In this digital age, houses are strewn with gadgets and mobile devices. You may not have a permanent residential address but you would definitely have to have an email address. You could go an entire day without food, but today you can’t think of getting through 4 hours straight without your mobile phone. The point is, things have changed a lot in just the last few years. Things that were once a luxury are now a necessity. Whether that is for the good or bad is left to debate, but there is no denying that fact. Every industry has undergone an evolution of a kind and the real estate industry is one of them. A video walk-through of a building might have once been nothing more than a fancy accessory. But right now any construction company is now required to come up with a 3D walk-through of their project not just because it sounds cool and is fancy, but because an accurately made 3D walk-through actually results in cost and time savings. This walk-through shows in detail every important aspect about a building that one might otherwise miss. For example, a 3D video could show how exactly a room would look at approximately 6 in the morning when the sun is just up and how it might look, say during sometime midday. A walkthrough is a great place especially for experimenting interior design. Check out how well the fluorescent green and pure white tiles of the kitchen are portrayed in this Casa Grande video- it looks very real. Right from the location of the project, to a car being shown as arriving at the garage and the brief tour of the house, everything is very realistic and accurate. You get a very solid idea of how the house or the building in question would look like and know exactly what to change in the design plans, if required. Because the 3D walk-through is a preview of the original project, it is a great place to keep making changes until it is ready to just be replicated. It’s brilliant how the makers of this video have managed to portray the details of the building, retain the aesthetics, and nailed every objective of the walkthrough, all in the given 3-4 minutes. Not one frame is wasted. The attention to detail is amazing - you even see the door handle turn as though someone is taking you on a tour of the house. For enquiries on similar such 3D walk-through videos, get in touch with us here.

Cheryl Boyd Zimmerman is the series director of Inside Reading, Second Edition and the upcoming companion series, Inside Writing. In this article, she describes the characteristics of academic language that pose challenges for English learners and proposes several essentials to include in the classroom. Cheryl will discuss this topic in more depth in her upcoming webinar, taking place on 15th and 16th January. Academic language has been referred to as a "power code" in academic and professional circles; those unable to use it are at a social and academic disadvantage (Corson, 1985). As teachers, many of us are so fluent in academic and colloquial varieties of English that we flip back and forth with little thought. We adapt to the language of a formal lecture or a job interview, for example, and don’t think about the adjustments we make when using language in other settings. To help learners master academic varieties of English, we need to first raise our own awareness of the differences. What is academic language? Which characteristics are especially different from less formal varieties? Then we can consider: How can we help learners acquire academic language? What is academic language? The language of school is different from the "language of home" because its purposes are different. School introduces new ways to interact with people, different types of written text and new ways to relate with the world. Therefore, for learners of all ages, a school textbook or lecture will include features such as abstraction, authoritativeness, rich and complex meanings and technicality (Schleppengrell, 2010). To facilitate these functions, academic English contains features such as embedded sentences, passive voice, technical vocabulary (the words used in one discipline such as science or math) and more general academic vocabulary (words that are frequent in all content areas, but less frequent in everyday language). Both technical and academic vocabulary are rare in non-academic settings; therefore, learners don’t have enough exposure to "pick them up" unless they have a lot of encounters with people who use them. Technical words are challenging in part because they often have everyday meanings that are different from the meaning in the content area (mean and constant in math). Academic words are challenging because by nature they feature multiple meanings (primary election vs. primary purpose), subtlety of meaning (consider the subtle differences between survive and live), and one word with several parts of speech (system, systematically, systematize and systematic). How can we help learners acquire academic language? Academic language is not likely to be easily "picked up" in the same way that colloquial language is because of its technical nature and its infrequency. The essentials for learning it include adequate exposure, personal involvement along with authentic practice, direct vocabulary instruction, and an environment in which situated academic language is used and learners see its place in their futures. Essentials for Academic Language Learning Examples of Classroom Strategies Adequate exposure Write one academic word on the board each day (include its word family members). Use it often throughout the class in instructions, comments, questions, etc. Don’t over-simplify vocabulary; use repetition and synonyms instead of omitting difficult words Learner involvement and authentic practice In class discussions, revisit course material by focusing on short segments of interesting content with activities such as word-contrast discussions ("Which informal word could you use in place of terminate here?") and paraphrasing ("Can you re-state that sentence using termination instead of terminate?") Direct vocabulary instruction Scaffolded instruction needs to draw attention to language forms Technology (e.g., See an online lexical tutor for resources including glossed readings with hypertext, tools to create content rich exercises, frequency lists and much more) A motivating situated learning environment Research indicates that learners are motivated when shown that the material is relevant to their future (Hirai, Borrego, Garza, & Kloock, 2010) Keep in mind that learners are not always as enthused about words as teachers might be; we need to communicate that academic language is an asset worth an investment. In the upcoming webinar we will further examine the characteristics of academic language and will look at more strategies for classroom use. References Cobb, T. (n.d.) Complete lexical tutor. http://www.lextutor.ca Corson, D. (1985). The lexical bar. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Coxhead, A. (2000). A new academic word list.  TESOL Quarterly, 34, 213-238. Hirai, D.L., Borrego, I., Garza, E., & Kloock, C.T. (2010). Academic language/literacy strategies for adolescents: A "how-to" manual for educators. New York: Routledge. Schleppegrell, Mary J. (2010). Language and mathematics teaching and learning. Language and Mathematics Education: Multiple Perspectives and Directions for Research, pp. 73-112. Charlotte, NC: Information Age PublishingFiled under: Adults / Young Adults, Business & English for Specific Purposes, Grammar & Vocabulary Tagged: Academic language, Academic vocabulary, Cheryl Boyd Zimmerman, Classroom strategies, EAP, English for Academic Purposes, Inside Reading, Inside Series, Inside Writing, Language acquisition, Webinar

