The Professional Development team here at OUP is helping to solve your EFL teaching problems by answering your questions every two weeks right here on our blog. Recently, we’ve posted the following blogs in response to teachers’ questions: #EFLproblems - Teaching the over 50s #EFLproblems - Teaching Monolingual Classes #EFLproblems - Learners noticing and correcting their own mistakes #EFLproblems - Learning English Beyond the Exams #EFLproblems - Motivating Young Learners #EFLproblems - Teaching Writing in the age of WhatsApp #EFLproblems - Cell phones in the adult classroom: interruption or resource? Each of these blogs was followed by a live Facebook chat with a member of the Professional Development team to discuss the topic further. Dozens of teachers have taken part in these chats to help them better understand how to deal with the issues we’ve addressed. Be sure to like our Facebook page to be reminded of upcoming live chats. If you are facing a teaching challenge that you would like us to write about, please leave a comment on the EFLproblems blog post. You can also let us know on Twitter using the hashtag #EFLproblems or on our Facebook page. We would also like to take this opportunity to point you towards some of the great resources we have available for teachers. Social Media You can follow OUP ELT on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, and, of course, here on our blog. If you are new to any of these platforms, these instructions will help get you started. If you use an RSS reader, subscribe to our blog to stay up to date with the English language teaching articles we post several times a week. Professional Development Webinars Did you know that OUP runs free webinars every week? If you’ve never attended a webinar, it’s definitely worth a try. All webinar attendees receive a certificate of attendance, a PDF of the slides, and a link to the webinar recording. Even if you can’t attend the webinar at the time it’s happening, signing up will give you access to the recorded webinar. If you miss any webinars, you can catch up with the webinar resources archive. Oxford Teachers’ Club With the Oxford Teachers’ Club, you can get free access to over 18,000 trusted EFL and ESL resources, lesson plans, worksheets, and activities, which you can download to support your English language teaching. Finally, a big thank you to everyone who has submitted a question for us. Keep them coming, so we can continue learning and developing together.Filed under: Professional Development Tagged: #EFLproblems, EFL, ELT, English as a Foreign Language, English Language Teaching, Oxford Teachers' Club, Problems, Professional Development, Teaching problems

There are various website valuation tools which help website owners or potential buyers as they are much easier to calculate value because you know how much visitors you get to your website and how much money you make from it so you can do some calculation to come up with price. 1. MCJOnline This one of the best tools out there because it returns much more information than just website worth. You can see number of backlinks, how many pages are indexed by major search engines, how many times your website is mentioned on social networks and how much visitors these website get. This is great tool which will help you to research your competitors if you are dealing with search engine optimization and internet marketing in general. This is a paid website valuation tool. 2. Websitestatschecker Whenever one gets his/her website’s price info, then he/she is very keen to know the procedure by which that price is calculated. The bad thing is that most of the tools don’t tell you the procedure by which they calculated the price. Don’t worry now as Websitestatschecker is not like the crowd. The highly accurate price is calculated of your website and the factors considered while valuating are also shown.  3. Webutation This website ranks well because it works fast, has a nice design and gives somewhere accurate information. Its feature is the social buzz which shows information from social networks so you can see what other people have to say about this website. Developers have done a great job to optimize this website and it loads very fast on any web browser. It is free as well as paid.

My first year as a flipped teacher, or a "flipper," has come to a close. And, I’m reminded more and more every day …as I am teaching summer school in a traditional lecture environment… why I decided to embrace the flipped classroom strategy, and why I won’t go back to the sage on the stage method. […] The post Reflections from my Flipped Classroom appeared first on Teaching with Technology.

