Kenna Bourke, co-author of Levels 5 and 6 of the new Primary series, Oxford Discover, offers some practical tips for making the most of your mixed ability Primary classroom. About a hundred years ago, when I was six, my Belgian primary school teacher wanted me to crochet a poncho: ‘M’enfin! Un poncho, Kénna! C’est facile!’ Crochet! Crochet??? As I remember it, this involved manipulating a weird-looking needle, and some balls of wool: sky blue, navy blue, and white. That poncho haunts me to this day. My long-suffering mother crocheted it in the end. And I had to confess that I hadn’t crocheted it. And six-year-old life wasn’t good for a while. Also at the age of six, I was promoted to top of the class in Flemish, above all the Belgian kids (dank u wel), and close to bottom in Math because 213 divided by 7 = (well, I have no idea and why does it matter?). By the time I was twelve, studying at a school in England that shall remain nameless, I was put in the bottom set for English (this requires you to have read Dickens’s Christmas Carol and be able to recite it backwards), and the top set for French (this requires you to be able to say ‘M. et Mme. Dupont ont deux enfants’). I spoke French far better than my teacher, which turned out to be a major disadvantage. I also spent vast tracts of time wondering why lacrosse - a sport - wasn’t banned under the Dangerous Sports Act, and being quite good at … swimming. Aren’t we all to some extent ‘mixed ability’? Does it matter? It may or may not matter. The debate rages on. Some contend that all students should be streamed according to ability. But the fact is that people aren’t equally able, and it’s not always possible. As has been said endlessly, if you have a class of two students, you automatically have a mixed ability class. Utopia is a briefly entertaining fiction - we live in a mixed ability world, which we can choose to think of as something to be celebrated. Imagine how boring it would it be if we all excelled at everything. There’d be little point in competition sports, or comedy shows, or concerts, or art, or literature … It wouldn’t really be worth cooking a great meal for friends because (yawn) everyone can do that. And don’t even think about solving a mathematical puzzle while you’re commuting to work, because we’re all equally good at it, and the person sitting to your left has probably already completed it. Of course no two students are the same, but there you are, faced with your mixed ability class, and you can’t change that. So what do you do? Move the benchmarking goalposts? More often than not, we take a curriculum or set of standards and benchmark all students’ abilities against them, which is fine. But how about also benchmarking student achievement against that individual’s potential? Successful learning usually happens when you hit the tipping point between frustration and challenge. At university, I got bored and frustrated because French was too easy. At school, I was miserable and frustrated because Maths classes were difficult. Had I been pushed much harder in one direction and given more appropriate tasks in the other, I might have been more successful in both subjects. Differentiate for success? There’s a danger, also, of setting tasks that scream ‘advanced’, ‘normal’, or ‘remedial’. Not a good thing. It can result in making one student feel superior, another feel average, and the third feel stupid. Used tactfully, differentiated activities can build on each other. A below-level activity provides support and scaffolding for less confident students before they move to a task that is at- or on-level. The at-level task then provides support for students to deal with the greater challenge of an above-level task. Alternatively, you might differentiate learning by setting different tasks to different groups simultaneously so that all students are collaborating on discrete aspects of the whole, as in some L1 classrooms. No one really likes to stand out, except perhaps for the captain of that dreadful lacrosse team. As my co-author on Oxford Discover, Kathleen Kampa, suggests in this video, there are some ingenious ways of giving all students the same task, yet letting them determine how to do that task at exactly their own level. Motivate by focusing on what’s good and fun? Call me a quitter, but I didn’t pursue crochet beyond the age of six, or Math beyond 15, though today, self-taught, I can do Math perfectly adequately. As adults, most of us very sensibly choose to do what we’re good at and what we actively enjoy. Too often, children aren’t given that freedom of choice. We can create meaning in class and foster an atmosphere in which successful learning will take place by allowing students different ways to respond, and by giving them activities that appeal across a range of intelligences. Some of us