Bringing Coursebooks Back to Life

Bringing Coursebooks Back to Life

Alastair Grant

Boring textbooks? There’s an easy way to bring them back to life!

We have all had that sinking feeling when we’re planning classes, turning the page of our coursebook, only to find a topic or text that we just know will send the students to sleep.

Not any more! This session aims to make sure your students are always engaged by any text they are presented with, by looking at its history, culture and background. We will examine dynamic and challenging ways to focus your students and get them thinking and working with their coursebooks as though they’d chosen the text themselves!

Prezi presentation  Bringing boring Textbooks Back to Life – handout

Dogme teaching in your school

Dogme teaching in your school: simple, practical, and totally engaging.

Alastair Grant

This is a copy of a session given at the 2012 International House DoS Conference in London, England

“It’s a great idea, but it would never work…”
Overheard at a recent ELT conference, this comment seems an accurate gauge of feeling towards Dogme teaching.
With its materials-light, conversation-based formula, Dogme has been as much misunderstood as it has been
praised; but one thing that all teachers seem to agree on is that it just doesn’t seem practical enough to really work
on a day-to-day basis. Until now!
This session will demonstrate how a textbook-free ELT course can be set up and run by you, transforming both the
engagement of your students and the motivation of your teachers.

Dogme for your school

Rethinking Reading

Rethinking Reading

Seth Sokol

Based on a session by Maggie Temple.

This session is designed to encourage teachers to rethink some of their assumptions regarding the skill of reading. Concepts addressed include: Top-Down and Bottom-Up Reading models; the importance of context and activating schema before reading tasks; and, how teachers can use original materials to improve their students’ reading skills.

Reading Plan  Reading Terminology Exercises  Nadsat  Bottom-up and Top-Down Reading

Grammar in the Real World

Grammar in the Real World

Alastair Grant & Amy Lewin

All too often, our students have the feeling that grammar, far from being an integral part of learning how to use the English language, is actually something that tends to exist solely in between the pages of their coursebook.

This sessions is about helping your students to see that actually, grammar is an integral and essential part of language learning and that it is not only useful for them but… we really do use it!

Grammar in the real world  Friends – worksheet  Sun – agony aunt

Developing and Strengthening Interpersonal Bonds in the New Classrooms through Language Tasks

Developing and Strengthening Interpersonal Bonds in the New Classrooms through Language Tasks

Silvana Giménez Amadeo

Have you ever felt that your groups were missing something? Have you sometimes wondered how to connect to your students? How to make of your class a real group?
This session explores ways in which we can create bonds with our learners and engage them emotionally with each other, with us and with our lesson. Full of  plenty of simple, varied and fun activities that will make your learners just love your lessons.

Powepoint Presentation  Cherubism video worksheet ih

Nick Jonas Video “Who I Am”

Cherubism Video – Victoria Wright

Using Authentic Material

Using Authentic Material

Maggie Healy

Based on a session by Silvana Giménez Amadeo in 2009

There’s lots of talk around these days about using authentic material in the classroom and while it’s a wonderful resource for language teaching there are also some drawbacks and pitfalls to watch out for. Sourcing suitable material is very important and so is designing a suitable task and gauging it well to the level of your students. Setting achievable gist and detailed tasks or creating a guided discovery lesson can be challenging. This session aims at brainstorming some ways that we can extract a quality lesson from sample authentic material.

2011-05-18 – Authentic Material – Sample worksheets  2011-09-19 – Authentic Material – Handout  Authentic Material – Theory

Adapting Original Texts for the Classroom

Adapting Original Texts for the Classroom

James Orpin and Charlotte Wright

Getting bored of the textbook? Got a student who doesn’t want to learn from the textbook?

Use original material!

It’s everywhere you look: newspapers, magazines, radio, video, even leaflets or lost dog adverts are all prime places to find authentic use of the English language. However, selecting the right text, audio or video and turning it into a lesson complete with tasks, grammar extraction, receptive and prodcutive skills practises etc can seem like a lot of  hard work. Here are some tips designed to make that job a little easier.

Adapting Texts LP  Adapting original texts for the classroom

 

 

 

 

 

 

Literature in the EFL Classroom 2011

Literature in the EFL Classroom 2011

Emma Cresswell

Following on from last year’s session Literature in the EFL Classroom, this session looks at other ways to introduce literature into the classroom and ways to exploit its use.

 

Literature in the EFL Classroom 2011  Literature in the EFL Classroom 2011 – wordles  Literature in the EFL Classroom 2011 – titles and front covers  Literature in the EFL Classroom 2011 – Book Descriptions  Literature in the EFL Classroom 2011 – bloom’s taxonomy  Literature in the EFL Classroom 2011 – bloom’s taxonomy – example questions

Internet in the EFL Classroom 2011

Internet in the EFL Classroom 2011

Emma Cresswell

The internet is constantly changing and so too are our students.  Following on from the original Internet in the EFL classroom, this new session looks at some other ways to use the internet in the classroom.

Internet in the EFL Classroom 2011 Internet in the EFL Classroom 2011

Internet in the EFL classroom

Internet in the EFL Classroom

Emma Cresswell & Vicky Wright

The internet makes our lives increasingly easier, yet it continues to play a minor role in the EFL classroom.  This workshop will demonstrate how even the biggest technophobe can incorporate the internet into their classes and give them another dimension.  From 10 minute gap-fills to entire classes based on the computer, we will help you make the internet your valued friend.

Internet in the EFL classroom Internet in the EFL Classroom(powerpoint) Handy websites Pride & Prejudice websearch

Handout Emergencies – Scavenger hunt