bed one Sunday morning. Sally chose the song I Wanna

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The story/song Old McDonald is a fantastic way to introduce content with YLs. Today I  used it in class with a group of 6-7 year olds. I drew a farm on the blackboard and elicited as I went.I asked them who lives on a farm and introduced them to the character Old Mc Donald with a flashcard. I then got them to close their eyes, when their eyes were closed, I put on my Old McDonald hat which

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Motivated by discussing writing last week in the 9pm GMT #ELTchat, I decided it was high time to do a bit of writing in class. I work as a freelancer and one of my jobs is as a language assistant in a primary school. I only see the children once  a week, so I had to get permission from their English teacher before I could get them writing. Luckily she agreed to my suggestion and we designed an

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How do you teach writing? And how do you mark it? This was the topic of the #ELTchat on Wednesday 9th February at 9pm GMT on twitter.  As always the pace was fast and furious. I’m pleased to say that I won the golden accolade of writing up the summary! I’ve tried to summarize people’s tweets as accurately and concisely as possible. Please forgive me if I’ve missed anything out. You can find the

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The crisis is having a terrible effect on many families.  Animal charities  are also being hit hard. There's less money to go around and so donations are fewer and far between. I used to work as a volunteer for a neuter and release cat charity. I did it for four years. I lived with my partner in a house with about 40 cats. Yes, it's true.  The cats weren't the problem. It was the people. The

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I've just taken this picture on the kitchen floor. Sorry but if I wait until tomorrow I'll never make my 4 posts a month quota! I hope that you can make out the picture. I was kindly given permission to use it by one of my students in primary. This is a really simple but highly adaptable  controlled practice activity that most children really enjoy. Quite simply take a piece of paper show the

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The year's just about done and dusted and the new one is fast approaching. It's time for some reflection. In May I posted some thoughts called Back-Up Plan inspired by Alex Case over at TEFLtastic.  Now, I'm not the most original of thinkers. This post is inspired by something that Jason Renshaw said in a comment about Back Up Plan (Thank you). Jason pointed out that  whilst back up plans are one

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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

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When I was young I used to ride horses. I spent my childhood in jodhpurs and wellies. I was told that I was ' a natural' with horses. I wasn't  'a natural' at maths, science, or school in general. I wasn't ' a natural' sailor, skier or water skier. I have no special talent for cooking or writing. One day, along came teaching and once again I was labelled  ' a natural'. So, what does it mean '?

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This is a simple but effective way to recycle vocabulary with YLs. This is my vocabulary box. This one was made with very young learners in mind so ,the pictures and box are a bit babyish.  You can choose another design for older children, more appropriate to their ages and interests. The first step is the box. The children love the box in itself. It never fails to stir their interest when I

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You either love them or hate them. I have a rocky relationship with them. I often delete them without reading. Especially when I open my in box and see no 'real' mails from family, and friends just forward messages. It's often really annoying. The messages themselves, if you do open them ,range from annoying to inspiring. They take many forms. There are jokes, stories, warnings and tales, they

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WANTED : German Teacher I've finally decided that I have to have German lessons. Imagine you are me. Answer the question truthfully. It's multiple choice. You can only choose one answer. You have decided to learn German. You can choose your teacher. You have the following options. a) a native German speaker with no teaching experience. b) a non- native German speaking teacher, who is qualified

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Providing space for the learners' voice means accepting that the learners' beliefs, knowledge, experiences, concerns & desires are valid content in the language learning classroom.Luke Meddings & Scott Thornbury, Teaching Unplugged, Delta Teacher Development Series, 2009. Karenne Sylvester’s latest dogme challenge starts with this quote. I sometimes get the feeling when I’m teaching from a

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I’ve finally found the time to catch up on all the posts that I’ve missed and I have to say that there were over a 100 on my google reader. One in particular caught my eye over at TEFLtastic entitled Is there any need for native language assistants? This is a theme close to my heart and even closer to my wallet, as this is where I earn the majority of my income. I am a native language assistant.

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I'm pleased to host Coral George talking about how she started to teach the "Jolly" way. Coral is a "Jolly phonics" expert who is based in Segovia Spain. I saw her give a presentation at TESOL Spain and was amazed at the results of her phonics teaching with YLs.  Thank you Coral for taking the time to share with us. My adventure teaching "Jolly Phonics" started back in the year 2005, in

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My boyfriend is the kind of guy who comes home laden with toilet rolls or tuna fish because it was on offer. The famous slogan “Two for One” never fails with him. Tomorrow is my first day at a new secondary school and I’m going to be doing of a bit of “TEFL Two for One” namely CLIL. For those of you who may not know, CLIL stands for Content and language Integrated Learning. It’s a mouthful true,

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Today a lovely teacher called Ana approached me saying that she is having difficulty finding a school to do some kind of exchange programme with. She is an English teacher in a secondary school here in Spain and she wants to do some kind of skype or messenger or e-mail exchange project this year with her students. I told her that I would ask out here in blog world and see if anyone could help....