Our education system and training methods have undergone a sea change in the past decade. About eight years ago, when I was back in school amidst the regular drone - lectures and exams - there was one thing that all of us looked forward to. Classes in the "audio-visual room"! It was such a new and fresh concept back then. We are only talking about a basic 2D video and narration that explains perhaps Newton’s laws of motion, but it was so refreshing to witness something different from the regular lectures - it really grabbed our attention.   Credit: gtbpschd.org Thanks to technology, from those little baby steps, e-Learning has come a long way in a short span of time. Now we have e-Learning courses doing the rounds everywhere - schools, colleges, IT firms, manufacturing industries, you name it. They save time and costs, make learning fun and easy. So, whether you are part of creating an e-learning course or not, you are bound to be in touch with it at some point of time. You will come across a lot of new terms associated with e-Learning. And when that happens, you will also be glad that you came across this post, for here are some top 10 e-Learning buzz words explained 1. Story-board  A storyboard is nothing but a screen-by-screen representation of the entire e-module in question. It includes descriptions of images and text that you see on the screen, narration and notes to the graphic designers and developers. There are various templates that many instructional designers follow according to their convenience. 2. Storyboard review This is the process of evaluating a finished storyboard. The storyboard reviewers point out errors in language, flow, consistency and other elements. They also suggest alternative ideas and instructional strategies to better deliver the e-learning course. 3. Smart Art A smart art is a tool in Microsoft Office. It is a visual representation of content that can be easily created. It could be a button, a box, a circle. It can be created easily and is a good way to add illustrations in your course. Following is an example: Credit: officeblogs.comblu.com   4. OST OST stands for On Screen Text. This is simply the text that appears on the screen. The storyboard will have a portion titled "OST". Whatever it is that appears on the screen will go here. Example OST: "Welcome to the course on dispersion of light!" 5. LMS LMS is short for Learning Management System. A learning management system is a platform that enables easy mass delivery of courses and management of the learning process. Teachers and trainers can make their course available to their learners, conduct assessments, monitor progress, and update their course all at one place. For example, Moodle is a popular LMS. You will have a user id and password. You can login to your account on Moodle and access a course, take a test, be assessed at your convenience. It allows for online collaboration. It is widely used by organizations and universities where there are a large number of takers and there is a huge need to manage the learning process, set learning goals, evaluate learners, and manage registration and assessment records and so on. 6. SCORM SCORM is a set of technical guidelines laid down for e-learning software products. SCORM ensures interoperability between these products. It is short for Sharable Content Object Reference Model. When an e-learning product is created to be uploaded on an LMS, it has to follow a set of guidelines for it to work on all SCORM compliant learning platforms. Otherwise, you will have the course working on one platform and messed up on another. This set of standards is what is defined under SCORM. 7. Voice over (VO) This is simply the narration that accompanies a particular visual. The VO text supporting the OST is written in the storyboard. 8. Pop up text When you display text on the screen, you have to be wary of the volume of text. Unlike a book, or a web page, you cannot afford to display too much text in a course. So, we have something called "pop-up" text which appears only when a particular term or button is clicked. It is simply text that "pops-up" in a window when clicked. Credit: labtrain.noaa.gov 9. Scenario  A scenario is something that proves as "an example situation" to explain a particular context. For instance, let’s say you are explaining a particular law under criminal law. It is best explained with a case study. So this case study becomes a "scenario". 10. Design Doc A design document is a "plan of action" for an e-learning course. A high level design doc gives an overall idea of the course by outlining the course structure etc. A low level design doc deals with finer details such as the instructional strategy, course development etc. These are some of the buzz words that you have to be familiar with when you are part of the e-Learning industry. Do you have something to add to this? Let us know by commenting below.  

Margaret Whitfield, co-author of the forthcoming Kindergarten series, Show and Tell, offers some practical tips on preparing kindergarten children to write. Have you ever thought about how complex writing is? It involves fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, control of the arm and shoulder, recognition of letter shapes, association of letter shapes and sounds, and so on. It’s a wonder anyone ever learns to write. The fact that children usually master it is proof of their amazing learning power. The early stages of learning to write involve developing concepts about writing as well as the basic skills that form the foundation of writing development. Children begin to understand and to enjoy the idea of writing well before they are actually able to write. They see adults and older children writing and, as always, want to join in. Their experiences as they do so can influence both their progress and their later attitude to writing, so how can we ensure that they’re positive ones? Encourage scribbling early mark-making Make sure that opportunities for writing are widespread and varied, and that you praise all children’s efforts. When you refer to what children are doing as writing and ask about what they’ve written, you reinforce the idea that they’re doing the same thing as the ‘grown-ups’. You are valuing their effort. The marks may just be scribbles at this stage, but they’re a crucial stage on the path to recognizable writing. Some everyday opportunities for writing: writing labels for items in the classroom, e.g. toy food in a shop writing a label on a picture they’ve painted or drawn writing a message or a card for a family member Be CREATIVE Pencil control is a fundamental skill to master, but there are also many creative activities that will contribute to writing skills that don’t involve pencil and paper. The following will all develop children’s motor skills, and parents may also like to do some of them at home: Manual craftwork, e.g. manipulating small pieces of paper to make a collage picture Making marks in sand with sticks or fingers Covering a chalkboard with chalk and painting it with a wet paintbrush In addition, using modelling clay helps to develop the muscles in the hand - get children squeezing, squashing, and rolling balls and sausage shapes. Focus on letter SHAPES For children to develop from early mark-making to recognizable letters, they need to recognize the letter shapes. (They also, of course, need to associate letters with sounds before they can use letters meaningfully, but that’s another topic.) Flashcards and posters with the letters are really useful for this, but they can be supplemented and combined with lots of other activities. For example: Have children make the shapes with their bodies. Give two children a flashcard of letter ‘b’, for example, and ask them to work together to make the shape. Match magnetic letters to flashcards. Have children make the letters of their name with salt dough. They can decorate the letters when they’re baked. Letter hunt: give a child a letter flashcard and ask them to find as many examples of that letter around the classroom or on a page of a storybook. Use objects such as buttons or pipe cleaners to make the shape of a letter shown on the flashcard. Watch teacher trainer, Freia Layfield, show you how to make the most of this kind of activity in class and download a free photocopiable activity template. Make writing part of role-play Role-play is a key part of children’s play at this age, and it can provide great opportunities for meaningful writing activities. If you leave clipboards with pencils around the classroom in different play areas, children can be encouraged to build writing into their play. Here are some ideas for combining role-play and writing: Shopping: write a shopping list Firefighters: write the address of the fire Doctors: write a prescription for some medicine or some notes about the patient’s condition Superheroes: write a secret message to another superhero and hide it for them to find Traffic cops: write parking tickets for scooters left in the wrong place - or even speeding tickets! And finally, be patient Different children progress at different rates. A child may, for example, have less developed fine motor skills but a good understanding of sound-letter correspondence. Try not to ‘correct’ children’s writing too much and remember to praise their efforts; they will be encouraged to write more and so get the practice they need to progress. Would you like more practical tips on getting kindergarten children to read and write? Visit our site on Teaching 21st Century skills with confidence for free video tips, activity ideas and teaching tools. Sign up for the free webinar on how to get kindergarten children writing on 22 January 2014.Filed under: Pre-school Children, Professional Development, Skills Tagged: 21st Century skills, Classroom management, Collaboration, Communication skills, Creativity, EFL, ELT, Kindergarten, Mixed-ability, Show and Tell, Songs, Speaking, Teamwork

Let’s say you are travelling in a train. You are on the phone with a friend when the call gets disconnected. "Low battery" again! But you immediately try and find a power socket and plug in your charger, don’t you? You don’t really have to worry too much about whether your phone adapter would be compatible with the power socket. That is because power adapters are designed that way. There are specific standards that manufacturers adhere to so that the adapters can be used at most electrical outlets. Similarly, SCORM is a set of such specific technical guidelines meant for e-learning products developed the world over. Now we have something called Learning Management Systems. An LMS is simply a platform for learners to collaborate with trainers and fellow learners online and take an e-learning course from anywhere at their convenience. E-learning courses are delivered via these systems and there are many such systems. A popular example is Moodle. If every e-learning developer developed a course that only worked on his favorite LMS, his course would not be of much use. The course could not be shared, and it would be difficult to manage learning on a large scale. This is the problem that SCORM aims to solve. SCORM is short for Shareable Content Object Reference Model. These are standard guidelines to be followed by both e-learning course developers as well as LMS developers. So at the end of the day, what we achieve is this: any SCORM compliant course will work on any SCORM compliant LMS, thus solving headaches for a lot of people. So in the above example, think of the e-learning courses as the adapter, the power socket as the LMS. In order for this "adapter" to fit into the "LMS", we need SCORM. Benefits of SCORM Enables interoperability of e-learning products. This means that a course can be "played" on an LMS and an LMS can play any course provided they are all SCORM conformant. Reduces costs. Previously, you had to produce different versions of the course for different platforms. Now you can stick to only one version and use it across platforms. Expand sales. Since your SCORM conformant content plays on any SCORM conformant LMS, your content automatically has a wider market. The same holds good for your LMS - it has a wider market because any SCORM conformant content can be uploaded. Since SCORM is the de facto standard for e-learning courses today, clients are reassured that they are in safe hands when they see that your product is SCORM certified. SCORM versions and the next generation There are 3 versions of SCORM. SCORM 1.1 was the basic version, which was not very popular among developers. Now this is not widely adopted. SCORM 1.2 was a good improvement over the first version. According to the SCORM’s website, as of October 2005, every major LMS and e-learning product support SCORM 1.2 and many developers still follow this. SCORM 1.3, now known as SCORM 2004, deals with features such as better interactivity and richer content. However, developers are adapting to this version rather slowly. For all practical purposes, it’s good enough if your e-learning product follows SCORM 1.2. If you are curious about SCORM and further details you can take a look at their website here. The next generation of SCORM is Tin Can API. This focuses on the completion of an action as the objective of a course rather than delivery of an e-learning course. Read more about it here. Do you have questions or would you like to add some more points? Please do so by commenting below.