Image courtesy of Alessandro Valli via Flickr Sean Dowling, an Educational Technology Coordinator, looks at using Edmodo as an alternative to blogs for running web-based English language courses. In my previous post, I discussed how blogs could be used to design, deliver and manage a complete English course. However, using blogs for this purpose has a number of potential weaknesses. First, blogging platforms don’t have in built assessment tools. Second, while the comment/reply feature of blogs does allow for some interaction between course participants, it can get a little unstructured if there are a lot of learning activities. Finally, student privacy is a concern. Fortunately, there are some free, web-based learning management systems (LMS) that help with these problems. One such LMS is Claco; however, my favourite, which I have been using for about four years, is Edmodo. Edmodo allows teachers to set up private, online learning environments for their students. On my blog, I posted the following learning module: Figure 1: Learning Module If the lesson was being done in face-to-face mode, the topic could be introduced with a general discussion about recycling before starting the reading activity. This could have been done on the blog using the comment/reply feature of the blog; however, as there are a lot of learning activities, these replies may become quite disorganized. I use the different Edmodo tools to break up the learning activities and allow for more interaction between participants. Notes and Polls I use these to get students thinking about the theme and start a conversation. I like the fact that the students aren’t just selecting an answer for the poll but also making comments. Notes and polls (and quizzes and assignments) can either be sent to the whole class, groups or to individual students. Figure 2: Note and replies Figure 3: Polling question and replies Notes can also be used to give students more information, for example to introduce a grammar point. Figure 4: Note with information about grammar Students can also post if they have a question or need to discuss something. Figure 5: Student note with helpful information Quizzes After reading and listening activities, students may need to do a comprehension quiz. The Edmodo quiz tool allows quizzes to be easily set up and offers features such as different question types, time limit, randomisation, and can be linked to the grade book. Figure 6: Quiz tool Assignments After writing activities or projects, students may need to submit work for grading. The Edmodo assignment tool allows assignments to be easily set up and linked to the grade book. Figure 7: Assignment tool Grade Book All assignments and quizzes can be linked to the grade book. Other nice features include the ability to award badges to students and exporting the grade book to a spreadsheet tool such as Excel. Students can also see their grades. Figure 8: Grade Book The above tools will help you make your online lesson more interactive. But Edmodo also has some other helpful tools. The Group tool allows you to group students into smaller working groups. Subscription and notification tools allow class participants to keep up to date with all new learning activities. The Planner tool allows you to highlight important dates and deadlines for your students. And the Library tool allows you to store and share all course related documents. While the above examples demonstrate how Edmodo can be used in a fully online English class, I have also used it extensively with my face-to-face students. My daughter’s teacher (year 6) also uses Edmodo with her classes, but as a supplement to regular classroom learning. My daughter will go to her Edmodo class when she is at home to check for homework, deadlines and other learning materials. It allows me, as a parent, to see how she is progressing.Filed under: Multimedia & Digital, Professional Development Tagged: Blended Learning, Bringing Technology into the Classroom, Connected Educators, Edmodo, EdTech, EFL, elearning, ESL, Learning Management System, Sean Dowling, Web tools

Ecommerce Forums help one to connect with experienced, like-minded store owners and ecommerce professionals online, all over. Forums are placed on websites to create a way of communication between others members that share the same interest. Some websites are completely forum based meaning there are no other pages other than the forums itself, this has become a great Idea among many developers, but in this case you need to attract a large community of members to your website that are willing to learn and share optics of each other’s interest. Forums mean nothing if you don’t have traffic or members, and having the proper forum design matching your website is a must. It also includes various online store owners to share knowledge and help each other grow their businesses.  An Ecommerce Forum on any website is an interaction platform that allows the sellers and viewers of the website to communicate with other sellers, buyers and viewers. Depending on the focus of commerce, the forum may be moderated differently (as per business). For example, if a store is about selling computer hardware, then the forum is likely to be geared towards topics involving computer hardware and very limited amount of posts would be geared towards other things. Topics that involve unrelated things are commonly referred to as Off Topic and are commonly given a separate section in the forum at a less visible place. The Ecommerce Forum is a powerful way to attract and keep visitors and buyers to an online store as they enable interaction among the visitors and in this way attract them to revisit the website in the future. Today, almost all established online stores will have some kind of discussion forums although the exact implementations of the Ecommerce Forums may differ depending on the tools used to setup the forums. Benefits of Ecommerce Forums: * Anyone can purchase his products or services online through e-commerce. * Gain New Customers with Search Engine Visibility. * Locate the Product or Services Quicker on e-commerce based online shopping portal. * Customers can purchase his products or services online on lower price than retailer /shop. * Ecommerce Forums reduce the travel time and cost as well. * Provide Comparison Shopping * Ecommerce Forums enable Deals, Bargains, Coupons, and Group Buying, etc. * It creates online markets for niche products. You can now easily put an Ecommerce Forum on your website for free. There are several websites who provide this service and have no charges at all. You will need to sign up on that website and get the forum from there for your website.

Every teacher knows what the rest of the world seems to misunderstand: TEACHERS DO NOT TAKE THE SUMMER "OFF." While not every teacher teaches summer school, or even gets paid during the summer months, teachers can rarely ever turn off their brains when it comes to preparing for classroom and curriculum … If you’re like […] The post Use Google Forms to Organize your Summer PD appeared first on Teaching with Technology.

