пʼятниця, 27 листопада 2015 р.
5 Web Resources For Teachers' Development
The Internet has made teachers' development much easier. Wide net of resources, blogs, recommendations, masterclasses, webinars - you may find here everything. The best part is that you can get in touch with authors of course books and methodologists of major publishments, stay in contact with teachers from all over the world. There are websites which don't need introduction, like Longman, Macmillan, British Council, iTDi. There are some which you suddenly discover. Here I'll share some which I visit at least once a week - for materials, ideas or just to read some news about the profession.
Scott Thornbury's blog is one of my favourites. Posts are organised alphabetically as it is an A-Z of ELT. There are fresh ideas, opinions on existing principles. The most valuable thing is that the author keeps up the conversation in the comments with other teachers, so each article becomes a discussion, where everyone can find answers or just useful information.
Great webpage. The author collects interesting posts on teachers' development, so, if you don't feel like following several pages or searching the net every evening, just follow Shanthi, she'll keep you informed. And the resource Scoop.it itself is a good idea for teachers - haven't come across it before. She also has a blog which you will definitely like.
For teachers who love including movies into their lessons and for those who are willing to, but don't know how to do it. Here you'll find fragments and if necessary you may extend them into a whole class. And there's a good variety of films for different ages and topics, I personally found some just to watch (the one about Wikileaks, for example).
Apart from articles you'll find short stories and how to work with them. Interesting, engaging. Pay special attention to the article Even a Native Speaker Stops Sometimes about listening.
David Spencer is a great lecturer, those who visited events where he has made a speech will confirm it. Here's a video blog which, as I got it, promotes his course book. But even if you work with other books, his suggestions on activities for classes with teens are useful. They may work well with the adults.
Activities on the lesson
I took this beautiful and sad season as an idea for several activities. There are certain things to discuss about autumn: weather, wardrobe, changes in our routines, activities to do in bad weather and, at last, fruits and vegetables which make this season not only colourful but delicious as well.
For children. When I was a child I was a hideous painter, so art lessons were obviously not my favourite. But one day I suddenly became the best, outshining those students who could really paint. The success came to me with a collage called "Autumn leaves" (leaves cut out from coloured paper and glued to a sheet of paper).
For children. Pre-teach the clothes-vocabulary and ask students to dress a paper doll. At the end of October you may tell them about Halloween and dress their dolls in more unusual outfits :-)
For teens. Fashion-fashion-fashion. Instagram and Facebook have become the ways to choose what you like and find fashionable clothes independently, street fashion is probably the biggest interest for young people, so suggest them to complete an autumn look for each other while revising ways of giving recommendations and possessive nouns. (e.g. Why don't you wear Angelina's shoes? You should try on Vanessa's sweatshirt.)
For adults. Write the following categories on the board: Clothes. Shoes. Accessories. Colours. Fabrics. Let them prepare a questionnaire for each other of 8-12 questions on Autumn Wardrobe. After interviewing each other they may write a short article for a fashion blog (or bulletin board).
For teens. Let your students analyze what things people in their country stop and start doing when autumn begins while practising the use of gerunds (e.g. People stop going to the river bank and start swimming in the pool).
For teens. Revise be going to and be planning to and ask students to plan a day/night out. Give them a plan (what to buy, who to invite, what to do, how to decorate). It may be whatever they like (a sports event or a Halloween party, going to the cinema or cooking sushi together at home). Ask them to make presentations of their activities.
1. AUTUMN WEATHER.
Why not make such a collage with your students? It will help to train vocabulary on colours and numbers, and to learn There is/There are (e.g. There are 2 red leaves in my picture. There is one brown leaf in it.)
For teens. Work on word order and revise numbers and names of countries by handing out a map, where, near each country, there is the temperature for today given, and asking them to report the weather. It may be done as a number dictation (e.g. In Italy it's plus fifteen.)
For adults. Ask your adult students to complete the weather forecast for Fall 2013. They will revisePast Simple (talking about September), Present Continuous (talking about the current period of time) and be going to/will (talking about November).
2. AUTUMN WARDROBE.
For children. Pre-teach the clothes-vocabulary and ask students to dress a paper doll. At the end of October you may tell them about Halloween and dress their dolls in more unusual outfits :-)
For teens. Fashion-fashion-fashion. Instagram and Facebook have become the ways to choose what you like and find fashionable clothes independently, street fashion is probably the biggest interest for young people, so suggest them to complete an autumn look for each other while revising ways of giving recommendations and possessive nouns. (e.g. Why don't you wear Angelina's shoes? You should try on Vanessa's sweatshirt.)
For adults. Write the following categories on the board: Clothes. Shoes. Accessories. Colours. Fabrics. Let them prepare a questionnaire for each other of 8-12 questions on Autumn Wardrobe. After interviewing each other they may write a short article for a fashion blog (or bulletin board).
