On Excellence by Jamie Duncan

It is so enriching to enjoy a display of top class work performed by others. It enriches us culturally and energetically to be present or participate in the act of someone who is doing something they love at a sublime level.

As most if not all of you know by now, NLP is based on studying the models of excellence of people who are excellent in their fields. That is how Bandler and Grinder started out, observing the work of Fritz Perls, Milton Erickson and Virginia Satir to discover what it was that they did that worked so well and how we could learn from their internal processes and apply them to our own contexts.



So, what might we want to be excellent for?



1) To fulfil ourselves

2) To give ourselves satisfaction

3) To develop talents that have been god-given

4) To contribute to society and our fellow human beings

5) To help develop our field of interest

6) To know and experience peak moments in which we experience flow and achievement

7) To grow



And what is excellence?



In the end, excellence like everything on earth is subjective. In given fields, there may be rules and standards or technical requirements to fulfil. Yet, apart from that, excellence includes something more, an internal quality that may be like a fire within, a glow, a determination, a desire that allows the person to transcend the mundane and reach a higher level.



Excellence is also relative. What we expect from a five year-old at painting is not the same as what we expect from a world-famous portrait artist. Each can be excellent. What makes the difference between excellence and less than excellence has to do with the investment we make in the activity, the concentration, effort, love and other skills we bring to something to do the best we can and better than we have previously.



Let us explore behaviours that would not count as excellent.

a) copying someone else's work without having done the work or preparation of the other,

b) denying another person the opportunity to develop their potential, to shine or to learn,

c) criticising the excellence of others on some small point or criterion which does not in fact devalue the performance,

d) making a half-hearted effort and passing it off as the best you can do,

e) not investing love, intent, effort and time in your work,

f) doing things we are not interested in or know that we will never make an effort to do well when there are other activities we would much prefer to do (even if it is sometimes difficult to admit it!),



An important point to remember is that what society or the media places a value on as excellent is a given moment is only a guide. Certainly, it tends to reflect the values of a society at the time, but there are many less spectacular ways in which to be excellent. We can be excellent as a homemaker, a gardener, at performing bureaucratic tasks, at making a sale in a small shop, at sex (!), whatever …. There is no human activity which cannot be performed with degrees of skill and quality.



What about excellence in teaching?

Some ways we can strive for it are as follows:

§ be fully present in our classes

§ listen to our students

§ know each and everyone of our students

§ nurture our students

§ create conditions for learning

§ prepare our classes

§ be conscientious

§ be honest

§ enjoy what we do (if we no longer enjoy it, take a break)



Another area that we can reach for excellence in our lives is to develop ourselves personally.

Here we can:

§ continue to upgrade ourselves in our profession

§ study other things to enrich ourselves that are not necessarily academic at all

§ look after ourselves physically and emotionally

§ learn how and when to say 'yes' and 'no'

§ cultivate discipline

§ unlock our creativity

§ seek inspiration

§ pay attention to good models

§ be our own inspiration to

§ constantly look at the world with wonder



We undermine this when we:

ignore the needs of our students
are ungenerous in sharing our knowledge and expertise
try to compete simply to shadow someone else
deny people the chance to learn
pretend to know something we don't
close the door to learning by thinking we know it all


So, let's make a New Year's resolution now. Let's aspire to do as much as we can with a level of excellence. Let's search for and acknowledge the examples of excellence around us. Let's create conditions for others to develop their excellence. Let's remember to constantly enjoy the process of striving towards excellence. And let's remember also to relax and allow ourselves to take the time we need to reach the excellence we require. If we put too much pressure on ourselves to be superb immediately, we may very well impede the process.

Wishing you well in your quest!!!!

oral cards for elementary

Elementary
Oral card 1

1) Personal questions
2) Dialogue: A= you meet a new classmate. Ask him/ her about
· Name
· Residence
· Age
· hobbies (Use like)
· his/ her girlfriend (physical appearance/personality)

3) Reader


Elementary
Oral card 2


1) Personal questions
2) Dialogue: A= you meet your best friend. He arrived from Canada 2 days ago. Ask him:
· What places/visit?
· How long/stay?
· Where/ stay?
· How much money/spend?
· When/return?

3) Reader








Elementary
Oral card 3


1) Personal questions
2) Dialogue: A= you have a terrible headache and go to see the doctor. Tell him about your problem
B= Give A a piece of advice to feel better

3) Reader



Elementary
Oral card 4

1) Personal questions
2) Dialogue: A= you meet a friend who is planning to travel the following long weekend. Ask him/ her:
· Where/go?
· Who/go with?
· How long/stay?
· What things/do there?
· When/return?