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Yesterday, I played a game in class to practice numbers from 1-100. It’s an old favourite of mine. I played the game with a group of ten year olds. I can’t say that I invented it because I didn’t but I don’t remember where I found it either. It’s a simple way of revising numbers. 1. Write 1-100 on the board. 2. Draw an arrow pointing upwards and write higher next to it. 3. Drill the

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I saw this activity at a CLIL training session the other day and really liked it, so I thought that I’d share it with you. Although it was demonstrated in a CLIL setting it is perfectly doable in non-CLIL classes. Imagine you are at the end of a unit about travel. 1. Take 40 or so words that you want to revise. 2. Write a definition for about 20. (1. Where you stand and wait for your train –

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If I were a mother and my blog were my ‘baby’ I would be guilty of severe neglect. I‘ve lost my ‘mo-jo’ or I didn’t have it in the first place! After a busy period in May and June, I died a death in July, August and September. I really hoped to get back into blogging in September but it just hasn’t happened. Now I’ve finished with some cat neutering action and finally sorted out my timetable, I’m

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No matter what names you give your groups, children are not stupid they are in fact quick at realising they have been labelled or assessed by the teacher. Jayne Moon in Children Learning English. I inherited a group of such kids this year. The thickie group. Now of course I didn't label them, (well not aloud ) it was their peers who did this. We all know that kids can be extremely mean. I

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Tomorrow is my last day of freedom. I'm back at school in the morning along with many other teachers whose summer is officially over. I have to say that I'm not feeling particularly excited  but nor am I dreading it. The first couple of weeks at school here tends to be a bit of a disorganised mess. Highlighted by the fact that I don't actually know where I'll be teaching this year. I had high

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My TEFL career (if it can be called that) started 13 years ago in Cambridge on one of the hundreds of summer school programmes that run each year in the UK. I taught (if you can call it that) on a residential summer school programme for the school that had trained me on my CELTA course. My summer school motto became “what doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger”. Now, don’t get me wrong I

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Sitting in the staffroom around springtime after another difficult day at the mill, I overheard some of the teachers talking about laptops and students. This got my interest and without further ado they told me about a new project. Both of the primary schools I work in are taking part in a programme called Escuela 2.0 which means that all of the children in the 5th year will be given a laptop to

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I bumped into a colleague yesterday. She asked me how my summer was going and, if I had many classes. She then asked me if I had a lot of kids. I said no. She was a bit surprised. You see, I think I’ve been pigeon-holed as someone who teaches kids. Now, it may be true that the majority of my time is taken up with primary age students, but I also teach secondary school children, adults and my

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This year has been my year to bump into former students. I live on an island so we’re kind of trapped but weeks, even months can go by where I don’t bump into former students. This year I’ve bumped into quite a few of them in shops, schools and in the street. It’s been a strange experience. Strange because it brings mixed emotions. It’s lovely to see my former students again and even better when

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              Make your own widget at Blixy.com!  I saw this on the PLN lounge and have been dying to try it so here's my excuse. In the UK in the 1970s there was a road safety campaign called the green cross code it was used to teach children the basics of crossing a road. The four stages were stop, look, listen and think. I think that the end of the school year is the perfect time to stop,

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School is out and I've set myself my summer homework so , as I was browsing old posts last night I stumbled on this 'gem' on  Janet's blog I love it and it has great potential for the classroom. It's a website that lets you upload an image of your choice and make a magazine cover from it. Now many of you will have seen it but for those of you haven't  here it is! Imagine the fun children and

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I’ve been teaching one-to-one classes for about four years now .I suppose at some point most teachers will find themselves in a situation where they may have to teach one-to-one, so I thought that I’d share my experiences of life as a one-to-one teacher here with you.  In the beginning when I started working as a freelancer, I wanted to fill my timetable so, I was quite happy to get the work

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After a shaky start with my theory about the similarities between dogs and children, I seem to be on a roll. I’ve started to take note of my interaction with Molly, Bruno, Joe and Maya. Action research in my case has taken on new meaning as it has extended from the classroom to my home. Poor dogs ! So, here are some of my latest thoughts about the similarities and differences between canines,

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Today I was talking to a colleague about respect . We were talking about how certain teachers command immediate silence when they walk into a room whilst others have to ask for silence and some have to beg for it and never get it! Now I'm more of the second type, I do not command immediate silence when I enter a room but I can get it with minimum fuss.  The more I've thought about this over the

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I obviously have too much free time on my hands as I seem to have been fiddling with new design options on blogger and 'woops' my template simply changed! Oh dear...I've spent another hour trying to figure out how to get it back again. The moral of the story is 'Don't touch it if it's not broken'. I should be writing a guest post or two but I got sidetracked and now I'm stuck!