are natural listeners; others love reading. Some of us wouldn’t dance or sing if our lives depended on it; others dance and sing till they drop. Some of us react to visual stimulus; others are oblivious to it. But we all do something well. Multimodality, in the form of video, audio, posters, spoken and written language, music and movement, is invaluable in helping students build 21st Century skills in an unthreatening, equalizing environment. How? To put this idea in its most basic form, try, for example, to give: classifying and problem-solving tasks to students who show logical or mathematical intelligence physical, tactile, TPR-style tasks to kinesthetic learners groupwork, classwork, and games to students who demonstrate interpersonal skills and intelligence reading and writing tasks to learners whose verbal or linguistic intelligence is evident and tasks centred around posters, pictures, and diagrams to children who show signs of visual or spatial intelligence. As I write this on a January afternoon from my flat in New York City, it’s 11 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus-something horrifying Centigrade, and nothing would please me more than being able to crochet my own poncho to keep warm. But I refuse to get despondent. After all, aged 1, I was so mixed ability that I could drive a car! Who knows what else I might achieve if pushed? Kenna Bourke as a toddler ‘driving’ a car If you’d like more ideas on teaching mixed ability classes, why not register for a free webinar led by my colleagues at OUP? Making the most of mixed-ability young learner classes will be held on 18th February and repeated on 20th February 2014. Would you like practical tips on teaching mixed-ability classes and developing 21st Century skills in your children? Visit our site on Teaching 21st Century skills with confidence for free video tips, activity ideas and teaching tools.Filed under: Skills, Young Learners Tagged: 21st Century skills, Children, Classroom management, Differentiated learning, EFL, ELT, Kenna Bourke, Mixed abilities, Oxford Discover, Primary

Many have signed up for a Twitter account or a Facebook page, only to desert them after a few well-intentioned weeks of scattered and sporadic posting. Well my friends, there is an easier way. Quite a few programs and platforms have been created over the past couple of years to help consolidate and automate your social media strategy. Here are just a few: • Tweet Deck • Market Me Tweet • Social Blaster • Social Oomph • Hootsuite Many have found Hootsuite to be the most effective and streamlined program for social media automation. It was created as an interface for managing your brand on all of your social networking accounts. Hootsuite is a platform that allows you to manage multiple profiles, pre-schedule tweets, measure the statistics of your tweet links and post to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ping.fm, MySpace and Foursquare Here are the best things about Hootsuite: • It’s Convenient - Hootsuite is Web-based so it doesn’t have to be installed on your computer in order to use it. This also means that you can login on any computer and access it anywhere in the world. • It’s Free - Enough said. They are now offering a paid version that allows you to tweet in bulk (type the tweet once and then schedule it to go out multiple times), but this is definitely not necessary. • It’s User-Friendly - Hootsuite has great usability and layout. The feeds are conveniently laid out in columns and you can arrange them in any configuration you like. If you have multiple social media accounts, they are conveniently tabbed so that you can toggle between them. • Statistics - When you use their ow.ly link shortener you can track the stats of your social media efforts and get to know your audience. In other words, if you link back to your website and/or blog, you can track how many people are actually clicking on your link. • Groups - You can group "like" people together, i.e. family, friends, celebrities, industry mavens, etc. for easier access to information you want to see. • Schedule Your Posts - YOU get to decide when your posts go up on your profile. This also means you can schedule an entire week or month’s worth of posts and status updates in one sitting! (This is, without a doubt my favorite thing about Hootsuite and I use it regularly) • Post Once, Reach Many - YOU get to pick which social media platforms your post is sent to. Currently, you have the option to send your post to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ping.fm., MySpace and Foursquare. In a nutshell, Hootsuite allows you to completely streamline your social media strategy. You can manage multiple accounts on one dashboard, schedule tweets/posts in advance and track your most popular links using their ow.ly link shortener.

