This is what the University of Lincoln is going to do. It has just become the first UK university to get its own MEC platform. As well as using it with current students, Lincoln will also be using it to test, monitor and build up students' language levels before they even arrive at university.

For Lincoln, this has a number of big advantages. Building up their students' language levels in this way will give students longer to reach the level they want to attain and help them once they arrive.

Settling in will be made easier with access to all the study skills and practical resources from the 'University Culture' section of the English for Academic Purposes content.

It's a great way of building links with students before they even arrive and getting students on board to study at the university.

Mark Forster, senior lecturer at the University's Lincoln Languages Centre, commented on the potential to ''keep in touch with students, monitor their progress and devise a curriculum specifically for them. It means the Lincoln student experience will begin before students have even left their home town.''

Read Lincoln's press release about their use of MEC >

Planning to do a lesson on nature?

If so, click here to find eleven new creatures that have recently been discovered. MSN has created a slide for each creature with a short description of what the creature is and where it was found. Some of them are truly bizarre and may cause students to recoil in horror but should definitely create an interesting class discussion.

Also, don't forget that on MEC you can find a whole host of resources about nature by clicking on Interactive Worlds.

Many of you will be about to start teaching in summer camps for young learners. It's always nice to have a few extra ideas to hand so click here to find lesson tips about using fairy tales in the classroom. The lesson ideas come from the British Council's TeachingEnglish site.

You may also like to have a look at MEC's Animals and Culture world by clicking on Interactive Worlds from your Work Area. You will find lots of fables and stories about animals here. All of the resources in Interactive Worlds are compatible with Interactive Whiteboards and work very well with data projectors too. Enjoy!

MEC Training Coordinator, Sarah Milligan, writes:

Below is the sixth Macmillan Academy lesson idea. This one was written by Steph and uses a MEC Vocabulary and Listening Activity.

 Macmillan Academy Lesson 6 'Work and Phrasals'.pdf (83.14 KB)

MEC Training Coordinator, Sarah Milligan, writes:

Here is the fifth lesson plan from Macmillan Academy. This one was written and taught by Steph who has sadly left the training department but on the bright side is going to live and teach in Bhutan!

Macmillan Academy Lesson 5 'Jobs and Conditionals'.pdf (82.29 KB) 

MEC Product Trainer, Sarah Milligan, writes:

Below is my final lesson plan from Macmillan Academy. This one was about the word 'bogus' and focused on word formation and homophones.

 Macmillan Academy Lesson 3 'Bogus'.pdf (71.32 KB)

As always I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas on using MEC. If you'd like to write a comment just click on the comments button at the bottom of this posting or send me an email at s.milligan@macmillan.com.

MEC Product Trainer, Sarah Milligan, writes:

It's Friday and that means it's time for me to post another Macmillan Academy lesson idea for you to try out in class. This one was about Barack Obama and focused on mixed verb tenses. Just click on the link below to see the lesson plan.

Macmillan Academy Lesson 2 'Obama'.pdf (67.3 KB)

As always I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas on using MEC. If you'd like to write a comment just click on the comments button at the bottom of this posting or send me an email at s.milligan@macmillan.com.

MEC Product Trainer, Sarah Milligan, writes:

We (Steph, Joanna and Sarah from the MEC team) recently went to Oxford and taught English lessons using MEC and onestopenglish resources.

   
Joanna                                Steph                                  Sarah

Lessons were taught as part of a free twelve week project, created by Macmillan Education, for adults living in Oxford. The project was called Macmillan Academy and for the next nine weeks we'll be posting one of the lesson plans that we used to teach lessons at the Academy.

Below is a link to the first lesson I did with my class. They were very advanced learners so I had to find some challenging material for them to use. I hope it inspires you to use MEC in class.

Macmillan Academy Lesson 1 'Communication'.pdf (72.07 KB)

Please feel free to comment on this lesson plan by clicking on the 'comments' link at the bottom right of this posting.

If you have any questions you can contact me directly at s.milligan@macmillan.com.

Using Twitter in ELT                 

Community Walk is a website which allows you to create highly personalised and interactive maps thanks to its powerful, yet simple and intuitive interface. You just click on the orange Create Map icon and follow straightforward instructions. If you encounter any problems, there are a few tutorials available as well as discussion forums. You might design a route from A to B or mark places of interest like tourist attractions, your favourite hangouts or quaint second-hand shops where you can get the best bargains. You might restrict yourself to your neighbourhood or explore a bigger area like the whole city, country or even a continent. There are no limits, just your imagination! You can add other features like comments, photos, video and audio so that the place comes across in all its visual splendour or shabbiness with your description. The maps can be open to the public (and collaboration) or kept private in which case you have to create a free account. A couple of clicks are enough to embed the map in your website or blog.

Using Interactive Worlds with adult learners

Although the Interactive Worlds are designed for 10-14 year olds, some of the content could easily be used with adults at pre-intermediate to intermediate level. After all, everyone likes to watch videos in class, and why should young learners get all the fun?!

Here's an idea for a lesson using MEC Interactive Worlds resources with adult learners. You can also click below to download the lesson plan in pdf form.

Interactive Worlds video lesson plan.pdf ( KB)

Preparation

1.      Log in to MEC and open up the Interactive Worlds. Go to The Natural World. Open up the Zone called 'Animals Communicating' and go to the resource called 'Cetaceans: description'. This resource comes with a downloadable worksheet which you should print out before the lesson. Just click on the worksheet icon at the top of the page to open the document, then print out enough copies for everyone in your class.

Remember that you can also find a list of new vocabulary in the 'A-Z' link at the top of the page.