Gabby Pritchard, co-author of the new kindergarten series, Show and Tell, offers some practical tips for making the most of creative craft activities in the very young learner English classroom. Craft activities are a fun and effective way of bringing a new language alive for young learners. They provide a great opportunity for children to use natural language in a real situation for a real purpose. They also help children develop a whole range of skills, including listening and speaking skills, visual literacy skills, social skills and motor skills, as well as encouraging them to think creatively and work cooperatively. Furthermore, children feel a real sense of achievement in completing and talking about the finished product. Careful planning is key to ensuring your children are able to make the most effective use of new language while working on their craft activity. Here are six easy ways to make sure your children are developing their language skills as well as enjoying their craft projects: 1. Put language at the center When choosing a craft project, ensure it springs naturally from the topic your class is studying. Consider carefully how new and review language patterns, as well as vocabulary, can be used. For example, if the language is prepositions of place and the children are making a model of a house with furniture, focus initially on vocabulary. Use known question forms such as What’s this? Is it a…? to prompt answers. Then, as the children place the furniture in rooms, ask Where is the…? prompting the children to answer with full sentences: It’s next to the bed. Extend this by playing a language game with the class when the project is complete. In this case it could be a guessing game in which they take turns to describe where something is without naming it. Finally, the children can describe their finished work. 2. Begin at the end Always begin by showing and talking about finished examples of the crafts. They illustrate the purpose of the activity clearly, and provide models for the children to work from. If the initial task involves making items that contribute to a bigger project, such as making animals for a farm, discuss how the children will contribute individually and also work together to finish the project. At this point, teach any new words they might need. 3. Lead by example Before the children begin their projects, demonstrate the process in simple stages. Include the children by asking them to name the materials you are using and discuss what the next stages should be. Invite children to come and act as helpers, modelling instructions and polite behavior with them. 4. Teach the language of instruction Be consistent with the instructions you use and build upon this throughout the year. Teach and encourage the children to use some new instructions each time they work on a new project. The language of instruction is very useful in a wide range of situations and the children will soon use these new words and phrases quite naturally in class. 5. Work together Organize some activities that require the children to work in pairs or small groups. For example, ask children to work in pairs to grow a plant. They can choose and plant seeds together and then track the development of the plant by taking photos or drawing pictures. The children can also present their finished project to the rest of the class together. Arrange the classroom so that children work in small groups at tables so they share equipment. Encourage them to use polite language as they work. Prompt them to transfer this language to other situations during the day, such as when preparing for snack time or tidying up. 6. Celebrate! Arrange for the children to present their work at assemblies and to parents through class displays. Invite parents into school to admire their children’s work or have the children take craft projects home so they can talk to their families in English about their work. Take a look at the craft activities at the end of each unit of Show and Tell. You will find plenty of ideas to try, from ‘feely’ pictures and sunny day balloons to a class picnic display, or even a whole model neighborhood. But most of all, have lots of fun and get messy!Filed under: Pre-school Children, Professional Development, Skills Tagged: 21st Century skills, Classroom activities, Communication skills, Crafts, Creativity, EFL, ELT, Gabby Pritchard, Kindergarten, Language learning, Pre-school children, Projects, Show and Tell, Speaking, Speaking in English

Hello, friends! I am so excited to bring you a guest post by Marcus Gollahon about the wonderful tool that is Chalkup. Have you had experience with Chalkup in your classroom? Be sure to let us know in the comments. Without further adieu, check out… Great Website to Host Your Flipped Classroom - Chalkup.co As […] The post How to Use Chalkup in Your Classroom appeared first on Teaching with Technology.

