Teacher Training Forum

I Want To Learn English. As A Foreign Language!

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 14:41:00 +0000

I've been busy. Occupied. Away. But now I'm back.

I noticed my poor old Teacher Training Blog was feeling a bit sorry for itself, so... I decided to revive it!

Here's a funny video to get things going again - I hope you like it.

So while I revamp the blog, you enjoy the vid, ok?!

And... see you soon down on the Teacher Training Forum.

BCNU.

Sab
Your Fun English Teacher

(Your Students Will LOVE Our 33 Top English Tips - FREE!)

Oh yes. I have a new site. It's called Fun English Lessons. Check it out. It's really good :-D Thanks...

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Sab Will is a teacher, teacher trainer, fanatical blogger... and stuff.

Top Six Facebook Teaching Tips

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 23:40:00 +0000

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Six of the Best

Facebook is huge. Almost a billion people have accounts and many of them are very active. Not only that, and unlike Google, for example, people go to Facebook to stay on Facebook - the statistics are crazy.

So, the odds are a lot of your students have Facebook accounts and use them regularly. How then to exploit this? How to make use of this fabulously motivating resource and great opportunity to meet your students half-way between their English learning and their out-of-class activities and interests. Here are a few ideas... Feel free to add to them in the comments if you wish.

1) Wanna Be In My Gang?
Create a Facebook group and get all your students to join. Then give them class projects to do and post to the group so everyone can see them. Topics could include writing film reviews, sharing favourite You Tube videos, saying why they like them, and chatting about interesting or unusual Pages on Facebook itself.

2) Lies, Damn Lies and...
Get students to choose two or three of their favourite singers, film stars or sports stars and search for their Facebook pages. Set them a series of questions regarding number of 'Likes', average number of comments each post gets and how often the page owner posts in a typical week or month. Then get them to compare the different pages using comparatives and superlatives. A further exercise could be to take some of the English comments and translate them into their own language if the teacher is familiar with it. Posting their own comments in English would be another obvious option.

3) Battle of the Titans
Students prepare a presentation comparing Facebook and Twitter (and optionally Google+), looking at the strong points of each and finally summarising and concluding by saying which they personally prefer and why. A further activity could be their videoing their presentation, putting it on You Tube and then including it in a post to the group created in 1) above. Try Googling 'Facebook vs Twitter infographic' to get some useful data for this exercise.

4) Nine Out Of Ten Students...
Prepare a poll using the 'Ask Question' feature. The question can be anything from who their favourite pop stars are to a serious grammar, punctuation or spelling challenge. This allows students to think about the answer carefully, and also see what the others are answering too. I can't remember but you might be able to change your answer (i.e. your mind) as time goes on and you realise a mistake. The logical extension of this activity is for the students to create their own polls on topics given by the teacher or invented themselves. Fun for all the family.

5) Like Me, Love Me
Any of the thousands of on-line ELT resource sites worth their salt, Hotch Potch English included, now have their own Facebook pages. They generally provide regular links to free English exercises and items of interest so you could give the names of a few of the best ones to your students to encourage them to study and surf in English away from the more formal learning atmosphere of the classroom. Start with Fun English Lessons (my for-students page) and I'll give you a gold star for effort and another for enthusiasm!

6) Facebook Snakes & Ladders
Create a snakes and ladders type board game with squares relating to typical good and bad things which happen in the world of Facebook. Good things - to move you on a few squares - could include getting 10 'Likes', receiving a positive comment and choosing the correct answer in a Facebook grammar poll. Bad things - to move you back a few squares - might be Facebook taking ages to refresh, refusing a post for a bad word or naughty image or getting too much spam in your comments. This should be both fun and also recycling and practising common social media phrases and situations. And if the teacher is thought of as terribly cool for having invented it all, so much the better!

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Sab Will is a teacher, teacher trainer, fanatical blogger... and stuff.

Six Quick Lesson Ideas For Starting Your First English Lesson

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 21:31:00 +0000

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Six of the Best

These quick English lesson ideas are for anyone starting with a new group or starting a new school year. They could (almost) just as easily be used in your first ever English lesson, although hopefully you'll have had some sort of training beforehand!

So in the spirit of all good 'top ten' lists, here's mine for this coming academic year, or whenever. Everything is straight off the top of my head so a real mish-mash, a 'hotch potch', if you will. Comments, as ever, are more than welcome.

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1) Tripping
Take a trip out of the class (if possible) or failing that get the students to look out of the window and name everything they can see. Give them letters which words must start with, to make it harder. Give them random words like 'but', 'seven', 'green' etc. and they have to make sentences (e.g. It is sunny but it is cold. / I can see seven trees. / The grass and the leaves and Maria's skirt are green.). Give them examples first!

2) Today I Feel...
Write 'Today I feel...' on the board. Invite students to come to the front of the class and complete the sentence. For example, Today I feel... hungry, nervous, happy, sad, nervous, excited, like an ice cream... Choose any sentence you think would produce some fun responses, such as Today I want..., Today I will..., Yesterday I..., This year I am going to..., etc. Then ask students more about what they wrote, focusing on the content of what they are saying, not correcting mistakes.

3) Questions For Answers
My personal favourite. Put the answers to some imagined questions up on the board. For example '47' (How old are you?), 'Edinburgh' (Where were you born?), 'running' (What is your favourite sport?), etc. The questions you are looking for should be at the appropriate level for the class and the facts should be about you, the teacher. This allows students to get to know you a little. Students can then do the same activity with their neighbours about themselves.

4) Find Someone Who
One of the real classics which always works well if the activity is guaged at the right level. Give students a handout where they have to find someone who has done certain things. The question form is 'Have you ever...? For example, 'Have you ever visited Italy?', 'Have you ever written a poem?', 'Have you ever eaten a snail?'. For lower levels the questions can be in the past tense: What did you do this morning / yesterday evening / yesterday morning / last weekend / last summer, etc. Or simply a questionaire for the students to get to know each other better: What's your name? What's your address? How old are you? What's your favourite sport? etc.

5) Class Objectives
On a more abstract level, get students to discuss their objectives and requests for the lessons they will be having with you. For children this could be a list of things which will go to make a successful class (from which you can extract some sort of 'class rules' list collaboratively with them. For adults a more professional set of aims will arise but the principle is still quite close to the kids' lists: what they expect to happen in order for them to reach their goals, which will help you to plan your lessons accordingly. Get them to discuss the order and importance of the items in order to produce a 'top ten' list which can even be put on the wall for future reference.

6) Random Presentations
Start by giving a random two-minute presentation yourself on your favourite sport, meal, place or whatever. Divide it into three clear parts, such as: Rollerblading - a) Equipment needed and cost; b) Where you can do it; c) Why you love it. Introduce the three sections at the beginning and sum up at the end. Ask for questions about it at the end. Then give the students some time to do exactly the same with their favourite hobby or interest. There is no judging, no marking and lots of interest and questions. This is guaranteed to be a winner and even the most timid should be willing to present when they realise they are not being assessed. Make them stand up at the front for confident groups, and just do it where they are sitting for less advanced or nervous students.

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There! I managed six fun activities - more lesson ideas than lesson plans, I admit - without looking in a book or killing myself to do so. Just don't ask me for a seventh - I think that's all I've got! Feel free to contribute your own ideas or variation on things which work particularly well for you in the comments section, and good luck - have a great one.

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Sab Will is a teacher, teacher trainer, fanatical blogger... and stuff.

Top Six Twitter Teaching Tips

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 13:42:00 +0000

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Six of the Best

Twitter's everywhere, everyone's got it, but some don't know what to do with it. Or what it really is. Or whether it's genuinely interesting or the biggest waste of time yet invented by man.

In the world of teaching with Twitter the jury's still out but here, inspired by a seminar I attended by Petra Pointner at a Pearson Longman open day, I offer you my Top Six Twitter Teaching Tips. Actually, they're all I've got, but they'll do for the moment. Feel free to add to them in the comments if you wish.

1) International Conference
I loved Petra's idea about getting someone you know - a colleague in another country would be ideal - and having a 'live session' with them using Twitter. You create a #hashtag for the session and chat away. An interview format would work well, asking questions of this exotic stranger. They could even pretend they are someone famous. Or the students could take on famous personas too. In a classroom this would probably have to be done on one central computer projected onto the wall or complete chaos could break out.

2) As Tom Cruise Said To Me...
Famous people tweet, and anyone can read them, this is a fact. So why not choose a popular and prolific tweeter and print out some of their choicest tweets for analysis and other language work in class? And of course it's Twitter we're talking about here, so you can tweet back and who knows, maybe even get an answer! Each member of the class could compose a 140 character response to famous Tweeters' tweets and see who comes up with the funniest.