Programming for the Web has become an ongoing trend where many people are making a living out of it. This mainly is a spotlight for user-generated content on web sites. Python makes it easier to create web sites with many frameworks and helper tools that have been produced to give a helping hand to Python Beginners in creating faster and more robust web sites. One of the most important thing while using a language for web is to efficiently use developer time, and Python is better at doing so in the long run for web development. Since Python is an open source programming language, it is free of cost. Top 3 reasons to use Python for Web development  1. Python is strong, reliable and flexible Python helps to power many systems. It is concrete and controlling and has a really good speed. Python has a relative small quantity of lines of code, which makes it less prone to issues, easier to debug, and more maintainable. Python can rise above to solve multifaceted problems, as demonstrated by the fact that it powers most of YouTube and DropBox, Reddit, Quora, Disqus and FriendFeed. Even Google uses Python development as one of its official programming languages. Along list of companies make use of Python development for numerous uses. These include their websites and web applications, systems administration, voice over IP, and desktop apps. Even the Scientific community makes use of Python for their web development. 2. Python is easy to learn and use The Python course for beginners in particular has become known as the most suited course as a first programming language. The Python course is perceptive and fun. Python’s simple and straight-forward syntax also gives confidence to good programming habits, especially through its focus on white space indentation. This then adds to the development of properly made codes. Python’s naming convention is well established from module to module. Thus, developers are less likely to make syntax errors. This means fewer viruses and bugs as well as faster development. 3. Less marketing tie Many online studies have shown that 90% of enterprises and well established companies are using Python to build business-critical applications. This is because dynamic languages are a first-rated way out for fast time-to-market for enterprise applications. Python makes it possible to get applications to market faster in part due to the fact that it has a huge standard library and is often referred to as coming with "batteries included". To further add on to that, Python helps to be more productive and requires less coding for web development.

Robin Walker, freelance teacher, teacher educator, and materials writer, looks at ways of supporting students who are beyond Intermediate but not yet ready for Upper Intermediate level. Robin will discuss this topic in his upcoming webinar on 20th February, entitled ‘Mind the gap’ - Helping your students to cross the intermediate threshold with confidence. When I started teaching English in the early 1980s, adult coursebooks from all of the leading publishers ran to three or four levels - Beginner, Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced. This 4-level learning was a reflection of the limited strength of the then emerging ELT publishing industry, rather than the reality for the learner in the English language classroom, and inevitably there was a gap between what was available and what learners needed. To bridge the gap that most students encountered between the four ‘official’ levels, one of the strategies we used as teachers was to change publishers. If a group was struggling at Elementary level and wasn’t ready to go on to Intermediate, for example, we would look around for an Elementary-level coursebook from another publisher. This worked up to a point, but often brought with it the disadvantage of changing from a style that learners had become used to, and which generated a sense of security, to a style that was new and that provoked different reactions from different students. The new style was not necessarily better or worse, but it definitely felt different. For the more adventurous students this unfamiliarity often acted as a stimulus, and they took to the new book with few if any problems, and, initially at least, with genuine enthusiasm. But the learners in a group that were less sure of themselves (and who were usually the students that were finding it difficult to move up to the next level), would often tell you that they liked the old book better, and would even ask if it wasn’t possible to repeat the year with the same book. Another problem with trying to bridge the gap with a coursebook from a different publisher was that the new book, quite correctly, assumed that the users were coming to the level for the first time. There is no reason to write a coursebook aimed at learners who have been using materials from a competing publisher. The only possible strategy is to assume that students adopting a coursebook at a given level, will be arriving at that level after successfully completing the previous one with a book from the same series. The outcome of this situation in class was that material would, logically, be presented to learners as if they had never seen it before. This wasn’t the case, of course, and students often lost motivation when they embarked upon a unit that presented an area of language that they had already studied only the year before. I can clearly remember a strong sense of We’ve already done this! invading the classroom during these ‘repeat’ years. As the teacher, I