Charles Vilina and Kathleen Kampa, authors of the new Young Learners series, Oxford Discover, share teaching ideas on an important 21st Century skill: creativity. Creativity is intelligence having fun." Albert Einstein We’re very happy to be sharing our thoughts and ideas about creativity with you, because it is such a natural and motivating skill to develop in our young learners. Creative activities are fun and engaging for our students. They take learning far beyond the simple tasks of understanding and memorizing. In fact, it is the highest order thinking skill, as Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy illustrates below: Creativity is an essential skill (along with critical thinking, collaboration, and communication) that students need in order to be successful in the 21st Century. Creative students are better at making changes, solving new problems, expressing themselves through the arts, and more. How important is creativity? In one of his TED talks, education scholar Sir Ken Robinson says: Creativity now is as important in education as literacy. We should treat it with the same status." Creativity is a natural ability that is found in every young learner. Unfortunately, traditional classrooms don’t always value creativity, and sometimes even hold it back. Our role as teachers is to nurture creativity at every opportunity. Consider the following: Creativity develops when students are able to analyze the information they’ve learned, make new connections with that information, come up with new ideas, and evaluate their choices. To nurture creativity, students need the freedom to offer ideas and express themselves without judgment. In a creative classroom, all contributions from students are welcomed. Creativity requires the courage to make mistakes. Sir Ken Robinson states, "If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original." Creativity and innovation go hand-in-hand. David Hughes, founder of Decision Labs and professor at UNC Chapel Hill, feels that innovation is essential for our global economy. What are the qualities of a creative classroom? Teachers and students ask open-ended questions that encourage curiosity and creativity. Students brainstorm as many ideas as possible without fear of being judged or being wrong. Students then go on to choose the best ideas and improve upon them. Students demonstrate creativity not only individually, but with partners and in small groups. Ideas are generated and assessed collaboratively. Students lead the learning and work together to complete projects. These projects help students take the information they have learned and present it in new and creative ways. How can you nuture creativity in your classroom? Let’s look at some specific ways to nurture creativity in your classroom, starting with one of the building blocks of language learning: Phonics Learning about letter shapes and names can be creative! When your young learners are introduced to letters, try this activity to build their creativity. Write the letters one by one on the board and ask the following questions: Can you make the letter _(b)_ with your fingers? With your hands? With your whole body? With a partner? When you first do this task, you might model how students could do this. Think out loud. Let’s see. Letter b is round and straight. How about like this? Or like this? Then your students are ready to try their own ideas. Words Vocabulary words can be taught in many creative ways. For example, verbs such as walk, tiptoe, and skate can be learned more deeply by inviting students to move in creative ways. Questions might include: Show me what it’s like to walk in deep snow. Show me how you might walk on hot sand. Imagine that you’re tiptoeing past a sleeping polar bear. We’re on a frozen lake in Antarctica. Let’s skate with the penguins! As you can see, creativity and imagination are closely related. Other words such as nouns and adjectives can be presented creatively through facial expressions and body language, through movement, and even through dramatic skits. Grammar Grammar is often considered to be a logical and unimaginative part of English. However, grammar can be very creative as it is expressed in songs, poetry, and storytelling. Look for opportunities to build creative skills along with grammar skills. Here’s a fun and creative way to teach not only grammar and speaking skills, but math as well! It’s taken from Oxford Discover Student Book 2, Unit 8: The above activity combines the logical thinking from math with the imaginative thinking from poetry. Students have a great time substituting the animals and numbers in the poem with their own creative ideas, while at the same time presenting a logical math problem. Big Questions Oxford Discover offers an inquiry-based approach to learning that allows students to consider big questions with many answers. Students are allowed to come up with their own additional questions. This process is creative as well as motivating for students. Consider this Big Question from Oxford Discover Student Book 3: How do people have fun? Students explore the many ways that people have fun around the world. The discussion may turn to the subject of celebrations. Students may explore the following questions: What is a celebration? What are some ways that people celebrate around the world? What do people celebrate in your area? How do they celebrate? What is needed to make a celebration successful? As students explore these questions and find answers, they process the information by analyzing and evaluating what they have learned. Finally, they should be given an opportunity to create. One suggestion is to get students working together to plan a celebration. They must determine: What are we celebrating? What is our celebration called? Who is invited? How will we celebrate? What will we need to prepare? As students plan, they also create. Students might create a poster, gather materials for their celebration, or even write a short play. Finally, they share what they have planned with the rest of the class. In summary A creative classroom is a joyful and motivating place where children feel empowered to learn, where all ideas are welcomed, and where learning is deep and meaningful. Children who are allowed to be creative are better learners, and they are more aware of their own learning styles. Creativity is a lifelong skill that our students will take with them into their adult lives to solve problems and help build a better world. We’d like to conclude with a powerful quote from Robert Fisher in his IATEFL address entitled, "Expanding Minds: Developing Creative Thinking in Young Learners": What promotes creativity is a questioning classroom where teachers and pupils value diversity, ask unusual and challenging questions; make new connections; represent ideas in different ways - visually, physically and verbally; try fresh approaches and solutions to problems; and critically evaluate new ideas and actions." Thank you, and happy teaching! Would you like more practical tips on developing 21st Century skills in your children? Visit our site on Teaching 21st Century skills with confidence for free video tips, activity ideas and teaching tools. Sign up for a free webinar with Charles Vilina and Natasha Buccianti on How to use creativity in the classroom on 18 and 20 March 2014.Filed under: Professional Development, Skills, Young Learners Tagged: 21st Century skills, Charles Vilina, Creativity, EFL, ELT, English words, Grammar, Inquiry-based learning, Kathleen Kampa, Oxford Discover, Phonics, Speaking skills, Young Learners

Teachers, have you joined Twitter? If you, like my own momma, haven’t joined Twitter yet, please jump on the bandwagon! It’s free! It’s easy to use! It’s an AMAZING resource for teachers! If you’ve read my blog before then you know I was originally anti-Twitter. If you would have asked me two years ago why […] The post How to Expand Your Summer Learning with Twitter appeared first on Teaching with Technology.