Instructional Design is a fairly new area that is gaining momentum with the shift that is happening towards virtual learning from traditional classroom teaching. But a lot of people are still unsure of the role of an instructional designer (ID). What does an ID do all day? What are the responsibilities of an ID? If you have these questions unanswered, you have come to the right place. The role of an instructional designer In simple words, an instructional designer is to a course, what a director is to a film. A director does the script and screenplay for a film, doesn’t he? Similarly an instructional designer conceives the concepts for an e-learning course and creates storyboards based on which the entire course would be developed. The ID decides how a particular a subject would be introduced and explained - there are several instructional design theories that they may choose to adhere to. They are the brains behind the course and work with developers, subject matter experts and designers to put together what they have in mind. A day in the life of an ID If you were an ID, this is how your work day might be: You walk into office, settle down at your desk and look around. You are early but there is another ID already at her desk, peering into her monitor, lost in thought. She hasn’t even noticed that you have entered - but she cannot be blamed - that’s how demanding the job is. Storyboarding requires all of your focus and efforts. Sometimes when you are working on a course, you would surprise yourself by not moving from your place for hours together - the concepts, research, instructions and guidelines to follow- when all of this would occupy your head, you hardly notice anything else, but it is something that gives you immense work satisfaction at the end of the day. Once you settle down, you check your mails. You got 2 new ones. One says that you have to start on a fresh storyboard and you have been given the details if the subject. A meeting with the SME has been scheduled for 4.00 pm. The other is your storyboard that has come back from the storyboard reviewer. You need to fix this storyboard and send it by the end of the day. A storyboard is a detailed description of what has to appear in a course. It is a screen by screen description that has different sections such as the OST (on screen text), narration, developer notes and so on. So you start fixing your previous storyboard. As you are working on the 5th comment in the SB by the reviewer, someone from the development team comes and says, "Sorry to bother you, but I need your help with the development of Topic 3". You leave comment 5 for later and help them out with visualizing. The Articulate SL designer states the problem. For a particular screen, the animation that the SB suggested is not possible with the current software. Is there an alternative? You think of alternatives and immediately give them one. They are happy and you return to your desk. You are finished with fixing the storyboard. It’s time for lunch. You just take a look at the new mail. You are curious to know what subject you would be working on. You discover that it is a project on advanced marketing techniques for college students. Over lunch, as you are munching your food, you are already pondering over different ways to introduce the course. You get back and do a basic research on marketing techniques and take a look at the table of contents for the new set of topics. You take down notes of questions you may need to put to the subject matter expert during the meeting in the evening. It’s about time for the meeting. You attend the meeting and understand the requirements of the course. You learn a little bit about the subject and the learners. These are people who would be taking the course in addition to classroom training. So this would complement traditional teaching. You try to plan your course accordingly. By the time the meeting is done, the day is over and you set your priorities for the next day. So in a day, you end up doing storyboards, fixing them, collaborating with designers and subject matter experts, clients, and learners. At the end of the day, the objective is to create a course and you may have to perform any role that meets this end. It’s a challenging role but you derive great satisfaction once you finish a storyboard - the satisfaction of having created something from scratch and that is your own. Have questions? Let us know by commenting below.    

Charles Vilina, co-author of the forthcoming Young Learners series, Oxford Discover, shares some tips on helping young learners to write well in English. Charles will discuss this topic in more depth in his upcoming webinar, taking place on 21st and 23rd January. I teach writing to primary students almost every day. Fellow teachers often ask me, "Isn’t it difficult to teach students to write well? I couldn’t do it!" I understand the sentiment. Of the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), writing is often the most challenging to teach… and to learn. Many people find writing to be difficult even in their native language, so the challenge is even greater for our EFL and ESL students. Why isn’t writing an easy task? Writing is a productive skill that requires concentration and effort, even for those who write professionally throughout their lives. Writing, like playing a sport or a musical instrument, requires regular practice to do it well. The more often students write, the more likely they are to improve. Writing is a process. Revision is always part of good writing (which is why pencils have erasers), and revision takes patience and effort. Good writing has a very important companion: good reading. Without daily reading across many literary genres and text types, it is difficult for students to develop strong writing skills. Now for the good news. There are strategies teachers can apply to make the task of writing easier, clearer, and even enjoyable for our students! Here are three that work especially well in my classes, for both fiction and non-fiction writing tasks: 1. Introduce students to good writing Fiction: A good story has the ability to send us on amazing journeys, create strong emotions, and even change the way we look at life. Children need to read good works of fiction, and then always consider the question, "What makes this story so good?" In every class I teach, I try to introduce good fiction, and the love of reading, to my students. Non-fiction: In the world of non-fiction, clear and organized writing makes all the difference when learning something new. My students and I read examples of excellent explanatory writing about topics they find interesting. In this way, students learn the best ways to inform others through writing. 2. Motivate students to write about the world around them Fiction: "Write what you know about" is excellent advice for a fiction writer. I encourage students to choose a setting that they are familiar with. In this way, they can focus on creating strong characters and an interesting plot within that familiar setting. They are also more able to describe the scenes with greater detail. Later, they go on to create stories in other times and places of their choosing. Non-fiction: I first ask my students to write about what they have seen and experienced in their everyday lives, through a personal narrative written in the first person (I). This task teaches them to be observant and aware. They learn to consider all the information that might be useful to the reader (who, what, when, where, why). Students focus on presenting what they know in a clear and organized fashion. Later, they use these skills of clarity and organization to write about subjects outside of their personal experience. Suggestion: One simple activity is to think of a clear topic sentence on a theme students know well, such as "I really like English class." Write this on the board. Then, invite students to give reasons why they like English class, such as, "My teacher is always helpful." Write these reasons on the board as students say them. After many reasons are listed on the board, ask students to write a paragraph that begins with "I really like English class," followed by three or four of their favorite reasons. Mind maps can help students brainstorm what they know, while organizing the information at the same time. For example, students can write and circle the words my school in the center of a sheet of paper. From this circle, lines can be drawn out to subheadings such as my friends, my classes, and my activities. Examples can branch off from those subheadings. This activity can give students a physical profile of what they can write about. 3. Emphasize that good writing is a series of steps As I mentioned before, writing is a process. We can teach our students to achieve their writing goals more efficiently by following a specific series of steps that will lead them to a stronger piece of writing. Here are the steps I ask my students to follow in both fiction and non-fiction writing tasks: Brainstorm your ideas first! This means to write freely, allowing your ideas to flow without judging or thinking too hard. Fill the page with anything that comes into your mind. This step should be fun and creative. Organize your ideas into groups Each group of ideas should center around one main idea. This step also allows you to arrange your ideas in order of importance, and eliminate those ideas you don’t need. Write a paragraph around each group of ideas A good paragraph will have one clear main idea, usually stated at the beginning. Continue the paragraph with three or four sentences that support the main idea. Revise your work As you read through your paragraphs, ask yourself, "Can I make my topic sentences clearer? Can my supporting sentences be stronger? Are they listed in the best order? Can I find nouns and verbs that are more specific, and adjectives that are more descriptive? Is my grammar and spelling free of errors?" A final step is often referred to as "publishing" the piece of writing. This step means that students have revised and edited their writing to the best of their abilities, and are now ready to share what they’ve written with the class. Because each of the above steps is unique, and has specific outcomes, students do not become bored or frustrated with the process. It is best to do the steps over a number of days, so that students can begin each step refreshed and ready to continue. Suggestion: After "publishing," one very effective activity is called peer review. Students read each other’s pieces of writing and then write comments about them. By giving students the responsibility of looking critically at another’s writing, they are able to look more objectively at their own writing. In closing, I would like to add some final thoughts for teachers: Don’t expect perfection at any level. Writing is a lifelong pursuit, and even the most gifted writers know that they can always do better. Always emphasize the more important writing goals for your students: creativity, clarity, organization, and conciseness. When giving feedback, focus on one area that needs improvement per writing task. For example, does each paragraph have one main idea? Circling every error with red ink will only frustrate students. Whenever possible, for every weakness you point out in a student’s writing, also point out two strengths. Confidence is a prerequisite for all great writing, and we never want to dishearten our students. Stay patient and focused, and you will see real progress over time. With my best wishes, Charles Vilina Would you like more practical tips on encouraging your students to write and developing 21st Century skills with your children? Visit our site on Teaching 21st Century skills with confidence for free video tips, activity ideas and teaching tools. Sign up for a free webinar with Charles Vilina and Natasha Buccianti on getting young learners to write in English on 21 & 23 January 2014.Filed under: Professional Development, Skills, Young Learners Tagged: 21st Century skills, Charles Vilina, EFL, ELT, ESL, Fiction writing, Motivation, Non-fiction writing, Oxford Discover, Productive skills, Reading skills, Writing process, Writing skills, Young Learners

