It's the last day of a 24 hour training course for primary & secondary teachers on Wednesday. the title of the course is Creative Teaching & we've been looking at different ways of doing things in class so to round off I thought I'd concentrate on doing activities around St Patrick's Day - 17th March - activities they can take into class & use, & discuss other activities & how to use them. should be a fun & useful session.

I've got a short tourist board video about Dublin which I'll probably use.  

Does anybody have any materials or activities on St Pat? 

I'm going to be using a video that Seamus passed on to me about Dublin. It's a tourist board video with lots of snippets & 'It's a Beautiful Day' by U2 throughout.

If you want to see it & download for use:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVv0Nn12Jog

Well, I finished the primary/secondary teacher training course. Lovely people - they always are - in Spain they have CAPs, centres in each area that arrange training courses for all subjects, & this course was one of them.

The sesh took the lines of:

- brainstorm all knew about Ireland & those that had been to tell of their experiences.
- a quiz on StPat.
- dictogloss on the life of Pat, to show how to use a dictogloss.
- the Dublin video - strom what might find in a tourist video - watch to confirm & then discuss what other activities you can do with it.
- some scan reading task with Guiness leaflets - to show some techniques.
- the U2 song 'One' - see the plan at: http://www.developingteachers.com/plans/u2one1.htm
-discussion on how to use songs.

It was a very relaxed last session.

 

Hi all - could you post all blog entries for public display - the access controls when you post, at the bottom.

This means that the keywords you put will show up in the 'tag cloud' - see top right of every page.

And be a little generous with the keywords you use.  Thanks.

And, I should add, if you could use the blogs, it would be great, as this is one of the main ways of others finding out common interests.  

 

Hello all

All seems to be working smoothly so we're opening it all up to a general invitation in tomorrow's Teaching Tip. 

Do let us know if there is anything that isn't working properly for you. Thanks.  

In case you haven't seen the page, you can invite friends to join the site: 

http://www.developingt2t.com/mod/invite/

Invite as many as you like.  

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

Here's the newsletter I sent out today.

If you're not already singed up to receive it, you can subscribe at:

  http://www.developingt2t.com/content/Newsletter

 

Hello all.

There has been a tremendous response to the launching of
Developingt2t.com with over 100 people already registered. There
is clearly a great interest in getting together with other
teachers online.

However, once registered things seem to have stopped there.
There are several ways to take a step forward, to find other
members with similar teaching situations & interests.

1. Click 'browse' at the top of each page & scroll through the
users & communities. This can be a little tedious, especially if
you go to each person's profile.

2. Click the 'Cloud tag' at the top of each page. This gives you
the key words that have been given for all of the publically set
blog postings.

3. Click the 'Check out what people are saying' link on the front
page, before or after signing in. This will give you the lastest
publically set blog settings.

4. Join the communities & see what is being posted on the walls &
in the blogs. This is by far the best way as you will be with
people of similar teaching situations. So please join the
communities that apply to you, or any other for that matter - you
really don't have to be active in that area of teaching. To join
click on 'Click here to join this community.' on the right, and
once you are a member of a community, start posting in the
community blog & on the wall - you'll soon get a response. Don't
be shy about posting.

So, please join the communities.

These are the communities already set up:

    * Pre-school teaching
    * Primary school teaching
    * Secondary school teaching
    * General teaching of adults
    * Teacher Trainers
    * Business English training
    * Academic English teaching - EAP

You can find them in a list by clicking on 'Browse' at the top of
the page.

If you feel there should be another community, please email me at
alistair@developingt2t.com or through the 'Contact' page on the
site: http://www.developingt2t.com/content/Contact  

BTW, when you post in any blog, unless you really want to keep it
private, please type in keywords in the box below the posting &
set the 'Access restrictions' at the bottom of the page to
'Public' as the key words you set will show up in the tag cloud,
making it easier for people to find common interests.

