RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS

[Network News] Promoción Inglés en Febrero, Inglés y Portugués en NETWORK

2012-01-02T00:04:00.000-08:00

Si no visualizás este e-mail correctamente, podés verlo haciendo click aquí

Calidad, trayectoria, resultados comprobables

Viví el Inglés y el Portugués en Network!

1992-2012

Clases de inglés PRIVADAS o SEMI PRIVADAS en FEBRERO a PRECIOS SUPER PROMOCIONALES

Querés realizar práctica intensiva en inglés oral en clases individuales? Te gustaría focalizarte en alguna necesidad especial para tu trabajo, como Conversaciones Telefónicas o Presentaciones en Inglés? Tenés una entrevista de trabajo en breve y hace tiempo que no hablás inglés? O tal vez quieras mejorar tu pronunciación? El objetivo lo ponés vos y nosotros te ayudamos a lograrlo! NETWORK te ofrece clases individuales a precios super promocionales. Y si venís con uno o dos amigos de nivel similar, el precio es aún mucho menor. Podés tomar estas clases en cualquiera de nuestras sedes u online! Conocé esta super-promoción haciendo click aquí.

Además, ofrecemos durante FEBRERO un curso grupal de Preparación para FCE para aquellos alumnos que rinden este examen en Marzo / Junio 2012 y clases de nivelación sin cargo para aquellos alumnos de NETWORK que deban rendir exámenes finales en el turno de febrero.

Para cualquiera de estas propuestas, SOLICITÁ INFORMES AQUI

INSCRIPCIÓN ABIERTA CURSOS REGULARES de INGLÉS Y DE PORTUGUÉS 2012 - las clases comienzan el 29-2-2012

Solicitá informes para nuestros cursos regulares 2012. Todas las edades y niveles. realizá una entrevista de nivelación online o personal sin cargo y sin compromiso para conocer tu nivel. solicitá informes haciendo click aqui.

AHORA TAMBIÉN PORTUGUÉS! Inscribiéndote para cursar ambos idiomas, obtené un descuento del 15 % en tu curso de portugués!

Viaje de Estudios a Londres, con extensión turística a Roma, Florencia y París.

Saludamos muy afectuosamente al grupo de alumnos de NETWORK que están viajando para vivir esta inolvidable experiencia este mes y les informamos a todos que en breve anunciaremos las reuniones informativas para quienes están interesados en viajar en Enero 2013!

Elegí NETWORK en 2012, tu mejor opción para estudiar Idiomas!

Conocé más sobre NETWORK en nuestro video:

BUSQUEDA LABORAL EN NETWORK: Responsable PART-TIME de Atención al Cliente en Sede Lanús.

Hacé click aquí para más información sobre esta búsqueda o escribinos a teachers@networkinstitute.com.ar

CUMPLIMOS 20 AÑOS EN 2012!

SEDE AVELLANEDA: Entre Ríos 265 - Avellaneda - 4228 4900
SEDE LANÚS: Avda. Máximo Paz 783 - Lanús Oeste - 3221-3505
www.networkinstitute.com.ar

Si no desea recibir más las novedades de Network, puede desuscribirse haciendo click aquí

[News] Muchas Felicidades les desea Network Institute

2011-12-17T18:15:00.000-08:00

Si no visualizás este e-mail correctamente, podés verlo haciendo click aquí

Fundado en 1992.
Calidad, trayectoria, resultados comprobables

Viví el Inglés y el Portugués en Network!

seguinos en

Muchas gracias por acompañarnos durante este año y los mejores deseos de todo el Equipo de Network para 2012.

Solicitá información a info@networkinstitute.com.ar

Network Avellaneda cierra el 29/12/2011 y reabre el 1/2/2012

Network Lanús cierra el 22/12/2011 y reabre el 6/2/2012.

SEDE AVELLANEDA: Entre Ríos 265 - Avellaneda - 4228 4900
SEDE LANÚS: Avda. Máximo Paz 783 - Lanús Oeste - 3221-3505
www.networkinstitute.com.ar

Si no desea recibir más las novedades de Network, puede desuscribirse haciendo click aquí

[Network News ] Inglés y Portugués: Mirá el video y conocenos!

2011-12-08T15:34:00.001-08:00

Si no visualizás este e-mail correctamente, podés verlo haciendo click aquí

Fundado en 1992.
Calidad, trayectoria, resultados comprobables

Inscripción Abierta 2012

Viví el Inglés en Network!

Ahora también PORTUGUÉS!

seguinos en

mirá nuestro video 2011 y conocé por qué network es tu mejor opción para inglés y portugués!

Solicitá información a info@networkinstitute.com.ar

Entrevista de Nivelación SIN CARGO.

SEDE AVELLANEDA: Entre Ríos 265 - Avellaneda - 4228 4900
SEDE LANÚS: Avda. Máximo Paz 783 - Lanús Oeste - 3221-3505
www.networkinstitute.com.ar

Si no desea recibir más las novedades de Network, puede desuscribirse haciendo click aquí

[Network News ] Inglés y Portugués: Mirá el video y conocenos!

2011-12-08T03:33:00.000-08:00

Si no visualizás este e-mail correctamente, podés verlo haciendo click aquí

Fundado en 1992.
Calidad, trayectoria, resultados comprobables

Inscripción Abierta 2012

Viví el Inglés en Network!

Ahora también PORTUGUÉS!

seguinos en

mirá nuestro video 2011 y conocé por qué network es tu mejor opción para inglés y portugués!

Solicitá información a info@networkinstitute.com.ar

Entrevista de Nivelación SIN CARGO.

SEDE AVELLANEDA: Entre Ríos 265 - Avellaneda - 4228 4900
SEDE LANÚS: Avda. Máximo Paz 783 - Lanús Oeste - 3221-3505
www.networkinstitute.com.ar

Si no desea recibir más las novedades de Network, puede desuscribirse haciendo click aquí

[News] Conocé Network y estudia Inglés y Portugués!

2011-12-02T00:21:00.000-08:00

Si no visualizás este e-mail correctamente, podés verlo haciendo click aquí

Fundado en 1992.
Calidad, trayectoria, resultados comprobables

Inscripción Abierta 2012

Viví el Inglés en Network!

Ahora también PORTUGUÉS!

seguinos en

mirá nuestro video 2011 y conocé por qué network es tu mejor opción para inglés y portugués!

Solicitá información a info@networkinstitute.com.ar

Entrevista de Nivelación SIN CARGO.

SEDE AVELLANEDA: Entre Ríos 265 - Avellaneda - 4228 4900
SEDE LANÚS: Avda. Máximo Paz 783 - Lanús Oeste - 3221-3505
www.networkinstitute.com.ar

Si no desea recibir más las novedades de Network, puede desuscribirse haciendo click aquí

Excellent Site with Song Plans

2011-10-31T16:20:00.001-07:00

http://www.englishexercises.org/buscador/buscar.asp?nivel=any&age=0&tipo=any&contents=song#thetop

Film English: Excellent Site for Teaching with Videos and Video Plans

2011-10-25T06:33:00.000-07:00

http://film-english.com/

Brainstorming and Mind Maps: Bubbl.us

2011-09-21T04:27:00.001-07:00

Web Resources for Teachers

2011-09-05T07:42:00.001-07:00

Web resources for teachers
http://iSLCollective.com
A free teaching material sharing site for language teachers.
Guardian.co.uk
Classroom material.
British Council at Second Life
Use second life to teach English
Crowdsourcing: tricider
Pose a question, brainstorm, vote
www.readbooksonline.net
You will find books in English to read online
http://online.cofa.unslv.edu.au/learning-to-teach-online/ltto-episodes
You will find interesting videos on teaching
http://www.teachertube.com
You will find interesting videos on teaching
http://davecormier.com/edblog/2011/06/12/coming-to-know-the-path-of-the-rhizome/
For those interested in education
Back to top

Teaching Tenses with Cartoons

2011-07-07T11:19:00.000-07:00

Check this great site for ideas on how to teach tenses creatively and in memorable ways!
http://www.englishtenseswithcartoons.com

More on Dogme

2011-06-22T18:53:00.001-07:00

http://www.davedodgson.com/2011/06/five-stages-of-dogme.html

Excellent blog on how to teach teenagers

2011-06-22T18:36:00.000-07:00

http://macappella.wordpress.com

Educating her world - A Site with lots of resourcces

2011-06-13T08:43:00.000-07:00

http://saradavila.com/front/

Another site for games

2011-05-23T10:52:00.000-07:00

http://acliltoclimb.blogspot.com/

Site for Playing and Creating Games

2011-05-23T10:49:00.000-07:00

http://www.purposegames.com/

PurposeGames.com is host to educationalquiz and trivia games created by its members. In just a few minutes, you can create your very own game to share with your friends!.

Play games and tournaments to compete against your friends, co-workers, and classmates! Become the reigning champion of your community!

The easiest way to learn something is to have fun while doing it! Geography, Science, and Languages, any subject is easier and more fun to learn by playing a quiz game!

How to Create a Fill in the Blanks Exercise in Moodle: Tutorial

2011-05-20T05:34:00.000-07:00

ESL VIDEO

2011-04-10T18:10:00.000-07:00

Online videos and activities for ESL students

link

Iatefl Online

2011-03-31T18:45:00.001-07:00

http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/

Teaching English by The British Council

2011-03-31T18:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/

EFL CLASSROOM 2.0

2011-03-28T17:45:00.000-07:00

http://eflclassroom.ning.com

Wiziq Tutorial: The Next Best Alternative to Classroom Teaching

2011-03-22T16:33:00.000-07:00

Through our VL platform, we can now add a Wiziq event, by choosing it from the ADD AN ACTIVITY menu. Wiziq allows us to teach a synchronous class in a virtual environment.