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Image courtesy of Nadeau&Barlow We’re helping to solve your EFL teaching problems by answering your questions every two weeks. This week’s blog is in response to Harvey Chanoup’s blog comment regarding the challenge of teaching a monolingual class vs. a multilingual one. Verissimo Toste from the Professional Development Team discusses how to encourage the use of English in monolingual classes. Harvey Chanoup sent us a simple "problem"; that of teaching monolingual classes as opposed to teaching a class of multilingual students. I have written the word in inverted commas because I think it is best not to see it as a problem. It is a characteristic of the class you are teaching that should be taken into account, as you would with mixed abilities, different interests, and motivation. The difficulty is obvious; monolingual classes communicate in their own language and so don’t need English to get a message across. Multilingual classes, however, would have English as their common language, automatically creating the need to use English to communicate. The challenge is how to motivate students in monolingual classes to use English in order to communicate. Here are some ideas I have used in my classes, both for teenagers and adults. Talk to your students Most students accept that the best way to learn English is to use English. Ask them if they agree and why. Then, discuss if it is difficult to use English in class, and, if so, what makes it difficult. Ask them for some suggestions that would make it easier for them to use English. The main aim of the discussion is to raise the topic with your students. Teaching should not be a secret, so discussing this with them gives them an opportunity to be part of the solution, rather than having rules imposed. Also, knowing what their difficulty is in using English in class will give you ideas for activities that will help them use the English they are learning. Time for English Challenge your students to use only English for a specific period of time. For example, before beginning a grammar exercise, I would turn to the class and say, "Let’s see if we can use only English for the next 10 minutes." Since they won’t need L1 to complete the exercise, I know this is something they can achieve. By creating a 10-minute limit, students see it as a challenge and make an effort to avoid using L1 for those 10 minutes. They also know that if they need the L1, they will be able to use it after the 10 minutes. What happened in my classes is that students saw that they really didn’t need to use L1 to do that type of exercise. Usually, they would continue using English beyond the 10 minutes, giving me an opportunity to praise them for how well they had done. At the end, I would ask if they had any questions about the exercise. Most of the time, they didn’t. In this way they realised they had been using L1 to confirm what they already knew. It was a crutch they didn’t really need. This raised their confidence. Over time, the class was able to work on a variety of controlled activities without needing L1. Equally important, students became aware of what they could do in English and when they really needed L1. Traffic Light One idea that has been very helpful with my classes has been putting up a "traffic light" in class. I print out a traffic light on an A4 piece of paper. In the red circle I write, "No Portuguese", for example. In the amber circle I write, "Some Portuguese" and in the green circle I write, "Portuguese OK". I display the traffic light where everyone can see it. I then explain it to the class: I hide the red circle and the amber circle with white paper circles, leaving the green "Portuguese ok" visible. I tell the class that when the green circle is visible, they can use L1 (in this case, Portuguese). Then, I hide the amber and green circles, leaving the red "No Portuguese" visible. I tell the class that when the red circle is visible, they cannot use L1 at all. Finally, I hide the red and green circles, leaving the amber "Some Portuguese" visible. I tell them that, in this case, they can use L1, but only in relation to the activity we are doing at that time. I use this when they are working in pairs or small groups on an exercise and may need to use L1 to talk about the language. The traffic light gives students a clear signal as to when they should be able to use only English, as well as when they can use their own language. As their teacher, you can choose when to use each light, and how long to leave it there. For example, I usually have "No Portuguese" as they walk into the classroom. An easy exercise for them to work on is already on the board, so they have something to do. This helps with the transition from their language to English. Depending on the age of the students, you may want to give them a reward when they are able to use only English. Adult students will usually not need this, using the traffic light as a guide to improve their use of English in class. Give them a reason to use English It’s important that students have a reason to use English. If a group is organising their project work, they will probably do this more efficiently in their own language. There is little reason to use only English, especially at lower levels. However, if a pair or small group is preparing to act out a dialogue, they should be using English as they will need this to act out the dialogue in front of the class. I reinforce this idea by not allowing my students to read when they act out. The dialogues they act out are usually short and easy to remember. The pair/group work gives them an opportunity to practice before performing in front of the class. Students easily see that they need to practice their lines, as they won’t be able to read them off a sheet. Having students video their performances further increases their need to practice before actually performing. Acting out is one example of an activity that creates a need to use English. There are many others. Information gap activities usually create a need to use English. Another activity is for the teacher, or a student, to read a text with the wrong information. Students, who have the correct information, would correct by repeating the complete sentence correctly. For example: Teacher: (reading) "The capital of the state of New York is New York City." Student: (with the correct information) "Excuse me, but the capital of the state of New York is Albany." Using L1 Finally, it is important for your students to know when to use L1. Demanding that they use only English all the time may actually hamper their learning of English. Older students can use L1 as a viable learning strategy to better learn English. For many students, being able to discuss their learning in their own language gives them greater understanding of the learning process, and allows them to adapt in order to improve. There are times when they are learning the language and need to use it in order to practice the pronunciation and the word order. Practicing helps them to make their use of the language automatic. Equally, there are times when they are talking about the language, comparing it to their own, discussing learning strategies. This may best be done in their own language. Invitation to share your ideas We are interested in hearing your ideas about teaching monolingual classes, so please comment on this post and take part in our live Facebook chat on Friday 10 January at 12pm GMT. 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. Each blog 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.Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Professional Development, Teenagers Tagged: #EFLproblems, Adult Learners, Classroom management, EFL, First language, L1, Language learning, Monolingual classrooms, Multilingual classrooms, Professional Development, Teenagers, Verissimo Toste