You can also contact me through posting on my wall.
See you in the communities.
Alistair

Watch out for April Fool's Day next Tuesday. There's lesson material on the site at:

'Pigs can fly':
http://www.developingteachers.com/tips/pasttips80.htm
'DHMO':
http://developingteachers.com/tips/pasttips65.htm
April Fool's Day hoaxes':
http://developingteachers.com/tips/pasttips49.htm

And talking of April Fool's hoaxes did you hear about the Hussein's Iraqui hoaxes? Apparently, on this day, they used to either announce the lifting of UN sanctions or the addition of a can of Pepsi, a banana & chocolate to the food rations. The Iraqui people must have been in fits of laughter for days.
And then there was the Romanian newspaper that announced the release of prisoners on this day. Relatives made it to the prison to be told that it was an April Fool's joke!
You can see a list of the top 10 worst hoaxes at - interesting lesson material:
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/worstaprilfools.html

----------

Another notable Day this week is April 4th, the day Martin Luther King was shot in 1968 in -Memphis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr
There's a lesson plan around the 1963 'I have a dream..' speech, including the mp3s, at:
http://www.developingteachers.com/tips/pasttips92.htm
You could tie this in to the Democrat nomination in the US where the race issue has become prominent lately.

----------

We've had a few Tips on Neuro-Linguistic Programming techniques in the classroom. One of these was the Tip, 'Influential English':
http://www.developingteachers.com/tips/pasttips83.htm

One of the central ideas in NLP is the idea of 'modelling', looking at people who do things you would like to do & modelling their behaviour. This can be on the level of copying actions through to a deeper level of getting inside their skin & feeling things as they do.
This is looked at in the excellent 'Handing Over' the second book about NLP-based activities for language learning by Revell & Norman (see the end of the newsletter for links for these books).
To expose students to the idea initially they provide a series of questions to focus them while they watch a video.
- What facial expressions do they use?
- Do they make eye contact? How often?
- What do you notice about their mouth movements?
- Do they use gesture with their hands? What sort? How big? How often?
- How are they standing or sitting?
- How close are they to one another?
- Do they touch one another? How? Where?

- How loudly do they speak?
- How fast?
- What do you notice about their rhythm of speech?
- And their intonation patterns?
- What noises do they make which are not actual words?
- What other things do you notice?

The book suggests using a video with half the class looking at the non-verbal & the other half the verbal. Then they all watch with the sound turned down, then again with the volume on focusing on the sound, & then again in black & white. At the end there is an exchange of comments with a discussion comparing the speakers on the video with speakers from the students' mother tongues.

This is a nice list for several purposes:
- It helps learners to focus on the verbal & the non-verbal.
- It provides a starting point for modelling.
- It helps us as teachers notice these things when observing other teachers teach.
- It provides us with a checklist to help monitor or own non-verbal behaviour in class.

We'll look at modelling again in more detail in a future Tip.

A few NLP recommendations:

In Your Hands - NLP in ELT - J.Revell & S.Norman (Saffire Press)
Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1901564002/developingt
Amazon.co.uk:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1901564002/developingt
Amazon.ca:
http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/1901564002/developteac

Handing Over - J.Revell & S.Norman (Saffire Press)
Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1901564029/developingt
Amazon.co.uk:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1901564029/developingt
Amazon.ca:
http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/1901564029/developteac

Unlocking Self-expression Through NLP: Integrated Skill Activities for Intermediate and Advanced Students - M.Rinvolucri & J.Baker (First Person Publishing)
Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1900783886/developingt
Amazon.co.uk:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1900783886/developingt
Amazon.ca:
http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/1900783886/developteac

Introducing NLP Neuro-Linguistic Programming - J.O'Connor & J.Seymour (Thorsons)
Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1855383446/developingt
Amazon.co.uk:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1855383446/developingt
Amazon.ca:
http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/1855383446/developteac

Training with NLP: Skills for Trainers, Managers and Communicators -
Joseph O'Connor, John Seymour (HarperCollins)
Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0722528531/developingt
Amazon.co.uk
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0722528531/developingt
Amazon.ca:
http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0722528531/developteac