knew only too well that the group needed to go back to the language areas in question in order to, on the one hand, consolidate any previous learning, and, on the other, successfully cover what the class had demonstrably failed to learn the year before. In general, it takes a lot of skill to overcome the demotivating effect of going back in order to go forward, and often the new coursebook ends up being supplemented by original materials provided by the teacher. This is a solution that a) raises the question as to why the students have been required to buy a book they seldom use, and b) eats up serious amounts of a conscientious teacher’s free time. Over the intervening 30 years since I began teaching, major coursebooks have expanded from running at three or four levels, to offering teachers and learners five or even six levels. The Common European Framework of Reference, whose influence has extended way beyond the shores of even the widest concept of Europe, started off with six levels, from A1 to C2, although the use of the ‘+’ sign to generate even more precise gradings is increasingly common. Theoretically, we can now talk about a 12-level system that progresses from A1 through A1+ to A2, and then on to A2+, and so on. Although it is interesting to be able to refer to individual students with this almost mathematical precision, it is not feasible in practical terms to run a language school with as many as twelve different levels. In that respect, the six levels from Beginner to Advanced, the current default system in many private and public ELT institutions, constitute a strong basic structure. The progression from one level to another, whilst not without its problems, is realistic and generally motivating for learners. There is, however, one level where again and again learners seem to struggle, and this is the step up from Intermediate to Upper-Intermediate. This is a critical step for many learners, and handled badly, it can lead to them becoming demotivated, and even abandoning their studies. Learners abandoning English is a highly undesirable outcome. But as we saw at the beginning of this blog, neither changing publishers to repeat at the same level nor repeating at the intermediate level with the same coursebook, are very adequate solutions. Just as inadequate is the strategy of pushing Intermediate learners into an Upper-Intermediate class and hoping they’ll survive if we give them enough support. The fact is that if we are really going to ‘Mind The Gap’ that Intermediate students face, what is needed is an Intermediate Plus coursebook. This will be a coursebook that: a) is from the same publisher as the book the group used at intermediate level, but that: b) tackles material from this level in fresh and engaging ways. This is precisely why OUP and authors Christina Latham-Koenig and Clive Oxenden have created English File Intermediate Plus. In my webinar on 20th February I’ll be looking at this especially in terms of grammar, vocabulary, listening and speaking, four key areas for learners hoping to progress to Upper-Intermediate.Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Professional Development Tagged: Adult courses, Adult Learners, CEFR, Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, Coursebooks, ELT, English File, English File third edition, Intermediate Plus, Intermediate students, Language learning, Robin Walker, Webinar

Advertising is one of the most favored modes of marketing and promotions these days and most often this advertising is complemented by visuals and designs. These visuals are also known as graphics and you would barely find any product or advertisement without any Graphic Design element on it. It is said that business without advertising is a letter without address, in the same way, it can also be added that advertising is incomplete without graphic designing. Considering the requirement of graphics in advertising a number of Graphic Design Schools are offering diplomas and graduate programs to the students. This Programs on Graphic Designing paves a way for successful career for the youngsters in the field of design. If you are creative and techsavvy, graphic designing would be a riveting profession for you. However, it is not a cakewalk to be a graphic designer and if you are already thinking that a training of month or two in graphic designing will do wonders for you, you might be mistaken. The road to become a graphic designer involves lots of hard work and always requires freshness in your mind so that every time you can come up with an innovative idea to add sparkle to your work. Just imagine a situation, where you see all the similar advertisements, logos and packaging for every product available in the market, you will definitely reach in a world of monotony. In the same fashion the very first expectation from a graphic designer is to be creative in order to present new concept. Only creativity does not help in achieving the target, the most crucial element is to acquire quality training; a student should choose a reputed School of Graphic Designing for getting the understanding of the industry. In a good college the focus is always on making a student learn new aspects of the industry he is going to enter in. While choosing a Graphic Design School take care of the fact that industry exposure during studies is quintessential, as that gives students an understanding of the market and design industry as a whole. You would get to know the list of careers that would open for you after completing the course.