Wiziq has many advantages compared to other tools for online classes:

It is fully integrated into our Moodle platform. Therefore, students and teachers do not need to download any software or create another username and password, apart from the one they need for the Moodle Platform.
Teachers can thus schedule classes through e-Network or start them spontaneously if the student cannot be at the institute in time for the class but can take the class synchronously anywhere else where a computer is available. Teachers will need a computer with headphones and audio in order to teach the online class.
Wiziq integrates audio, video, live chat, whiteboard, emoticons and content sharing into one online live classroom which is as interactive as a physical classroom.
Whiteboard is a space where basic PAINT style work can be produced with drawing tools, quite similar to the software that we use for the IWB.
The teacher can make students interact by swapping video and / or audio between presenter and attendees.
Word Documents, Powerpoint Presentation, PDF files, flash files can be easily shared and teachers can annotate on these documents.
You can also share your computer screen or youtube content through the embedded Media Player.
Students can virtually raise their hand to speak. The teacher has privileged control over the class and can assign video and audio to different students at different times during the class. This is very important in language learning, when students clearly need to interact and use the language in order to learn.
In small group classes, one or two virtual students can be easily taught even if there are one or two students present in the institute for the same class, provided a computer is available and ideally the IWB.

Watch the tutorials below.

What is WIZIQ?

Wiziq and Moodle

Read these pieces of advice from the Wiziq website on how to teach foreign languages using Wiziq. Click here.

Another article on Wiziq and Moodle here.

Now get together with a colleague and try Wiziq. One should take the teacher´s role and the other one, the student´s role. For this, you can use any of your courses at e-Network. You might need to give access to your partner teacher as a student if she is not one of the teachers in that class as well. If you have any problems, please get in touch with one of the coordinators. We will be happy to help.

Once you feel confident using WIZIQ, please try it in a regular class in the institute with your business English students, who are likely to cancel many classes due to commuting, so that they are ready for the online class on the event on a cancellation for which they can still be available for a synchronous class, though not in the institute.

Lyrics Training: Excellent Site to Practise your English through Songs

2011-03-19T08:22:00.000-07:00

Lyrics Training is an easy and fun method to learn and improve your foreign languages skills like English, through the music videos and typing the lyrics of the songs.

http://www.lyricstraining.com/

The Changing Paradigms of Education

2011-03-04T03:04:00.000-08:00

"Most great learning happens in groups. Collaboration is the stuff of growth. If we atomize our students and separate them and judge them separately, we create an disjunction between them and the natural learning environment"

The Role of a Teacher in a Teacher Centred Class

2011-02-22T08:12:00.000-08:00

Phonemic Chart

2011-02-22T08:11:00.000-08:00

Learner ntred Teaching

2011-02-22T08:08:00.000-08:00

How to teach with video by the British Council

2010-11-08T16:56:00.000-08:00

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/video-english-classroom

Excellent site on How to Use Video. It includes examples.

Movie Segments to Teach Grammar

2010-11-01T18:57:00.000-07:00

http://moviesegmentstoassessgrammargoals.blogspot.com/

Great Halloween Site with videos and more

2010-10-29T20:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.history.com/topics/halloween

....brought to you by THE HISTORY CHANNEL.

How to use Facebook for Social Learning

2010-10-22T05:17:00.000-07:00

http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/140Learning/facebook.html

Halloween Blog

2010-10-22T04:59:00.000-07:00

http://halloweenatnetwork.blogspot.com/

Ideas and games for Halloween Parties

Teaching Children: Survival Tips

2010-10-18T18:30:00.000-07:00

http://teacherbootcamp.edublogs.org/2010/10/13/survival-tips-for-teaching-kids-english-30-tips-resources/

My Survival Tips

Channel in your inner child!- Can you identify the 2 members of our personal learning network in this slide?
- Have the ability to act silly – I often dress-up when reading books, play charades, make silly voices and faces, and sing and dance!
Wear the right gear! Don’t dress to impress! Dress for a mess!
Children love to play pretend games!
Have lively music that is easy for the children to understand and that you will enjoy singing very loudly to!
TPR- Total physical response is a must for every lesson. Find out more by reading this post.
Puppets are great for children, especially when you incorporate the puppet in every lesson.
Play board games, physical games, and online games- We play Twister, bingo, English Raven’s games, and more!
Include stories from great children’s authors and make the reading time fun. Check out my class wiki for various books and the themes they support.
Use colorful flashcards and play games with the flash cards.
Color with a purpose! Give children a task to see if they can follow directions, such as telling a child to draw a circle and color it yellow. Without direction, I’ve had children color on the wall and on me!
Incorporate drama activities such as mime and improvisation games.
Felt boards are great for having children piece together what happened in a story or to learn new vocabulary.
Finger plays like the Itsy Bitsy Spider work wonders. Read this post on how to digitalize your finger plays using Blabberize.
Trust kids with technology! My five year-old students complete online activities each week which I put in a wiki. Kids love technology and will repeat what they learn.
Explore the outdoors with scavenger hunts.
Use realia- My students play Bingo with pennies from the USA. Introduce real world objects to students from an English speaking culture. Play Show-and-Tell!
When all else fails, have fun!

Newspapers in the Classroom: The Wall Street Journal

2010-10-13T07:45:00.000-07:00

http://classroomedition.com/cre/

Blogs and Wikis in the Class

2010-10-12T11:14:00.000-07:00

Summary

The use of blogs and online collaboration in education is explored as teachers discover how and why they should make good use of them.

Twilight Activities

2010-10-06T19:39:00.000-07:00

http://www.getenglishlessons.com/5197/twilight-esl-lesson-ideas/

Activities for Movies

2010-10-04T13:01:00.000-07:00

http://warmupsfollowups.blogspot.com/

Story: The Tortoise and the Hare

2010-09-30T14:16:00.000-07:00

Cambridge ranked World´s Number 1 University!

2010-09-30T12:39:00.000-07:00

Cada año tres millones de personas en el mundo en 130 países rinden exámenes de idioma inglés administrados por la Universidad de Cambridge. Estos tests son reconocidos por 11000 empleadores y universidades alrededor del mundo. Prepará tus exámenes Universidad de Cambridge en NETWORK!

A new report issued this week ranking Cambridge as the world's top university, has been welcomed by language experts at University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations (Cambridge ESOL).
The report which puts Cambridge University in the top spot was compiled by QS TopUniversities.com and has already received widespread coverage in the world's media. It was based on research quality, graduate employability, teaching and how international the faculties and student bodies are.

Cambridge University, which recently celebrated its 800th anniversary, is known throughout the world for the quality of its research and teaching, and for its contribution to education globally through its publishing and assessment departments. Dr Mike Milanovic, Chief Executive of Cambridge ESOL said:

“As a department of Cambridge University, we have a commitment not just to language assessment and learning, but to education as a whole and this report is very good news. It further reflects our uncompromising commitment to offer language assessment and learning tools around the world with an emphasis on quality, accuracy and fitness for purpose.”

Every year, more than three million people in 130 countries take Cambridge English language exams run by the University's English language exams department, Cambridge ESOL and the range of tests is recognised by over 11,000 universities, employers and government departments. As Dr Mike Milanovic explains:

“We work closely with individuals, governments, schools and universities across the world to ensure that learners can really use English effectively.”

I-Google, Delicious

2010-09-27T13:21:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone

From the SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS APIBA, I would like to share these two excellent tools to keep track of interesting internet sites through online bookmarks

There are two videos which will shouw you how to use it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeBmvDpVbWc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGXElviSRXM

I also recommend www.igoogle.com, which is a customizable (using your gmail address) start page. You can easily customize it to show all the tools you need (weather, news, facebook, etc)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3Tl3Ch51QU

The Camera Tool: IWB and Active Inspire Software

2010-09-01T07:45:00.000-07:00

Tips for flipchart design.

Using the IWB: A beginners guide

2010-09-01T07:36:00.001-07:00

IWB Tips for Teachers

2010-09-01T07:28:00.000-07:00

Creative activities for using the IWB with kids.
Download more training videos for your i-pod or computer.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/promethean-planet-activtips/id260527899

Business English Websites

2010-08-30T07:18:00.001-07:00

http://www.britishcouncil.org/professionals.htm

Favourite Wamers

2010-08-16T07:43:00.000-07:00

http://busyteacher.org/teaching_ideas_and_techniques/warmers-worksheets/

At the moment we got 59 Warmers worksheets as well as other useful materials to teach Warmers, such as print ready handouts, color-me pages, teaching tips, etc. View our recently added Warmers lesson plans, or navigate through the menu at the top of every page to locate the worksheet you are looking for for this or that particular lesson.
This section is your 1-stop educational destination for Warmers lesson materials!At BusyTeacher, we do our best to make your lesson preparation faster by giving you access to 59 pages of Warmers printable worksheets.
Ready to PrintThese totally free print ready Warmers handouts will help you prepare an awesome lesson about Warmers - just print them out and you're all set!Download and Print 59 Warmers Free Worksheets!

Education World

2010-08-09T07:55:00.000-07:00

http://www.educationworld.com/

Lesson Planning
Templates
Professional Development
and much more...

