Today’s question for the Q: Skills for Success authors: How can I help my students understand words in a reading passage? Scott Roy Douglas responds. We are no longer taking questions. Thank you to everyone who contacted us! Look out for more responses by the Q authors in the coming weeks, or check out the answers that we’ve posted already in our Questions for Q authors playlist. Related articles #qskills - How can we help students to use words from the Academic Word List? #qskills - Is it better to create your own materials or use existing materials? #qskills - How do I manage disruptive behaviour in class? #qskills - How can I help students that have a hard time learning the language? #qskills - How would you answer Krashen’s assertion that teaching EAP is a "waste of time"? #qskills - What can I do to improve my relationship with difficult students who do not like to study English? Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Skills Tagged: Adult Learners, Behaviour, EAP, English for Academic Purposes, English Language, Language learning, Q Skills for Success, Questions for Q authors, Reading, Scott Roy Douglas

Tackk is a new website which allows you to create simple web pages with ease. It is a similar concept to Padlet but with a slightly more minimalist appeal. Essentially it is like an online bulletin board where you can simple create event flyers and mini adverts.Each Tackk expires after one week unless you sign up for a free account. The free account lets you keep Tackks indefinitely and create personalised urls for each Tackk.Although Tackk has slightly less functionality than Padlet, it is extremely simple to use. This would get even the most technophobic teacher using technology to enhance learning. I absolutely love the simplicity with which someone can now create content. Teachers' time is extremely valuable and the less time they have to spend learning to use complicated technologies the better. If you are not confident with technology I challenge you to try this out in a few lessons and see if it changes how you teach.This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Schools www.freetechforschools.com

Today’s question for the Q: Skills for Success authors: How can I teach reading skills to beginner students without spending all my time on grammar issues? Debra Daise responds. We are no longer taking questions. Thank you to everyone who contacted us! Look out for more responses by the Q authors in the coming weeks, or check out the answers that we’ve posted already in our Questions for Q authors playlist. Related articles #qskills - How can I help my students understand words in a reading passage? #qskills - How can we help students to use words from the Academic Word List? #qskills - Is it better to create your own materials or use existing materials? #qskills - How do I manage disruptive behaviour in class? #qskills - How can I help students that have a hard time learning the language? #qskills - How would you answer Krashen’s assertion that teaching EAP is a "waste of time"? Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Grammar & Vocabulary, Skills Tagged: Adult Learners, Debra Daise, EAP, English for Academic Purposes, English Language, Grammar, Language learning, Q Skills for Success, Questions for Q authors, Reading skills

It has been 7 months since I started this blog and I have found it to be one of the most rewarding things I have done in my career as a teacher. I am now firmly of the belief that it is something all teachers should do on some level. I can think of no better way of building links with other teachers allowing you to experience new ideas and widen your skill set. So here are 5 key things I have learned so far from being a teacher blogger. I have to say that up until this point, I have stayed away from the 5 things format but in this instance, I think it is the easiest way to structure this post.1) Professional developmentToo many teachers think that professional development is a course (or series of courses) that you go on. When doing recruitment, I get frustrated by teachers who have a CV with a list of one day, non-assessed courses who then mention nothing about how they have developed in a covering letter. I am much more interested in people who have been proactive and have taken steps to build communities and share their learning with their colleagues. Since I have started this blog, I have made connections with people across several continents and learned of new useful technologies and new approaches. My only regret is that Edtech is only part of my job and I wish I had another blog to discuss school leadership and subject specific work. I am planning to start one where I can do this but I haven't got it off the ground yet.2) CommunityThere is no doubt that blogging leads to you developing a far reaching learning community or network. I have been eternally surprised by how much busy professionals are willing to take time out to help answer a question or make contributions to Free Technology for Schools. Could it be that blogging brings out the best in people and promotes altruism? My favourite occasion this year was when Memrise contacted me for some advice. As you can probably tell from some of my posts, I think this is one of the most amazing new pieces of technology available for learning languages. Having the opportunity to help them develop new tools for educators was an excellent experience.3) Learning new skillsBy simply committing to writing on a regular basis, it has made me become more proactive about learning new things. I can't write a blog about free technology if I am not learning about new technology, therefore blogging for me has promoted learning. It has also allowed me to dust off the old skill of writing, something a science student in the UK system doesn't really do from age 16 onwards. I will be honest, the quality of my posts is variable but I do think I have made some improvements.4) Making timeThis goes without saying. To blog effectively it should become routine. Different people have different time allowances. I found I was able to do it once or twice per week. When you blog regularly you notice it with your traffic. At one point I had built my traffic up to 18000 page views per month. Once it got to June with the usual end of year report writing coupled with the needs of a pregnant wife, my writing fell and so did my traffic. It is going to be interesting to see how easy it is to blog in November once the baby arrives. I might become the nocturnal blogger...5) Promote your blogYou will not be making the most of your time spent blogging if no-one is able to read what you write. I would also say that you really want the right people (i.e. other teachers) reading your blog so you should really think about how you promote your blog. I have found the following  really useful; Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Edmodo. I also use Pinterest, Scoop it, Teach 100 and a few other blog networks.There is a danger that you can spend more time promoting than writing which is bad so here are a few tips. Edmodo and Google+ will give you the biggest traffic surge if you post in relevant communities and you can automate posts to Facebook and Twitter using www.ifttt.com. The key is to promote enough to get people reading and then interact with readers.I hope these 5 points are useful. Now that I have the free time during the summer, I am going to start work on a few other blogs. In particular, I am going to start a personal blog to discuss wider issues in teaching and learning along with some fun things that I experience and learn from. I'm sure I will let you know about it here on Free Technology for Schools.This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Schools www.freetechforschools.com