Typesetting, Copy Editing and Book Design Services @ Exemplarr Worldwide Limited Copy Editing markers        So, the manuscript’s done. Months or even years of hard work translated into this one singular document. Next comes the huge responsibility of giving life to it and releasing it into the world.        But how?        There are plenty of choices and one’s mind gets easily boggled by the decision ahead of them. The main course is done but there is neither a starter nor any desert. Typesetting, copy editing, the book design, the artwork & illustration and much more is yet to be done. The confused person is sometimes left feeling more helpless than satisfied when this happens.        We at Exemplarr Worldwide Limited understand the plight of such confused souls and offer a host of services to help with the publishing of the manuscript anywhere in the World. Our experience and expertise in providing professional solutions has made us who we are today. Our skilled typesetters are experts at composing crisp and clean layouts. The highly qualified team of copy editors will examine your document for grammar, conciseness, repetition, shifts in tone/voice, etc., ensuring that the message in your document is direct, meaningful and clear to the reader.        Exemplarr also has software engineers working on creating newer methods for the automation of pre press processes, to save time and increase accuracy many-fold. Book design services such as the design of cover pages and illustrations including figurative tables and graphs for scientific content are provided by us. We also assist publishers by providing easy to use templates, built-in images and production specs. All of this makes Exemplarr Worldwide into a one stop solution for smart publishing. Look us up, get to know us, and for queries, send us an email at info@exemplarr.com   To know more about the services Exemplarr offers, visit Exemplarr’s e-publishing page. ……….  

Dr. Jack C Richards is an applied linguist, writer, and teacher trainer. He is the co-author of Speak Now, a four-level speaking course that helps students to communicate with confidence. In this article, he looks at small talk in conversational English. Small talk refers to communication that primarily serves the purpose of social interaction. Small talk consists of short exchanges that usually begin with a greeting, move to back and forth exchanges on non-controversial topics such as the weekend, the weather, work, school, etc., and then often conclude with a fixed expression such as See you later. Such interactions are at times almost formulaic and often do not result in a real conversation. They serve to create a positive atmosphere and to create a comfort zone between people who might be total strangers. While seemingly a trivial aspect of speaking, small talk plays a very important role in social interaction. Skills involved in mastering small talk include: Acquiring fixed expressions and routines used in small talk Using formal or casual speech depending on the situation Developing fluency is making small talk around predictable topics Using opening and closing strategies Using back-channeling Back-channeling involves the use of expressions such as Really?, Mmm, Is that right?, Yeah, etc., and very commonly short rhetorical questions such as Do you? Are you? Did you?. The use of expressions that show exaggeration such as Way out, Awesome, Fantastic is usually a sign that the two participants are friends, as in the following example: A. Look at what my dad gave me for my birthday. B. Fantastic. A. He got it in Italy. B. Awesome! Echo responses are another type of back-channelling and involve echoing something the speaker said. For example: A. So where are you from? B. Chicago. A. Chicago. That’s interesting. Ways of teaching small talk include: Modelling and creating: students study examples of small talk exchanges and create similar exchanges on the same topic. For example a lesson can start by giving students a model of  a small-talk exchange, such as the following example from a teacher in Japan, that shows a conversation between two friends in Japan who meet in a shopping mall: A: Hi. B: Oh hi, how’s it going? A: Good, good, fine. B: Are you, er, doing some shopping? A: Yeah, just a few things really, you know. B:Yeah. A: Yeah, …actually I’ve been looking for a present, for Hiroko, but it’s difficult to.. you know.. B: Yeah, umm, what kind of thing? A: Oh, something like, umm, a present… something like… it’s her birthday tomorrow actually. [laughs] B: Tomorrow? A: Yeah, tomorrow. So I’ve looked in Hamaya, like, at the makeup and stuff, but it’s not very exciting. B: Tomorrow? How about Amu Plaza, they’ve got Tower Records and some kind of new shops. A: Yeah. OK, great, Tower Records might be good. I might give that a go. I’ve got to go over to the station, anyway. So, anyway, good to see you and thanks for the tip. B: That’s fine. Say happy birthday to Hiroko from me. A: OK I will. Bye. B: Yeah, bye. A: Bye. This exchange can be used to highlight some of the features of casual language, such as the use of ellipsis (e.g. doing some shopping?), phrases such as you know, idioms (give that a go), and bye as a closing routine. Like many interactions of this kind, the exchange opens with a friendly greeting, moves towards small talk, and then closes with an exchange of greetings. The teacher provides worksheets in which the students identify the different sections of the conversation and the discourse functions and practice writing their own dialogs using the same discourse features. They later enact role-plays to further practice the appropriate sequence in a small talk exchange. Other activities to practice small talk are: Class mingles: each student has one or two topics on a card. The class mingle, students greet, introduce their topic, make small talk for one or two exchanges, close the conversation, and move on to a different student. Question sheets: students have a worksheet with 10 different small talk questions. They move around the class and take turns asking and responding to their exchange in small talk format. Don’t forget to visit this blog on Thursday 16th January to read the second part in this blog series written by Jack C Richards: "Teaching Conversation".Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Skills Tagged: Applied Linguistics, Conversation, Conversational English, Expressions, Fluency, Jack C Richards, Routines, Short exchanges, Small Talk, Speak Now, Speaking

Copy Editing Services   Exemplarr’s copy editing services      Copy-editing is a very effort intensive job as the copy editor is often the last line of defense for the publication.        The "five Cs" summarize copy-editing, which are namely to make the copy "clear, correct, concise, comprehensible, and consistent."        At Exemplarr, there are three levels of copy-editing - light, medium and heavy. At all of these levels, the copy editor corrects errors, queries the author about conflicting statements, requests for advice when the means of resolving a problem is unclear, and prepares a style sheet.        Light copy-editing involves correction of spelling, grammar, punctuation and usage, checking cross-references, sequencing, checking for consistency in spelling, hyphenation, numerals, fonts, etc.     Medium copy-editing ensures correct usage and grammar. It involves flagging inappropriate ambiguous or incorrect statements, ensuring that key terms are handled consistently, tracking the continuity of the plot setting and character, querying the discrepancies, enforcing consistent style and tone in a multi-author manuscript and type marking the manuscript.     Heavy copy-editing deals with improving the flow and readability of the given script. It further eliminates wordiness, achieves logical structure and sometimes implements additions/deletions at the sentence and paragraph level.        Copy-editing is not proofreading. Copy-editing is the first of the pre-press activities and is followed by typesetting and then proof reading. To reduce correction cost and effort, most of the errors should be caught at this stage and a very clean document should go to typesetting and proofreading. To achieve this, the copy editors at Exemplarr are skilled grammarians and wordsmiths who can write bright and engaging content.   To know more about the services Exemplarr offers, visit Exemplarr’s e-publishing page.   ……….  