3) Reader




Elementary
Oral card 5


1) Personal questions
2) Dialogue: A= you go to see a fortune teller. Ask her about:
· Love
· Job
· Children
· Trips
· Money

B= you are a fortune teller. Answer A´s questions

3) Reader

ORAL CARDS FOR PRE INTERMEDIATE PREPARED BY FLOR

Pre intermediate
Oral card 1

1) Personal quetions
2) Dialogue: You and your friend are planning a surprise party for another friend
A and B= suggest ideas
3) Reader: Rainman

Pre intermediate
Oral card 2

1) Personal quetions
2) Dialogue: You and your friend are planning to travel somewhere
A and B= suggest ideas, compare places and prices, agree and disagree
3) Reader: Rainman

Pre intermediate
Oral card 3

1) Personal quetions
2) Dialogue: You meet your ex boyfriend/girlfriend at a party
A and B= talk about your lives (studies, job, love, friends, etc)
Ask him/her 3 questions beginning with: How long…? (Use present perfect continuous)
3) Reader: Rainman



Pre intermediate
Oral card 5


3) Personal quetions
4) Dialogue:
A= meet your friend and tell her that you saw her/his ex boyfriend/girlfriend. Tell her what he/she told you

“ I still love him/her”
“I am single”
“I want to meet him/her again”
“I will call her soon”
B= Ask more questions aboutthose confessions
3) Reader: Rainman

RV: Ready-made activities from ELT Dictionaries

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	Wordlink Issue 9 November 2008
	ELT Dictionary Resources Welcome to the November issue of Word Link, the free vocabulary and dictionaries resources email service from Oxford University Press. Every month we'll send you vocabulary teaching ideas and information on Oxford's world-class dictionaries - direct to your inbox! Word Link is compiled by Oxford's ELT Dictionaries team, who produce best-selling dictionaries for students at all levels of English. Lesson Link This month's Lesson Link will help you show your students how to use an advanced learner's dictionary to distinguish between words that are easily confused. Download ready-made activities and a worksheet to photocopy and use in class. Quiz Test your students' knowledge of modern words or phrases to describe different types of person with this fun quiz. You could even ask them whether they have any words for talking about these kinds of people in their own languages! Download the quiz Word of the Month Find out the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary Word of the Month. See if your students know what this month's word means before giving them the definition! What's the word?		Useful links › What's new? › Have you seen? › Archive Buy your Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary E-Book Edition for your mobile, Blackberry or Palm from http://elt-marketing.oup.com/c/1ifFyHtXtnolp7k Contact us › Email to a friend › Contact us › Unsubscribe from Word Link › Unsubscribe from all our emails All the lesson ideas are in PDF format. To view them, you need the free Acrobat Reader.
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DEALING WITH READERS

From now on, the Rapidshare links will only last for 90 days and they can be downloaded 10 times.
If you would like to download them and the files don`t work, please let me know and I will be happy to upload them again.

Penguin Guide To Guided Readers

penguin Guide to Using Best Sellers

Using Films and Tv

DEALING WITH READERS IN THE EFL CLASSROOM - WORKSHOP BY VANESA - FEBRUARY 2007

Readers in the classroom
Material: photocopies with questions and the different readers used in all the levels

Warm-up:
Find someone who…
Has dealt with the same readers you have and share ideas about your experience, how you worked with it, what students liked most, least.

Feedback
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Discussion : pre-reading activities. (based on the readers they’ve worked with in Network especially, although of course they can mention other ideas as well)
1) How can we introduce a reader in the classroom for the first time? Make a list of activities. (Ask Javier to explain what he did in his upper 2 course)
2) How can we deal with pre-reading activities? Mention everything we must take into account so that our students can understand it and are ‘eager to read’.
3) How can we integrate the teaching of vocabulary with the readers? (pre-teaching, making students use it, predictions, they’ll read them later, then they’ll use them when discussing the readers , the word bag)

Feedback

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Discussion: while-reading activities

1) What are the advantages of making our students focus on the questions about the reader at home?
2) What are the different activities we can do in class once students have read either at home or in class?

Feedback:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Discussion: follow-ups / after-reading activities
1) What’s the difference between while-reading and after-reading activities?
2) How important do you think after-reading activities are? As or more important, students can create, produce, we realize whether they have read or not.
3) Mention the different activities which can be done.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Dealing with films and readers:
Mention the advantages and disadvantages of having our students work on a reader which has a film version. Would it be possible to overcome or compensate for any of those disadvantages?
Which activities can be done using the reader and the video?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TIPS:
Is there anything essential we must do or tell our students as regards the readers?
· Read it till you understand it
· Answer comp qs at home
· Read it and remember the story so that you are able to speak about it in class
· Use a dictionary if necessary
· If a student is absent he should phone a classmate or the institute to find out about the homework
· If a student was absent the day a certain chapter of the reader was discussed, he must read that chapter plus the chapter which was assigned for the following class.
· Reading day
· Remember to check students’predictions.
· ?????