3. AUTUMN ROUTINES.
For children. Daily life changes greatly when the summer is over, doesn't it? Suggest students to prepare two timetables: What I usually do in summer vs What I usually do in autumn. Practise vocabulary and Present Simple. (e.g. In summer I get up at 10, but in autumn I get up at 7.) You may use any cartoon characters to describe their routines to make the activity more fun.
For teens. Let your students analyze what things people in their country stop and start doing when autumn begins while practising the use of gerunds (e.g. People stop going to the river bank and start swimming in the pool).
For adults. Autumn is always connected with moods, depressions and the vitality issue. Practise should and shouldn't and imperative mood while sharing advice on how to feel cheerful and energetic in autumn (you may as well discuss such methods as colour or music therapy).
4. WHERE TO GO IN SUCH NASTY WEATHER?
For children. Pre-teach or revise verbs of activity, games and others connected with leisure. Ask students what they can and cannot do outside in autumn. Or could do only in summer, and can do now, in autumn(I can play football in the gym, I cannot play it in the yard).
For teens. Revise be going to and be planning to and ask students to plan a day/night out. Give them a plan (what to buy, who to invite, what to do, how to decorate). It may be whatever they like (a sports event or a Halloween party, going to the cinema or cooking sushi together at home). Ask them to make presentations of their activities.
For adults. Ask them how they spend free time in autumn when, compared to summer, you do not get a lot of pleasure from just going for a long walk, and suggest creating a chart of 10 most interesting places in your town to go out (ask them to include a short description, atmosphere, possible activities). At a lower stage you can just ask them to name the address and working hours.
5. FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.
For children. Autumn is a bright and beautiful season. There is no way you forget to speak about its harvest, especially with children. Pre-teach any unknown vocabulary. Cut out baskets and different fruits and vegetables (not only autumn) out of coloured paper and let them "fill in" the baskets with only autumn items. You may organise it as the very first activity from this post, or as a going-shopping role play (revising numders and questions with How much)
For teens. Revise/ pre-teach the names of fruits and vegetables. And ask them to create a recipe of a vitamin smoothie. Let them invent something unusual or add there any ingredients they like (if possible, it would be cool to make these smoothies together).
For adults. Ratatouille! The most autumn dish. Write its name on the board and show them a photo of this dish (or cook it beforehand and give them to taste) and ask to try and reproduce the recipe. Check the ideas and tell the real recipe or show the video of cookingDisney's Ratatouille(ask students to add steps and missed ingredients into their variant).
Those were my activities for autumn. Hope you will use them. And thanks for reading this.
Useful links
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsVz5U76kX0
If you teach or want to teach English, if you want to study the language not only for the sake of chit-chatting abroad, you have to be savvy in its history. The more you know about its development, the better you understand some complicated and even unexplainable language phenomena you meet while studying. This video is not too long for those who do not like extended lectures, of course it takes more than Vine videos, but some things are inevitable when you get educated. It possesses the BBC quality - their documentaries are almost always spot-on. It provides a lot of facts and you hear several varieties of English.
Teachers may watch it with students of Intermediate and higher levels and ask them to note down the chronology and important facts in the development of English. It may as well be a start for a series of seminars or a big project in Language History.
Students may watch this video for self-education and find a lot of things for further research. They also can watch it with automatic subtitle on Youtube and compare what they see with what they hear (it concerns not only this certain video, it is often a captivating activity which holds your attention every second of the video). And don't forget to write out some new vocabulary which you feel you are going to use in your speech.
If you teach or want to teach English, if you want to study the language not only for the sake of chit-chatting abroad, you have to be savvy in its history. The more you know about its development, the better you understand some complicated and even unexplainable language phenomena you meet while studying. This video is not too long for those who do not like extended lectures, of course it takes more than Vine videos, but some things are inevitable when you get educated. It possesses the BBC quality - their documentaries are almost always spot-on. It provides a lot of facts and you hear several varieties of English.
Teachers may watch it with students of Intermediate and higher levels and ask them to note down the chronology and important facts in the development of English. It may as well be a start for a series of seminars or a big project in Language History.Students may watch this video for self-education and find a lot of things for further research. They also can watch it with automatic subtitle on Youtube and compare what they see with what they hear (it concerns not only this certain video, it is often a captivating activity which holds your attention every second of the video). And don't forget to write out some new vocabulary which you feel you are going to use in your speech.