Advantages Of E-publishing         The world is quickly moving towards digital, including the publishing business. At this point, to say that print is dying is not an exaggeration. Reports say that in the past year or so, several self-published authors have sold only eBooks. The number of print books being sold is decreasing gradually while the sales of eBooks are increasing at an alarming rate. There is a reason why eBooks are so popular; there are a lot of advantages of e publishing that cannot be rivaled by the print industry.   eBook read on a tablet         For starters, the investment required is very less, almost negligible when compared to the money that goes into normal publishing. Also the publishing and distribution time is very low.        The resources needed are electricity, computer, appropriate software applications and the right people! These resources stay the same no matter what length the book is. So the length of the manuscript does not greatly affect the cost of publishing. Any editing can be done easily and updating to newer edition is also far less expensive in the digital world.        The limited resources and the absence of huge amounts of paper make eBooks eco-friendly too.        E-publishing ensures that the book reaches the global market easily and it includes methods to retain rights which are very effective.        The low cost of e publishing facilitates its use as a tool for testing the market and the response of readers. The eBooks are much more user friendly as the user can easily adjust font, background, size of the text, etc. The fact that the text in eBooks is searchable saves a lot of time and the text to speech feature is a great add on for the readers. EBooks facilitate adding click-able links that can be used to access the latest content on the subject in the books.        To know more about the services Exemplarr offers, visit Exemplarr’s e-publishing page.   ……….

Guy Cook, author of the award-winning applied linguistics book Translation in Language Teaching, considers why using literature to teach English is still worth doing. Guy will discuss this topic in more detail in his upcoming webinar on 14th and 17th January. Let’s face it. Teaching literature to language learners can be a tough challenge! The language can be difficult, unusual or just old-fashioned (you wouldn’t want your learners saying ‘Wherefore art thou Romeo?"). It can demand a lot of background knowledge - from an unfamiliar time and place. It deals with controversial topics, which may be very personal, embarrassing or culturally divisive. It needs a close focus on written text, which may be alien to the ‘internet generation’. Lastly it is supremely useless! There are not many jobs demanding an understanding of poetry! To make matters worse, an inappropriate choice of texts may be forced upon you by an exam syllabus. Or, if you can choose your own, you may end up teaching a text that you love but the students hate - an excruciating experience. HOWEVER, if  you still feel strongly, as I do, that despite all these problems and pitfalls, literature remains supremely worth teaching, and can be very successful in the classroom, then this is a webinar for you. First, we shall discuss ways of presenting a poem, dealing with its difficulties and subleties, and getting learners to engage with its sound, language and meaning. Next we shall consider what kind of literature is best for the language learner, depending on age, stage, and context. Finally we shall debate some of the cultural and personal issues which arise. Literature is inspiring, beautiful, eloquent, and memorable. It deals with the big universal experiences of human life: love, death, sexuality, sickness, religion, childhood, friendship, and so forth. As such, it is certainly more interesting than the bland inoffensive materials favoured in ELT classes and textbooks! I hope you will leave the webinar agreeing with me that, despite its difficulties, literature in the language classroom: has a unique educational value; is relevant to student contemporary lives and experiences; can improve English language knowledge and use; is enjoyable and stimulating for both teacher and students. In short, my webinar argues strongly for the teaching of literature in ELT, but also candidly address the problems that come with it. I look forward to seeing you there, hearing your comments and opinions, and to benefitting from your own insights and experiences, too. To find out more about using literature in English language teaching, register for Guy’s webinar on 14th or 17th January.Filed under: Applied Linguistics, Grammar & Vocabulary, Professional Development Tagged: Applied Linguistics, ELT, English Language Teaching, English literature, Guy Cook, Language learning, Literature, Translation in language teaching, Webinar

1. e - learning Design - design e - learning material which are DRM protected. This format ensures copyrights protection and unwanted distribution. So your books won’t be uploaded by any rebellion over the internet for free. 2. eBooks are not cannibalizing physical books- In fact they have become a reason for increased sales of physical copies. All the hot-shot publishing players can vouch for same. 3. e - learning materials have helped increase reading habits among youth. There is an increase of 17% reading habits among youth, after e - publishing has arrived. 4. Build a Bigger Publisher Brand - your technology embrace shows that you are among early adopters, which makes you opinion leaders among your audience of readers. Create a digital marketing plan 5.Earn Higher Profits- Reach higher number of audience through our Digital Distribution Network and earn more profits. It would save you shipping & logistics cost. Go Digital Confidently!    

Ian Brookes is a freelance writer and editor based in Scotland. He has edited a number of dictionaries and has written books about spelling, writing, and punctuation. In this post, he looks at how to learn two words for the price of one. There is something very attractive about the idea of getting two things for the price of one. One of the more striking new words to enter the English language in recent times is BOGOF. This is an abbreviation based on the initial letters of the phrase ‘buy one, get one free’; as this suggests, it refers to a special offer in a shop that allows you to receive an extra item free of charge when you make a purchase. The fact that the word is pronounced the same as bog off, which is a mildly offensive way of telling somebody to go away, makes it sound slightly rude, and this has no doubt added to its popularity. If the idea of getting something extra for their money is attractive to shoppers, then learners of English should be encouraged by the idea that learning one word will often bring another word - and often more than one word - into their vocabulary, virtually free of charge. If you learn a noun, you can often form a related adjective by adding a short suffix. For example, adding the ending -y creates chilly from chill, cloudy from cloud, and dirty from dirt. Similarly, many verbs give rise to a noun that ends in either -ment or -tion: entertain, govern, and measure lead to entertainment, government, and measurement, while collect, educate, and invent lead to collection, education, and invention. If only you could apply these suffixes to every noun or every verb then you could increase your vocabulary enormously. Unfortunately, English is rarely as simple as that. You can’t just add the ending -y to any noun. For example, there are no words booky or cuppy. And even when you can add a -y to a noun, the meaning may not be what you expect: thus catty means ‘spiteful’ rather than ‘like a cat’ and not all bosses would like to be described as bossy. However, there are some typical patterns of word generation that are worth knowing, and in this blog I want to look at how verbs with certain endings tend to generate a related abstract noun ending in -tion or -sion. The most common pattern here is that verbs that end in -ate will usually form an abstract noun ending in -ation: calculate/calculation, celebrate/celebration. Other common patterns are that verbs ending in -ize (or -ise in British English) form nouns ending in -ization/-isation (organize/organization) and verbs ending in -act and -ect form nouns ending in -action and -ection (react/reaction, connect/connection). I should stress that not every single verb with these endings will form an abstract noun that ends in -tion. But most of them will, and when they do, the noun is formed in a regular way, with no change to the stem of the word. However, there are some interesting verb endings that form abstract nouns in less obvious ways: Verbs ending in -duce form nouns ending in -duction: produce/production, reduce/reduction. Verbs ending in -mit usually form nouns ending in -mission: permit/permission, admit/admission. Verbs ending in -cede usually form nouns ending in -cession: recede/recession, concede/concession. When other verbs ending in -de form abstract nouns, the nouns end in -sion: decide/decision, explode/explosion, intrude/intrusion. Keeping these points in mind can help learners to increase their vocabulary two words at a time rather than word by word: learn one word, get one free!Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Dictionaries & Reference, Grammar & Vocabulary Tagged: Abstract nouns, Grammar, Ian Brookes, Noun endings, Nouns, OALD, Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, Oxford Wordpower Dictionary, Verb endings, Vocabulary