3) Build Your PLN
The PLN (Personal Learning Network) is a huge buzzword in geeky teachy circles at the moment. I've finally come to the conclusion that it's just a bunch of people you know or have heard of who are interesting to follow or work with from time to time. All well and good. So what about if students created one of these too. Starting with each other and their teacher. They could then start following some interesting Tweeters - those who give instant content such as 'word of the day' posters, for example. Tweets should remain heavily English-focused or again chaos could come a-calling and you end up with a Particularly Loathsome Nuisance, or words to that effect.

4) Follow That Tweet
One of the main things people use Twitter for is to share links to websites. And to discover interesting sites in this way. So it makes sense for students to click on a few links and see where they lead. When they discover a particularly interesting site relating to the English language or not, they write a report about it, post it on the internet somewhere if they are able to do this (like on their personal or class blog), and post a tweet with a link to it for everyone to read and follow for themselves. This would be great for homework, it seems to me.

5) ~~Linguistic Analysis~~ Twitter Bingo
You could get all serious and analyse Tweets on a fast-moving channel for parts of speech: verbs, nouns, prepositions etc. It could be turned into a game of bingo with students having cards and looking out for particular types of words or actual words. You could use categories to look out for such as food, clothes, numbers, colours, animals, actors, politicians and so on. This may or may not work - I haven't tried it yet - and you may have to carefully construct a list of bloggers whom you know will produce the sort of language you're looking for.

6) Find Poetic Fame ~~& Fortune~~
Well, no, probably not, but the challenge of writing something meaningful and coherent in 140 characters is considerable. Having said that, the popular haiku form of poetry uses only seventeen syllables and still manages to say something. You know, "Clouds appear and bring - to men a chance to rest from - looking at the moon", that sort of thing. And 17 syllables fit easily into 140 characters so what's holding you back? And of course there are a ton of Tweeting haikuers out there to follow and interpret, although haiku itself is supposed to be extremely easy to understand. It needn't stop (or start) with poetry though. What about short movie or book reviews, for example. Or a diary entry. Or a question. All in best English, naturally. Now, where's that moon gone..?

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Sab Will is a teacher, teacher trainer, fanatical blogger... and stuff.

Cambridge CELTA Course: Top 6 Classic Worries

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 15:53:00 +0000

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If you are doing a Cambridge CELTA or similar TEFL certificate – four intensive weeks including at least 6 hours of teaching practice – there’s something you need to know. You’re not alone. If you’re feeling fairly confident it may be that someone else is too. If, however, you are nervous and possibly doubtful as to whether you can ‘be a teacher’ or not, it’s likely that you are in the majority. And some people positively dread the idea of standing up in front of a class and speaking. Let me give you the first of several lists which hopefully will help you overcome these fears…

1) My English Is Crap
You do, and always will, speak English far better than everyone in your English class (assuming you’re a native speaker, of course). This sounds blindingly obvious, but a lot of people seem to forget or belittle this fact. But it’s true. OK, you need to be a good teacher too, but you’re starting from a position of strength and your students themselves may be more nervous than you are…

2) The Trainer’s A Weirdo
Your trainer may, just possibly, and I’m not suggesting for a moment this is a common occurrence… be an idiot. There seems to be something curious about being a TEFL trainer. It’s a strange position of pathos mixed with power which can sometimes produce unexpected results. Anyway, to cut a long story short, there are some weirdos out there but what normally happens in those cases are that a rock solid class camaraderie quickly develops and you get through it anyway. But be warned.

3) Grammar Does My Head In
One of the things that preoccupies many trainees the most is grammar. They worry that they won’t be up to scratch or won’t be able to explain things properly. And this is a genuine concern. However, if you’ve been accepted on the course this means, in principle, that you are fit for the job or you shouldn’t be there. The simple fact is any normally literate person should be able to grasp a few fundamentals about the language even if they haven’t been in a classroom for many years. Don’t worry about it. And read a grammar book before the course – there are plenty to choose from.

4) I’m Too Old For All This
It seems to me that a large proportion of TEFL Certificate candidates are not about to start their first job. Some are students simply adding to their credentials or hoping for an easy way to tour the world, but many are hoping to start a second or third career well into middle age and are worried about it. Very worried. For some it’s a last stab at a new start before they become too old – in their eyes – for anything. Rest assured. Not only is teaching English to non-native speakers surprisingly easy to get into, but it’s also one of the few careers where somewhat advanced years and accumulated business experience is often looked upon very favourably indeed, especially in the professional world.

5) Which @*¿X#! Course Is Best?
If you want a qualification where no questions are asked (well, they will be, but you know what I mean), the Cambridge CELTA is the gold standard. The Trinity certificate is similar. Then there are three or four types of course to consider, or not. The first are the highly reputable ones with serious trainers who produce teachers to the CELTA standards. The second are the unfortunately prolific cowboy outfits with low or non-existent standards and results to match. And finally there are the on-line options with or without a face to face element or teaching practice, and a handful of weekend courses if you must. The simple fact is you should choose your certificate course extremely carefully, including the trainers and the syllabus, even if it’s Cambridge, but especially if it isn’t. Check testimonials but also some of the many on-line forums where ex- or former trainees discuss their experiences very frankly indeed.

6) My Confidence And Personality Suck
Well, maybe (you think) they do, and it's true that these are important aspects of being a teacher. Many people fear that they don’t have the right character for the job, especially if they are coming from a non-related field. This is something to work on, but there are as many types of teacher as there are teachers, and each brings a unique combination of qualities to their teaching environment. There’s room for all sorts out there, or rather in there, the classroom, where the door’s closed and you are the boss. Teaching practice on TEFL courses is about as unrealistic as you can get, with all those people watching you! You create the mood and the learning atmosphere in your real-world class without external interference and who’s to say yours won’t be the best there’s ever been?!

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Sab Will is a teacher, teacher trainer, fanatical blogger... and stuff.

Top 100 English Words

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 07:04:00 +0000

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About This List

This list was taken from a search done on the British National Corpus of spoken and written English. The spoken aspect is often ignored which is a shame because this is exactly what a vast number of students want to improve in and have great problems with.

I've just included the top 10 written and spoken English words here but you can down load a free pdf I've put together with the top 50s of each. I'd have done both top 100s, but boy is that a labour of love or what!

I've also given little example sentences for each word and recorded the whole thing - more love and labour, I can tell you!

Here's a link to my list - left click to open or right click and chose 'Save As' to save to your computer. You need to save and then open as a pdf in order to get the recordings to open in a new window I'm afraid.

Top 100 Most Common Words - PDF

Pithy Observations

The main observations we can make are:

Spoken and written English are not the same
Some spoken ‘words’ like ‘erm’ and ‘mm’ do not occur in written English
We need different English words for different circumstances
Written English is not enough for effective English speaking
Many common written words are less important when speaking

Ideas for Teachers and Students

Here are some ideas for using this list in learning English:

Get students to guess the top ten words themselves
Learn the words by heart
Listen before reading and try to understand everything
Listen and repeat aloud until the accent is perfect
Do a dictation: listen, write everything down and then check
Read aloud to a friend and they write
Create new sentences using the key words
Write a story including some or all of the key words
Print out and cut up the words and use in card games
Spell the words aloud and students have to give the example sentence
Students test each other: A) says word; B) says sentence
Give top ten sentences – students put in order
Students give parts of speech for each word
Stop recording at random; students guess what comes next
Students analyse a newspaper article and look for top written words
Students analyse a radio recording and listen for top spoken words
Students write a short diary entry without using the top 10 written words
Students give a presentation without using the top 10 spoken words
Your ideas are welcome!

Top 10 Most Common Words List

Top 100 Most Common Words - PDF

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Sab Will is a teacher, teacher trainer, fanatical blogger... and stuff.

So What is Teaching Anyway?

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 22:13:00 +0000

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Sab: So, what is 'teaching' anyway?
T1: Well, it's... teaching people things, isn't it?

Sab: Teaching people what?
T2: Things they don't know!

Sab: And why would you want to do that?
T3: To help them.

Sab: Help them what?
T3: Help them know things they don't know!

Sab: And why would you want to do that?
T2: Because it will make their lives better.

Sab: In what way?
T1: In a lot of ways, maybe getting a new job, or more money or more respect...
T4: Or a new girlfriend!

Sab: Right! And what do you think it takes to be a good teacher?
T5: You have to love your subject.