First Conditional Activity

2010-06-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

FIFA World Cup & Conditional Sentences Type 1

http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?catid=58145&docid=550315

SECOND LIFE FOR STUDENTS

2009-11-15T11:47:00.000-08:00

http://www.britishcouncil.org.br/elt/_v2/c_article_display.asp?ida=671

iwb (opinions)

2009-11-15T11:40:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone

As Ana said, ‘The literature about the benefits of IWBs to the learning process is still fuzzy but it points clearly to the danger of classes becoming too teacher-centred.’

Unfortunately, I can think of something even more disturbing than a teacher-centred class – a board-centred one!

Please, do not take me wrong. I’ve been using an IWB and I think it’s something really nice. The flipchart function is extremely handy and in terms of visualisation it’s just amazing. Whichever multi-media activity, video, ppt presentation or website you want to show your students, it looks simply great. However, for this very reason, the danger of having the board as the main focus of everyone’s attention cannot be lightly dismissed.

As for handing out the responsibility for the learning process to students, if the IWB can help in the process, than just fine. Nevertheless, in my opinion, we don’t necessarily need a pen mouse to do that. It can and should be done handing out a common marker, a humble pen or pencil, a blank sheet of paper or even nothing, as long as you give your students time and space to be active agents in the classroom. Again, it’s not a pen mouse that will do the trick; it’s our approach to teaching.

I hope teachers and teacher trainers will soon cease to look at IWBs in awe and start integrating them into their teaching practices, attaining what Stephen Bax calls ‘a state of normalisation’, where technology becomes invisible instead of being at the centre of the stage.

I think IWBs are fantastic tools and that’s the way we should see them, as tools.

Comments are more than welcome.

ONLINE LEARNING / E-LEARNING

2009-11-15T11:34:00.000-08:00

http://partners.becta.org.uk/index.php?section=rh&catcode=_re_vi_hi_03&rid=15545

VIDEO

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/search/node/elearning

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/motivation-e-learning-personal-reflections

Research on IWBs

2009-11-15T11:21:00.000-08:00

Whiteboards under the microscope

Despite growing enthusiasm from teachers and pupils, interactive whiteboards have had little or no impact on exam results. So what's the problem? Julie Nightingale reports

Steve Higgins, director of the research project, says one issue may be that while whiteboards help with the flow of lessons - the sense of control, the pace, the positive feedback and enthusiasm of pupils - this might get in the way of developing understanding and picking up when pupils have not wholly grasped a concept or idea.

http://www.teachers.tv/ict/whiteboardtips

UPPER INTERMEDIATE 1

2009-10-20T13:44:00.000-07:00

AVAILABLE DVDs: Lamb to the Slaughter, the movie, available at the institute, to be used alongside the story: The Leg of Lamb.

Mrs Bixby and the Colonel´s Coat
http://www.guba.com/watch/2000913863

PET SPEAKING PRACTICE:
http://www.cambridgeesol.org/what-we-do/research/speaking-performances.html

TOP NOTCH FOR ADULTS

2009-09-25T10:15:00.000-07:00

Just a few words to remind you that there is an excellent resource for teachers TOP NOTCH TEACHER RESOURCE CD, which contains all sort of extra activities and also vocabulary card games.

If you wish to use the picture cards or some other material in the cd, please let us know in advance and we will be preparing the cards for you.

Also, there is a students cd rom, which is great stuff to be used in the Interactive Whiteboard. We will also be copying it to you

IWBs FAQ

2009-09-24T06:57:00.001-07:00

FAQs and more

The IWB is difficult to use.
Not if you have a basic understanding of using computers. An IWB is just a big computer screen, which reacts to your touch as if it was a computer mouse. It's THAT easy!
It takes a lot of time to prepare the materials.
It may take some time at the beginning when you're still getting used to the IWB, but then you can save and reuse the same materials in other classes. And don't forget you can also use the Internet resources, ready-made materials, and even the CD-ROMs that come with the Student's Books or Workbooks.
When you have IWB materials, you cannot customize them to the needs of individual classes.
The IWB software lets you change and modify the materials a lot, so you can be sure all materials can be somehow utilized in different classes, even at different levels – it's just a question of choosing the right type of activity.
I'm afraid of using the IWB in front of my students. They all know so much about computers and what if something goes wrong? / Students will laugh at the teacher when they don't know how to operate the IWB.
On the contrary! Students will be quietly proud of themselves for being able to do something in front of the class. It will also build their confidence and make them feel more responsible for what is going on in class.
The IWB is good for teaching young learners, but doesn't seem to work with adults.
The IWB is intuitively appropriate to use with younger learners, because they readily get involved in games and quizzes. With adults you will just have to go for different types of activities and interaction, e.g. using the board for presentations, graphs, maps, etc.
You have to use the IWB all the time.
Not at all! Experts say you can use the IWB in every class, but the attention of the teacher and the students should not be focused on it for more than 20 minutes in a lesson. The IWB is definitely one of the most powerful elements of the teaching mix, but it should not become dominant.
It'll be impossible to manage the class - students will just start shouting out the answers.
It is possible that students, particularly the younger ones, can get excited about the new "gadget" in class. You could try to use this initial interest to your advantage: show them different functions of the IWB, play games, get them to interact with the IWB. Class management will also seem easier when you have read our Top Tips.
Won't the focus on whole-class, heads-up activities mean that quieter students get left out?
The IWB can be used in different types of class interaction and there should be a good mix of these within any one lesson. Whole class activities are good for feedback and checking or grammar presentations. But if you want to make sure that all students are involved, get them to work in groups, or invite everybody to play a team game. With a little bit of careful planning, and using the possibilities of IWBs, you should be able to get your students involved. Finally - don't forget the IWB, although powerful, is just another tool in your hands, and you still have a wealth of other elements of the course to choose from!

BENEFITS OF IWBs

2009-09-24T06:56:00.001-07:00

Benefits of using Interactive Whiteboards

So why is it good to use IWBs? Here are some benefits of using the new technology in the classroom.

Benefits for the students:

Get students communicating and interacting
Suit a variety of learning styles
Motivate and engage students
Increase attention span and improve focus
Facilitate knowledge retention

Benefits for the teachers:

Reduce preparation time
Give freedom and flexibility in preparing the materials
Reinvigorate teachers who see how their students are enthusiastic and motivated
The possibilities given by the new technology motivate teachers to try out new approaches and inspire them to innovate their teaching

Benefits for classroom interaction:

Help change classroom dynamics
Introduce the fun and games element
Move the classes towards a student-centred approach

DIFFERENT WAYS OF USING AN IWB

2009-09-24T06:54:00.000-07:00

http://www.oupeltpromo.com/interactive/iwbs_step_by_step.php

IWB TIPS

2009-09-24T06:49:00.000-07:00

Practice makes perfect. Find time to get to know what you can do with the IWB and what it can do for you.
Avoid using white backgrounds. These can produce more glare and reduce students' concentration span.
Think about your classroom position. You don't want to be throwing a shadow on the board or getting the beam in your eyes. Advise your students of this too.
Remember the activities need to be interactive. The English classroom is not a lecture theatre so it shouldn't just be you at the board. Make sure it is interactive for everyone.
Make sure your classroom set-up allows access to the board. If possible move desks so the students are in a horseshoe formation near the board. Try not to have a barrier between the students and the board.
Don't allow the IWB to dominate lessons. Like anything in the classroom you can have too much of a good thing. The focus in a class should change, so try to use it when it will help you and benefit the class.
Don't make IWB material too complicated. If there is too much on the screen, or too many things that can move around, it will be more difficult to maintain the interest of the class.
Think about different learning styles when designing material. IWBs can benefit a variety of different learning styles so make sure there is something for everyone.
Don't make materials too complete. The teacher shouldn't just be a clicker of the mouse; there needs to be room for the teacher to add things, and for the material to be flexible.
Don't let the IWB do all the work. Students need to be able to follow their own thought processes, make additions and mistakes. This will encourage discussion and help the cognitive process.

MORE TIPS:
http://www.teachers.tv/ict/whiteboardtips

CONVERGENCE

2009-09-17T13:37:00.000-07:00

TEACHING VOCABULARY

2009-09-17T13:34:00.000-07:00

GOOD IDEA FOR UPPER INTERMEDIATE CLASSES

new vocabulary
Submitted on 21 August, 2009 - 11:36
Hi Paul,
I have noticed in my classes that using this technique as a way of learning (or even better 'strengthening') the vocabulary for a certain unit makes students wonder what kind of sentences they should make (affirmative, negative or interrogative), should they be short or long, etc. In other words, when telling them to put a word in a specific sentence they lose focus and start asking unimportant questions not connected to the word itself! This led me to search for better ways of learning new vocabulary, and I came up with the idea of writing four words on the board (words that are new to them and have all been mentioned in the one specific lesson), which they should not yet write down in their notebooks (concentrating on the visual aspect of the word at this point). I then read a fill-in-the-gap sentence which contains a blank that they must fill in with one of the words on the board. But try not to forget to make the four words on the board similar in meaning, otherwise the activity would be too easy for them! In most cases in my experience they do make the right choice of word, but they think about it for a moment! Afterwards I dictate the sentence out to them, they write it down with the correct word, and after that they should write three other sentences (for the remaining three unused words in separate sentences). It is at this point that the hard part of the activity is to create 3 totally different sentences using the three words that are left, but to follow the first example and to make the meaning of the new word clear in each sentence.
Now this will get them thinking!
Best, Aneta Naumoska

Benefits of using Interactive Whiteboards

2009-06-03T08:02:00.002-07:00

So why is it good to use IWBs? Here are some benefits of using the new technology in the classroom.