Today’s question for the Q: Skills for Success authors: Would it help if I taught phonetics symbols in the mother tongue? Tamara Jones responds. Do you have a question about teaching English for Academic Purposes that you’d like to ask our Q author team? Comment below or email your question to qskills@oup.com. Related articles #qskills - How can I teach a class where there is a huge gap in language proficiency among the students? #qskills - When should L1 be used in class? #qskills - Why are the four skills normally divided into listening & speaking and reading & writing? #qskills - How can I get my students to use smart devices in the classroom? #qskills - Do you have any advice for teaching technical English? #qskills - How do I motivate my students to speak English instead of their native language in class? Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Skills Tagged: Adult Learners, EAP, English for Academic Purposes, English Language, First language, Language proficiency, Mother tongue, Phonetics, Q Skills for Success, Questions for Q authors, Tamara Jones

Collecting and manipulating data and personal information had become a part time job for many fraudsters. They would stop at nothing to get ones personal information and their scams are quite clever. Dummy or false companies may be created by fraudsters to act like existing seller with a similar name. They then sell securities in the dummy company by confusing the buyer/viewer into thinking that they are the real deal. Security frauds can be avoided by making sure that all your information is intact and safe even when online. Make yourself aware of scams and security frauds that take place while doing online transactions. Here are 5 ways by which you can prevent security frauds on your own: 1. Protect your information   Unless you are really going to buy something online, avoid giving your personal information like your phone numbers, credit or debit card numbers, and social security numbers and so on. 2. Do not respond to unknown mails Avoid responding to unknown mails as they can be fraud. They also become vary of your valid e-mail address and can use it for further illegal use. 3. Verify the seller and method of payment While shopping online, check whether the online store really exists and is licensed. Also, if the online seller or company has a physical address that you can contact to. While making an online payment, check if the payment site is secured and verified. Make sure that the costs are the same; while ordering and at the time of payment. Post payment, you should receive a mail from the seller. Also, it is important to inquire if there is a warranty - guaranty on your purchased item. 4. Do not fall for high pressure sales Fraudsters demand you to make a purchase in time and under pressure. These links are usually illegal. They rarely give you time to re-think of your purchase. Do not fall prey to such security frauds. 5. Credit card payments It is always safer and better to pay by a credit card rather than debit cards or online transfers. You can always cancel the charges in case there is something wrong with the product or if the seller suddenly vanishes. Plus, you need to give lesser information for a credit card payment. There are also various online software’s and applications that can safeguard your personal information while doing online transactions. As per the maker and the company, they may be free of cost or charged. These alls secure all your online connections and links. They act as an anti - virus and prevent online threats. Latest versions provide a fast online cloud scanning and help in further performance and efficiency of your computer. Some free apps to prevent security frauds: 1. Free Lifelock wallet app 2. Webroot security and Antivirus 3. Kaspersky Internet Security 4. Comodo Internet Security 5. Roboscan Internet Security 6. AVG Internet Security 2014

We’re helping to solve your EFL teaching problems by answering your questions every two weeks. This week’s blog is in response to Shreya Kakkar’s tweet about getting students to speak. There’s a change of plan in this week’s blog from Professional Development Services. This week, we are responding to Shreya’s challenge for getting students to speak by referring our readers to the blog, Teachers tell us about their classroom speaking challenges. This blog is based on a survey of over 500 teachers and students giving their top speaking challenges. Responses to the challenges will be shared on this blog from January to April, so be sure to look out for further articles about speaking challenges. Also, be sure to read Gareth Davies’ blog, How do I stop students from using their mother tongue? for more on getting your students speaking in English. Invitation to share your ideas Have you got an EFL problem that you’d like for us to address? The best way to let us know is by leaving a comment below or on the Solving your difficulties as an EFL teacher - #EFLproblems blog post. We will respond to your challenges in a blog every two weeks. Most blogs will be followed by a live Facebook chat to discuss the challenge answered in the blog. Be sure to Like our Facebook page to be reminded about the upcoming live chats. Related Articles #EFLproblems - Teaching the over 50s #EFLproblems - Teaching Monolingual Classes #EFLproblems - Learners noticing and correcting their own mistakes #EFLproblems - Learning English Beyond the Exams Filed under: Professional Development, Skills Tagged: #EFLproblems, Adult Learners, EFL, Language learning, Professional Development, Speaking in English, Speaking skills, Stacey Hughes, Teaching problems