Sab: Why do you say that?
T5: Because if you like your subject you are more enthusiastic, and your lessons are more interesting.

Sab: OK, what else?
T6: You need to like your students.

Sab: How do you mean?
T6: Well, if you like them as people, and know a bit about them, they will like you too and want to do well in your classes.

Sab: Does everyone agree with that?
T4: Yes, but also you have to be a good teacher, I mean, if someone is messing around you have to know how to deal with that or the lesson won't be so good. So you need good classroom management skills...
T5: And good people skills too.

Sab: Right! So, T7 - I see you've been listening closely to this discussion - can you sum up what teaching is about?
T7: Yes, it's really about helping people to learn new things which will be useful to them and make their lives better.

Sab: Great! And what are some of the things that go to make up a good teacher?
T8: I'd say it's a combination of being good at teaching and organising a class, also really liking the subject you're teaching, and then enjoying getting to know your students as people too a little bit.

Sab: Fantastic, and finally, can any of you tell me one great technique for helping your students to think and learn for themselves?
T1: Asking questions!

Sab: Why do you say that..?

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Sab Will is a teacher, teacher trainer, fanatical blogger... and stuff.

Call For Cool Article Submissions

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 17:29:00 +0000

We get material, you get (more) famous!

And you can't say fairer than that.

As part of the relaunch of the Teacher Training Forum here at Hotch Potch English we're doing something very special.

Holding an on-line scratch 'n' sniff BBQ? No! Giving away free copies of incredible teaching books? No!! (That happens over on our ELT Resources Review blog). Offering dodgy teaching jobs all over the world? No!!!

What we are doing is opening up these pages to great ELT writers of all shapes and surprises. Here's a 'how it works' six of the best:

You read some past articles to get to know our style
You decide you love our style
You send an idea or a finished 500-1000 word article roughly in said super-style
We publish it and you get (even more) famous
We both get loads of readers and comments
A nice warm feeling is felt by all and the rest, as they say, is history

Sound good to you? OK! Just a couple more points then, as a Q & A this time (variety is the spice of life - and blog writing - right?!).

Q: Do I keep the rights to my article?

A: Oh yes, every last one of them.

Q: Do I get paid?

A: No. Neither do I! The words 'labour' and 'love' come to mind.

Q: Can I submit something I have already had published elsewhere?

A: If you have the right to do so, absolutely.

Q: Could I eventually have several pieces published or do a series?

A: Sure, if they fit in with what our readers are enjoying reading.

Q: Who should it appeal to?

A: A global audience of new or experienced teachers interested in staying up to date with developments in the industry and improving themselves through learning new ideas, tips and tricks. Specifically, teachers tend to read our articles in their free time, so they should be both informative and entertaining as much as possible. Lists of key points on your topic are particularly popular and successful (hint hint)...

Q: What format should I send my work in?

A: Simple text is best, either in word format or in an e-mail.

Q: Any other tips?

A: Keep the profile of a typical Cambridge CELTA or DELTA trainee in mind when choosing your topic and you shouldn't go far wrong. Or failing that any enthusiastic, forward-thinking teacher you know.

This idea is very much about mutual benefit, and I hope that's obvious from the above. The aim is to bring as much useful and often fun activities and information to our readers as possible whilst getting a large number of new readers to discover your work.

You will find that my editorial process is very different from a ~~stuffy~~ serious academic journal or even a teaching newsletter. I'm looking for a fresh, enthusiastic and personable writing voice, with a fun aspect coming through if at all possible.

Having said that, I want quality content, just as good or better than that you might find in similar publications. I want to offer great stuff with added personality, not run-of-the-mill banality with added fluff. Hopefully you get where I'm coming from.

Don't worry, your submissions don't have to be wild and wacky, just well-written, original content on a topic you feel strongly about and believe you have something to say on - that'll do nicely.

We have a great family and feel here on this blog and I'd like to grow that as rapidly as possible, with your help. Are you on board?

If so, well, obviously just get in touch and we'll take it from there. There are plenty of days in the year so lots of opportunities to be published - even regular slotters would be welcome. Over to you, and fire to your fingers (without the flames)!

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Sab Will is a freelance English teacher, trainer and coach. And stuff.

Poetically Challenged Teacher? Read This...

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 14:38:00 +0000

Poetry in class? Are you kidding me???

NO! And to celebrate the publication of my 250th poem, I'd like to offer you all of them to use in your lessons with your students, or just to read for yourselves.

Written all by myself, they are often dark but rich in irony and sometimes humour too. I'm also a Rhythm, Rhyming and alliteRation freak so you'll find there are thousands of opportunities to work on these aspects of our beautiful language with your classes throughout the collection.

Needless to say (hopefully), the language is as resplendent as I could possibly make it, including countless double meanings, so lots of vocab building work to be done there too.

You'll find that some poems are quite complex, therefore good for high levels, whilst others are extremely simple, so there should be something there for everyone. I'm also in the process of recording them all, so that you will have an audio resource to complement the words. Let me know if you need one quickly and I'll send it off to you within a couple of days if it doesn't exist already.

So, how do you get your hands on this wondrous teaching resource, you might be asking yourself.

Nothing could be easier! You just sign up below for some free interactive English lessons, also all my own work, and you'll get the direct links to all the poems at the same time. You can't say fairer than that, now can you?

250 Poems + 3 Free English Lessons

I'd just like to ask you one favour if you do decide to check out my poetry in a teaching context: please share your ideas on how specific poems could be used in the English language or literature classroom in the comments section below. That would be valuable for everyone and I'm just sorry that I haven't had time to produce any lesson plans yet.

I hesitate greatly to offer an example, as there is no way one poem can represent 250, but people like examples, so here's one anyway to be getting on with...

You Rise

You are not here

You are far away

And for every bite

Of this croissant I take

You move, imperceptibly

5000 miles

People are chattering

Barging in isles

But you float above them

You’re light as skimmed milk

And for every sip

Of this coffee like silk

You’re rolling in air currents

Heavenly smile

Greet the wild migrators

Play for a while

But you float above them

You rise like fresh bread

And for every inch

Of this butter I spread

You slip through my fingers

My universe grasp

I struggle to reach you

I falter and gasp

But you laugh and leave me

You bend with the breeze

I’m paying the bill

You’re soaring with ease

We’re racing together

I cunningly clasp

You come down

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Sab Will is a freelance English teacher, trainer and coach. And stuff.

New Teachers? Read This!

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 13:31:00 +0000

This posting is a bit random, I admit. I was watching our current TEFL Certificate trainees do their first ever teaching practice and was noting down a few things I noticed, and suddenly thought it might be interesting to post them here.

So in no particular order, with no-one in mind specifically, here are some of the things that went through the mind of this teacher trainer on week one of our teacher training course. Some of these observations are things I liked, and some are things that worried me. I didn't actually tell the trainees any of these because we like to be positive, especially on the first day of teaching. But they could be useful to consider nevertheless. Here we go.

Listenings: "See what you understand" is a very woolly reason for listening to a recording or dialogue. Give them an easy, concrete question to answer, such as 'Does he like football?' or 'What does the man order?'. And if the answer is towards the end of the listening - bingo! - they will need to listen right the way through to get the answer, which has to be better than them getting the answer after two seconds and contemptuously throwing their pens down and semi-surreptitiously checking their e-mails.

Grammar Points: Watch out for long, boring 'explanations' of grammar points by the teacher with no interaction or eliciting of patterns and rules from the students. An average grammar exercise book like English Grammar in Use from Cambridge or Practical Grammar from Heinle would probably do a better job.

Approach: Nice and friendly is definitely the way to go as far as I'm concerned, in the context of our 'guinea-pigs, who are coming of their own free will and for many of whom English is simply their hobby.

Voices: A nice clear voice, possibly slightly slower and crisper than usual, is something to aim for. You need to both be understood by your audience and also make it clear that you are the boss, after all. Many teachers have developped a special 'teacher voice' for this purpose, but watch out that it doesn't sound too babyish or patronising, and don't forget to switch it off when you're with your friends, or they'll think you've lost it.

Drilling: Good to see some first attempts but the thing that strikes me is... two things. First of all, only say what you want the students to repeat, in a crisp, clear voice. Avoid mumbled phrases along the lines of 'Right, what I'd like you to do is if you could just repeat 'I come from Spain', ok, 'I come from Spain', all right, so can you just repeat that...?' like the plague. Silence and incomprehension will follow. Secondly, the students must know when they are supposed to start. This calls for some quite dynamic conducting skills and tons of enthusiasm from the teacher.