At this year’s ELTJ Debate, Janet Enever (Umea University, Sweden) argued against the motion that ‘This house believes that Primary ELT does more harm than good‘. Janet shares her thoughts on some of the points that came out of the debate. You can watch the full recording of the debate on the IATEFL Online website, or catch up on the highlights in our Storify story of the event. Firstly, I’d like to say how pleased I was to hear so many interesting and relevant points raised at the ELTJ Debate. Together, they provided fruit for a really valuable round table event - perhaps this would be a more productive format for developing shared understandings and creating networks than the adversarial stance of a debate. Here, I’d like to pick up on a few points raised that I felt were particularly important - just to start the ball rolling for additional perspectives to be aired. There’s proof in the pudding Firstly then, the exciting new evidence from Eva Wilden in Germany! A study of over 6,500 children at the end of the German primary school phase (aged 10/11 yrs). She reported clear evidence of greater progress in receptive skills by approximately 50% of the sample who began English earlier. This large scale study is very significant evidence. In addition, the study linked higher achievement with stronger reading skills in German (national language - which may or may not be the children’s first language). Can we extrapolate from this that higher level literacy in the language of schooling/L1 works hand-in-hand with higher achievements in English? I’d like to add a note here on the broader question of literacy and politely take issue with Fiona [Copland]. There is now strong evidence on the potential of early language learning to contribute positively to literacy in L1. The references are now too numerous to list here, but perhaps I can include one quote and suggest that for anyone interested, it would be worth following up on this particular source. So: Fernandez (2008:8) summarises evidence, that: far from detracting from the development of literacy, learning a second language actually enhances and enriches children’s language experience and offers unique insights and opportunities for the development of cognitive skills, which are unavailable to the monolingual learner." It seems possible that Eva from Germany has evidence of just this happening - I’m glad to say that she has now agreed to present at our conference in Umea this June - so join us if you can to hear more! Of course, OUP are one of our proud sponsors! Political buy-in Secondly, I’d like to mention the contribution of a colleague from Bangladesh. I haven’t had the chance to spend time there so cannot pretend to be knowledgeable on the challenges, though I’ve heard this account many times and seen many of these challenges elsewhere in the world. The current problem for Bangladesh seems to be that there are very few positive aspects to this policy decision! Here I will take up just one. From the ELLiE study we learnt that primary English teachers need a fluency level of at least B2 if they are to be able to respond to the unplanned, informal everyday requirements of English in the primary classroom. In many contexts this continues to be a distant goal, but this does not diminish its importance. At a language planning stage we need to ‘help’ politicians to fully understand this and strategically plan to achieve this target. Years ago when I worked in Poland (soon after the political changes), I witnessed thousands of teachers of Russian losing their jobs. Some, astonishingly, managed to speedily turn their hands to rapidly learning English and became excellent English teachers instead. The shift in language choice that has occurred there over the past 24 years is certainly remarkable, with a national policy now established for introducing the first foreign language (mainly, but not only, English) from the start of schooling. However, in a country of 40 million, this has taken a generation to implement - and they are still working on it. Evidently, Bangladesh has much greater challenges - probably not only in the teaching of primary English, with large classes and a struggle for adequate resources. How much is too much? The final point that I’d like to discuss relates to the question of ‘how many languages are possible at primary level?’ This is indeed a difficult question to answer - probably impossible! A delegate from Switzerland outlined their current debate. Last year I attended a national discussion forum on this in Bern where I learnt that English was creeping up the agenda in a number of cantons, and concerns were rising particularly about the decline of their fourth language - Romansch. From informal coffee break conversations I gained the impression that the German speakers in particular no longer saw French as so important/valuable as English. This topic links also to the question raised by a British Council representative from Senegal in Francophone West Africa. Similarly, there, current discussions consider whether children will suffer from overload if they have to cope with learning two languages in addition to their home language/mother tongue/language of schooling (various terms may apply in different contexts). In response to the question of: ‘How many languages are too many?’ we can cite countries such as India where it is often the norm for young children to shift between 3-4 languages in their daily lives - but these are generally languages that are widely used in the community. We can also cite smaller-scale examples where three languages are taught in schools from an early age - e.g. Luxembourg, Belgium, some regions of Spain such as Catalonia and the Basque region. However, again, at least two of these languages are widely used in the community, whilst the third (English) is seen as a high status international language. From this and other evidence then, we know children can cope, but we have to ask whether the contextual conditions are sufficient to provide enough support for them to make progress. With good teachers, good resources and a supportive wider community (both in and out of school) I’m sure it can be done. However, achieving this on a wider scale takes substantial national/political commitment. Of course, it also takes a significant amount of class time so it’s important to consider the priorities and take care not to create a primary curriculum that suffers from overload. In Africa, I know it’s a real dilemma, with some former colonies having opted for non-local language as the medium of instruction from the start of schooling and then later recognising this might result in only limited progress in basic education. The theme of Medium of Instruction deserves a separate discussion I feel - and was not the focus of the Debate. Here, we are discussing the introduction of a foreign language, together with the teaching of a former colonial language (English or French mainly). My expectation is that the outcome is unlikely to be balanced bilingualism. Nonetheless, the experience of learning two languages early, in addition to the first language, will certainly provide a valuable foundation for later further development - assuming the conditions are sufficient to ensure good provision. Of course, Harry Kuchah’s contribution from Cameroon serves as a salutory reminder on how difficult it can be to achieve satisfactory conditions for learning. There are so many more points I would like to discuss, but I hope the above provides some food for thought and provokes further discussion. As you can see, there are so many perspectives to consider. If Janet’s points on the ELTJ Debate have interested you, or you’d like to challenge them, feel free to leave a comment below. And don’t forget to watch the recording of the Debate or read our Storify highlights.Filed under: IATEFL, Pre-school Children, Young Learners Tagged: Children, ELT Journal, ELTJ Debate, First language, IATEFL, Janet Enever, L1, Language learning, Medium of Instruction, Primary and Secondary methodology, Primary ELT, Teenagers, Young Learners

