TeachingEnglish Newsletter 08 December 2010

TeachingEnglish Newsletter

08 December 2010

Jamie Keddie has finished his stint as Guest Writer for TeachingEnglish. If you followed his articles and blog posts then he would like to extend his thanks to you in his final post.

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Welcome to the TeachingEnglish newsletter. This week we feature a mix of activities, lesson plans, articles and comments. As we approach the festive season there is a range of Christmas related activities for you to try with your students on our sister site LearnEnglish Kids. There's also a lesson that focuses on talking about the past which is suitable for both adults and teenagers.

If you are interested in CLIL then you will be pleased to hear that there are now free sample materials for our new online CLIL course in the Train section of the site. You can also find a selection of comments on our directory of UK ELT research as well as a farewell 'Thank you' from our Guest Writer Jamie Keddie.

Best wishes,

Duncan
TeachingEnglish Team | British Council | BBC

Observations - why bother?

"Nice board work." This was a killer phrase back in the days before the invention of the interactive whiteboard. It normally sat, all alone, in the left hand column of a page divided by a vertical line, under the label "Good".
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Christmas

There are lots of Christmas activities on the British Council's site for young learners - LearnEnglish Kids - which you can use with your students during the festive season. You will find all the resources on one page on NEW LearnEnglish Kids.
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Talking about the past

This lesson culminates in a short presentation about a famous person which the students will have worked on during the lesson, involving long group discussions as part of the process. Students will deliver the presentation in pairs, and both students should be encouraged to share the speaking.
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Training courses for CLIL

There are now free sample materials for two new CLIL teacher training courses on Train. As well as a providing practical training, this syllabus will support teachers looking to take the Cambridge ESOL Teaching Knowledge Test CLIL module (TKT: CLIL).
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Comments on the Directory from prominent academics and ELT professionals

Apart from responses to our specific questions below from Scott Thornbury and others, we have received comments on the Directory which we will list here from Simon Borg, Ron Carter, Adrian Holliday, Keith Johnson, Richard Kiely, Jenny Pugsley and Tony Wright. You are welcome to respond to any of these opinions or add a new opinion of your own using the Add new comment facility!

Thank you!

Wow - what a quick month that was! I'd just like to say a great big thank you to everyone who has been reading, and to everyone who has been getting involved in the discussion during the last 4 weeks. It's been very interesting for me to hear your thoughts and ideas on video for language teaching.
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