Benefits for the students:

1. Get students communicating and interacting
2. Suit a variety of learning styles
3. Motivate and engage students
4. Increase attention span and improve focus
5. Facilitate knowledge retention

Benefits for the teachers:

1. Reduce preparation time
2. Give freedom and flexibility in preparing the materials
3. Reinvigorate teachers who see how their students are enthusiastic and motivated
4. The possibilities given by the new technology motivate teachers to try out new approaches and inspire them to innovate their teaching

Benefits for classroom interaction:

1. Help change classroom dynamics
2. Introduce the fun and games element
3. Move the classes towards a student-centred approach

The Pedagogy of IWB Lessons

2009-06-03T08:02:00.001-07:00

The focus for learning is the same, whether or not ICT tools are employed. This focus in the case of NIS should reflect the aims of the IB. Taking the MYP as an example for the aims:

The (MYP) programme aims to enable students to:

• build upon their spirit of discovery to develop an understanding and enjoyment of the process of
learning, independently and in cooperation with others

• acquire knowledge and understanding and prepare for further learning

• recognize the extent to which knowledge is interrelated

• learn to communicate effectively in a variety of ways

• develop a sense of personal and cultural identity and a respect for themselves and for others

• acquire insights into local and global concerns affecting health, the community and the environment, and develop a sense of individual and collective responsibility and citizenship.

Some aspects of lessons, however, can be enhanced by the boards. For example, the interactive whiteboard is particularly useful when using a style known as inductive teaching, in which pupils are expected to reach hypothesis based on sorting, classifying and re-sorting information. This is, of course, fully supportive of aims of the programme as outlined above.

The teacher can model different ways in which information might be classified using the features of the board, such as moving objects, and using colour and highlighting, while bringing pupils into the process. Pupils can then work in small groups away from the board, taking the classification process further. They can be drawn back to the board at intervals so that different groups can present their thinking to the class for discussion, before continuing with the task.

Factors Which Influence Our Pedagogy

When developing IWB resources and lessons there are many factors that change our pedagogy. This screen shows some of them – are there any additional factors that play a big part in your participants’ pedagogical focus?

1. Age and pupil profile

· Individual skills and abilities of pupils will affect the way you use the IWB. But don’t feel that initial pupil lack of skills with the IWB will limit their interest or participation.
· The group’s social and emotional state will modify pedagogy, and you may need to use a very different lesson style on a Monday morning when compared to a Friday afternoon! Managing behaviour is important; the IWB is not a substitute for this.
· Personal factors will change the group dynamic and may or may not be a factor in your planning process.

2. Teaching style

· If a teacher stands at the front and is inviting discussion, the focus of attention will be at the front of the class.
· If a teacher moves around the classroom as they teach, there is usually more direct use of the board by pupils and this creates a more collaborative classroom.
· There is a difference between teachers who like to explain things and those who like to discuss ideas and question their pupils. These two types of teaching approaches will use the same resource very differently. For instance, when showing a video, questioners tend to stop and question. They will need to be aware that if they do this too much then the original resource may not be able to fulfil its task. When showing a video explainers may show it all the way through and then move on. They will need to be aware that some of their pupils would also benefit from a re-run of the video, asking questions the second time around.
· The balance of activity will be different according to teaching styles. Consider which learning processes are strongly dependent on particular teaching styles and consider ways to include others in lessons.

3. Lesson length

· Timers can be very useful in short lesson periods, to keep pupils on task and focused. This sharpens the lesson and gives pupils a more focused concern, if they feel they are working against the clock, and can heighten responsibility for their own outcomes.
· Longer lessons often benefit from a wide range of short activities to keep pupils’ attention levels high. This is most effective when activities last approximately 10 – 20 minutes each. Alternatively, longer lessons are useful for collaborative project work and give pupils the opportunity to really get their teeth into a problem.

Investigation of the Sample “Case Study Lessons”

Examination of 2 case study lessons, probably from Literacy and Maths or Science and then discussion and changing to suit the teacher’s lessons.

Effective use of your IWB

2009-06-03T08:01:00.001-07:00

Effective use of your IWB
Whiteboards are fantastic tools which allow teachers to challenge thinking, use effective questioning, extend the quality of the interactions, control and maintain the pace of the lesson, engage students to a greater extent than conventional whole class teaching, increase enjoyment, motivation and involvement and easily access and use high quality resources. Exploit the INTERACTIVITY • Manipulate text in new ways; (highlight, change colour, magically reveal) Use the pen on maps, images etc. • Move/drag objects, edit and add objects to the page whilst teaching. • Make the most of the infinite pages and space- hang text and images off the side of the page to avoid cluttering the space, enjoy revisiting the pages in any order you want to. • Use layers to show, hide and reveal answers to engage the pupils and save time. • Add media such as images, sound effects, video etc to excite, motivate, encourage thoughts and feelings • Link to web sites, to enrich the pupil experience • Link to worksheets and presentations for enrichment, support or extension activities, • Capture pupil attention and maintain focus with tools such as the spotlight, camera, revealer. • Display and explore clear, accurate diagrams; label, resize etc explore detail with the magnifying glass. • Model abstract ideas- rotation of shapes, perspective, time zones, capturing sections of video, short episodes of animation or video. • Use tools such as the ruler, protractor, calculator, fraction generator to demonstrate skills, and demonstrate concepts • Use colours and backgrounds to help dyslexic readers, or to engage the audience. • Collaborative with pupils to make lists, poems, answers which they have shared ownership of. Reduce TEACHER WORKLOAD • Prepare materials in advance use, evaluate, change and save ready for the next time. • Share materials with staff, sharing the department or year group workload. • Download ready made resources from the Internet and customise to suit your lessons and your class. • Allow flipcharts created to be accessed for pupil revision. Increase PACE of lessons • Use previous flipcharts to recap at the start of the next lesson. • When appropriate, print flipcharts for a class to put in jotters or for children who are absent. • Hang reminders off the side of the page or put into teacher notes. • Use specific tools to add to the efficiency of a lesson, such as timer, calculator, camera. Use your whiteboard in a VARIETY of ways • Interactive tool for teaching, making flipcharts and teaching with them and saving them for the future. • Big screen for showing pre-prepared documents, such as word documents, scanned worksheets, images and PowerPoint or for multimedia resources such as Click view, websites. • To display photographs and video taken in class. • Class collaboration -sharing pupil ideas, such as manipulating texts together, creating poetry together. • Demonstrating how to use a piece of software, such as Photoshop, PowerPoint, • To share good work or display children’s work to discuss as a group. • Use other peripherals, microscopes, visualisers, cameras, video cameras. • used by a group of children during the independent activity. • To write on as a ‘chalkboard’. Pitfalls to avoid • Having lots of children out using the board can interfere with the lesson pace, unless well planned. • Try not to only use the IWB as a projector screen.

Symphony in Slang: Excellent resource for teaching idioms

2009-03-21T07:18:00.000-07:00

Thanks, Victoria, for this excellent cartoon as a wonderful resource to teach idioms and phrasal verbs!

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/yt-Ot92Yfovvvg/symphony_in_slang_1951_dir_by_tex_avery/

To be born with a silver spoon in your mouth.

I can´t cut the mustard.

To go back to a hole in the wall.

To be beside yourself.

To be short pants.

To be all thumbs.

To fit sb like a glove.

To eat like a horse.

To give sb the slip.

To be on sb´s heels.

To put your foot in your mouth.

The cat got your tongue?

To feel mighty blue.

To burn sby up.

It´s raining cats and dogs.

To have a bunch of little ones.

To play music by ear.

To spend money like water.

To die laughing.

To turn your back on .

Thanks, Dani Z., for compling the list of idioms!

EINSTEIN on CRISES

2009-03-16T12:31:00.000-07:00

Let's not pretend that things will change if we keep doing the same things. A crisis can be a real blessing to any person, to any nation. For all crises bring progress.

Creativity is born from anguish, just like the day is born form the dark night. It's in crisis that inventive is born, as well as discoveries, and big strategies. Who overcomes crisis, overcomes himself, without getting overcome. Who blames his failure to a crisis neglects his own talent, and is more respectful to problems than to solutions. Incompetence is the true crisis.

The greatest inconvenience of people and nations is the laziness with which they attempt to find the solutions to their problems. There's no challenge without a crisis. Without challenges, life becomes a routine, a slow agony. There’s no merit without crisis. It's in the crisis where we can show the very best in us. Without a crisis, any wind becomes a tender touch. To speak about a crisis is to promote it. Not to speak about it is to exalt conformism. Let us work hard instead.

Let us stop, once and for all, the menacing crisis that represents the tragedy of not being willing to overcome it.

WHOLE LANGUAGE AND ADULTS

2009-03-16T09:05:00.000-07:00

Whole Language and Adult Education. ERIC Digest.

This Digest argues that Whole Language theorists and adult education theorists have much in common, much to say to one another, and much to learn from one another.