Spelling: Not always easy to spell everything correctly when you're on the spot, but try to watch out for silly mistakes which may confuse the students - this gets easier with experience and confidence.
Grammar: Watch out for slightly unnatural sentences due to nerves or interference from other languages, such as 'I would like for breakfast some bacon and eggs'. Sounds like some French word order creeping in there I reckon.

Teacher Talking Time: Vastly too much of this from certain trainees. This is absolutely normal! Many people seem to equate talking with teaching. However, I consider teaching to be more about asking questions and getting people to work things out for themselves. A greater variety of student-focused activities will quickly remedy this.

Boardwork: Try to plan board layout before the lesson: clear writing, organised and not falling off the wall with the weight of the words all over it.

Checking Understanding: "Does everyone understand?" is not a CCQ (Concept Checking Question)! Nor is "Do you know what 'syrup' is? - Good." Ask yes and no questions such as 'Is syrup a liquid?' 'Is syrup a solid?' 'Can we eat syrup?' 'Can we swim in syrup?', where some of the questions demand the answer 'No' to prove that students are getting it, and not just saying 'Yes' to keep you happy.

Pronunciation: Don't forget to correct dodgy pronunciation during the Practice phase. That's what this phase is for before leading into the freer Production phase.

Questions: What is teaching about? Is it fundamentally about asking questions and making people think for themselves? What do you think?

Student Spelling: There should be a moment when written exercises are checked somehow (even by the students self-checking with a text) to avoid things like 'straigt on' and 'nexto' installing themselves in the students' notebooks. Wandering around and indicating mistakes over their shoulders can be effective and not too disruptive or teacher-focused.

Rapport: "You!" complete with stabbing finger indicating the next student to contribute is a bit aggressive. If you have forgotten the name then substitute it with 'Yes?', a smile and a friendly open-hand, palm up gesture.

Drilling: "Let me see. -One two three..." The aim was to get the students to repeat 'Let me see.' Personally, I would have make the 'Let me see' function almost as the 'One two three' and throw it over to them with a suitably dramatic open arm gesture towards the students just after the word 'see', and an appropriately expectant look, oh, and shut up too! By that I mean that as soon as you can, try to turn your volume down and the students' volume will increase to fill the silence. Many consider it rude to speak while the teacher is speaking and the tendency for panicky teachers is to fill the silence of the non-repeating students with more teacher talk - not the greatest drill in the world!

That's it for now - an A4's-worth of quick notes from a very respectable first attempt to stand up and teach from this months batch of trainees. Of course there are millions of things that could have been pointed out but I hope that this little list is of some use to you. Let me know what you think!

DON'T FORGET TO COMMENT!

___________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre validated by IATQUO

A Wandering of Websites 3: Useful On-line Resources for English Teachers

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 17:53:00 +0000

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Here's another collection of amazing websites easily exploitable by teachers everywhere.

The only danger is... they're so interesting you might forget that you're supposed to be planning your lesson until it's too late!

So be careful, and let us know if you use any materials from these resources in your lessons, and how. Happy hunting.

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songfacts.com

If you want to base a few moments of your lesson, or indeed a few lessons, on music, but don't know where to start, this interesting site can help. Far from being an on-line version of some awful written-for-English-teaching 'song book', Song Facts isn't for teaching English at all. Which makes it all the more fun trying to exploit it.

You've got all sorts of off-the-wall stuff in there: curious song facts, a trivia quiz, interviews with artists, a pretty hectic forum and you can add strange song facts of your own if you know them.

Clearly, this site is both for the more sophisticated (higher level) learner, and for teachers who have the right to devote chunks of their time to such, well, trivia, but you've got a great resource here, and plan a lesson right and your students'll love it. Getting them to create their own music trivia quizzes immediately springs to mind as a follow-on activity.

11points.com

This site should be banned, or knighted, or something. It's just too much! As it suggests in the title (see left) there are tons of 'Top 10 Lists sites, hell, I've even created a couple of Top 10 Lists for this very blog! But they go one better... literally. These are Top 11 Lists, and the topics, to say the least, are... varied. Many would provide some scintillating material for the adventurous English teacher in the right situation.

Some categories which just might tickle your fancy, amongst far too many to choose from, would be (they're clickable, don't thank me, don't thank me ;-) 11 Gorgeously Ironic Misspellings In Protest Signs; 11 Hidden Secrets in Fight Club; 11 Greatest Mug Shots of the 2000s; Interesting Facts About Our Presidents and Their Money; 11 Unbelievable Stories About Twins.

The list creator's intelligent wit just makes these lists even better. So click on some of those links above if you dare, but please come back after an hour or so to finish reading this page!

fox13now.com

A brilliant collection of thought-provoking and discussion-inciting pictures. Why so? Because they all look like they can't be real (or most of them anyway), at least until you start to understand what's going on.

If your aim is to get an inimated discussion going with your students, either from the front of the class or in groups, print out a few of these and you won't be able to stop them. Of course, it would be best to prime them with some targeted questions to answer, such as 'Do you think it's real?' or 'What is it?' or 'How did they do that?' otherwise the students won't know what to talk about and will just say 'Ooohh' and start talking about it in their own language.

paris-26-gigapixels.com

Another visual one, this, and sure it harks from my city of residence, but hey, we did it you you guys didn't, so just get over it, ok ;-) It caused a massive buzz when it was released a little while ago so have a look and see what you think.

What they've done is, climbed up (well, taken the lift) to the top of the Montparnasse Tower I reckon, and then taken a whole heap of high-res pictures then stitched them all together seamlessly with software. If I were an American I'd probably say 'Awesome!', but I'm a Brit so I'll content myself with saying... 'AWESOME!'.

You can zoom in on practically all the major landmarks of Paris and the creators have even slipped in a few anomalies to make you smile if you can find them so I'm told. (a giant tortoise on a balcony way up is probably the best known one).

Is this better than Google Maps or Google Earth? Well, to be honest, it's just different, and it's really quite refreshing to get away from the Big G for just a while and see what some of the other geniuses on the planet can get up to for a change.

howstuffworks.com

Here's another incredible resource, both for the language class and our daily lives. It's one of those sites, a bit like the 11 Points site above, that once you get there is very difficult to leave.

Need I need to give you any more incentive to make you check it out than telling you that there are the Top 5 Tips for Using Twitter, 10 Off-the-wall iPhone Apps to discover (I love the one where you can write a text message and still see where you're going on the screen..), and hey, what about the Top 5 Tips for Preventing Underarm Odor? You know it makes sense.

But it's not all weird or wired. The site has a vast, and I mean Vast range of categories and subsections covering pretty much most of human life as far as I can see.

And if all of this is just making you go boggle-eyed then relax with this silly-sounding but actually enlightening item on What if I crossed my eyes for 10 minutes? Or any of the other few thousand fascinating time-wasters you'll find there.

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~ READ THESE OTHER GREAT POSTS ~

A Wandering of Websites 1

It's Forkin' Funny, But Could You Teach It?

Great FREE On-line ELT Resources

The English Teaching Sins Top 10 List!

Teaching Video Analysis - A Practical Exercise

DON'T FORGET TO COMMENT!

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Poetry Pause: 'Jean-François's Nodding Off'

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 16:28:00 +0000

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Little poem for ya...

JEAN-FRANCOIS'S NODDING OFF

Jean-François is nodding off,

In his English class to the distant thrum

Of a past imperfect, roughly taught,

Through an eardrum pierced by a holy thought.

No searchlights could get through that fog,

So leave it out; Jean-François's nodding off.

Thank God It's Friday, weekend's come,

And his English teacher's having fun

With the unreal present;

Teacher-man is droning on,

Then spits out fire,

Like an air-raid siren, all gone wrong,

'Bout a future tense, but the eyes are limp;

No hail of tricky traitor verbs

Can cut cut cut through this thick gauze,

So keep the noise down, J-F's nodding off.

Still wounded eyelids struggle up,

To a present shot with sly conjunctions-

Run and hide; turn in; fall out;

Consciences pricked with wry compunctions-

Foxhole, cover, weapon, webbing;

Wife a-waiting, in the wings,

Future bridesmaid cries and sings,

Pulling cold hand grenade rings

Damp trenches and life ebbing,

But Jean-François is far away,

On a mushroom cloud of conditional days,

Young teacher shoots his sniper gaze,

To a bleary eye,

In a foreign field;

He's focused on

Another phase;

There is no future real in English;

Just ask... oh, Jean-François's nodded off.

