If you are a busy English language teacher or trainer looking for support and development materials for your classroom, we can help you with this weekly collection of links to free materials from our British Council websites for teachers.
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. Over the next week, we will also be live-streaming an event from the UK on this site, with Jeremy Harmer and Steve Bingham.
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Originally developed for radio, this series of programmes and accompanying worksheets covers topics of teacher development such as lesson planning and working with large classes. You can listen to the programmes online and download the materials.
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This lesson is aimed at lower intermediate students. It could be adapted for use with higher and lower levels. This particular lesson uses an adapted version of ‘The Emperor's new clothes' by Hans Christian Andersen, but other stories can be used in the same way.
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Text use may seem a dull topic after all the exciting matters that other guest writers have dealt with recently. However, language learning is, after all, learning language, not just doing fun things with it. And texts – by which I mean the relatively short spoken and written passages that come in textbooks and other teaching materials – can, if they are used properly, play an important part in the learning process.
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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 in academic and occupational contexts. In order to register and participate, please visit the TESOL Community site here.
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In my previous post I wrote about the journey of teachers becoming a group. Now it’s time for reflecting on ways of maintaining group dynamics in the class. In the initial group formation period as a teacher I try to establish a non-threatening sense of a class identity and a learning community.
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Have you ever felt you were asking all the questions about students’ opinions? Do you find you are doing more talking in a discussion than your class? Here are some tips to shift the task focus from you talking to them (they have to talk to each other) give them control of their own discussion.
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You may find in your primary English class that you have children who struggle with the school language in their first year of primary school because they have a different home language. How will this affect your classroom when teaching English to 1st year primary? How can you cater to their needs?
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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. This is a great motivator. Poems are often rich in cultural references, and they present a wide range of learning opportunities.
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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? Romesh Gunesekera's gentle story explores the dilemma with the voice of the young woman as the narrator and leaves the reader suspended at the end.
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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. Have a selection of superlative adjectives readily prepared. For example strongest, fastest, biggest, heaviest, tallest, most dangerous, etc.
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The Disabled Access Friendly campaign aims to sensitise students to issues affecting people with mobility disability. Although it was created with a Greek audience in mind, the website contains free information and resources - including lesson plans and worksheets - which teachers around the world might find both interesting and useful.
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Do you use your travel time to work effectively? Here are a few things you can do to make your journey time productive. I live and work in Istanbul, a city with anywhere between 11 and 15 million people, depending on whose statistics you believe. One thing you can believe in is the traffic and the effects it has on those commuting to work every day.
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It is accepted that choosing our words carefully in certain situations is more important than choosing grammatical structures. We cannot use structures correctly if we do not have enough vocabulary knowledge. Language consists of chunks that produce coherent texts when they are combined.
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This is a topic which most children are fascinated with because it simultaneously teaches them about the real world around them and allows them to explore their imagination.It can be as long or as short as you wish, depending on the age you teach and the time you have available.
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Assistants are not usually expected to carry out formal assessment of their learners with tests or marking. However, students need feedback as they come towards the end of their time with you. Here are a few short activities for your last month or weeks with them.
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To find more teaching articles and materials visit www.teachingenglish.org.uk and Language Assistant
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