"Whole Language" (WL), a theory of language instruction that was developed primarily in terms of helping young children learn to read, has now been extended to middle- and secondary-school levels. Andragogy, "the learning of adults," is a specific theory of adult education, conceived more or less in contradistinction to pedagogy, "the teaching of children." When one juxtaposes these two universes of educational discourse, however, one finds that the commonplaces of WL and of andragogy as theories of instruction are similar, if not identical. "In both fields the same debates rage about the whole language approach versus the word recognition, decoding, or phonics approach," as well (Sticht & McDonald, 1992). Recognition of this parallel of theories has arisen relatively recently, although work done by the National Reading Project could be said to have been moving in this direction for 20 years. Teachers whose students are adults, such as ESL teachers, ABE teachers, prison educators, and workplace trainers have been among those who see the match between WL theory and its andragogical implications (Connell, 1992; Weibel, 1994; Peyton & Crandall, 1995). Prison educators have observed the galvanizing impact of whole literature on the incarcerated, prompting strong, existential responses, engaging them in literacy learning. The National Family Literacy Center in Louisville, Kentucky, makes use of WL as an ideal means to teach literacy to adults and to children at the same time. Thus, what began on the one side as a theory about children learning to read, and on the other side as a theory about adults learning as adults, may be seen to coalesce in a statement about humans learning.

David Kring, reflecting on Constance Weaver's WL approach in "Reading Process and Practice" (1988), observed the similarities between WL and adult education and commented: "As the discussion turns to WL in the text, I almost feel as though it is a discussion of Adult Ed foundations...As we discuss the problems of a failing education system for the children, perhaps we might ask how we could teach children using adult ed methodologies; but, then, it appears that WL may have already achieved this!" (Kring, 1994).

WHAT IS WHOLE LANGUAGE?

According to its advocates (Brockman, 1994; Strickland & Strickland, 1993), WL is a new paradigm of progressivist instruction in continuity with Rousseau's romantic naturalism, John Dewey's democratic pragmatism, Jean Piaget's observation that children learn on their own, and Lev Vygotsky's and others' social constructivism collaborative interaction in learning. Among other aspects, WL involves transactional models of teaching (as opposed to transmission or banking (Freire) and learning (interaction with text and language, collaboration with co-learners, engagement for learning on account of real reasons).

Students learn to read by reading whole pieces of enjoyable literature and maintaining the natural wholeness of language (as opposed to prepackaged worksheets and skill-and-drill behaviorist approaches). Student-centered learning (as opposed to scripted curricula imposed by authorities from outside of the classroom) takes place as students construct their own meaning of the world around them (as opposed to memorization or imitation or reproduction of the teacher's knowledge); learning is risk-taking, exploratory, welcoming of the potential in errors for new learning.

The text focus is on authentic and meaningful texts (student-produced texts, as in the language experience method; invented spelling; self-published texts; and context-specific texts of high interest with immediate application to young readers' lives). Learning to read is reading for the sake of comprehension, with real purposes in mind, and learning to write is writing for real audiences; learning to read and write is integrated with simultaneous (as opposed to sequential) learning in other disciplines in across-the-curriculum fashion and in context with the development of other abilities (reading-and-writing to learn; listening and speaking as part of reading and writing; language learning in terms of other content areas).

The teacher in a WL classroom is seen as a facilitator, demonstrator, and co-reader, an active participant in the learning community, who teaches students rather than subject matter and who watches for teachable moments of student readiness to learn. Assessment in the WL classroom takes place collaboratively and individually as students evaluate themselves and others, guided by, and in communication with, their instructor, for the purpose of adding to the learning experience and growing (as opposed to supplying authorities and other stakeholders with statistics).

WHAT IS ANDRAGOGY?

Andragogy as a theory of adult education is represented in numerous entries in the ERIC database; it is most often associated with the name Malcolm Knowles, who did not invent the term but did bring it into currency (Houle, 1992). Knowles summarized andragogy as follows:

The theoretical presuppositions of andragogy are that andragogical learning is increasingly self-directed in the learner. The learner's own experiences are used as a rich resource for learning... Readiness to learn arises from life's tasks and problems.... Motivation is the adult learner's own internal incentives and curiosity. The procedural elements of andragogy include a climate of relaxed, trusting, informal, warm, mutually respectful, and collaborative support. Planning, diagnosis of needs, and setting of objectives, while designed primarily by the teacher, are carried out by both teacher and learners through mutual assessment and negotiation and learning contracts and projects sequenced by the learner's readiness. Learning activities include inquiry projects, independent study, and experiential techniques. Evaluation is based on learner-collected evidence, validated by peers and facilitators, the latter being expert in applying criterion-referenced norms. (Knowles, 1991).

THE TWO UNIVERSES OF DISCOURSE ARE ONE

Andragogues and WL advocates alike will recognize the respective descriptions of their two camps, and they will assent to the assertion that both WL and andragogy concur in the following--self-directed learning (Grow, 1991), the sense that the learner's interest and needs, abilities, and styles of learning are controlling the learning experience (as opposed to the teacher and the learning experience controlling the learner), is of uppermost importance. David Caverly corrects rhetorical excess on both sides to say that neither andragogy nor WL is wholly "self-directed," but that both are, in a Vygotskian constructivist sense, "learning communities" in which the teacher/expert "guides but does not limit" the learning of the student/novice (whether adult or child), and "both novice and expert grow and learn" and the goals of both are realized (Caverly, 1994).

In both environments, learning is focused within the context of the learner's world of reference in terms of his or her own needs, interests, desires, aesthetics, and social-political aspirations (as opposed to "covering a curriculum" or studying only what the teacher dictates as important to be learned). Adults, when they have not been infantilized by returning to the school room, demand that their learning be according to their own agenda, and this means that the teacher as facilitator must be co-responsive, rather than autocratic, in negotiating the syllabus and planning the work. WL advocates know that children have their preferred agendas, too, and that good teachers take this into account when planning the curriculum.

In the andragogical classroom, adult students learn as much from one another as they do from the teacher, and they tend to nod off if the teacher lectures for too long. In both classrooms, small group discourse multiplies the learning conversations and the communication of knowledge, giving voice to more people than the teacher only. Children and adults alike love to express themselves, and this many-sided discourse continues in the response and commentary of written dialogue journals. Although children have shorter lives upon which to draw, they, too, learn from one another's life experiences, multiple perspectives, respective knowledges--what they bring to their reading is as important as what they take from their reading.

In both the WL and the andragogical classroom, the teacher is not the only source of truth. Real-world reading material is brought to class by students, whether newspapers and forms from work by adults or favorite storybooks by children, and learning becomes participation in "the literacy club." In this way, natural language and interests gain equal time in the hierarchy of the classroom. Learning becomes a collaborative transaction in which all work together, reading real life/authentic/whole literature, producing one's own real/authentic texts, as a part of making up one's own meaning with a little help from friends.

WL theorists and andragogues alike recommend the reading of Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), to make the pedagogy of children more andragogical, and to keep the andragogy of adults from being oppressive. The net result is that education becomes transformative (Mezirow, 1991).

REFERENCES

Brockman, Beth (1994). "Whole Language: A Natural for the Adult Education Classroom." [ED 376 428]

Caverly, David (1994). Private communication with the author, June 19, 1994.

Connell, James V., Ed. (1992). Summary of Research on Implementing Whole Language Learning in Adult Basic Education Settings. [ED 355 357]

Grow, Gerald (1991). "Teaching Learners to Be Self-Directed." Adult Education Quarterly, 41(3), 125-49. [EJ 428 043]

Houle, Cyril O. (1992). The Literature of Adult Education: A Bibliographical Essay. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. [ED 351 572]

Knowles, Malcolm (1991). in Adult Education: Evaluation and Achievements in a Developing Field of Study. John M. Peters, ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. [ED 353 467]

Kring, David (1994). Private communication with the author, November 4, 1994.

Mezirow, Jack (1991). Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. [ED 353 469]

Peyton, Joy, and JoAnn Crandall (1995). "Philosophies and Approaches in Adult ESL Literacy Instruction." ERIC Digest. Washington, DC: ERIC Clearinghouse on Foreign Languages and Linguistics. [ED 386 960]

Sticht, Thomas G., and Barbara A. McDonald (1992). "Teaching Adults to Read," in What Research Has to Say about Reading Instruction, S. Jay Samuels and Alan E. Farstrup, eds. Newark, DE: International Reading Association. [ED 340 011]

Strickland, Kathleen, and James Strickland (1993). Uncovering the Curriculum: Whole Language in Elementary and Postsecondary Classrooms. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook. [ED 365 949]

Weibel, Marguerite Crowley (1994). "Literature, Whole Language, and Adult Literacy Instruction: A Lesson from the Elementary Classroom." Adult Learning, 6(2), 9-12. [EJ 492 497]

TEACHING ADULTS - ANDRAGOGY

2009-03-16T08:56:00.000-07:00

10 Characteristics of Adults as Learners

The following information was taken from course content written by Dr. Gary Kuhne for "ADTED 460 - Introduction to Adult Education," a course offered through Penn State's World Campus.

Characteristic #1 - Adults Generally Desire to Take More Control Over Their Learning Than Youth

Adults tend to be self-directed in their lives, although responsibilities with jobs, families, and other organizations can remove a degree of their freedom to act. Adulthood brings an increasing sense of the need to take responsibility for our lives and adults strongly resent it when others take away their rights to choose. This fact is clearly seen in educational efforts among adults. When not given some control over their learning, most adults will resist learning and some will even attempt to sabotage education efforts. They do not like being relegated to a "passive" position.
Implications:

Always seek to include the adult in the planning of educational efforts.
Allow for self-assessment and evaluation
Understand adult learners desire a peer relationship with instructors, rather than a hierarchical one.
Recognize that adults also expect greater availability of instructors.