Although I tend to focus on and review websites and apps that encourage new ways of learning and increase collaboration, occasionally I stumble across a website that offers lots of good old traditional worksheets.Maths worksheet land contains a vast number of worksheets for all grade levels and has them linked to the common core for all you American teachers out there. It is not interactive, it does not allow students to work simultaneously on equations but they can do a worksheet on simultaneous equations.If you are a Maths teacher, I have no doubt that you will want to check out this resource and the best thing is it is 100% free. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Schools www.freetechforschools.com

We’re helping to solve your EFL teaching problems by answering your questions every two weeks. This week, Verissimo Toste responds to Juliana Mota’s Facebook comment about how to connect one lesson to the next. Juliana wrote: How should we review lessons learned and make a connection with the new class?" The first obvious answer is, "It depends." But that’s not very useful. So let me propose some ideas and activities which you can adapt to the age of your students, their learning preferences, and their different abilities. It’s their responsibility From the very beginning, I try to make any revision the students’ responsibility. Once we have finished work on a unit or a module, I give them time to go back through the work we have done and ask any questions. This, of course, is easier when the class is based on a course book. Students leaf through the pages and are reminded of the work done. I then ask them to assess how they feel about the work in grammar, vocabulary, and the different skills. This assessment differs from class to class depending on the age and level of the students. Students make a test I ask students to make the test for the work we have done. Usually students leaf through the pages and suggest activities from the class book and the workbook. I ask each student to do this individually then compare their suggestions in pairs. Then, I ask them to work in groups of four. At this point, they compare their suggestions, but they must also agree on one test for the group. This generates a good discussion on the length of the test and what content is most important. More importantly, however, is that it creates a context for students to revise the work done, to prioritise that work, and to assess how they feel they are doing. With the test based on their suggestions, students get a clearer idea of what they need to do in order to prepare. Giving them time to revise the work done generates more questions, leads to some revision exercises, and helps them notice their strengths and weaknesses. This is further reinforced when they get their test back. Connect learning When possible, connect new learning with language students have already learned. For example, you can base presenting the past simple on a daily routine. The daily routine gives the teacher an opportunity to revise the present simple, both the grammar and the vocabulary. Teaching adverbs can present opportunities to revise adjectives, as well as verbs. A text on the events of a very bad day can revise past forms and lead to teaching the conditional, "If they hadn’t …" Skills lessons Lessons with the aim of developing skills can, and should, focus on language learned. A listening or reading text will, most likely, use language students have learned. Once you have worked on the skill itself, guide your students to notice the language used in the text. Noticing language is an important learning tool that will help students improve their English. Developing the productive skills of speaking and writing, will also provide students with an opportunity to revise language they have learned. Speaking activities are usually based on language students have just learned. Controlled practice activities will give them a chance to correct any mistakes. Writing tasks can give students an opportunity to use the language they have learned. Unlike speaking, students have more time to reflect on their mistakes and opportunities to correct through the writing process. Project work         I am a big fan of project work, whether the projects are small, taking little time, or larger projects spread over a greater length of time. Project work offers students the opportunity to use the language they have learned. As they share their work with others in the class, they will be exposed to the language in different contexts to communicate real information, usually about them and their experiences. The project will give them opportunities to reflect on the language they need. As the projects are meant to be shared, students are careful about mistakes, motivated to correct them before the project is presented to others. The activities I mention here are based on making revision an integral part of the class and not necessarily based on any particular language point or skill in which students have difficulty and thus need more work. The activities give students the opportunity to revise what they have learned, reflect on their progress, adapt their learning based on the reflection, and finally, improve their English. Invitation to share your ideas Do you have anything to add on the subject of revising language? We’d love to hear from you! You can respond directly to this blog by leaving a comment below. Please keep your challenges coming. The best way to let us know is by leaving a comment below or on the EFLproblems blog post. We will respond to your challenges in a blog every two weeks.Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Professional Development, Teenagers, Young Learners Tagged: #EFLproblems, Academic English, EAP, EFL, English for Academic Purposes, Language learning, Language skills, Professional Development, Project work, Revising language, revision, Self-reflection, Teaching problems, Verissimo Toste

If there is one thing I love about the summer holidays it is having the time to catch up on some recreational reading. The first book I read this summer was called Automate this: How algorithms came to rule the world, by Christopher Steiner.Automate This tells of how the use of modern algorithms began in Wall Street to give slight trading advantages and is now spreading to every area of human endeavour. With each spread, the story seems to be the same; people first say that the algorithm will never be able to replace the work of real people and in each area, it appears, the algorithms always win, disrupting entire industries.There are some comical and terrifying tales, like the book on Amazon that reached a sale price of over $1000000 due to 2 competing algorithms, stories of money vanishing in the finance world and some beautiful classical music written by algorithms.As a teacher, this book really gave me food for thought. When I was training to be a Science teacher and revisions were being made to the UK National Curriculum, a component called 'How Science Works' was introduced. The idea being that all students would be consumers of Science and its fruits whereas only a minority would go on to be Scientists. It therefore made sense to teach students about the scientific method and how science impacts on society.Compare the revisions to the UK Science curriculum with what is happening with ICT/Computer Studies education. Lot's of students leave school with zero knowledge of code or knowledge of the impact that it will have on them and society. It is absolutely imperative that schools try to catch up and formally introduce the teaching of code to students, or at least teach them about how it will impact on their lives.During the summer, I also had a slight problem with a hotel I was staying at and called the travel company to complain. I got the usual message "this call may be recorded for training and moitoring purposes". It is nice to know after reading this book that what that really means is that an algorithm is analysing your voice and detecting your mood so that it can assign you to the most suitable agent to minimise conflict. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Schools www.freetechforschools.com