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Follow-up:
Find someone who will have the same course you have this year and share ideas about the corresponding reader. (They look at it and may come up with ideas)



















Pre-reading activities:
· We can show sts the front cover but not the title and ask them to predict what it is about. They can give it a title and compare it with the real one.
· Ask students to read the chapter heading (in the right order) and predict what the story is about.
· Give students the title of the book and cards with the different chapter headings. Students order them in the way they want and make up a story . It would be grreat to ask them to write it so that when they finish reading the book the can compare the real story with the story they made up before reading it.
· Predictions with parts of the text. (paragraphs, letters, first and last sentences of chapters, etc.)

Activities to check understanding:
Number the events in order,
Join the two parts of the sentences
Complete sentences with one word (from the box)
True/False activities
Who said it? Who are they speaking to? Who/What are they speaking about?
Choose the best alternative
Cross out the incorrect word and write the correct one.




After-reading activities

Board game with qs, roleplays, vocabulary cards, feelings cards, games made up by the students (sts make qs for the others to answer - crosswords)

SITES FOR STUDENTS OF BUSINESS ENGLISH

BBC English

Business English

Sites for teachers of Business English

More+

Business English Site

Market Leader

One Stop English

Pearson for Business

Intelligent Business

Speech given by Steve Jobs (co-founder of Apple) to university students Excellent!!!

ONLINE PLACEMENT TEST FOR CAMBRIDGE EXAMS

STAGES IN TEACHING

...
4. You tend to be more concerned about your class plan than about how it will turn into actual on ground class managemet.
5. While teaching, you are often more concerned about your teaching than about student´s leraning.
6. You find yourself thinking: This might work pretty well in his/her classroom, but my students are different even if they are in the same level, so it won´t work with my sudets.
7. You admire certain teachers and you feel you will never get to be that good.
8. You are often surprised by the emergent. There is always something you haven´t considered when planning or there´s always a student who ask the unexpected question.
9. You have been able to focus on individual students and individual problem situations and seek a solution.. You find yourself thinking “How can i help a particular student who”?
10. Your classs ussally runs smoothly most of the times.
11. You enjoy teaching most of the times.
12. You have a few management “tricks” that usually work very effectively and you rely on them.
13. You are more concerned with specific aspects of your planning in order to approach a particular.
14. You are more concerned with specific aspects of your management such as “What other errror corrections could I use”.
15. You are rarely surprised by emergent. You pretty much know what to expect from students and they seldom ask an unexpected question.
16. You have found yourself seeking help from teachers who have had similar experiences and you´ve been willing to try out some of those suggestions.
17. You are getting tired of doing the same things over and over.
18. You ask yourself more questions about new developements in the field.
19. You occasionally think you should have chosen a different profession.
20. You sometimes wonder: is this what I´m going to do the rest of my life? I don´t know if I want to.
21. You feel you have been repeating yourself and you find a need for renewal and refreshment.
22. You believe there is basically “nothing new under the sun”.
23. You have thought of leavingg the profession.
24. You have come to terms with the profession.
25. You have reached a comfortable level of confidence in your own competence.
26. You ask yourself deeper and more abstract questions about learning, teaching, education or school management.
27. You keep expanding your repertoire of teaching techniques.
28. You have found yourself giving guiadance, support and suggestions to younger colleagues.
29. You feel you are pofessional who can keep developing and growing.
30. You are pretty confident to face most substitutions on the spur of the moment.

RV: Download a story and inspire your students

 

-----Mensaje original-----
De: Oxford University Press [mailto:elt.marketing.uk@oup.com]
Enviado el: jueves, 09 de octubre de 2008 11:11
Para: cecilia@networkinstitute.com.ar
Asunto: Download a story and inspire your students

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Read your way to better English
Research shows that reading a lot improves your listening, speaking, and fluency   FREE Activity 1 "How can I get my students to read in English when they don't read in their own language?" But they do watch television, films, and DVDs, don't they? So the secret is … to begin with the story. Activity: Use the story as a hook to catch your fish! Learners listen to the first part of this month's free story with our FREE audio » Learners guess what might happen next in the story. Learners discover if they were right by reading the FREE story » Get the FREE resources for this activity at the Read your way to better English website Print the full teaching notes for this activity
Reading Tip from Professor Day To motivate students it is important they read at a comfortable level. Start your class with low level books. For more tips visit our ask the experts web page.
Don't miss next month's free story at oup.com/bookworms
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