Today’s question for the Q: Skills for Success authors: How would you answer Krashen’s assertion that teaching EAP is a "waste of time"? Cheryl Zimmerman 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 - What can I do to improve my relationship with difficult students who do not like to study English? #qskills - Could you recommend useful tips for teaching writing skills? #qskills - How can I teach a class where there is a huge gap in language proficiency among the students? #qskills - When should L1 be used in class? #qskills - Why are the four skills normally divided into listening & speaking and reading & writing? #qskills - How can I get my students to use smart devices in the classroom? #qskills - Do you have any advice for teaching technical English? #qskills - How do I motivate my students to speak English instead of their native language in class? Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Skills Tagged: Adult Learners, Cheryl Boyd Zimmerman, Difficult students, EAP, English for Academic Purposes, English Language, Q Skills for Success, Questions for Q authors, Stephen Krashen

Check out this newest guest post! Educational Trends in Online Courses The IT revolution and the computerization of the world have caused major changes in the educational trends, as well. Although going to elementary school is still compulsory, students can find information in dozens of ways. Also, many of them experience serious problems as a result of cumbersome […] The post Educational Trends in Online Courses - Guest Post appeared first on Teaching with Technology.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons 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 the presence of silent letters in English words and the problems they cause for spelling. Learning to speak another language is hard enough, but students of English have to deal with further issues when they come to the written form of the language, and they soon find that English words do not always look exactly how they sound. In a previous post I looked at the presence of double letters in some words as one of the causes of spelling difficulty. In this post I will look at another: the presence of ‘silent’ letters in some words. Why should knot be spelt with a ‘k’ when it is pronounced the same as not? And when we come to words such as knight and yacht we might begin to suspect that some letters are being entered for no other reason than to make it more difficult for non-native speakers to write the language. Just as we found when looked at double letters, the explanation for these silent letters usually lies in the history of a word. In words such as answer and walk, the silent letters were sounded in early forms of English, but as the language developed over many centuries it became easier to pronounce the word without sounding a particular letter. The sound changed but the silent letters remained as a ghostly (note the silent ‘h’) reminder of the original sound. Other words were borrowed from languages that use sound patterns that seem unnatural to English speakers, and so the sound of the word was changed to something they found easier to say. This is why we don’t pronounce the first letter of pneumonia (which was borrowed from Greek) or the last letter of sheikh (which was borrowed from Arabic). Silent letters can certainly be awkward, but I can offer a few tips for dealing with them. Firstly, note that some silent letters are actually not silent in related words. So it will help learners to remember the silent ‘g’ in sign if they can relate it to signature or the silent ‘n’ in condemn if they know condemnation. Secondly, some silent letters reveal themselves when you break down a word into its basic parts. The silent ‘p’ in cupboard (and the entire spelling of the word) can be seen if you think that this piece of furniture was originally a ‘cup board’. Similar cases include extraordinary (extra + ordinary) and shepherd (she(e)p + herd). Thirdly, note that if one word contains a silent letter, related words will have the same silent letter. So the silent ‘c’ that appears in ascend is also found in the related words ascent, descend, and descent. As a last resort, for words that learners find especially difficult, you can make up a memory aid or mnemonic (note the silent opening letter!) to spell out the word. One of my favourites is that you spell rhythm from the initial letters of the sentence ‘rhythm helps you to hear music’. Know any more?Filed under: Dictionaries & Reference, Grammar & Vocabulary Tagged: English Language, English spelling, Etymology, Grammar, Ian Brookes, OALD, Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, Silent letters, Word sounds

Thank you so much to everyone who came to my session at the Southeast EdTech Conference today! The link to the presentation from today is available on the "Professional Development Training Tools" page on this site. Thanks again! The post Southeast EdTech Conference appeared first on Teaching with Technology.