This is a guest post from Deepak Soni at Drypin. There are two free ways to download videos from YouTube and other video sites like dailymotion, vimeo etc. In first way you need to download a software that we discuss below. In second way you can download videos online or without any software. Both ways supports all version of windows and also supports windows-8 PC. In both ways you may download videos to computer in all video formats like 3gp, mp4, flv etc. and also in any quality is available of video like 144p to 1080p.Method 1Download YouTube videos free with software In this way you need to download a software that is completely free and after installation you may continue download unlimited videos in various formats like HD, Full Hd(Formats: 144p to 1080p).Step-1: Download Software from here Step-2: Open the .zip file and extract it.Step-3: Run "YouTube Video Downloader.exe" file from zip folderStep-4: Go to "YouTube.com" and copy the link from address bar of video that you wants to download.Step-5: Now come back to software and paste the link in Video URL.Step-6: Click on "Generate links" button to get available download formats of the video.Step-7: Select which format you wants to download and click the button "Download Selected Video". Step-8: Now you can see you download in the "Download" tab of software. Method 2Download YouTube videos free online In this way you may download and save video to your pc without any software. You may also download all various formats and picture quality in this way also. Step-1: Open your browser and Go to the Keepvid.com.Step-2: Go to "YouTube.com" and copy the link from address bar of video that you wants to download.Step-3: Come back to the Keepvid.com and Paste the link in Download Bar of the page.Step-4: Press the Download Button and select the download format.Step-5: Save the file where you want to keep it. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Schools www.freetechforschools.com

Sage Stevens, Assessment Support Manager in the Assessment Materials division of ELT at OUP, looks at the main changes to the 2015 specifications of the Cambridge English: First exams. Sage will be hosting a webinar on this topic on 23rd May. As many of you will be aware, the specifications for Cambridge English: First (FCE) and Cambridge English: Advanced (CAE) are changing in 2015. For those of you feeling somewhat at sea about just how these changes will impact on your teaching I will be hosting a webinar which will hopefully leave you feeling less ‘Lost at Sea’ and more ‘Fancy a swim?’. In other words, I hope to help navigate you through the changes so that you can prepare your students with confidence to sit these examinations in 2015 and beyond. I am an Assessment Support Manager in the Assessment Materials division at OUP, but prior to this role I was a writing examiner for Cambridge ESOL CAE, FCE, BEC (Vantage) and others for a number of years. I hope to share with you my experience in assessment and also my knowledge of Oxford’s new preparation and practice materials for the Cambridge English: First exam from 2015, which I have been actively involved in developing. My webinar on the 23rd May will cover the following areas: An overview of the main changes to the 2015 FCE exam. This will include looking at how the previously separate Reading and Use of English papers have been combined into one, without losing any of the integrity of the separate papers. We will then focus in a bit more on changes to the Writing and Speaking papers. We will explore what teachers and candidates can expect with the new format, word count and rubric for the Writing paper, and we’ll look at the changes to interaction patterns and stimuli in the Speaking paper. Throughout, I’ll be using examples of activities from the new editions of Cambridge English: First Masterclass and Result Student’s Books, and the Online Practice material that accompanies these courses - all designed to help you to prepare your students successfully for the tasks in the 2015 exam. The webinar will be vibrant and informative. Participants will have the opportunity to put forward their views, participate in polling activities, and answer questions to ensure that the information is understood and clear. I look forward to meeting you! To find out more about the changes to the Cambridge English: First exams, register for Sage’s webinar on 23rd May.Filed under: Exams & Testing, Professional Development Tagged: Cambridge English: First, Cambridge English: First Masterclass, Cambridge ESOL, Exam practice, Exam preparation, Exams, FCE, FCE Exams, Reading skills, Sage Stevens, Speaking skills, Writing skills