About my life in London
Книжный магазин-библиотека в Лондоне
На книги в моем современном мире, увы, остается не так уж много времени. Остались где-то в прошлом дни, когда интересную книгу невозможно было отложить на завтра, и она прочитывалась за одну ночь, а на утро уже выбиралась новая; когда отслеживались все новинки, а продавцы в киевских книжных магазинах радостно улыбались при моем появлении. В приоритете сейчас детские интересы, поэтому мы, в основном, читаем теперь русские сказки и школьные рассказы на английском языке, а я сама последний раз читала книгу, скачанную из интернета, да и то давненько. В библиотеки в Лондоне мы не записывались, но очень полюбили концепцию книжного магазина сети Waterstones. С повсеместным доступом к интернету и электронным ридерам печатные книги вообще медленно отходят на второй план. И даже любители пошуршать страницами могут заказать понравившиеся произведения онлайн на сайте amazon с доставкой на дом. Поэтому некоторые книжные магазины отступают сегодня от своих привычных принципов – руками не трогать, понравилось что-то – покупайте и читайте дома. В Waterstones можно прийти на целый день, устроиться поудобнее в кресле и читать в свое удовольствие любую книгу из обширного ассортимента, и покупать ничего не нужно. Вероятно, расчет больше на тех, у кого времени сидеть в магазине нет, если хотите взять книжку домой – придется ее купить. Или менеджмент пытается создать уютную атмосферу читального клуба, куда хочется возвращаться вновь и вновь, а там, глядишь, и купится что-нибудь. В надежде привлечь новых посетителей, Waterstones недавно подписал контракт на реализацию гаджетов Kindle для чтения электронных книг в своих магазинах, более того, разрешил своим посетителям свободно пользоваться ими и бесплатным wifi, как и всеми книгами на полках. В дальнейших планах – открыть на территории всех своих представительств кафе, чтоб люди могли свободно прийти, взять кофе с круассаном, книгу и посидеть в свободной обстановке, почитать.
Книжные магазины этой сети обычно располагаются в просторных помещениях, нередко на 2 этажах. Сказать, что в Waterstones можно найти книги на любую тематику – это ничего не сказать. В магазине такое количество отделов, что найти можно буквально все: книги о путешествиях, о науке, о технике, о животных, о кулинарии, о медицине, помощь в изучении иностранных языков, всевозможные гиды, справочники, путеводители, новинки художественной литературы и многое другое.
Книги о путешествиях
Есть отдел с журналами, канцелярскими товарами и почтовыми открытками – ну как же без них в Лондоне.
Отдел открыток
Но меня, честно говоря, привлекают в Watersones исключительно детские секции. Яркое оформление книжных стеллажей, все книжки рассортированы по возрастным категориям для деток с самого рождения. Тут есть и книги с различной текстурой страниц для сенсорного развития малышей, и звуковые, и тематические, и обучающие. Такие книги интересны только на определенном начальном этапе познания мира, многие не видят смысла их покупать, поэтому и приходят с детьми в Watersones, как на развивающие занятия в детский клуб. Поиграют с книжками, почитают, потрогают, послушают и поставят книгу на место, если получится согласовать это с ребенком 
Книги для малышей
Так же, как в нашем детстве были Винни Пух и Карлсон, в Англии тоже есть свои мультяшные герои, которые оживают в мягких игрушках и чьи приключения продолжаются в книгах. В Waterstones можно собрать целую коллекцию с любимицей детей свинкой Пеппой или зеленой Гусеницей.
Дети обожают эту свинку со странной мордочкой
Есть хороший отдел для тех, кто учится читать: несколько уровней сложности позволяют выбрать рассказы для любого ребенка.
Учимся читать
Мы очень часто пользуемся разделом в помощь школьникам. Есть такая обучающая японская система “Кумон”, очень популярная в Лондоне, да и во всем мире, по которой дети от 2-х лет учатся читать, писать и считать. В основе лежат принципы самостоятельности, повторения и регулярности. Каждый день нужно выполнять определенные задания, поощрять за успехи, постепенно переходить на новый уровень. Интересно, в России и Украине применяют эту методику?
Обучающие книги
Кроме книг, в магазине Waterstones продаются игрушки, пазлы, лего, настольные игры. Есть специальный столик, за которым можно поиграть, порисовать и почитать.
Отдел игрушек
Если во взрослом отделе можно поставить книгу на место и уйти, то посетители с малышами редко уходят без покупки. Тем более, в магазине постоянно проводятся акции и действуют скидки и накопительные карточки. Самая распространенная акция – купи одну книгу и получи вторую за полцены. Иногда получается хорошо сэкономить.
Столик для занятий с детьми
Периодически в Waterstones на выходных проходят интересные встречи с авторами книг, детскими писателями, праздники, конкурсы и уроки чтения.
А в центре Лондона на Пикадилли в магазине Waterstones есть небольшой отдел русской книги. Там продаются русские журналы, книги, качественная детская литература, есть детский клуб для русских детей в Лондоне. И цены практически на уровне российских и украинских.
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