English Camps

Hello everybody 

Everyone knows that there is no better way to learn than experience. For that reason I am sure that every teacher should recommend an English Camp or any linguistic immersion experience to their students.I studied English during six years at Primary School, four years at ESO and two years in Bachiller, but I wasn´t until I was 18 years old that I spent one summer in the USA and I really started to learn English language. These kind of experiences are priceless. 

Some years ago English camps and similar experiencies used to be very expensive and not everybody could afford it. However, today we have too many options. I have found very interesting English Camps and they are almost free, for example this one in the city of Granada:

http://englishcamp.es/

As teachers, I think that we have to make our students and their parents to understand the importance of these experiences, and encourage then to invest their time and economial effort. We could also look for different opportunities for them taking into account their possibilities, and helping then to embrace these kinds of initiatives. 

Let´s English be part of our holidays!!

See you all,

Bea 

Learning English Vocabulary

Hello everyone

Today I would like to reflect about the importance of learning English vocabulary. There are so many different ways of teaching vocabulary to our students, and no one would disagree about how necessary it is for them.

I would like to show a very interesting video about how to memorize vocabulary words:

After thinking about it, I would like to suggest an activity: Memory Cards. Memory Cards are a good option when teaching English vocabulary. I use them while working in little groups. Students normally like it because learning vocabulary this way is quite funny. They like competitions and becoming the winner of the play. We can work any category of vocabulary:  nouns, verbs, phrasal verbs, etc. And we can make this game by ourselves in a very easy way. Here you can find an useful link for it: http://www.momsandmunchkins.ca/2012/03/15/how-to-make-a-memory-game/

How to play:

In the game of Memory, players try to collect pairs of matching cards.

1. All of the cards are placed face down on a flat surface.
2. A player turns up two cards; it they match, they are collected by the player and he or she goes again.
3. If they don´t match, the cards are flipped over and it´s the next player´s turn.
4. The player with the most matching sets of cards at the end of the game wins.

Hope you find it useful and interesting,

See you soon

Bea :)

The power of the music

Hello everyone J

Some days ago I was wondering how I could attract my students´ attention in a fruitful way. I was looking for something that they find interesting and make them learn English in an easier way at the same time. And then I remember one of my favourite English classes at high school: when I was in 3^rd of ESO, every semester we had to choose a song in English and sing it in front of the class in groups. We had to learn its lyrics very well and it made me start listening to music in English and getting more and more familiar with it. These kinds of classes were also classes that everybody was looking forward.

Taking this experience into account I started to think ways of using English music when teaching ESL students. Here you have some examples:

·        Selecting a song for every grammar lesson containing the grammar structures we are teaching.

·        Selecting songs related with the vocabulary that we are studying. It can be a way of evaluating listening skill and vocabulary at the same time.

·        Selecting a song our students seem to like as starting points for attracting our students´ attention at the beginning of the class.

·        Selecting a song our students seem to like to finish our class in a relaxing way after having worked hard.

·        Of course, we can also use the activity I already mentioned as it was a very positive experience.

I am sure that we can find many other ways to use music in our class. I encourage you to use music and find another ways to use it. Maybe planning some karaoke party could sound amazing. Let´s the le music teach!

 See u all around,

Teaching English as Second Language

Honoring the title of this blog, today I would like to share with you some important resources that I found quite useful for teaching English. I teach English private lessons and they have helped me many times since I discovered them.

One of the webpage I would like to talk about is:

http://ielanguages.com/lessonplan.html#private

Here you can find games, lessons and activities to develop all language skills. English Mp3s and culture files are quite interesting.

The other webpage where you can download very useful material is:

http://www.ef.com.es/tz/free-resources/

English First (EF) is an international education company that specializes in language training, educational travel, academic degree programs, and cultural exchanges. In this webpage you will find material for beginner, intermediate and advanced students provided by such a popular company. They also send by post interesting magazines and catalogues that can help us and provide interesting resources and ideas. I am looking forward to receive mine.  

The Big Bang Theory

Greetings, students! 

As explained in class, we are about to start our new project using blogs to comment and elaborate content related to The Big Bang Theory. Each week you’ll be given a specific task, episode or character to comment on. Please read the dos and don’ts below to make sure we all have a pleasurable experience.

Bazinga!

1Personal safety

-       Don’t share:

o   personal information: last name, address, age, phone number

o   passwords

o   personal pictures

o   your bank account

-       Do change your privacy settings to “private”

-       Don’t bully your classmates. Bullying will be prosecuted and punished

-       Do be aware of the digital footprint: everything you post online stays there forever and can be traced and searched by anyone, anytime, anywhere

2How to write

-       General

o   Do watch your grammar and spelling

o   Do proofread

o   Do think before you write

o   Do be creative: don’t use other people’s work or, if you do, mention or link them

o   Do stick to the topic

o   Do post in English ONLY

o   Do warn your classmates if you are about to reveal crucial information about the plot (SPOILER ALERT)

-       Entries

o   Don’t post without reviewing

o   Do watch your structure

o   Do write clearly and concisely

-       Comments

o   Don’t be offensive

o   Do tolerate other people’s opinions and insights

o   Do be constructive

o   Do use full sentences

o   Do read the whole post through before commenting

o   Do keep your problems out of the blog

o   Do comment at least twice a week

WELCOME

Thank you so much for visiting my blog. I will use it as a tool for sharing all the interesting things that I discover about teaching English. I hope you can find it useful :)