Characteristic #2 - Adults Draw Upon Their Experiences as a Resource in Their Learning Efforts More Than Youth

The adult's experience is a key resource in any learning effort. Adults have a greater reservoir of life experiences simply because they have lived longer and seen and done more. This is a critical distinction between adults and traditional learners. Consciously or unconsciously, adults tend to link any new learning to their prior learning, a body of knowledge that is rooted in their life experiences. They evaluate the validity of new ideas and concepts in light of how the idea or concept "fits" their experience.
Implications:

Take the time to get to know more about the experiences of our learners and seek to help them to link new ideas to such prior learning.
Encourage discussion on how new ideas fit the experience of learners.

Characteristic #3 - Adult Tend to be More Motivated in Learning Situations Than Youth

Higher motivation is linked to the fact that most adult learning is voluntary. Adults are making personal choices to attend schooling, even when such schooling is tied to professional development or job skills. Whenever an individual is able to choose to learn, s/he is much more motivated to learn.
Implication:

Spend less effort trying to motivate adult learners and concentrate our time on facilitating the learning they are already motivated to pursue.

Characteristic #4 - Adults Are More Pragmatic in Learning Than Youth

Adults are particularly motivated to learn information that seems immediately applicable to their situation and needs. They tend to be frustrated with "theory" that needs to be stored away for future use or learning for the sake of learning. Certainly there are exceptions to this principle, but the percentage of exceptions is quite low.
Implications:

Tie the content of programs to the application needs of the learners.
Always use needs assessment strategies
Weigh the content of education toward the utilitarian, not the theoretical.

Characteristic #5 - In Contrast to Youth, the Learner Role is Secondary for Adults

For most adults, the "student" role is a minor and secondary role. This is in sharp contrast to traditional age learners for whom the learner role is both their primary social role and the main basis for their self-identity. Adults fulfill multiple roles and these multiple roles inevitably create conflicting and competing demands on the adult learner. Multiple roles cause most adults have far less time and energy to read, study, or learn.
Implications:

More flexibility in adult education programs than in traditional education.
Give assignments far ahead of time
Accept that jobs and families can create obstacles for the learner, and be willing to extend deadlines for assignments.
Accept that the learners will not see their educational efforts as necessarily the highest priority in their lives
Accept that learners will be preoccupied at times with other roles and responsibilities.

Characteristic #6 - Adults Must Fit Their Learning into Life's "Margins"

Adult roles take energy and time to fulfill. Everyone faces the reality that there are limits on their energy and time. An important principle to understand is that learning takes time and energy. If an adult is going to undertake a learning activity, s/he must realistically evaluate his/her life and see there is actually room for the added demands of the learning. Adult learners must learn to carve out some margin in their lives to allow learning to occur, a process of priority setting. If the existing demands on an adult require all the energy they possess, then the learning will be compromised.
Implication:

Adult educators must prioritize student advising to provide guidance to help learners to be realistic about the demands of learning and provide time management and study suggestions.

Characteristic #7 - Many Adults Lack Confidence in Their Learning

Many adults have had somewhat negative learning experiences in their traditional schooling. For a variety of reasons, they feel inadequate when comes to learning through formal educational programs. Still other adults, who may have done well in their earlier schooling, still lack confidence for further schooling efforts due to what they perceive as rusty study skills, poor reading skills, test anxiety, or other such learning barriers.
Implications:

Employ learning strategies that build higher confidence in adult learners.
Take the time to teach better study skills and ways of improving reading comprehension.
Use collaborative learning approaches in the classroom can do much to alleviate anxiety.(i.e., turn the classroom from a competitive environment to a collaborative one)

Characteristic #8 - Adults are More Resistant to Change Than Youth

Learning often involves changes in our attitudes or actions. Adults tend to be somewhat resistant to such changes because life itself teaches us that change is not always for the better and that many of the outcomes of change are unpredictable. Youth tend to be more idealistic and are often open to change just for the sake of change.
Implications:

Adult learners need more explanation of the "why" of changes, not just the "how."
Link new concepts to older, understood, and accepted concepts for adult learners.
Seek for incremental changes through our education efforts rather than global changes, allowing the "proof" gained from such incremental change to encourage the adult learner to explore yet more change.

Characteristic #9 - Adults Are More Diverse Than Youth

Adults vary from each other as learners in terms of age and experiences much more than traditional age learners. Such differences can be used as a powerful resource for adult learning. Through collaboration in small groups, adults can benefit from their variety of experiences. Dialogue with other adults enables adult learners to perceive more nuances of application, and possible problems with new concepts, then could ever be gained from private reflection.
Implications:

Allow more time for interaction between adults to allow learners to network together to sharing of perspectives and experiences.
Make effort to present material in a variety of ways to accommodate different learning styles.

Characteristic #10 - Adults Must Compensate for Aging in Learning

Aging brings with it a number of physical complications that can impact on adult learning efforts. The percentage of such complications increases with age. As we will see later, such complications are not really due to intelligence. Although the speed of learning tends to decrease with age, the depth of learning tends to increase. In other words, adults tend to learn less rapidly with age, but what they learn is learned at a deeper and more integrative level. As adults age, vision and hearing can also create barriers in educational programs. As adult educators, we must pay much more attention to sound and lighting when dealing with adult learners.
Implication:

Pay more attention to the physical learning environment to compensate for aging issues.

Video on American Economics IOUSA

2009-02-22T05:55:00.000-08:00

for advanced business English students

On Excellence by Jamie Duncan

2008-12-15T04:23:00.000-08:00

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 â€¦. 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:

Â§ be fully present in our classes

Â§ listen to our students

Â§ know each and everyone of our students

Â§ nurture our students

Â§ create conditions for learning

Â§ prepare our classes

Â§ be conscientious

Â§ be honest

Â§ 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:

Â§ continue to upgrade ourselves in our profession

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

Â§ look after ourselves physically and emotionally

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

Â§ cultivate discipline

Â§ unlock our creativity

Â§ seek inspiration

Â§ pay attention to good models

Â§ be our own inspiration to

Â§ 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

2008-12-05T12:39:00.001-08:00

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

2008-12-05T12:38:00.001-08:00

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

2008-11-18T08:16:00.001-08:00

Having problems reading this email? Click this link: http://elt-marketing.oup.com/q/12fILJwDAWKmS/wv

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.

http://elt-marketing.oup.com/c/1ifJ5j9O88NTyKT

Oxford University Press Great Clarendon Street Oxford OX2 6DP United Kingdom

You have received this email because you have expressed an interest in receiving emails from Oxford University Press.

This email has been sent to you by Adestra for Oxford University Press.

DEALING WITH READERS

2008-11-17T12:14:00.000-08:00

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

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

2008-11-14T10:13:00.000-08:00

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

2008-10-25T07:57:00.000-07:00

STAGES IN TEACHING

2008-10-11T06:49:00.000-07:00

...
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

2008-10-09T16:44:00.001-07:00

Read your way to better English - Oxford Bookworms

-----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

Having problems reading this email? Click this link: http://elt-marketing.oup.com/q/12fILJwuWbUj0/wv

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

Oxford University Press | Great Clarendon Street | Oxford | OX2 6DP | United Kingdom
Contact us | www.oup.com/elt

You have received this email because you have expressed an interest in receiving emails from Oxford University Press.
If you wish to unsubscribe, please click on the following link:
http://elt-marketing.oup.com/u/12fILJwuWbUj0
Please note this is an automated operation.

This email has been sent to you by Adestra for Oxford University Press.

itests

2008-10-08T12:16:00.001-07:00

itests.com

freee practice for fce and cae

RV: Ready-to-use grammar activities

2008-10-07T14:06:00.001-07:00

-----Mensaje original-----
De: Oxford University Press [mailto:elt.marketing.uk@oup.com]
Enviado el: lunes, 06 de octubre de 2008 22:52
Para: cecilia@networkinstitute.com.ar
Asunto: Ready-to-use grammar activities

Having problems reading this email? Click this link: http://elt-marketing.oup.com/q/12fILJwvpcLng/wv

Welcome

October 2008

Welcome to the second issue of the new series of Grammar to Go, the free grammar resources service from Oxford University Press.

In this email you will find three lesson plans, complete with teacher's notes and worksheets, based on real units from our best-selling Oxford Practice Grammar series. You can use these straight away with your elementary, intermediate, and advanced classes.

You'll also find two grammar tips on tricky-to-explain language points. Collect these and you'll always have an answer for those difficult questions students sometimes ask! You can check the Archive for grammar tips from previous issues you may have missed.

As ever, please keep sending us your feedback. If you have any suggestions for the kind of material you would like to see in these emails, please let us know. We'll consider all your ideas when we're planning the next series of Grammar to Go.

Enjoy building your bank of grammar resources with Grammar to Go!