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~ READ THESE OTHER GREAT POSTS ~

A Wandering of Websites 1

It's Forkin' Funny, But Could You Teach It?

Great FREE On-line ELT Resources

The English Teaching Sins Top 10 List!

Teaching Video Analysis - A Practical Exercise

DON'T FORGET TO COMMENT!

___________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre validated by IATQUO

A Wandering of Websites 2: Useful On-line Resources for English Teachers

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:36:00 +0000

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It's polling time! With elections coming up (aren't there always elections 'coming up') in many countries, we thought we'd do a little polling of our own.

As we discovered one of our great teaching resources below we thought it would be fun to show you some of the functionality, sorry, I mean what you can do with it, ourselves. We'll publish the results in another posting on this blog once a few of you have had a go at filling it in. So go and have a look now - it's fun, interesting, and should give you some great ideas on how to use this cool tool with your students.

DO THE SURVEY NOW!

Of course, the Survey Monkey is just one of the five great new teaching resources we have found for you this time. Check out the rest below and be sure to let us know what you think... and to recommend your own favourites!

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acapela-group.com

NEW This offers a series of short This is one of those sites where you can type in some text and get the computer to say it. I must admit I'm wondering exactly how useful this could be for language learners, but there's a definite schoolboy thrill, along the lines of looking up naughty words in the dictionary when you were a kid, in getting Heather from the US, or indeed Rachel from the UK in her lovely 'proper' English accent to tell you to... oh well, let's not go into details, I'm sure you can amuse yourself no end with your inventive phrases and I defy you to keep a smile off your face as you listen to the results. I just hope they don't display a link of past requests anywhere...

surveymonkey.com

'The world's most popular web-based survey tool', they claim, and it's true that this is a great site to incite interaction with your users. It's free, and allows you to easily bang up questionnaires in a jiffy. Fast, that is. Look, I've created one just for you, to show you some of the question types available...!

DO THE SURVEY NOW!

The image here shows an attempt I had at 'branding' the survey with the Hotch Potch English colours, but it was just at the end of the process that I realised this was part of the 'pro' option. Shucks, but you are probably thinking 'Thank god for the Pro Option, judging by those colours'... I chose their 'Purple Passion' standard option in the end. It ain't Hotch Potch English, but it's better than nothing.

I wanted to give you access to the results of the survey without giving you my account login but... it's a Pro Option! So I'll content myself (and you?) by posting a brief summary of the results here once a few of you have done the survey - watch this space... and let us know if you have had fun using the site - why not create a survey and send us the link in the comments section below?

stunning-stuff.com

And as it says on the box... (or the home page, at least) this site is all about 'funny and weird news about stupid crimes, ignorant politicians, heroic toddlers and much, much more' and it certainly delivers.

Current headlines include: Will love songs put sharks in the mood to shag? / Prison van carrying convicted bank robbers crashes into security van, thousands missing / Man auctions permanent advertising tattoo on back of neck...

Current fun facts include: Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts / American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad in first class / 200 million people in China live on less than $1 a day...

Fascinating stuff, and clearly exploitable in class by the innovative English teacher, n'est-ce pas?!

yourdictionary.com

I was just about to recommend the authoritative yet amusing daily word e-mail posting from Your Dictionary, one of the best of these things out there in my opinion, when I realise I haven't been getting them for the last few days. Searching frantically through my inbox finally turns up a message soberly announcing the last word of the day e-mail from Your Dictionary! This is a shame, as it was one of the few which managed to inject a bit of humour into these po-faced thing, but never mind. Apparently this is so they can concentrate on making Your Dictionary even better blah blah blah, but anyway, do have a look at the site as it does, in fact, provide a LOT of interesting language content, including a large resource section for teachers which is worth browsing.

audacity.sourceforge.net

OK, I'd better get this one out of the way! If you type 'audacity.com' into your browser you immediately get a rather nasty page from a weary-sounding company called 'Audacity, Inc' and a curt black message telling us in no uncertain terms: 'We DO NOT make audio software'. It is some indication of the success of the company which does make the excellent free audio software known as Audacity that the company which owns 'audacity.com' have to devote their prestigious home page to telling people who they are not!

Well, whatever the story, if you follow the link above you'll get to the Audacity which does make audio software, and a fine product it is too, especially regarding it's free. It does take a while to get to know, and I would certainly recommend getting a knowledgeable colleague (look for someone with thick glasses and spots and sticking out teeth wearing a 'Kiss a Geek Today' T-shirt...) to get you started. Oh, sorry, Audacity allows you to record stuff in lots of formats and do some fancy stuff too. I use it to take the hiss out of my dodgy podcasts and free weekly English lesson recordings.

I must admit, I've seen worthy educators giving valiant presentations to enthusiastic souls on how to use Audacity to make their lessons the next best thing to being there, but I can never convince myself that your average teacher actually goes straight home and starts using the thing. Like a lot of the amazing technology out there, I have a feeling that many teachers, even if IT-ready, still prefer reading about it than actually using it just yet, or - same old story - simply don't have the time. Tell me if I'm right. OK, or wrong...!

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~ READ THESE OTHER GREAT POSTS ~

A Wandering of Websites 1

It's Forkin' Funny, But Could You Teach It?

Great FREE On-line ELT Resources

The English Teaching Sins Top 10 List!

Teaching Video Analysis - A Practical Exercise

DON'T FORGET TO COMMENT!

___________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre validated by IATQUO

One-to-One English Teaching: Top 10 Tips for Great Lessons!

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:23:00 +0000

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Although some professional language schools here in Paris tell us that up to 70% of all professional language teaching is on a one-to-one basis, not all TEFL Certificate courses actually prepare you for this.

So here is my first attempt at a list of ten key points to bear in mind when it's just you... and... him (or her of course)! Let me know what you think and feel free to add some more, thanks.

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Great One-to-One English Lessons: Top 10 Tips List

1) Ask Them What They Want

And give it to them! It's their lesson - their private lesson - and everything should be directly relevant to them.

2) Keep Your Shareholders Happy
You often have to keep several people happy: the student in front of you, the student's training department who chose your language school, your language school's director of studies, without forgetting yourself! So be aware of what all of them are looking for - often not the same thing - and try to give them all something to make their lives better.

3) Variety, Variety, Variety
Provide lots of varied activities for the student - it's more intense in a one-to-one situation so you need to keep changing the exercises regularly or you will both get bored.

4) Get Personal
Prepare highly personalised topics for your student based on his or her interests or needs - there's no excuse for not doing so. (but see No.7 below)

5) Personality Counts
So let's hope you've got one, eh?! If normal group teaching is a highly personal experience, for one-to-one teaching we need to replace 'highly' with 'intensely'! Personality clash? No-where to run. Boring, unmotivated student? No-where to hide. The fun, fast-moving lesson buck stops with you. So do your best to establish a friendly, professional approach from the start so that any problems down the line will be seen as being the exception rather than the rule and you should be able to work them out.

6) Perform Regular Rain Checks
Just because you get on well with them and they still smile quite often doesn't mean that they are totally satistied. Indeed, exactly because you have built up a friendly atmosphere may make it more difficult for them to let you know that they're not as happy as before. So ask them regularly if they are still getting what they want, if not why not, and change to rectify the situation.

7) Stay Professional
As long as money is changing hands, you ain't friends. You can never be friends. As long as money is changing hands. That's an important thing to remember. As long as they are the client and you the service provider they will be expecting you to bend over backwards to improve their English and if they don't feel that is the case, and you don't address it because you think you have become 'friends' and can get away with any old stuff, problems WILL arise.

8) Provide Structure, Not Content
The teacher provides the structure to the lesson but it is the student who will provide the content - the actual topics they want to study. Of course, the teacher may end up providing most of the materials, articles, etc., but in a one-to-one these should be closely linked to what the students has said they want or need.

9) Have Different Hats
At one moment you have to be interested in the student's son's soccer game at the weekend, the next firmly getting the student down to work and finally reassuring them that they really are making progress when they can't see it. If only we got paid in relation to the number of skills the average teacher needs!

10) Follow The LTP Approach
This is my own invention, what I call the Three Pillars of Being a Great Teacher, and is applicable, in my opinion, to any kind of teaching. LTP stands for Language Teaching People, and the idea is that to be a great teacher you need to love all of them. You need a love of Language (your chosen subject), a love of Teaching (the competences needed to help your students learn) and a love of People (the fundamental requirement to lead a happy life in our society). Read more here.

