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Archive for the ‘Using L1 in class’ Category

Busy making others busy

Friday, March 28th, 2008

As a blogger and writer of articles on the internet whose technical knowledge stops at Word, as usual I feel half chuffed at churning out so many articles, including a good one here and there, and half guilty at creating so much work for those who can name a programming language more recent than BASIC. So, with many thanks to the tech sorts who made this possible and without further ado, here are the new bits and pieces on the web that I’ve been associated with:

The TEFL.net review pages I edit now allow comments on any of the titles reviewed there, which is a fabulous idea which I wish had been mine.

On TEFL.net too, there is a new Idea Thinktank of practical teaching games etc, on which I have about 12 (!) articles including 15 Fun Things to do with a Whiteboard (yes, that’s a whiteboard rather than an interactive whiteboard- showing my age??) and the 15 Most Fun Pronunciation Games.

As if that wasn’t enough, I’ve also got some slightly more weighty ones up on the rejigged TEFL.net TEFL Articles Page, including Easy Ways to Improve Your TEFL Career.

And on Usingenglish.com in March:

Election- Second Conditionals speaking practice

101 IELTS Speaking Part Two Tasks about sports and hobbies

Why your students speak L1 in class

Why your students don’t do their homework

101 IELTS Speaking Part Two tasks about people, places, actions, things and times

Setting up workshops for teachers

Business English tense review

Business English silent letters and syllables

The language of trends spot the difference

I also had a review of a couple of BULATS books out in MET magazine this month, should you have a copy handy and fancy a look.

TEFL Why oh why oh why Part Two- L1 in class

Monday, March 24th, 2008

You finally come to the end of students staring at you blankly through the grammar explanation, and introducing pairwork brings on jokes, chat, imaginative use of language, and maybe even some flirting- unfortunately, little of any of it in English! Why do students switch to their own language in an English class, despite your best Basil Fawlty-like shows of displeasure every time they do it? (more…)