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I've just received my first PLN certificate. I have to say, it took two goes to get top marks. I think I was a bit overly confident the first time. My advice would be to  read all of the posts before you take the test ! Give it a go over at Barbara's Teaching Village. Thanks Barbara.

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This is a variation of the old party game ‘Who am I?’ It was a 'real favourite' in a lot of EFL classes in the 1990s. I used to play this game with post-it-notes stuck to people’s foreheads which was always good for a laugh! Now, I use a jester’s hat like you can see in the picture.  MATERIALS To play this game you need small picture cards or word cards, a funny hat, and Velcro. DESCRIPTION

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I had a break between classes so I thought that I'd go to one of my favourite resource websites Sparklebox and download a few things to make some flashcards for my YL classes. Much to my annoyance I couldn't seem to open the site because of a proxy error. On closer inspection, I saw an article about the owner of site. Much to my disgust he's a convicted child sex offender who's been in jail  for

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There's been much talk over the past couple of weeks about our future as ELT teachers. Where are we going and what can we do to keep up. After a month of 'real' blogging I'm going to hand the 'reins' over to a good friend of mine and a great teacher Clare. She's going to tell us a bit about telephone teaching. Something I would seriously consider doing, if I had  a fast enough internet connection

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I can't work at a cluttered desk or sit on the sofa and relax when the house is a mess. I like warm colours and a view from my kitchen sink. I like flowers and plants and space. I don't like to argue with friends, family or my partner because it makes me feel 'bad'.  Although we can't control all aspects of the atmosphere in our YL classroom environment, there are certain things that we can do

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In the last guest post that Alex Case of  TEFLtastic kindly posted for me, I talked about how some traditional board games can be exploited in the ELT classroom. This is another great activity to use in class. It was shown to me by friend Sally (thanks). She got the original idea from www.collaborativelearning.org. You can play the game in pairs or in teams. The objective is to get four in a row.

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Thanks to Lindsay Clanfield at Six Things for reminding me of my PAST LIFE. This morning I read Lindsay's post about Six jobs BEFORE TEFL. He called for blog responses from those of us who blog. I'm going to tell you about my most memorable pre-TEFL job. Before my TEFL days I toyed with the idea of saving the world. I'd thought about volunteering overseas and had spent a fair amount of time

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I work in a state school where children are grouped on the basis of age rather than linguistic competence. As you can imagine the levels within the class are enormous. 'Three tier dictations' are a good way of making dictation a more effective classroom tool in mixed ability classes. Imagine that this is your text: Brown Bear It's got brown fur. It lives in Asia, Europe and North America. It can

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Yesterday I saw this great video at a workshop given by Trevor Doble. My thanks to Trevor for passing this 'gem' along. It's a commercial for the Canadian shop Zellers. The music is really funky and it would be a great way of revising the alphabet and working on vocabulary. The video lasts only 33 seconds. Get the students in groups. Ask them to watch the video and write down as many words as

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According to Wikipedia as early as 1564 people could be accused as having or wanting more than they deserved or could handle. Last night I watched a film called 'Motherhood' I don't know how many of you have seen or heard of this film. So , let me just say that in its premiere weekend in the UK it grossed 88 quid! The film itself follows a day in the life of a mother who is preparing for her

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In 1972 the UN declared the 5 June World Environment day. I have to admit that I didn't know this until I stumbled on Vanessa Reilly's fantastic blog http://vanessareillytelt.wordpress.com/. Vanessa has got some great ideas . I really love the idea of using Jack Johnson's song 'The Three Rs' to celebrate WED. Why don't you pop over to Vanessa's blog to see Jack Johnson singing his song and see

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I started teaching in 1997. I was 23 years old, I was young and had my whole life in front of me (sounds like a movie). I'm 37 on my next birthday and I'm starting to reflect a bit on the choices I've made along the way. I love teaching EFL. I wouldn't change my job,  but there are things that I wish I could change about my situation. I spent my first ten years teaching working in private