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Top 5 Related Posts

The Three Pillars of Being a Great Teacher

When is a Lesson Aim not a Lesson Aim?
The English Teaching Sins Top 10 List

It's Forkin' Funny, but Could You Teach It?

What On Earth are CCQs?

Comments, as ever, are very welcome.
___________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre validated by IATQUO

A Wandering of Websites: Useful On-line Resources for English Teachers

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:45:00 +0000

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While a herd of cattle, a flock of sheep, a school of fish and, at a stretch, a gaggle of geese might not have too much trouble rolling off your tongue, could you happily take on board (and not feel totally ridiculous saying) "Oh my goodness, did you see that intrusion of cockroaches / squabble of seagulls / paddling of ducks / murmuration of starlings the other day - weren't they quite something?"

(That was all one sentence, by the way - I'm rather proud of it...)

I suspect not.

But a wandering of websites... well I don't see why not. Never let it be said that I never neologise, right?!

And here they are: a handful of interesting, and potentially teacher-exploitable websites that I've come across over the last few days. There have been others, there will be more, but this is what I have for you today...

elllo.org

This offers a series of short videos of people talking about stuff quite similar to what I do on the Hotch Potch English Mega Minute, but it's always nice to have a choice. There are also some interactive exercises and the script which is useful, and lots of different accents which is good too.

newseum.org

This is a very useful on-line depository of newsy stuff, the most interesting of which may be the collection of newspaper front pages from all over the world. They are available in printable pdfs and can be used in class quite easily. Relevant and up to date - what more could you ask for?! Good for comparing approaches to news stories from around the world, with a good collection of English titles to choose from.

wordia.com

This is a great idea in principle but pretty useless in practice... for native speakers. But excellent for students of English. The idea is that people - anyone - creates a short video where they define a word on camera and put it on the site. They can, of course, peruse all the other efforts and there's nothing to stop you from setting exercises based on watching the homespun definitions of certain words. It would be pretty fun for students to define their own words in their own English and immediately see their efforts on the internet. All you need is a free You Tube account and you're away. The reason I say it's useless, or rather pointless for native speakers is that the fun of watching some boring definitions of words we already know wears off very quickly. But for learners this is less the case.

famous-quotes-and-quotations.com
A great site, not only for its large collection of quotes, but because you can sign up for a daily e-mail for free with an inspirational quotation and some other stuff. I just read the quotations and sometimes share them with my students. Why not have a look?

http://www.inanimatealice.com
Check out this site for a really cool, and curious little interactive story. There are resources for exploiting it with students and it is very unusual and strangely engaging.

Feel free to also send in your general ideas and thoughts by commenting below, and... read you shortly!

___________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre validated by IATQUO

What On Earth Are... CCQs?

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:09:00 +0000

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Have you ever spent a good five minutes explaining something to students and had them nodding and smiling happily making you feel they've totally 'got it'... only to prove thirty seconds later by some simple mistake that they totally 'haven't'? It happens to all of us, and that's where CCQs can help.

CCQs, or Concept Check Questions, are a very effective way of checking students' real understanding of vocabulary or even grammar you have just taught them. Let's take an example:

Imagine you are teaching your students 'snow', and you explain it by saying 'It's cold and white', and they nod and smile. You even ask them 'Do you like snow?' and they still nod and smile and maybe even say 'Yes!'. All is going well, you may think. Except that half of them think you are talking about vanilla ice cream!

How about explaining what a strawberry is? It's small, you say. And round. And sweet. Oh, and of course it's a fruit. You can eat it. It tastes good! Do you understand? Good. And you move on. With one third of the students thinking it is indeed a strawberry, one third thinking it's a raspberry, one third thinking it's a cherry, and probably someone who just hasn't got a clue, but what do you know? You haven't checked to see if they've understood the concept asking questions!

Asking 'Do you understand?' is one of the least useful questions you can ever ask in an English language classroom! Why? Because if students do understand the question 'Do you understand?' they will probably just say 'Yes' to keep you happy. And to not lose face if they don't. They may not even understand the question 'Do you understand?' but will say 'Yes' anyway, just to keep you happy. And even if they do understand something, are they understanding what you want them to understand?!

Another example: Imagine, like me, you are a less than useless artist. But that not having a map to hand during your explanation of the continents you draw a hasty map of South America on the board, and label it 'South America'. You then ask 'Do you know South America? And they all nod and smile. But half of them are thinking that 'South America' is actually the English for 'Africa'!

So how can we be more or less sure that our students really have understood? Let's take the snow example earlier. We need some really simple questions which, if answered correctly by the students, will prove to us that they've 'got it'. We could ask:

Is snow is white? The student answers 'Yes' but so is vanilla ice cream and cotton wool and fluffy clouds and sheep.

Is snow cold? The student answers 'Yes' but so is vanilla ice cream and ice and winter and fridges and snowmen...

Does snow come from the sea? (mime waves) The student answers 'No' - a good sign.
Does snow come from the sky? (point to sky) Student answers 'Yes' - another good sign.
Does snow fall in summer? Student answers 'No' - still looking good.

Does snow fall in winter? Student answers 'Yes' - very good - it looks like he's got it.

Do we eat snow? Student answers 'No' or laughs and says 'If you want!'. Really looks like he's got it.
What can we make with snow? Student answers 'A snowman!' Yes, he's probably got it.

Of course, there are many other things you could do along the way if you have the tools, such as simply drawing some snow falling from the sky or a snowman on the board. But often concepts are harder to picture than that, or the required tools are not available and CCQs can come in really handy.

They work with grammar forms too. How would you be sure that students had grasped the concept of 'I used to live in London'? Maybe they think you still do. Or that you are used to living in London. Or that you want to live in London. Who knows?!

So we need some more CCQs. What about...

Do I live in London now? The students should answer 'No'.
Did I live in London? The students should answer 'Yes'.
And why not some optional questions to test deeper understanding, such as:
Do I like London? The students should answer 'We don't know!'

A final example before an exercise! Take the sentence 'I managed to get to the top of the mountain.' What are the essential facts or meanings of this sentence? Choose the best three from:

I succeeded.
I didn't succeed.
I will succeed.
It was easy.

It wasn't easy.

It was nauseating.
I didn't try.
I will try.
I tried.
I like mountains.
I had to do it.
I won't do it again.

The sentences which carry the main meaning of I managed to get to the top of the mountain are 'I tried', 'It wasn't easy' and 'I succeeded'. The other sentences may have some relevance to the event but they are not essential to understanding the meaning. Now, in order to get some good CCQs we simply need to change these essential meaning sentences into questions to elicit the appropriate responses, and be reasonably sure that students have understood:

'Did I try?' (yes)

'Was it easy?' (no)
'Did I succeed?' (yes)

It's often useful to have a question in your set like 'Was it easy?' which require the answer 'No', to check that students aren't just 'keeping you happy' with the answer 'Yes (teacher)' as we mentioned before.

Now here's the task:

Choose one of the nouns and one of the sentences below, write a small set of CCQs for it, and post them in the comments below. Read the comments first and try to write CCQs for a word no-one else has covered, but feel free to also include improved CCQs for words already covered. I'll post the best CCQs below.

Here are the words and sentences:

Words

column / horse / bungalow / pebble / cup / laptop / deckchair
cucumber / barge / sandal / bat (animal or sports equipment!) / handbag / coast / path

Sentences (CCQs for the word(s) in italics)
She was limping badly when I saw her.
I've been living here since 1993.

They'd rather have stayed at home.

My dad went through the roof when he saw the house after the party!

Johnny was caught shoplifting the other day!

I was sleeping when you phoned.

We're seeing Avatar by James Cameron this evening.

I wish I were 18 again.

I'd only been in France for two weeks when I met my future wife.

(The phone rings) Don't worry - I'll get it.

Feel free to also send in your general ideas and thoughts by commenting below, and... read you shortly!

___________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre validated by IATQUO

Reflections on an English Lesson

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:40:00 +0000

Little poem for ya...

~~~~~~~~~~~

REFLECTIONS ON AN ENGLISH LESSON

Graceful as a swallow

Skimming past the chair

My latest careful handout

Goes floating through the air

Little Louis' pencil

Is lodged in Sarah's ear

As one pupil in fifteen

Is trying hard to hear

The others are, alas, alack

In quite a different world

Uncovering the guilty

Who Katie's bag just hurled

I gaze around and wonder

Through clouds of chalky dust

How, given any normal choice

To teach, I thought, I must

A little laugh escapes me

To be followed by a song

If I'm going down, you little shits

For you it won't be long

And as a gentle smile descends

Upon my lips to seal

The secrets of the English class

I swear they won't appeal

~~~~~~~~~~~

Feel free to send in your thoughts, ideas and questions by commenting below, and... read you shortly!