Oxford Practice Grammar
Lesson Links - Basic

Used to
Show your students how used to can help them express past situations that have now changed, with this unit from Oxford Practice Grammar Basic, Lesson Links teacher's notes, and worksheets for your students.*
Download the unit in colour or black & white
Lesson Links teacher's notes & worksheets

Oxford Practice Grammar
Lesson Links - Intermediate

So/Neither do I and I think so
Use this lesson plan to help your students become more confident about agreeing and disagreeing using so and neither do I, and phrases such as I think so and I hope not. Includes a unit from Oxford Practice Grammar Intermediate, Lesson Links teacher's notes, and worksheets for your students.*
Download the unit in colour or black & white
Lesson Links teacher's notes & worksheets

Oxford Practice Grammar
Lesson Links - Advanced

Tenses - future
Give your students valuable practice at using different tenses for expressing future actions and situations, using this unit from Oxford Practice Grammar Advanced, Lesson Links teacher's notes, and worksheets for your students.*
Download the unit in colour or black & white
Lesson Links teacher's notes & worksheets

* All Lesson Links teacher's notes and worksheets are newly written and based on units from the Oxford Practice Grammar series. Find out more about this series.

Oxford Grammar Tips

It's not always easy to explain when you use a particular grammar structure instead of another but collect these handy tips and you'll soon have a useful bank of ready-made explanations! You can also print them out and give them to your students.

Do your elementary to intermediate students need practise at knowing when to use much and when to use many, or when it's appropriate to use an adjective after a verb? Then they need these handy tips!
Download

If your intermediate to advanced students need help understanding when they should use the impersonal pronoun one, they need these handy tips!
Download

Useful links

Enjoy trying new materials?
We'd like to hear from you!

At Oxford, we like to make sure our new materials work well, which means we're always interested in getting feedback. If you would like to help Oxford develop more good grammar teaching tools by trying material out with your class, please email us at elt.enquiry@oup.com and put 'Grammar Research' in the subject box. We will email you in November with further information. We look forward to hearing from you!

Using The Good Grammar Book or How English Works?

Please take a few minutes to let the authors know what you think: The Good Grammar Book survey How English Works survey

All the lesson ideas are in PDF format. To view them, you need the free Acrobat Reader.

Oxford University Press
Great Clarendon Street | Oxford | OX2 6DP | United Kingdom | www.oup.com/elt

You have received this email because you have expressed an interest in receiving emails from Oxford University Press.
This email has been sent to you by Adestra for Oxford University Press.

BUSINESS ENGLISH RESOURCES

2008-10-07T11:48:00.000-07:00

UPPER INTERMEDIATE ARTICLE ON BANKING CRISIS WITH ACTIVITIES

http://www.businessenglishonline.net/e-lessons/index.htm

Also check the site for many free resources:

http://www.businessenglishonline.net

EXCELLENT VIDEO BY THE FOUNDER OF APPLE ON PURSUING DREAMS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

E-tests

2008-10-03T14:40:00.000-07:00

http://www.itests.com/web/main/Home.html

Username: ceciliaargentina
Password: network08

Interactive Teacher Development

2008-10-03T12:36:00.000-07:00

http://www.teacherdevelopmentinteractivetdi.com

Material to share

2008-09-29T15:55:00.001-07:00

-----Mensaje original-----
De: Daniela Tonelli [mailto:danielatonelli@infovia.com.ar]
Enviado el: viernes, 23 de mayo de 2008 10:13
Para:
Asunto: Material to share

Hi Ceci,

I´ve been surfing the net, looking for teacher´s development material (you know how interested I am in that) and I found this manual, which contains very useful tips for teachers. Perhaps you already know about this material, which you can find together with plenty of other resources on the British Council site www.britishcouncil.org . I strongly recommend the Games archive as well as the Teaching Tips.

You can find very interesting articles. I´ve been reading something about Error Correction, which Vane told me is going to be the topic of our next Teacher´s meeting.

We are really lucky to count on this useful tool, the Internet. It can really make things much easier for us.

However, it is time-consuming and once you start you can´t stop (at least this is what happens to me)

Hope you find it useful

Regards

Daniela

ONLINE PICTIONARY

2008-09-29T15:53:00.001-07:00

http://www.isketch.net/isketch.shtml

Talking English - 45 edition

2008-09-29T15:52:00.001-07:00

June2008

Welcome to Talking English edition 43!

This issue features:

The new-look Teaching English site - bigger, better, brighter, bloggier
Englishbanana - huge collection of downloadables - mind you don't slip!
Pangea Day - watch the films, make a difference
RIF - helping young children to discover reading
Visuwords - Thesaurus meets neural net meets fairground ride...
Britain in Pictures - does what is says on the tin!

If you would like to send us any feedback about this newsletter or any of our programmes, please e-mail us at info@britishcouncil.org.ar.
We hope you enjoy this issue
Mary Godward
Operations Manager Arts & English
British Council Argentina

LearnEnglish Parents

Are your children learning English as a second or foreign language? LearnEnglish Parents has lots of info and resources for parents like you. There's the 'Help your child' booklet, the cool Pron Pal software, downloads, links and tips on how to use LearnEnglish Kids. Get cracking!

Flashcard ideas

If you like using cards to teach vocabulary, find hundreds on ESL Kids Flashcards, along with ideas on how to use them. Matching games, go fish, alphabet soup, bear card charades, forest animals circle dance, handkerchief race and more! All free!

A taste of TTTJ

If you are a teacher trainer in some formal or informal way, you'll enjoy the collection of classics from The Teacher Trainer Journal. 'Web only' articles and the column 'It's a Wired World' are also available for free. Enjoy!

Dinosaur Den

Do kids ever get tired of 'dinos'? No, they don't! In the Dinosaur Den, you'll find all things 'dino': timelines, A-Z lists, kings of the sky, early mammals, dinosaur relatives, dinosaur clipart, and dinosaur fun fun fun!

MADE TO MEASURE in Mar del plata

RulesBeatriz Pena Lima will be presenting Made to Measure a resource book to support the inclusion of litertaure in the primary English language classroom. The workshop will take place at Villa Victoria on 24 August 2008. For further details, please contact info@britishcouncil.org.ar

The National Year of Reading

In 2008, UK children, families and adult learners will be celebrating the many values of 'reading'. The National Year of Reading website offers lovely ideas and activities which could be adapted for elsewhere - check them out, get inspired and celebrate 'reading'!

If you are a learner or teacher of English, LearnEnglish has something for you.

Search English - a news, information and networking tool for English language teaching professionals.

teaching English - produced by the BBC and the British Council as a resource for teachers.

ELTeCS - a professional network helping teachers work together across borders to share knowledge and improve practice in their regions.

The British Council is not responsible for the contents of any external sites.

Estamos registrados en el Reino Unido como una organización sin fines de lucro. Nuestros principios de privacidad y derechos de autor. Nuestra web sobre la libertad de Información y nuestras reglas sobre publicaciones. Doble click para abrir el diccionario

You have received this e-mail because you registered on our website or have previously indicated an interest in British Council Argentina's events. If you wish to opt out of this British Council e-mail list unsubscribe here.

Use of English-Worksheet 1

2008-09-13T08:36:00.000-07:00

http://rapidshare.com/files/144971266/Worksheet_1-_Use_of_english-FloJoe.doc.html

Useful material for all levels

2008-09-12T09:16:00.000-07:00

http://www.eslbase.com

Negotiating

2008-09-12T09:14:00.000-07:00

http://rapidshare.com/files/144704241/negotiating.pdf.html?killcode=17608081217850760527

A presentation

2008-09-10T18:28:00.001-07:00

http://rapidshare.com/files/144263490/presentation.pdf.html

Business board game

2008-09-10T18:18:00.000-07:00

http://rapidshare.com/files/144261629/business-board-game.pdf

ANOTHER SITE

2008-09-10T13:29:00.001-07:00

ESL LAB

SITE: RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS

2008-09-10T13:25:00.001-07:00

http://www.englishcoach.com.ar/

Best wishes

Daniela T.

REVISION FOR UPPER INTERMEDIATE 2 AUGUST

2008-09-06T09:03:00.000-07:00

Adjectives

Conditionals

Board Game for Conditional Sentences

Discussion using conditionals.

First Conditional

Game for First and Second Conditionals

The Futures: Board Game

Gerund and Infinitive

Indirect Questions

Passive Voice

Revision Activities for August Test (Pre Intermediate)

2008-09-06T08:48:00.000-07:00

Activities prepared by Florencia....

Finished Time

For Since

Matching Game: Telephoning

Reported Speech

Reported Questions

Reported Speech 2

Tag Questions

Tags Matching

REVISION FOR AUGUST TEST: ELEMENTARY

2008-09-06T06:32:00.000-07:00

Thanks again, Flor, for caring and sharing....

You can download it from the link below.

Revision for August Test: Elementary

From Super Vision to Teacher`s Vision

2008-09-04T19:37:00.000-07:00

This is another very interesting workshop I attended during the 2008 Congress for Coordinators. Delivered by Mariana Porta and Leonardo Castelluccio, this workshop explored the different stages teachers go through and how coordinators and directors of studies have a role in helping their teachers advance through the different stages by providing support and professional challenges. Slides from the presentation can be downloaded from here.

The ideas for the workshop were taken from The Developmental Stages of Teachers by Lilian Katz

In what stage of your teaching career are you?

Check the descriptive statements that could apply to you:

1) You carefully plan your lessons and that planning may take much longer than the teaching session itself.
2) You feel amazed and surprised by students´ expression of love, gratitude and respect for you. You did not expect this.
3)You are pretty bound to your class plan. You don`t improvise, change or discard your plan at any moment.
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.

Non Violent Communication

2008-09-03T18:25:00.001-07:00

What is Nonviolent Communication?

Nonviolent Communication means connecting with the human spirit, in each person, in any situation.

Nonviolent Communication means interacting with others in a way that allows everyone’s needs to be equally valued.

