A great practical teaching activity from Paul Seligson, ICQs revisited and my favourite site for free listening material...
Oh I've had a lovely week! What a joy it is to be in a real classroom with enthusiastic CELTA trainees. Definitely one of my happy places. It's also been a bit of a momentous week for me (in non-ELT related ways) because my youngest son turned 20 yesterday. Feels like a bit of a milestone - no more teenagers - hit reply if you can empathise!
On a different topic, I really wanted to give you a heads up about one of my VoiCE alumni, Robert Martinez. He has been producing fantastic video material at an incredible rate and I'd HIGHLY recommend his YouTube channel Learning with Robert. He's got really useful (FREE) ideas on classroom management and how to use AI effectively. Check it out- and hit that subscribe button- it makes such a difference to the YT algorithm.
Anyway, I digress. As always, lots of good stuff for you, so get your beverage of choice, find a quiet spot and let's explore it all together....
Something old
One of the things that trainees find difficult, especially when they are teaching at lower levels is giving instructions and checking that learners know what they're supposed to do. This week, I've been reminded of that, so I thought I'd share with you my Ultimate Guide to Instruction Checking Questions or ICQs- and Spoiler Alert... I think they can be problematic and there are also other (better?) ways to check in this video!
Something new
My new video this week is something a bit special. It's a FANTASTIC, low prep, practical idea ('Yay!' you say) and I've been wanting to make a video about this since I saw Paul Seligson give a talk about it at the IATEFL conference in April.
It's a simple concept but a very powerful one and something I'd never seen before in 35 years in the ELT classroom, so I think you'll like it. I don't want to give you any more clues about it- just that I think you'll thank me for this one! Let me know what you think - especially if you use it in class).
领英推荐
Something borrowed
I had some great feedback last week on my reminder to you of Lyrics Training.com and its offshoot free app LingoClip so I thought I might remind you of another old friend this week.
Without a doubt, my favourite site for free listening material is Elllo.org. If you've never visited this site, you're in for a treat, and if you DO know it, but haven't been there for a while, it's always nice to have a reminder of something useful, I think.
It's got literally thousands of short, authentic listening texts with a huge variety of content and accents and most of them come with a transcript and a vocabulary quiz. You can search by level or topic but there are also a few curated categories that are useful.
You could try One minute English which pretty much does what it says on the tin, or Mixer where six people answer the same question. Why not get your learners answering the same question afterwards? Maybe even recording themselves? Have fun with it!
Right, that's it from me for this week. Have a good one and I'll see you next Sunday.
Best