We’re helping to solve your EFL teaching problems by answering your questions every two weeks. This week, Stacey Hughes responds to Susanna’s blog comment about monitoring pair work. Susanna wrote: I wonder what the best way is to monitor pair work effectively. I use pair work because it helps students get used to speaking; however, I am aware that they may be making a lot of mistakes which I don’t have the opportunity to correct. Not all students are willing or able to correct their partner’s errors. Have you any advice on how to ‘listen in’ to six pairs of speakers?" Susanna’s question is a common one: we put our students in pairs to discuss a topic, but we can’t monitor what they are saying, so we don’t know if they are making mistakes that we need to correct. To answer the question, we first need to establish why we ask students to discuss something in pairs to begin with. At the heart of the matter is whether the purpose of the pair work activity is for speaking practice. The majority of the time, the purpose of discussion in pairs is for students to get more practice speaking in English, to build their fluency. In this case we need to ask ourselves: Do I need to correct every problem? Since pair work discussion is primarily for fluency, not accuracy, the best thing to do is to let the students communicate with each other without the interference of the teacher. This can make some teachers (and students) uncomfortable. They may feel like they aren’t doing their ‘job’ properly if they aren’t correcting or seen to be correcting. Here are some tips for pair work: 1.Outline the benefits of pair work Make it clear to the students when they are meant to be practicing their accuracy and when they are meant to be working on fluency. Better yet, make the communication task so engaging that students will want to try to contribute something meaningful to the conversation. 2.Encourage clarification-seeking Teach students some communication strategies such as asking for clarification (Sorry, did you mean….?; Can you explain….please?) and checking understanding (Do you see what I mean?). These phrases can be posted on the wall for students to refer to during communication activities. 3. Let them talk Students need to learn to solve communication problems on their own - this is part of the learning speaking process. They also need to learn to do it on their own - to build their confidence in their speaking abilities. 4. Monitor but don’t interfere One strategy many teachers use is eavesdropping - listen to the conversations and make a note of any important errors or vocabulary issues. Make a note of good use of language, too. At the end of the activity, write the mistakes on the board (without saying who said the sentence!) and get the students to correct. This will be much more memorable to the students than stopping them in mid thought will be, when their focus is on trying to get their message out. By doing it at the end, students can be more focused on correcting the mistake.  Be sure to point out any good language use so that students can also see what they did right! 5. Develop your eavesdropping technique If you are standing near one pair, listen to another. Do this so that the pair you are nearest doesn’t get nervous and stop talking. 6. Answer student questions quickly, then move away If a student has a question about how to say something, help him or her out, then move on so that the pair can continue their conversation. 7.Let them know that mistakes are OK Teach students the importance of trying to say something even if it’s not completely accurate. Some students don’t want to say anything unless it is correct. This may mean they are accurate, but not able to say much at all. Help them understand the importance of getting their message across. Make sure the classroom is a ‘safe’ place to try out language and make mistakes. 8. Ask students to reflect on their own performance After the activity, ask students to make a note of anything they wanted to say but couldn’t. At this point you can help them create the phrase they needed. Ask students if they noticed when they made a mistake and if they were able to self-correct at any time. This kind of reflection on performance can help students be more self-aware and independent. Invitation to share your ideas Do you have anything to add on the subject of monitoring pair work? We’d love to hear from you! You can respond directly to this blog by leaving a comment below.  You can also take part in our live Facebook chat on Thursday 6th March from 12:00 - 13:00 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 Tagged: #EFLproblems, EFL, Error correction, Fluency, Pair work, Peer correction, Professional Development, Speaking skills, Stacey Hughes, Teaching problems, Working in pairs

A while ago I wrote about using Evernote. Here is a link to a great video on the blog of Mister Norris. It talks about using Evernote for researching the IB extended essay. While you are there, check out some of the other posts on his blog. In particular I like his post on Open Online Portfolios. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Schools www.freetechforschools.com