One of the most important factors of establishing a company or business is the defining logo but, as a graphic designer will tell you, creating a logo that is both unique and functional is not as easy as many would have you think. These are the most common mistakes made by web designers when creating logos: Chaotic typography As anyone in the graphic design industry will tell you, typography really can make or break a logo. It needs to be kept simple without compromising on the intended message - don’t use too many fonts or weights; don’t use odd or ultra thin fonts; don’t space the letters too far apart or too close together. Poor font For many graphic designers, choosing a font for a logo can take as long as creating to logo itself - as mentioned above, it can make or break your design. Each font has its own ‘personality’, so you need to ensure that you choose one that gels with the intended message of your business.Choose a font which is simple and clear. Too complex or too abstract   It has long been known in the graphic design industry that simple is always more memorable (as people are able to recognize it easier). The best way to ensure that your logo isn’t too complex or abstract, you should check whether it works on a postage stamp and on a billboard. Monogram Many graphic designers think that, by creating a monogram out of businesses’ initials , they are going to create a better logo. This is false, as it is actually much harder to make your business credible or convey a particular message with only a few letters. A monogram is something that happens much later on, after a company is well known. You can create a pictory as a logo; which defines your business. Visual clichés When a graphic designer uses light bulbs to represent ‘ideas’, speech bubbles to simulate ‘discussion’, and flourishes to portray ‘creativity’ or ‘dynamism’, you really are not being unique. Everyone uses these symbols and images, so try thinking outside of the box. There are, of course, plenty of other mistakes made by graphic designers when it comes to creating a logo, but these are, by far, the most common. Having a logo that is unique and memorable is all-important for many companies and businesses, so a website designer needs to take all the proper measures to avoid mistakes that could compromise this.

Pete Sharma shares some thoughts on mobile learning in Business English ahead of his webinar on 28th February entitled Apps, e-books and digital resources for Business English. I’m teaching two groups of students this month. They are mostly young adults, from China. As I gaze round the classroom looking at my students, I’m struck by how many of them have a smartphone. Some have tablets. They seem to have these devices in their hands all the time - sometimes checking new words, sometimes using the Internet to look something up. Sometimes, they are ‘on-task’, but more often than not, they are multi-tasking, updating their Facebook page or text-chatting with a friend - and certainly not in English! Mobile phones have been described as a ‘disruptive technology’. If a phone rings in the classroom, the lesson is disrupted. One teacher in Brazil told me recently that mobile phones were banned by law from being used his school, in his state. Last year, I visited a college in India where the following sign is displayed in each classroom: "No mobiles!" Yet it is clear that such devices have benefits, and certainly for Business English students who often travel a lot, usually with a smartphone, tablet or laptop… or even all three! What then are the benefits of mobile learning for Business English students? What are the drawbacks? In my webinar, I’ll first focus on apps. There are apps for just about everything, and we’ll look at some that are especially helpful for Business English students. These include apps which are good for vocabulary development, as well as apps for developing language skills such as speaking, listening and reading. Then, we’ll look at how using e-books can add new dimensions to language learning. I’ll be demonstrating this with a popular title from the Express Series, English for Presentations. Finally, I’ll be focussing on some of the many technologies and digital resources which can be used by Business English teachers, including VLEs (Virtual Learning Environments). I’ll argue that, providing we start from the ‘pedagogy’, there’s plenty that technology can offer to enhance our teaching. I hope you can join me. Sign up for Pete’s webinar on 28th February now.Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Business & English for Specific Purposes, Multimedia & Digital Tagged: Apps, Business English, E-books, elearning, English for Presentations, Express series, mlearning, Mobile learning, Pete Sharma, Smartphones, Tablet devices, Virtual Learning Environment, Webinar