Compiled by Michaela Mozolova
What you may have missed in the past 2 weeks…and there’s SO much more.
Teacher Development Opportunites
If you have internet access, you can find professional development opportunities via free webinars. Tyson Seburns has a great resource in his calendar of ELT events worldwide, which includes webinars you can attend from the comfort of your own livingroom. Everything in yellow is online and free. The calendar is updated regularly.
International
- Free Online English Language Teaching Webinar through US Department of State: 6 free webinars beginning on Wednesday, April 17, 2013 from 12noon to 2:30pm. E-mail registration must be submitted by Friday, April 5, 2013
- SPECIAL OFFER: 19th TEA Summer School with Candy Fresacher and Ivan Lacko When: 19 to 23 August, 2013 (Monday 14:00 to Friday 12:00)
The Chamber has been offered a ‘5 for the price of 4’ special by our colleagues at the Teachers of English in Austria. The cost for each of the 5 participants would be 176EUR each for the summer school in addition to accommodation costs. More info here. Contact office@tea4teachers.org if you’re interested.
- TETA [Tuzla English Teachers’ Association in Bosnia & Herzegovina] is holding its 1st international conference Proposal submission deadline: March 31, 2013 When: 15-16 June 2013 Registration deadline: May 15, 2013 Plenary speakers: Mark Andrews, SOL (Sharing One Language) Raymond Kerr, British Council George Kokolas, Express Publishing
- Call for Papers: IATEFL-H Annual Conference 2013 Submission deadline: April 30, 2013 When: 4-6 October 2013; Where: Budapest
National (and international)
- ELTForum.sk Teacher Development Conference 2013
Penny Ur will be there – what about you?
When: 7-8 June 2013
Where: Bratislava
EARLY-BIRD REGISTRATION moved back to 15 April 2013!
Check the website for more info on speakers and registration.
East
Were you in Presov on Monday the 18th at Macmillan’s ELT Ideas Conference with Grenville and Vladka? Check out the pics online.
Northwest
- Thursday, April 11th, Žilina: ‘An Express Way of Learning‘ with author Steve Lever (Express Publishing and INFOA)
West
- Wednesday, April 10th, Bratislava: ‘Blended Learning‘ (Pearson and Slovak Ventures)
- Thursday, April 11th, Bratislava: ‘An Express Way of Learning‘ with author Steve Lever (Express Publishing and INFOA)
Activities and Lesson Plans
- Sean Banville has a lot of exercises covering just about all skills on a topic sure to get teens and adults talking: South Korea has banned miniskirts.
- Ana Christina has some tips on how to use news articles (and the writing thereof) in class.
- Good practice for the maturita orals: ‘DESCRIBING PLACES‘ (Oxford University) > 2- to 3-hour LESSON PLAN. Photo Sample below – Find the free, Printable-Quality PDF file in the new ‘Lesson Plans’ folder.
- Listening exercises are usually not a favourite part of our classes but they’re useful (besides allowing time for us to sip our coffee). The British Council has some ideas here on motivating our learners to listen more actively. This article deals with how we can plan the different stages of our lesson in order to
– motivate our students
– provide a context for what they’ll be listening to
– prepare them for the listening task - Claudia Pesce has 5 ideas on NOT using the coursebook listening exercises.
- Ten Weeks of Reading Responses: While not all of this can be used in our EFL classes, much of it can be adapted. And getting learners to read and react in English is a vital skill for their future.
- Six Strategies That Motivate ALL Students to Participate
Videos for Class
- A wonderful lesson on the Science of Smiling
Level: B1+
Ages: teen and adult
Skills: listening, speaking, reading and good vocab
- Kieran’s been at it again, this time using a short film called ‘World Builder’ by Bruce Branit. Language level: B1-B2
Learner type: Teens and adults
Time: 60 minutes Topic: Your perfect world and imagination; Language: Vocabulary related to describing cities and second conditional. - What’s Cookin’?Language level: A1-A2
Learner type: All ages
Time: 60 minutes
Topic: Food and eating
Language: Food vocabulary and going to + infinitive: - A great (and completely outside-the-box) idea to practice and/or assess your students’ grammar using movie clips – inlcudes movie segments, lesson plans, printable worksheets with answer key for each activity.
Free Downloadable Books
- ‘Maximising Learning in Large Classes‘ (PDF). This is a very practical and ‘teacher-friendly’ publication:
Part 1 provides an introduction to the issues involved when teaching in large classes
Part 2 looks at specific classroom activities - 400 Free eBooks (mostly classics) for download
Stuff to ponder
- Chris Wilson continues to publish his weekly round-ups of good reading/teaching tips on Fridays. If you don’t want to miss one of these, you can sign subscribe to his blog on his blog.
Sit back, get comfortable and listen and watch to Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk on Changing Education. There is so much to rethink when it comes to how we teach.
- Chris Lima looks at how to use the work of Charles Dickens in the English language classroom. She guides participants through a literature and language lesson for upper immediate students. She also answers questions on using Dickens’ work in the language classroom.
- “A learning theory is an attempt to describe how people learn, helping us understand this inherently complex process. There’s sub-levels of each theory, behaviour and other categories … it’s complex. But it’s worth understanding.” Complete original found here.
- Tamas Lorincz on On slaps in the face and banging heads against the wall:”What is a good teacher? And is it possible to be a good teacher to everyone? Parents – 9 out of 10 want you to help their children to pass the exam.
Admin – 9 out of 10 will want you to produce great final and/or language exam results so that money, new students, reputation come flooding in.
Students – 2 out of ten will love you whatever you do, 2 will hate you whatever you do, 3 will want you to be stricter, 3 will want you to be more lenient.” - ELT author and speaker writes about her favourite word which we’re sure you’ve never heard of: wayzgoose.
Helpful Tools for Teachers
- Ten Weeks of Reading Responses: While not all of this can be used in our EFL classes, much of it can be adapted. And getting learners to read and react in English is a vital skill for their future.
- Six Strategies That Motivate ALL Students to Participate
If you have an iPhone or iPad, check out this beautiful app for learning idioms and their histories. The Android version is supposedly coming soon
Competitions
- ‘Cambridge English BEC – Teachers’ Competition 2013! Win a 2 week residential teacher development course in Cambridge by submitting a practical idea on how to help candidates prepare for the exam.
- Macmillan Cultural Readers competition for YOUR CLASS!
Write your own Cultural Reader with your class. What can you tell us about your town, city or country? You can write about many topics, like history, geography, nature, culture, people, food, or sport. You can include text and drawings.
All entries must be received by midnight (GMT) on 30th June 2013 and winners will be notified by 31st July 2013.
Opportunities for Our Students
Encourage your students to spend at least a week at an English summer camp – Speak Out camps are with Americans. Let us know if you know of any other good summer camps for learners!