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons Marie Delaney is a teacher, trainer, educational psychotherapist, and author of ‘Teaching the Unteachable’ (Worth). She will be hosting a webinar entitled "Teaching Students with attention, concentration and hyperactivity difficulties" on 11th and 14th March. Here, she explores some of the themes of the upcoming webinar. Imagine being in a crowded shopping centre, music blaring, people shouting, laughing, talking excitedly all around you, traffic whizzing by, flashing neon signs, … and sitting in the middle of this chaos, trying to learn a foreign language. This is what it is like for some learners in our classrooms. Information and ideas bombard their brains and they find it impossible to focus on one thing. Joachim, a learner says. It’s as if every room in my brain has the lights on, I don’t know which room to go into first, in case I miss something important in another room." Teaching these learners can make us feel quite agitated and stressed. Agata, a teacher says Teaching Maja gives me a headache, she is like a spinning top, never stopping. I lose my own focus when talking to her." The behaviour of these learners usually falls into one or more of the following categories: Inattention They are easily distracted They cannot pay attention to detail They do not seem to listen or follow instructions They forget things all the time Hyperactivity They fidget and squirm They constantly leave their seat They seem constantly ‘on the go’ as if driven by a motor Impulsivity They shout out They cannot wait their turn They often express emotions inappropriately Some of these learners might have been diagnosed with ADHD. However, there are many possible reasons for this type of behaviour. If we can try to understand the underlying reasons and identify the needs of the learner, we can find teaching strategies to support them. Possible reasons for the behaviour They might be tired or hungry They might be preoccupied about outside worries or feel unsafe in class They might lack confidence and be anxious about their ability to do the work They might not understand the classroom rules They might have difficulties with executive functioning - the part of the brain which we use to think and solve problems. This also includes the internal voice, the voice we use to self-regulate They might have difficulties with working memory - holding information in our minds long enough to act on it Identification of needs and teaching strategies This leads us to the following learner needs and possible teaching strategies: The need to feel safe and secure Have a few clear classroom rules and remind learners of them Have a clear reward system; involve the learners in the design Set clear time limits for work; give warnings when time is nearly over Have a worry box for learners to post their concerns to the teacher Sit the learner near the teacher, away from distractions such as windows, heaters Allow the learner to go to a designated quiet area if the classroom gets too stressful Use visual prompts and timetables The need to build self-esteem Notice and praise when the learner is on-task and behaving appropriately Focus on the learner’s strengths Send home good reports Encourage study buddies The need for help with self-regulation Use individual laminated whiteboards for learners to show their answers rather than shouting out Allow the learner to work with headphones on or to imagine wearing headphones to cut out distractions Above all, do not give up with these learners, they will benefit from your perseverance! For other ideas on meeting the needs of these learners, particularly with regard to executive functioning and working memory, join my forthcoming webinar on 11th and 14th March entitled "Teaching Students with attention, concentration and hyperactivity difficulties".Filed under: Professional Development, Teenagers, Young Learners Tagged: ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Discorder, Executive functioning, Inclusive learning, Marie Delaney, Primary and Secondary methodology, SEN, Special education, Special Educational Needs, Webinar, Working memory

Teachers often complain about not having enough time to learn new skills with all the planning and marking that goes with the job. Under Ten Minutes is a fantastic website which aims to tackle this. It's aims are similar to this site. Just like Free Technology for Schools, it lets people submit content, however it is focused on short instruction videos on how to use technology, both free and paid for. The only stipulation is that if the video is about a paid-for prodoct, it cannot be a sales pitch. Do you have 10 minutes to spare during your teaching day? If so, why not check it out and learn how to use some technology you've never used before, or if you are an expert, why not submit a video and help your fellow teachers. 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 help students that have a hard time learning the language (despite their effort)? Charl Norloff 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 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? #qskills - Could you recommend useful tips for teaching writing skills? #qskills - How can I teach a class where there is a huge gap in language proficiency among the students? #qskills - When should L1 be used in class? #qskills - Why are the four skills normally divided into listening & speaking and reading & writing? #qskills - How can I get my students to use smart devices in the classroom? #qskills - Do you have any advice for teaching technical English? #qskills - How do I motivate my students to speak English instead of their native language in class? Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Skills Tagged: Adult Learners, Charl Norloff, EAP, English for Academic Purposes, English Language, Language learning, Q Skills for Success, Questions for Q authors, Struggling students

When I first started blogging I new very little about html and code in general. I still don't which is why I am hoping to start code academy in my school so that I can learn myself. What little code I have learned has come from experimenting on Free Tech for Schools, making changes and then previewing to see the effect, occasionally completely messing the whole thing up before having to restore from back-up! The new html editor has several improvements, including each line of code being numbered and being able to jump to the code for widgets and identify which code relates to each widget. If you are just starting with blogging and don't know anything about html, this is a good way to practice and learn a bit. Download a free blogger template that you like and then start playing with the code. You'll be surprised at what you can do. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Schools www.freetechforschools.com

Today’s question for the Q: Skills for Success authors: How do I manage disruptive behaviour in class? Charl Norloff 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 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? #qskills - Could you recommend useful tips for teaching writing skills? #qskills - How can I teach a class where there is a huge gap in language proficiency among the students? #qskills - When should L1 be used in class? #qskills - Why are the four skills normally divided into listening & speaking and reading & writing? #qskills - How can I get my students to use smart devices in the classroom? #qskills - Do you have any advice for teaching technical English? #qskills - How do I motivate my students to speak English instead of their native language in class? Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Skills Tagged: Adult Learners, Behaviour, Charl Norloff, Disruptive behaviour, EAP, English for Academic Purposes, English Language, Language learning, Q Skills for Success, Questions for Q authors