___________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre validated by IATQUO

It's TEFL Graduation Day... So What's Next?

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 11:42:00 +0000

Here are some of our students: Hermann, Alban, Larry, Andrew, Morna and Brianna, to be precise, holding their thoroughly deserved TEFL Paris Certificates on the evening of our Graduation Dinner.

I never cease to be amazed at how your averagely literate person can study intensively for just four weeks and walk out with a virtually guaranteed ticket, not only to a new job, but in many cases a completely new career.

Some of our trainees are fresh university graduates, some are experienced business people. Some are young, some are not so young. Some are nervous but all are excited about this new phase in their lives and the unknown possibilities lying ahead of them.

Of course, no TEFL Certificate totally guarantees you a job. There are many other factors to consider, such as your real aptitudes as an English teacher and both your abilities to adapt to local teaching situations as well as how good you are at avoiding some of the most common mistakes made by new teachers. Not forgetting your innovative use of some of the amazing on-line resouces out there... See these previous posts for more on this:

Quite apart from how well you present yourself at interview, there is the local teaching market to take into account. Here in France, I'll be honest with you:

If you successfully complete the TEFL Paris TEFL Certificate course, with good grades for Teaching Practice, Theory and Professionalism, and make yourself presentable, coherent and enthusiastic during your interview, as well as having the necessary working papers*, you will get a teaching job very quickly indeed.

I know that sounds like a lot of provisos, but hey, you're walking into a very intellectually rewarding and stimulating job working with really nice French professionals, so you should expect to put a bit of effort in to get it! But no more effort than when applying for any other job, and if you fit the mould they'll probably offer you the position on the spot.

An interesting question teacher training schools often get asked is: 'Will you find me a job at the end of the course?' I don't actually know of ANY teacher training centres which guarantee their trainees jobs at the end of the course! This is generally for two reasons:

They are a teacher training centre only and not a language school
They are also a language school but cannot know what their future staff requirements will be

TEFL Paris falls into the first category, as do most TEFL teacher training centres.

Having said that, we have excellent links with the Paris English teaching community and will do our very best to point you in the right direction if you wish to work in France, or indeed globally.

We know from years' worth of successful graduates that teaching work is relatively easy to find all over the world if you respect the conditions mentioned above.

* Some countries require specific working visas, or impose other conditions on certain nationalities, and we strongly advise you to check what the situation is regarding your personal circumstances and the country you intend working in to make sure you reach your teaching goal as smoothly as possible.

Feel free to send in your ideas and questions by commenting below, and... read you shortly!

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Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre validated by IATQUO

TESOL France visits TEFL Paris: a Match Made in Heaven?

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:49:00 +0000

It's that time of the month again, satisfaction tinged with sadness, the Friday of the last week of January's TEFL Certificate Course here at TEFL Paris and, my goodness, hasn't time just flown by, as it always does!

We had Bethany Cagnol, the current president of TESOL France out at our place today, to talk to our trainees and generally drum up support and share The Knowledge, which was great. Thanks a lot for that Bethany - great to see you again, and thanks so much for forgetting the personal photo calendar I gave you - I see how much you value my presents then... ;-) (Just joking, which you knew, obviously!)

Bethany talked about working life in Paris as an English teacher, and her American roots certainly interested the Americans in this month's group who are realising that there are a few hoops to be jumped through before getting their dreamed-of new teaching job/life on the Old Continent...

Bethany, of course, has cheated and just married into the system. I mean, literally, Married In to the system. That's one of the easiest ways and, to be honest, the definition of 'marry' is getting looser and looser here in France, so that could be a serious option for certain people.

As well as thanking Bethany for visiting us, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all our wonderful trainees here at TEFL Paris for being such fun and so enthusiastic and just so into the course and doing their best. I have been really impressed by all of you - thank you.

And as a final sign/send off, I'll ask you a question.

Do yous guys remember someone telling you that teaching is all about asking questions? Juss wunderrin, az wun duz...

But that wasn't the question.

The Questions Are: "What was your best teaching moment on the course?

And "What event/situation did you learn from most?"

Anyone who has been on a TEFL course can take part, the more the merrier!

Read you shortly!

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Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre validated by IATQUO

Burn Your Books?

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 23:12:00 +0000

This is actually a very clever video obviously created by people who not only know English teaching, but are also familiar with all the pretentions and perversities that go with it. Click on the image here to go straight to it.

It's not a Teacher of English as a Foreign Language here - it's probably more concerned with teaching literature to native English speakers, but the fun-poking is delicious and very well done nevertheless.

We've all wanted to be like Robin Williams in The Dead Poet's Society, haven't we? Well this parody captures that spirit and knows how to twist it without totally deriding it.

No, on second thoughts, it does totally deride it. Whatever.

Could we use this video with our students? Well, if you're teaching English literature this might be a bit too close to reality to take the risk. Students might quickly end up laughing at you as opposed to all of you laughing at the video together.

If you're teaching English to non-native speakers again it's a tricky one. There are so many cultural and sociological references in here that it would be hard to communicate the true richness of the material. There's nothing worse than explaining why a joke is funny, which is why I never 'do humour' in class but just let funny situations or events happen spontaneously, of which there is no shortage in the average English class.

It's also probably far too fast for the typical non-native speaker to cope with.

The best bit has to be as he's ripping the covers off the books, but I'll let you see that for yourselves...

Thanks to Alban from our January 2010 TEFL Certificate course here at TEFL Paris for making me aware of this one - I hadn't seen it before.

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Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre validated by IATQUO

It's Forkin' Funny, But Could You Teach It?

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:16:00 +0000

Now here's an interesting one. The choice of suitable realia (in other words genuine, not-cringy-made-for-English-teaching materials) such as newspaper articles, songs and, well, dodgy You Tube videos is what we're going to discuss here.

In fact, I think I'll make it a regular feature, you know, I'll find a dubious vid, post it here and we'll say how we could use it with our students. Or not. Here's the first one.

And what a classic it is. Many people already seem to know all about The Italian Man Who Went To Malta, and with over 11 million views of just this particular version you can understand why.

So there we are, us teachers, tears running down our cheeks, and then we have a brainwave: We'll use it in our next English lesson! So we do. The lesson with all those nice retired bourgois ladies who so appreciate their weekly English lesson at the local town hall on a Friday afternoon with that nice English teacher which they squeeze in between a visit to the hairdresser and their pooch's regular pedicure...

And the result is... well, what do you think? Could we use this piece of juicy realia with our students, and if so how and if not why not?

This also brings up the whole question of do we 'do' swear words in our lessons. I remember a really contentious book from a few years ago which I loved called Taboos & Issues because it dared to offer a whole load of scary lesson plans on totally over the top topics like death and gays and drugs of which you could only ever do about a tenth of them in your average class but hats off to them - they went for it.

And swearing was exactly the sort of dangerous topic they covered. And naughty words like shit and fuck (and all its multivarious derivations) share the very interesting characteristic of being some of the most common words in the English language, uttered by many many native English speakers on a daily basis.

But should we encourage our learners to use them too? Or just to understand them... Or should we not even venture out onto that slippery slope (volunteers to explain 'I wanna fuck on the table' to the sweet retired ladies, anyone?) Or would they think it was the best English lesson they'd every had?!!

Well, I've said enough; have a look at the video and let us know what you think. Look forward to reading you all.

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Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre validated by IATQUO

Great FREE On-line English Language Teaching Resources

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 23:58:00 +0000

Umm, mine, in fact.

Lots of people are putting loads of effort into creating useful stuff for English teachers to use in or out of their classes, and I don't see why I should be the exception!

So, without further ado, let me introduce you to my baby, my passion, my contribution to the field of English language teaching over and above the call of duty (or 'doodee' as my American trainees are tellin' me) ... my very own free on-line English lessons => An Example

Before I describe each section, let me tell you that your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to contribute to the comments below, and the question is:

"How could you / do you exploit this free on-line ELT resourse with your students."

Please share your ideas which I'm sure will be very interesting for all our regular teacher/trainer visitors. I can't wait to read you!"

So, there are four sections to the page, and the first one is the Video Analysis. My idea here is to start on a high note, in the form of a funny or somehow surprising video. I've blatently taken these from You Tube, which is a phenomenal teaching resource if you use it intelligently and judiciously (two big words for the price of none).

I provide a couple of broad 'gist' questions and a couple of more specific 'detail' questions, although, depending on how I'm feeling when I'm writing the lesson, actual lessons may vary, so don't hold me to what I've just said, thanks.