Nonviolent Communication means creating organizations and life-serving systems responsive to our needs and the needs of our environment.

Nonviolent Communication (NVC) helps connect us with what is alive in ourselves and in others moment-to-moment, with what we or others could do to make life more wonderful, and with an awareness of what gets in the way of natural giving and receiving.

NVC language strengthens our ability to inspire compassion from others and respond compassionately to others and ourselves. NVC guides us to reframe how we express ourselves, how we hear others and resolve conflicts by focusing our consciousness on what we are observing, feeling, needing, and requesting.

Nonviolent Communication Language: It awakens empathy and honesty, and is sometimes described as "the language of the heart."

Link to the first chapter of Rosenberg`s book.

Anger Management

2008-09-03T18:11:00.000-07:00

We are never angry because of what others say or do. The cause of our anger lies in our thinking"
Marshall Rosenberg, Center for Non Violent Communication

This is a brief summary of a talk on Anger Management by Maria Marta Suarez, which I attended last Friday in the Congress for Coordinators and Directors of Studies. The ideas are based on the spiritual philosophy of Kabbalah and the principles of Non Violent Communication.

When working with people, it is important to be equipped with tools which encourage this type of communication in ourselves and in others. To put it in a nutshell, Anger Management strategies can be learnt and they can turn conflict into positive learning situations and can help us relate to others in a much more positive way. This will certainly have a positive impact on ourselves and on those who surround us.

According to Kabbalah, the negative actions we produce generate negativity. The Karma Ghost cartoon exemplifies this belief:

Karma Ghost by Billy Blob

Anger is a natural human emotion and is nature's way of empowering us to "ward off" our perception of an attack or threat to our well being. The problem is not anger, the problem is the mismanagement of anger. Mismanaged anger and rage is the major cause of conflict in our personal and professional relationships.

Domestic abuse, road rage, workplace violence, divorce, and addiction are just a few examples of what happens when anger is mismanaged.

WHAT WE ALL WANT: OUR BASIC NEEDS

CONNECTION
acceptance, appreciation, belonging, cooperation, communication, closeness, community, companionship, compassion, consideration, consistency, empathy, inclusion,
intimacy, love, respect/self-respect, safety, stability, support,to know and be known
to see and be seen, to understand and be understood, trust, warmth

PHYSICAL WELL-BEING
air, food, movement/exercise, rest/sleep, sexual expression,safety, shelter,touch, water

HONESTY
authenticity, integrity

PLAY
joy, humor

PEACE
beauty, ease, equality, harmony, inspiration,order

MEANING
awareness, challenge,clarity, competence,consciousness, creativity, discovery, effectiveness, growth, hope, learning, mourning, participation, purpose, self-expression, stimulation, understanding

AUTONOMY
choice, freedom, independence, space, spontaneity

Where does anger come from?

When one or more of our basic needs are unsatisfied, this leads to strong negative feelings, which we unconsciously avoid, because "it is the others` fault".

Example of strong negative feelings:
___ Anxious ___ Worthless ___ Hostile ___ Depressed
___ Mean/evil ___ Revengeful ___ Bitchy ___ Bitter
___ Rebellious ___ Paranoid ___ Victimized ___ Numb
___ Sarcastic ___ Resentful ___ Frustrated ___ Destructive

We feel angry and we react (we connect to our reactivity), blaming the others for the way we feel. We accuse others, we curse others and swear. We become JUDGEMENTAL because of our REACTIVITY caused by anger. This reactivity and being judgemental cause the others to become angry as well or simply defensive and unwilling to set their minds into a problem solving mood.

What can be done when life presents challenges?

When we feel angry, we can turn this negative reactive energy into positive proactive conflict resolution activity by communicating in a non-violent way to others.

1. Notice the challenge
2. Acknowledge: Expand your circle of influence. Recognize the real enemy (YOUR REACTIVITY)
3. (Dis)Connect: Disconnect your reactivity (avoid being judgemental of others) and connect your light (Ask for the light to come in - Kabbalah)
4. Face the situation, acting pro-actively.

Cognitive Restructuring

Simply put, this means changing the way you think. Angry people tend to curse, swear, or speak in highly colorful terms that reflect their inner thoughts. When you're angry, your thinking can get very exaggerated and overly dramatic. Try replacing these thoughts with more rational ones. For instance, instead of telling yourself, "oh, it's awful, it's terrible, everything's ruined," tell yourself, "it's frustrating, and it's understandable that I'm upset about it, but it's not the end of the world and getting angry is not going to fix it anyhow."

Be careful of words like "never" or "always" when talking about yourself or someone else. "This !&*%@ machine never works," or "you're always forgetting things" are not just inaccurate, they also serve to make you feel that your anger is justified and that there's no way to solve the problem. They also alienate and humiliate people who might otherwise be willing to work with you on a solution.

Remind yourself that getting angry is not going to fix anything, that it won't make you feel better (and may actually make you feel worse).

Logic defeats anger, because anger, even when it's justified, can quickly become irrational. So use cold hard logic on yourself. Remind yourself that the world is "not out to get you," you're just experiencing some of the rough spots of daily life. Do this each time you feel anger getting the best of you, and it'll help you get a more balanced perspective. Angry people tend to demand things: fairness, appreciation, agreement, willingness to do things their way. Everyone wants these things, and we are all hurt and disappointed when we don't get them, but angry people demand them, and when their demands aren't met, their disappointment becomes anger. As part of their cognitive restructuring, angry people need to become aware of their demanding nature and translate their expectations into desires. In other words, saying, "I would like" something is healthier than saying, "I demand" or "I must have" something. When you're unable to get what you want, you will experience the normal reactions—frustration, disappointment, hurt—but not anger. Some angry people use this anger as a way to avoid feeling hurt, but that doesn't mean the hurt goes away.

On Fear II

2008-09-03T18:04:00.000-07:00

Our biggest fear is not that we are inadequate
Our biggest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
Your playing small doesn't serve the world
We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us
And as we let our own light shine
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

Marianne Williamson

On Fear

2008-09-03T18:02:00.000-07:00

ACTIVITIES FOR ELEMENTARY (AUGUST TEST)

2008-09-03T13:06:00.000-07:00

SITE WITH IDEAS FOR ROALD DAHL`S STORIES

2008-09-01T12:52:00.000-07:00

Tips for working with Roald Dahl`s Short Stories in Class.

http://www.roalddahl.com/

Thanks to Javier for suggesting this link!

RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS

[Network News] Promoción Inglés en Febrero, Inglés y Portugués en NETWORK

[News] Muchas Felicidades les desea Network Institute

[Network News ] Inglés y Portugués: Mirá el video y conocenos!

[Network News ] Inglés y Portugués: Mirá el video y conocenos!

[News] Conocé Network y estudia Inglés y Portugués!

Excellent Site with Song Plans

Film English: Excellent Site for Teaching with Videos and Video Plans

Brainstorming and Mind Maps: Bubbl.us

Web Resources for Teachers

Teaching Tenses with Cartoons

More on Dogme

Excellent blog on how to teach teenagers

Educating her world - A Site with lots of resourcces

Another site for games

Site for Playing and Creating Games

How to Create a Fill in the Blanks Exercise in Moodle: Tutorial

ESL VIDEO

Iatefl Online

Teaching English by The British Council

EFL CLASSROOM 2.0

Wiziq Tutorial: The Next Best Alternative to Classroom Teaching

Lyrics Training: Excellent Site to Practise your English through Songs

The Changing Paradigms of Education

The Role of a Teacher in a Teacher Centred Class

Phonemic Chart

Learner ntred Teaching

How to teach with video by the British Council

Movie Segments to Teach Grammar

Great Halloween Site with videos and more

How to use Facebook for Social Learning

Halloween Blog

Teaching Children: Survival Tips

My Survival Tips

Newspapers in the Classroom: The Wall Street Journal

Blogs and Wikis in the Class

Twilight Activities

Activities for Movies

Story: The Tortoise and the Hare

Cambridge ranked World´s Number 1 University!

I-Google, Delicious

The Camera Tool: IWB and Active Inspire Software

Using the IWB: A beginners guide

IWB Tips for Teachers

Business English Websites

Favourite Wamers

Education World

First Conditional Activity

SECOND LIFE FOR STUDENTS

iwb (opinions)

ONLINE LEARNING / E-LEARNING

Research on IWBs

Whiteboards under the microscope

UPPER INTERMEDIATE 1

TOP NOTCH FOR ADULTS

IWBs FAQ

FAQs and more

BENEFITS OF IWBs

Benefits of using Interactive Whiteboards

DIFFERENT WAYS OF USING AN IWB

IWB TIPS

CONVERGENCE

TEACHING VOCABULARY

Benefits of using Interactive Whiteboards

The Pedagogy of IWB Lessons

Effective use of your IWB

Symphony in Slang: Excellent resource for teaching idioms

EINSTEIN on CRISES

WHOLE LANGUAGE AND ADULTS

Whole Language and Adult Education. ERIC Digest.

WHAT IS WHOLE LANGUAGE?

WHAT IS ANDRAGOGY?

THE TWO UNIVERSES OF DISCOURSE ARE ONE

REFERENCES

TEACHING ADULTS - ANDRAGOGY

10 Characteristics of Adults as Learners

Video on American Economics IOUSA

On Excellence by Jamie Duncan

oral cards for elementary

ORAL CARDS FOR PRE INTERMEDIATE PREPARED BY FLOR