On-site optimization refers to the process of making your website appeal to both search engines and users. It reviews and improves both the public face of your website and the behind the scenes coding and technical set-up that only search engines see. A search engine evaluates a website differently to a human visitor. A search engine can’t evaluate how nicely your website is designed, how well your content is written or how much value your products/services provide. It has to judge a website from a technical point of view. On-site optimization is the foundation on which the off-site optimization process builds upon. Without it, off-site optimization efforts can go largely to waste. The process is wide ranging, and will vary slightly from website to website, but these are some of the main factors that form the on-site optimization process: On-Site SEO   Add keywords to urls, title tags, meta descriptions, header tags and alt tags. Ensure each page has a unique and descriptive title and description. Assign existing, or create new, pages for each keyword. Improve content to match/better content on competitor websites. Assess existing and potential keyword targets. Remove, merge or add to pages that have little useful content on them. Check the site loads properly in different web browsers and screen resolutions. Analyze inbound link profile. Ensure calls to actions are located in prominent positions. Link to important pages from the homepage and/or main navigation area. Improve the readability and formatting of written content. Check for and fix broken links. Add structured data mark-up code. Claim authorship of content. Fix duplicate content issues. Add in-content links where appropriate. Remove unnecessary outbound links. Create a user-friendly 404 error page. Assess and improve page loading times. Add social media sharing buttons. Create and submit an XML sitemap. Set-up Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools.  

Ahead of his webinar on 30th January on the same topic, Gareth Davies asks: How can we as teachers adapt to the changing needs of learners in the 21st Century? Next time you are on public transport have a look at the range of technology on show. People will be playing computer games, reading from e-books, checking the internet, messaging their friends, listening to music, watching video, or if we are lucky, actually doing some English homework. The world has changed; our students have become digital. How does this digitalisation of life affect our students when they come into our classrooms? Have their expectations changed or their behaviour patterns? Should we be looking to adapt our methodology to meet the modern challenges of 21st Century teaching? I am not suggesting that we should completely revolutionise our teaching, it is not realistic to go completely digital; there is not the equipment available for a start. But what I am suggesting is that we can observe our students’ behaviour patterns to see how we can tinker with our methodology to allow the students to get the most out of our teaching. Let’s take Social Media / texting as an example. Teachers who claim their students don’t even read or write in their own language are wrong. Students might not read long novels or write descriptive prose but they communicate frequently through this medium, making reading and writing an essential part of our syllabus. But students are used to dealing with messages of around 140 characters, so we need to adapt what we do in class so the reading and writing texts don’t seem too daunting for them. In my webinar I will be looking at this and other examples of students’ digital behaviour to see what we can learn as teachers and how we can harness their new learning styles to bring success to their English learning. Remember: changing with the times does not mean throwing the baby out with the bath water and completely changing our teaching, it just means learning from our students and responding to them to help prepare them for the 21st Century. To find out more about adapting your teaching to suit 21st Century learners’ needs, register for Gareth’s webinar on 30th January.Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Professional Development Tagged: 21st Century classroom, Adult Learners, Digital classroom, Gareth Davies, Headway Fourth edition, Professional Development, Social Media, Technology, Webinar

Off-site optimization is the process of promoting your website across the web. The purpose is to build brand awareness, improve rankings in search engines and attract visitors from 3rd party websites. It’s an on-going process - not a one-off, set and forget one. The best approach to off-site SEO depends on the industry you operate in and your budget, but your overall strategy should consist of several of the following methods: Off Site SEO Outreach -Contact companies and bloggers with relevant (but non-competing) websites. Ask them to link to your best content. Content Marketing -Contact companies and bloggers with relevant (but non-competing) websites. Publish content on their websites which links back to your website. Per Per Click - Use Google Adwords and Facebook Advertising to gain instant new visitors. Constantly review and adjust ads to improve click through rates and reduce the cost per click. Network Sites -Create a network of websites that branch into sub-industries of your own. Provide useful information and link to relevant websites (including your own). Video marketing - Create a network of websites that branch into sub-industries of your own. Provide useful information and link to relevant websites (including your own). Banner Advertising - Create image adverts to display on relevant 3rd party websites. Regularly change the websites advertised on to expose your brand to new audiences. Link Exchanges - Contact companies in relevant industries and link to each other’s websites. Only link to other websites that provide value to your own customer base.          

Image courtesy of Creative Commons Sean Dowling, an Educational Technology Coordinator, looks at whether blogs can be used to deliver web-based English language courses, using an example from his own experience. In my previous posts, I discussed how blogs could be used to deliver a lesson and showcase student work. These posts were examples of how blog owners can post information to the Web on a regular basis and how blog readers can add comments. However, over the last decade or so, blogs have become a lot more sophisticated; now extra pages can be added for additional information and widgets (tools) can be added to sidebars that add a lot of functionality and personalization (see figure 1 below). These extra features have changed the traditional blog into an interactive website which can be used in a variety of ways, one of which is to deliver English-language courses. Furthermore, blogs are easy to set up, modify and manage, so with just a little practice, even the most technophobic educator can become a competent online course builder. Figure 1: web2english course home page The first choice is to decide on which blogging platform to use. This may seem a difficult decision to make as there are so many free blogging platforms available. Three of the most popular are blogger, tumblr and Moveable Type, and all are great platforms. But my favourite is WordPress. I have used WordPress for designing and delivering a wide range of blogs, from my own portfolio, to educational technology and English teaching sites. One such site, web2english, will be featured in this post. web2english was an experimental English course set up to see if a fully-online course could be designed, delivered and managed using web-based tools (a DIYLMS, a do-it-yourself learning management system as opposed to using large-scale, enterprise-level learning management systems such as Blackboard and Moodle). Only six students were enrolled in the course, but I have run similar courses with up to twenty students enrolled. The course consisted of eleven modules: an introductory module conducted face-to-face to familiarize students with the web-based tools, and ten study modules done fully online (see table 1 below), but with a weekly face-to-face "study" morning for students only. End of course feedback from all students was very positive. Table 1: Course Schedule   Using Posts on the Blog Posts were used to deliver to students modules of learning activities, with the current learning module always on top (click here to see posts). Within the posts, hyperlinks were used to direct students to the learning materials (e.g. reading and listening texts on different websites or links to documents directly uploaded to the blog). Students could use the comment feature of the posts to interact with the teacher and peers; however, as each post contained a wide range of learning activities, I split up the module into individual learning activities and posted these on another web-based tool, edmodo, thereby giving students more opportunities to interact. Using Pages on the Blog While posts were used for the weekly learning modules, which were dynamic in nature, Pages were used to display information that wouldn’t change. In web2english, pages have been used for the course outline, schedule and assessment rubrics. There was also a page which was used to aggregate all student work (see figure 2 below). This enabled students to quickly view and comment on other students’ blogs and podcasts and to access their collaborative presentations. Figure 2: Page that aggregates student work The number of pages that can be added to a WordPress blog is unlimited; however, the width of the blog restricts the number of pages that can be displayed in the menu bar along the top. Fortunately, depending on the theme, pages can be organized into sub-menus. Figure 3 shows an example of this in another blog. Figure 3: Menus and sub-menus of pages   Using Widgets on the Blog While blogs are great for displaying information and getting feedback in the form of comments, other tools need to be used to make teaching and learning more effective. To do this, blog "widgets" can be used (see figure 1 above). Widgets are simply objects that allow tools to be embedded into blogs. For example, on the course home page, I used the twitter feed widget in web2english to display the latest tweets by students (they were expected to post a minimum of ten tweets per module). Text widgets were also used to add linked images on the home page. These widgets allowed students to quickly access tools for taking quizzes, doing surveys, making their own blogs and podcasts, and accessing aggregated pages of student work on Netvibes and Dipity. While using blog posts, pages and widgets is an easy, cost-effective way to build a DIYLMS powerful enough host an online English course, be it fully online or as part of a blended-learning environment, there are some important issues that need addressing. Blogs are great for exposing learning materials and student work to a wider audience; however, this brings up the question of privacy. Fortunately, blog posts and pages can be password protected. Student assessment is also an issue as blogs have no built in assessment tools. In web2english, I used a web-based tool called ClassMarker which, for a yearly fee of $25, allowed me to quickly create assessments and provide a student grade book. I could have also used the free test tool within edmodo. One other problem with free blogs is advertising. But these can be blocked, for a fee of course ($30 dollars a year for WordPress).Filed under: Multimedia & Digital, Professional Development Tagged: Blended Learning, Blogs, Bringing Technology into the Classroom, Connected Educators, EFL, ESL, Learning Management System, Sean Dowling, Technology, Web tools, Web-based English courses