This is a guest post by Christopher Pappas. Christopher is the founder and owner of the Instructional Design and eLearning Professionals’ Group (44K+) (http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=110953), which is the largest online community of professionals involved in the eLearning Industry at LinkedIn. Christopher holds an MBA, and an M.Ed. (Learning Design) from BGSU and currently works as project manager at http://www.learn-e-pedia.gr S.A. (Antenna Group of Companies), which is the largest interactive learning platform from Greek-speaking students and learners across the Globe. This is not a paid endorsement by Free Technology for Schools and the opinions expressed below are those of Christopher Pappas. I am great fan of open source educational technologies and in general free educational resources. In case that you are a teacher, school leader, and or administrator, and you are interested in learning how to use or master educational technologies an excellent free solution is Viva eLearning (http://vivaelearning.com)Viva eLearning has more than 1000 free video tutorials in popular educational technologies such as Moodle, eFront, Articulate Storyline, Camtasia, Captivate, Snagit, etc. You can join Viva eLearning for free with your email or Facebook account and upload your favorite free video tutorials with a really simply process. However, you do not need to be a member to watch the free video tutorials for educational technologies.So, the questions is "Do you support free video tutorials for educational technologies?" If yes, help us build the largest collection of free video tutorials. Share the knowledge! This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Schools www.freetechforschools.com

How can you create your own material? What do you need? What would you include? How long would it take? Charl Norloff, co-author of Q: Skills for Success Reading/Writing 4, looks at how to supplement a textbook with your own materials. Published materials are useful tools for busy teachers as they provide appropriately-leveled lessons and activities carefully crafted to provide optimum practice for students. However, most teachers feel the need to create their own materials for their classes at some time. This is something that you can do with time and some practice, and it doesn’t have to be time-consuming or require a lot of supplies. Whether you make copies of your teacher-made materials for students, use technology to project them, or even simply write them on the board, depends on your situation, but here are some tips to consider when creating your own materials: Start by asking yourself what the purpose of the activity will be What is the objective of the lesson and which skills are you teaching? Try to write a student learning outcome, i.e., what do you want your students to be able to do after using the materials? The clearer you are about what you want the outcome to be, the better your chances of creating effective materials for your students. Keep it simple Don’t make the exercise or activity too complicated and keep the directions brief and clear. Consider how much time you will spend on the activity for which you are developing the materials. If it takes too much time to set up or is too difficult, it may not be worth the time spent. Ask yourself how to get the maximum engagement from your students and the most practice in the simplest and most time-efficient way. Personalize your content The biggest advantage of, and a reason for, creating your own materials is that you can use the context of your students and their personal lives and stories to make the materials memorable and meaningful to your students, so make your materials about your students and your community as much as possible. Invest more time and thought into content than appearance Your materials don’t have to look professional. Strive for materials that help the students use the language to communicate with each other. Try the materials out yourself Once you’ve created your materials, try them yourself to make sure they are doing what you want them to. If students are reading something, can they answer the questions without reading? If students are supposed to write using a particular grammar structure, does the prompt require the use of the structure? If the materials don’t work for you, they won’t work for your students. Try the materials with your students Finally, use your materials with your students. They probably won’t be perfect, but that’s OK. Make notes on what worked and what didn’t so you can adapt them if necessary for the next time. The more you create materials to fit your class and your students, the better you will become at it. Teacher-created materials can be a great way to supplement your textbooks. Have you created materials to use in class? How successful were they?Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Professional Development, Skills Tagged: Charl Norloff, Creating your own materials, EAP, English for Academic Purposes, Q Skills for Success, Questions for Q authors, Student learning outcomes, Teacher-created materials

The other day through my network on twitter I stumbled across an interesting post on Will Richardson's blog. For those of you unfamiliar with Will, he wrote the excellent book called Why School. Will has been asked to make a documentary called "Why School?" Will is looking for helpers on this project from production and promotion through to filming editing and marketing. He is really keen to tap in to the power of the educational network. If you are interested in taking part in this project (I know I am!), register your interest on this form. I think this has the potential to be huge. Imagine if it were to become as big as Super Size Me? It could be a real driver for change and policy makers might just begin to listen if it resonates with the general public. Get involved! This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Schools www.freetechforschools.com