Might be an idea if everyone posted their fave sites that they use when looking for material?

I recently came across Just The Word, a site for finding collocations for given words:

http://193.133.140.102/JustTheWord/index.html

 

 

 

 

Hello guys,

 

Time is flying by!

Next week we're starting May/08 and I find it hard to believe. Over here in Brazil it's mid semester and winter is coming only in June. The days are beautiful and students are dedicated at the moment.

I wonder if this dedication changes around the globe according to local holidays, seasons or celebrations. Next week, for instance, we'll have a big holiday on May 1st which will become a 4 day weekend. Guess what happens? All students start the "I'm on holidays" feeling even before, starting Monday (tomorrow). So I have, as a teacher, to swim against the mainstream and pump them up, trying to motivate us (them and myself) to focus and study - at least - until the holiday itself.

Does this happen with everybody else? I'd love to hear from you...

 Have a great week,

Ivy

An ethical question for those teaching very young learners. As English teaching professionals, we are very quick to differentiate ourselves from the simple native teacher with no training whatsoever. Why is it that this ethical stance does not transfer to the teaching of very young learners or young learners for that matter? Would I be wrong in thinking that someone who holds even a CELTA has very little idea as to how very young learners learn and their cognitive capabilities? Why is it OK for the teacher with no training whatsoever to be placed in a classroom full of 3-4yr olds, yet not OK for them to be teaching adults, whom they certainly understand better? This is terribly common practice here in Spain and from what I hear in Japan, but do parents care so little elsewhere?

The warmer weather here in Spain has also brought with it much needed rains. The past week has been dull, gray and wet, an image far from the typical one oft promoted of Sunny Spain. In a country where the sun shines a large percentage of the time, the gloomy weather has definitely had an effect on my mood and certainly those of my students, most noticeably throwing a wet blanket on the spring fever the teens had been experiencing.

Teaching here in Spain, my classes mostly consist of adult learners, but in order to fill in the hours and flush out the academy's finances, young learner and young adult classes are taken on with alarming eagerness given I have no training in either field.

This week, while the rain slammed against the windows and ran in torrents down the hill, my objective was to engage and somehow teach English to a group of 5 boys aged 14 to 16. To put the class in context, they will have spent a whole day at school, had lunch and then are forced to come to class at 5.15, a difficult hour to say the least here in Spain. I say forced, as none come of their own volition, but under parental pressure and the adolescently-vague warning of, "It will be good for you when looking for a job."

I had planned my classes around the general theme of travel, a topic that would have sent me dreaming of far off exotic places at their age. With the underlying aims of practicing Conditionals and Scan Reading practice, they were given classified pages from an English newspaper and asked to choose the travel options that most appealed to them. They were then to form travel agencies, using the offers in the paper to convince the others that their trip was the best option. A lesson that targeted 3 of the 4 skills and was coursebook free.

Methodology aside, what I encountered was an extremely worrying disinterest. Not so much in the lesson itself but for the destinations, which spanned the entire globe. The students were happy to argue for their best option but these included none of the options in the paper which purposely included Spanish destinations. Their arguments were based only on one place, their village.

What's so wrong with a little pride in one's hometown you might ask? Indeed if it were only that, there would be nothing at all wrong with it but there is something sinister and threatening in this egocentric world view that manifests itself in disinterest in others and their traditions. Methodologists might immediately argue that this disinterest was because they lack a world vision or experience but I would argue that a 15yr old boy in the current technology age with a European educational background will have been exposed to the world over and has enough background information to complete the task. Why then the complete disinterest in the world beyond the horizon?

In a political climate that stresses regionalism above all else in order to justify its existence, perhaps a knock on effect has been a tendency to gaze inward rather than outward. A positive practice when done in moderation, but devastatingly negative when this inward look begins to exclude all else.

Originally posted at www.troyshouse.blogspot.com 

I'm going to be running a 3 hour a day summer school in July & it's going to be activity-based.

Does anyone know of useful links, timetables, activities etc that would help in planning the course?

It's for a mix of primary & secondary kids.

 

Click on the title to this post & then you'll see a place to reply. 

 Example: Could you pop into my office.

I am not sure if this should be classified as a transtive multi-part verb with "my office" as a direct object (type 3) or "pop in" as an intransitive verb with "to my office" as an adverbial of place (type 1).

Any thoughts?

jason