An Ideal Instructional Designers should: Unique and capable Skills Set of an Instructional Designer   Own and practice interdisciplinary knowledge, cross-cultural competency, as well as assurance and hunger for learning and technology. Have a background in concerned education, a critical attitude, and clear learning objectives. Conduct thorough research; brag of good analytical skills and the ability to craft information from various sources. Effectively communicate both visually and verbally, be a good listener and create measurable objectives, based on the audience’s needs. This requires the successful identification of the learners’ general characteristics. Create content with information that can be used and applied in the real world and especially within the audience’s professional field, always in cooperation with SMEs, professionals and team members. Select the right instructional media, and write effective copies, texts, audio and video scripts. This requires thorough media knowledge. Focus on the expected outcomes, based on the spectator’s prior skills, knowledge, prospects and needs, and design a course based on the available technology, budget and time. Be an effectual project manager, able to develop the right instructional strategy and the appropriate arrangement, with pre-class activities, presentations, learners participation, practice problems, case studies, and evaluations. Be a successful, flexible and practical problem solver, able to tackle with any kind of setback and obstacle. Be able to create effective and fair assessment methods that foster the learners’ development by providing opportunities to demonstrate their mastery of the learning goals.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Foundation Our new Online Practice and Workbooks (listed below) offer a variety of useful activities for students which help improve their skills; but did you know that as a teacher you can also upload your own content? Join Michael Man in his webinar "Adapting our online materials to suit your students’ needs" on 24th January 2014 when he will show you how to add a personal touch to your course. Online learning provides teachers with extra materials and students with opportunities to study further as they extend their learning out of the classroom. But what if a teacher wants to introduce his or her own reading text, speaking task or link to a website or online video? What, exactly, is possible to add and what are the advantages? Let’s start with a scenario: you have been working on a unit on family life and your students are keen to learn more about family life in other cultures. You have a fantastic reading text you are sure the students will love, but you are already above your photocopy quota and three students are absent. Using our online teacher tools you can upload the text and any worksheets you’d like the students to work on. Students can access them through their account, and you can even send a message to the absent students to let them know the worksheets are there. Using the teacher tools you can adapt your online course and add your own content. Let’s imagine that in the next lesson, a student comes in and tells you about a YouTube video she saw online that gives another view of family life in a little-known culture. She thinks it would be interesting for other students to see. You view it and agree with the student, so you insert the link. Students can now log in, click the link and view the video. With students buzzing with ideas and things to say about how different family life is in their culture as compared to the others they have read about and viewed, you seize the opportunity to create a speaking task. You upload the task to the Dropbox, tell student A to work with B and off they go to record their conversation, which you can then listen to (and mark) later. This scenario is not hypothetical; the ability to do just that is achievable and simple when teachers take advantage of the ability to add their own content to the new Online Practice and Online Workbooks for their course. Adapting our materials and adding your own content is suitable for students at any level and the tools to do it are available on every course that uses the new Online Practice and Online Workbooks: Aim High American English File, second edition Business Result DVD edition English File, third edition English Plus Headway Academic Skills insight Network New Headway, fourth edition New Headway Plus, special edition Oxford Online Skills Program Q: Skills for Success, special edition Solutions, 2nd edition (International, Nederlands and Maturita) Speak Now Join the "Adapting our online materials to suit your students’ needs" webinar to find out what you can do with these tools and how to use them. Find out more about teaching and learning online.Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Multimedia & Digital, Teenagers Tagged: elearning, Learn online with Oxford, Learner needs, Online learning, Online materials, Online Practice, Online teaching, Online Tools, Online Workbooks, Student needs

     A hashtag is a unique strategy for categorizing messages on Twitter and is seen as a very powerful marketing tool by businesses.      The # symbol is precedes the tag followed by one or more keywords that will properly lead individuals to conversations and discussions pertaining to a specific topic or theme.      There are several advantages that come with using hashtags. These can be used for casual or business purposes to increase awareness, as well as improve your reputation online.      You should also learn the proper ways to make a hashtag for online success. In micro-blogging community as vast as Twitter, the hashtag is what will collate all ideas under one thread so that you get a more targeted user experience, instead of just running through thousands of random tweets and wasting time. Here’s how you can make hashtags work for you.  Importance of Hashtags   1. Use it to start a topic or discussion. 2. Use it to start a competition. 3. Host and join chats. 4. Get information. 5. Use it to Arrange Tweets. 6. Gain more followers.  

Social media is a word that is being widely misrepresented a lot these days, but it is seldom understood by all! Social Media is trending to be a point of communication for like-minded persons who share, create or exchange information or ideas online. However, is it safe to be a part of social media? That’s the big question here!    So you thought Social Media was Safe?!?!   The huge disadvantage of social networking is that it reduces or excludes face-to-face socialization. The highlights and significant points taken into consideration can be discussed as identity theft, which means that because of the independence afforded by the virtual online world, individuals are unrestricted to produce imaginary identities and can pretend to be somebody else. People are being targeted for online scams; companies are ridiculed by unwanted negative feedback or publicity. In addition, one can also talk about how the concentration of employees has reduced the productivity as they are too busy updating their statuses or are checking their likes and friends list. The photographs that are posted on the social media are also not safe as they are morphed/tampered and misused for illegal activities. And God forbid, if your account on the social media is hacked, then all your privacy is lost. All your vital information is leaked online or used for illegal activities.