ELTons winners show the best in teaching English from the UK to Mongolia

The UK winners, Mary Glasgow Magazine’s Magazines Plus - Online English Environment, an  interactive resource for teachers TEFLclips.com and Macmillan Education’s Aviation English course for pilots have been hailed as the most innovative products in the field.

Joining them as winners in the international category, the first English language course to appear in Mongolia has beaten off competition from countries including India, Bahrain and Poland. A project that has been 8 years in development, the English Language Textbooks for Mongolian Secondary Schools was commended in presenting its topics in a fun and interesting way.

Ulziijargal Sanjaasuren, team leader of the Mongolian Curriculum Development and Textbook Writing team, said; ‘Having written English language course books for Mongolian secondary schools, it is wonderful for our team to get international recognition from the English Language Teaching world at large.’

The ELTons, now in their seventh year, are a celebration of excellence in ELT, recognising significant and innovative advances in the theory of ELT learning, teaching and research. The awards aren’t just about innovation - successful products have to be able to demonstrate that they really help people to learn English more effectively. The winners each received a £1,000 prize at the ceremony, alongside the much sought after ELTon award, presented by the Rt Hon Lord Kinnock, Chair of the British Council.

UK Winners:

1. Magazines Plus - Online English Environment – Mary Glasgow Magazines, Sarah Johnson, Sarah Bromley, Peter Mahnke

Magazines Plus is an online English environment where 11-18 year-old language learners can use English for real, meaningful communication. Students use social networking to chat with other learners of their age and can share opinions on news stories written at their language level of English.

For over fifty years Mary Glasgow has published lively and engaging magazines for teenage language students. Magazines Plus brings their teen-focused language materials up to date for the twenty first century by making use of the collaborative and interactive capabilities of Web 2.0 to allow teenagers to use English for a real and rewarding purpose.

2. TEFLclips.com  - Interactive resource for teachers - Jamie Keddie

Initiated in February 2008 by teacher Jamie Keddie, TEFLclips.com is a non-commercial project that aims to explore the possibilities that YouTube and other video sharing sites offer to language teachers and language learners.

Through a series of articles and lesson plans which serve to demonstrate diverse principles of using video in the language classroom, TEFLclips.com has become a popular resource for practising teachers of English and other languages.

The creation and uploading of original video content is now underway. This includes instructional videos and clips of classroom techniques for teachers, as well as self-help and language practice videos for learners.

3. Aviation English - English course for pilots - Macmillan Education, Anna Cowper, Andy Roberts, Henry Emery, James Greenan

In March 2008 the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) introduced legislation requiring all pilots and air traffic controllers working in international airspace to have a standard level of English. Designed to the ICAO descriptors, Aviation English presents language, vocabulary and communication skills around 12 non-routine aviation situations.  It coaches students to react fluently, clearly, and, most importantly, intelligibly.

The Student’s Book comes with a CD-ROM with unique computer animations, further practice and audio as an mp3 download, and the Macmillan English Dictionary Pronunciation CD-ROM. The Teacher’s Book provides thorough guidance for those less familiar with the aviation industry, and photocopiables.

INTERNATIONAL WINNER

English Language Textbooks for Mongolian Secondary Schools - Course

English Language Teachers’ Association of Mongolia (ELTAM), Mongolia

S Ulziijargal and the Curriculum Development and Textbook Writing Team

The first English language course book series for Mongolian secondary schools, consisting of 18 books (Student’s Books, Activity Books, Teacher’s Books) covering 6 levels, with cassettes and CDs recorded in a UK studio.Produced by a team of 8 Mongolian teachers with a Mongolian publisher, and supported by a UK-based consultant, the project is the culmination of an 8 year curriculum development and textbook writing project, sponsored by the Mongolian Ministry of Education and the Mongolian Foundation for Open Society (Soros Foundation). The materials are currently used for teaching, teacher training and textbook writer development within Mongolia, and were “hard work but fun to write and fun to use!”

For more information, please call Paul Melhuish at the British Council on +44 (0) 20 7389 4871 or e-mail paul.melhuish@britishcouncil.org

Notes to Editors:

ELTons

• The ELTons (British Council Innovation Awards) are offered to outstanding new language learning products and services, which use innovative ideas to help learners achieve their goals, or to innovative research which has clear practical benefits for English language teaching. For more information please visit http://www.britishcouncil.org/learning-eltons

About the British Council:

• The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations.
• We work in over 100 countries worldwide to build engagement and trust for the UK through the exchange of knowledge and ideas between people.
• We work in the arts, education, science, sport and governance and last year we reached over 128 million people.
• We are a non-political organisation which operates at arm’s length from government.
• Our total turnover in 2007/8 was £565 million, of which our grant-in-aid from the British government was £197 million.
• For every pound of grant we receive, we generate an additional £1.92

For more information, please visit www.britishcouncil.org