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Many thanks to Anita Kwiatkowska and Michelle Worgan : http://anita-kwiatkowska.blogspot.com/ http://inspireyourlearners.blogspot.com/ I really don't know where to start! All the big names have been mentioned along the chain but I think the only rule is that I'm not allowed to mention blogs that Anita and Michelle listed in their ten. Here goes, in no particular order: 1. http://

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Very young learners may be small, but they can be really difficult to manage and very noisy. I've picked up a few tricks over the years and I'd like to share a few of them here with you. I'm not re-inventing the wheel here, so you may have heard of some of these ideas and indeed be using them in your classroom practice already.Pace - Remember that you need to change activity every few minutes

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http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/teaching/tefl/teenagers/keeping-yls-on-task-one/ Many thanks to Alex Case for giving me the chance to launch myself on his fantastic blog TEFLtastic! The slightly younger one in the picture is me. My mum seems to have chosen to hide herself behind a bright light.

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The British Council Learning English Kids http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/ has got hundreds and hundreds of photocopiable resources , on-line games and activites for YLs. Some of these can be useful for CLIL classes. I know that it can be quite difficult for teachers to find the time to search the net  for interesting content material for classes. Here are a couple of activities to

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Hi Everyone, Thanks for coming to the workshop and taking part. I had fun, even though it was very hot and sticky with a few technical problems. I really enjoyed Jose and Carlos's performance of the 'Last day of Pompeii' and your group dramatisation or dramatization of the water cycle. Here are some sites and links that might be of use to you. http://bilingualeduc.ning.com/ This is a ning that

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In March I went to the TESOL Spain convention in Lleida. I attended some great workshops and keynotes. It was often difficult to choose which one to go to, as there were so many interesting ones. I think it was Saturday afternoon and despite my initial enthusiasm I was beginning to feel a bit tired. As we looked at the programme we saw that there wasn't anything that we really, really wanted to

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Entering the world of ELT blogging is a bit like being back at university. I feel slightly out of my depth and keep thinking everyone is going to ask me where I did my A-levels and what marks I got. You're not really sure if you should say anything in case someone laughs at you, or thinks you're stupid. You aren't sure if what you have to say is worth saying but you're sure that everyone else

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Technology is part of our lives and it is here to stay. Although we may not be "digital natives"(people born in the digital age) we are capable of becoming "techno-savvy", it just takes time and perseverance!Six weeks ago I didn't know how to set up a blog or a PowerPoint presentation. I was technologically challenged. Now I feel more confident using some of the technological tools that are out

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function setFlashHeight(o) {var e = jQuery('#' + o.id);e.height(o.h + 'px');e.width('100%');jQuery('#' + o.id+'_embed').height(o.h + 'px');}

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What most appealed to me when I first heard of Gardener´s MI theory was the way all children could be "smart". Whether they were "word smart" or "people smart". I loved the way the theory made it possible for all children to be some kind of "smart". I have just read on Judie Hayne´s blog, that Howard has a new book out called Five Minds for The Future. According to Judie, Howard says the Five

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I´ve just got back from the TESOL Spain convention. This year the convention was held in Lleida from the 12th to the 14th of March. It was my first year and there were many speakers to choose from covering a wide variety of topics and themes. It was a long journey from Fuerteventura but worth every minute!My favourite speaker was Luke Prodromou whose talk was titled "Getting and Keeping

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In the past 18 months I have started to use "real books" in the primary classroom. I have always used the occasional story book but after attending a CLIL course in Las Palmas given by Tim Herdon I developed a real love of them. My favourite author is Eric Carle who is best known perhaps for The Very Hungry Caterpillar."Real books" are a great resource for primary teachers of EFL. They are

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There are many reasons for bad behaviour. Here are some of the most common ones. This list is based on my classroom experience. I am sure that you can think of other ones.1. Children are bored.2. Children are tired,hungry,sad, angry, thirsty....3. Children find the work too easy or too difficult.4. Children have problems at home.5. Children have not bonded with the teacher.6. Children want

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I started this blog for many reasons. Here are some of them:1. I am participating in a teacher training course and it was a task.2. I may be having an early mid-life crisis.3. I think I have something to say.4. I think it´s a great way to share ideas and develop as a teacher.5. I am jumping on the bandwagon.and lastly why not?

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I've been teaching kids for 13 years. About 5 years ago when I finished my Dip I quit my job at a small private language academy where I was responsible for teaching the majority of the very young learners. I swore that I would move into the world of adults. Less than two months later I found myself working as a language assistant in a state primary school. I tried to escape but couldn't. I guess

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