The second section is the Podcast or Vidcast, depending on whether I've found someone to capture on video or have just had to record my poor old self without the wonder of webcam.

In any case, both of them are pretty interesting and you have the text on the Hotch Potch English Blog so you and your students have all you need to tackle some 'real English' like what it's spoke by zee natives...

The example pic I show here is a wonderful little video of the trainees on the January 2010 TEFL Paris course saying various years, with their personal accents and interpretations, from Glasgow to Texas, from Aberdeen to Alabama, and from New York to Hampshire. A fascinating exploration of accents and humours which I hope will amuse our viewers as much as I liked it!

The third section is an altogether more serious matter, but hopefully no less interesting. I 'steal' a news story from one of the big news providers, such as the BBC, CNN, ABC, or any number of other three letter acronyms, and put it out there.

This is actually one of the most popular sections of the lesson, based on what people have told me, for a couple of reasons. First of all, I pick out six key phrases and record them, with pauses for students to repeat them to practise their pronunciation for as long and as often as they like. Secondly, I record the news story twice. Once very slowly, but not unnaturally. I make a point of saying the text totally naturally but just slowed down. And then I read it at a natural pace, so people can decide whether they want the tricky-quicky version or the slow-mo chilled out mix to really get their tongues around all those sly Saxon syllables.

I also include a pic or two to make sure the lesson isn't too dry, and another feature of the lessons I haven't mentioned yet is the instant gratification angle. People hate to wait.

(frustrated yet?)

(you will be...)

Which is why students have the answer to every question just a click away (on the pink questions marks). I've learnt that you just don't capture peoples' attention with an exercise by telling them that they'll know the answer next week. They want to know if they've got it right NOW! So all they have to do is click on the pink question marks like this - ??? - and they will have the answer, which is satisfying and non-frustrating.

The fourth, and to be honest my favourite section, is Today's Song. Let's face it, we all love listening to music. And when we are enjoying something we are more open to learning (or our subconscious brains are in any case, according to the People Who Know About This Sort Of Thing).

I have purposely made the exercise in this section as simple as possible. The last thing I want to do is to let my boring English exercise get in the way of their enjoyment of the song. But at the same time I am supposed to be helping them to improve their English!

So I take a sneaky approach. I create exercises where I change the words in the lyrics and they have to listen to see what I have changed. If possible, I replace the original words with funny or silly new versions. My ultimate aim is for them to be thinking about the English language without actually realising they are thinking about the English language. And song are a superb way of doing this.

By the way, a song I haven't dared use as my song of the week yet is Sean Paul's We Be Burning. I'm dying to, but really don't know how to explain the 'be doing' future (Jamaican English?) and it sure ain't in any of the course books... your thoughts on this would be great. It's part of the English that our kids, and language students, are listening to every day, after all...

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Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre

The English Teaching Sins Top 10 List!

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:29:00 +0000

The following list has been put together to help new English teachers (and a few old ones too) understand the most common sins commited in the classroom.

I should stress that this list is completely personal and as such has no particular authority but in my experience these are some of the main dangers to look out for.

If you are a trainee doing a reasonably decent TEFL Certificate or Diploma course then you will have a far better chance of getting good grades if you take these points very seriously indeed. TEFL teacher trainers understand that it takes time to get the hang of things, and that the very reason we exist is that trainees can experiment and make mistakes in a warm, caring and forgiving environment.

Up to a point.

And then, after a while, if you are still spending the first 40 minutes of a one-hour lesson giving another lecture on another of your pet topics our heads start exploding and we start seeing DIRT (Definitely Isn't Really Teaching)!!!

The English Teaching Sins Top 10 List!

1) You speak much more than your students because what you've got to say is more interesting anyway and you make far fewer painful mistakes.

2) You tell the students everything so they don't feel embarrassed when they don't know the answers to your incomprehensible questions.

3) You speak to them as you would a native speaker (or a little faster to push them ;-) because 'authentic input' is the way to go.

4) You follow a course book faithfully because it was written by experts, after all, and has some really nice exercises to photocopy, whilst also cutting down on preparation time.

5) You don't bother planning your lessons because you are the 'spontaneous type' who can wing it (have been doing so for years) and like the element of surprise this brings to the classroom.

6) You focus specifically on the most extroverted, confident students because those who make an effort to contribute deserve most of your attention.

7) You correct student mistakes constantly. It's what they expect, it's what they pay for, and it helps them learn faster.

8) You don't 'get personal' with your students. Your life has nothing to do with their English skills and their private lives are of even less relevance or interest to you. Good solid grammar lessons are what they need and appreciate the most.

9) You use humour as a powerful correctional tool. Subtle humiliation of the weaker students can encourage them to work harder so as to avoid the sting of your razor-sharp wit in the future.

10) You aim for accuracy as the ultimate goal of your lessons above all else. The need to eliminate mistakes is vital and we shouldn't let our students get away with poor grammar or shoddy vocabulary when they speak.

So your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to offer some antidotes to this tale of gloom and doom: let's hear lots of things a great humanistic and communicative teacher should do to make their lessons a great place for their students to be.

Please send in your Top Three Teaching Tips which you think will help make our lessons great to the Comments Section below. We look forward to reading you.
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Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre

When Is A Lesson Aim Not A Lesson Aim?

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:34:00 +0000

A lesson without an aim is like a boat without a rudder or a traveller without a map: there's very little chance you'll get to your destination because you don't even know what it is!

When you start teaching it is particularly important to know where you are trying to get to (or get your students to) by the end of the lesson.

How can you do this? Well, there are different ways. One of the best is to imagine what you would like them to be doing at the end of the lesson, such as confidently ordering a meal in a restaurant. This could otherwise be called The Aim of the lesson.

Once you have decided what you would like them to be able to do at the end of your lesson, you then need to work out all the steps necessary to get them to the point of being able to do just that with the minimum of teacher intervention. Why with a minimum of teacher intervention? Because out there in the real world you won't be there to hold their hands and their confidence will be much higher if they have already 'done it' in the classroom without you.

So now let's try a little practical exercise. I'm going to give you some sample 'lesson aims', below. Tell us which you think are good lesson aims in terms of how well they will keep you focused on planning a lesson which will take your students 'directly to the goal' of performing the given task successfully, and why.

Consider a lesson aim a good one if it's...

   - clear and easy to understand
   - not too detailed
   - not too vague
   - doable for the students
   - teachable for the teacher

- useful, fun and ultimately satisfying for all concerned

Sample lesson aims: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly!

1) We'll do holidays

2) Students are able to ask for and give direction in the street, using take the first right, go around the roundabout, go straight on, turn sharp left, and the other key vocabulary given in the lesson plan. They will also be able to ask relevant questions using functional language such as Excuse me, can you tell me where the ... is? / I'm afraid I'm lost..., etc. They will also know the names of relevant buildings and shops (such as bank, station, car park, baker, church, hotel, restaurant, and so on).

3) Students are able to write a postcard, using the present perfect tense (I have... but I haven't ... yet) and referring to London sights such as Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square.

4) Students can present themselves simply in an informal situation, giving their name, their nationality and their home town, and asking the same questions such as What is you name?.

5) Talking about the weather.

6) Past simple lesson.

7) Students can use the same modal verbs (should, must, might, etc.) for both giving advice, e.g. He should go home, and for talking about probability, e.g. He should have arrived by now.

Do feel free to comment on others' comments, and why not try to get a 'best' and 'worst' lesson aim out of the above list?

I look forward to reading your ideas...
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Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre

Teaching Video Analysis - a practical exercise

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:17:00 +0000

Here's an interesting little exercise for you:

Have a look at this teaching video I found on You Tube and tell me what you think from a teacher's and teaching point of view. I find there are many useful things we can take from this.

As you watch, consider the following points:

1) What sort of learner do you think this video is aimed at?
2) Do you think it meets its aims?
3) Are the presentation and explanation well-adapted to the You Tube medium?
4) How could this lesson be improved?
5) What can we imagine about the teacher's reasons for doing this video?

I'll give my comments once I've heard from some of you - so why not let us know what you think and get a discussion going?

I think it's great that so many people are putting so much effort into providing useful teaching and learning aids based on their personal experience - something which was practically impossible just 15 years ago.

But as proactive English teachers and trainers we owe it to ourselves to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, or at least to know what actually makes a good English lesson. That's one of the main purposes of this blog: to keep the grey matter ticking over and to never stop learning and improving. We'll all benefit from that.

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Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre