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Monthly Archives: March 2009

Listening – Too often a poor classroom cousin!

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Listening! Activities galore for your classroom!
Listening is a very overlooked skill in our classrooms. It is as vital (or even more so!) in the beginning as speaking and we should treat it so. But too often, it is the poor cousin. No more! Here are the major listening activities grouped by type. I’ve provided a [...]

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Learning as a self-organizing principle

Monday, March 9, 2009

See it Here!
One thing I’ve become convinced of as a teacher, is the fact that WE can be our own worst enemy. Meaning, somehow our own experiences, our 1,000s of hours in the classroom observing teachers, have conditioned us to “be teachers” and that this gets in the way of the success of our language [...]

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Siftables – A Future Tool in Our Classrooms!

Thursday, March 5, 2009

I’ve been engrossed of late with how I might use voice recognition technology in the language classroom. I might test drive it this semester — I’ll walk around the classroom “wired” and as I speak, all the students will see it come up in script on the screen.
This really isn’t intended for the very fluent [...]

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Commercials in the EFL Classroom

Thursday, March 5, 2009

I use commmericals a lot in my classes. For many reasons;
1. A clear, concise message. Great as context for language learning.
2. They are short!
3. They are hip. Cultural translatable and current.
4. Easy to spin off into other areas of learning. Great for engagement.
5. Wonderful for teaching media literacy, critical thinking!
There are sooooo many [...]

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Teaching Skills – the small things count

Sunday, March 1, 2009

This is #1 of a series of presentations focusing on micro teaching skills. The next will be even more practical.
I hope to get some time to clarify these ideas but if you have any questions – please ask! Hope this helps some teachers out there and I believe in each and every idea expounded here…
Full [...]

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