1.      In the 'Animals Communicating' Zone, go to the 'Cetaceans video' and click 'Read' to open the script for the video. Print out enough copies for all of your learners and then cut the script up so that each sentence is on a separate piece of paper. You'll need to give one set of text to each learner. If you want to make this more difficult you could cut the text mid-sentence.

2.      In the 'Animals Communicating' Zone, go to 'Which species: elephants or cetaceans?' and open the Web Project by clicking the worksheet icon at the top of the screen. Print out enough copies of the Web Project for all of your learners.

Introduction

1.      Go to 'Animals Communicating' and open up the 'Elephants and Cetaceans' page. The lesson focuses on Cetaceans so you’ll need to cover the rest of the page. If you are using an IWB you can cover up the text relating to elephants using the IWB tools. If you are using a data projector you can cover it with the 'hint' or the 'Help' box from the resource itself. Elicit the name of the animals in the picture from your learners. Ask them if they know what the scientific name for the animal is.

2.      Hand out the 'Cetaceans: communication facts' worksheet and tell your learners to read the text about cetaceans on the board (or on their screens if you are working in a computer room) and answer any questions they can on the worksheet.

3.  Go to 'Cetaceans: description' and play the listening to your learners. To find the resource click

     on 'Home' and hover over the 'Animals Communicating' Zone.

4.  Ask the class to fill in any more answers that they can on the worksheet.

Video resource

1.      Once the video has finished give out the cut up script and ask them to put the sentences in the correct order.

You may remember we launched a competition in September using a Macmillan English Campus news item with voicethread. We asked your students to make comments about the news item and write or record them on our voicethread slide.

We are delighted to announce the winner of the MEC voicethread competition is class B2.2 from The British School of Trieste, Italy. We had great fun finding out what they had to say. You can see an example of their excellent comments below.

The British School of Trieste will soon own five brand new Macmillan readers as a prize for their great effort. If you'd like to find out more about voicethread click here.

Thank you to everyone who entered the competition and watch this space for the next one!

If you want to find some excellent teaching ideas on using technology in the classroom then it's worth your while visiting Nik Peachey's blog Learning technology teacher development.

One of his postings tells us all about Gifup, a site that allows to you make your own photo slide shows. As usual, Nik suggests some useful ways to use Gifup in class and highlights the advantages and disadvantages.

You could create a photo slideshow to use with a MEC vocabulary activity. For example if you're using the MEC Vocabulary Activity Clothes you could find lots of pictures of clothes, use Gifup to create a slideshow and ask learners to shout out the correct names as a follow-up activity.

The lovely image above was made using the website Wordle - Beautiful Word Clouds. I thought it might be useful for teachers using an IWB or data projector. Click on 'create' and add some text or even the url or Rss feed of a website to make a beautiful word cloud.

 Here are a couple of ideas for using Wordle in class:

1. Create your own Wordle using vocabulary you're about to teach and put it on your IWB flipchart or project it onto the wall to introduce the lesson.

2. Choose a song you'd like to do with your class. Get the lyrics from one of the many song lyric websites. (Click here for one I found earlier). Make a Wordle from the lyrics, add it to your IWB flipchart or project it. Ask your learners to guess what they think the song is going to be about by looking at the vocabulary. Below is a Wordle made from the David Bowie classic 'Changes'.

If you think of any more ways to use Wordle, let us know!

Do you like a challenge?

Would you like to win your class five Macmillan readers?

We are holding a competition for all teachers using Macmillan English Campus.

We have uploaded an image and some text from one of our News Items onto Voicethread and would like your learners to leave their comments. The best comments from a class win five Macmillan Readers!

If you've never heard of voicethread before click here.  

All of the instructions are written on our Voicethread slide show. To access it all you have to do is send us your name and the email address you'd like us to send the voicethread link to and we'll send you an invitation. The competition ends at 5.30pm on October 31st 2008.

Here is one way you can use the competition with your class:

 ·         Have a look at the voicethread and familiarise yourself with the commenting tool.

 ·         To leave a comment you need to click on comment at the bottom of the voicethread and it  will give you two options. Click on either type or record. If you choose type you can write in your comment and if you choose record you can record your comment but only if you have a microphone.

 ·         Before your computer lab lesson pre-teach your learners vocabulary from the News Item in the competition.

 ·          Take your learners into the computer lab and encourage them to think about their answers and what comments they'll make.

 ·          Finally have lots of fun typing or recording comments, remembering to mention what school or class you are from.

 ·         If it's good you might find yourself with a brand new set of Macmillan readers.

We look forward to reading your comments!

Grammar is often seen as the most boring part of learning a language. However hard students study they still make errors when they attempt to use the language in context.

I found a very interesting grammar exercise on esl.about.com which is a fantastic resource site. In the link below you can find a couple of popular quotes made by George W. Bush. The quotes can be used during a warm-up or practice stage. Simply, give the quotes to your students and ask them to try and find grammar or vocabulary mistakes.

It is a great chance for students to experience real language in real context.

Have a look around the site by clicking on the link below as it is full of Bushisms.

esl.about.com - Bushisms

Also, why not check out our American English vs British English resources on MEC. Below are just a few of them.

• British v American English: verb and tense use - Grammar Reference Unit
• British v American English: vocabulary - Grammar Reference Unit
• British v American English: spelling - Grammar reference Unit 

Last week you may have seen Sarah's posting on our big day out at EmbassyCES, Deptford filming ourselves teaching lessons using MEC on an IWB.

We had a great time and would like to say a big 'Thankyou' to EmbassyCES for letting us borrow their students for the morning, and also to the students themselves.

Sarah had a bit more footage of her lesson than I did, but a summary of my IWB lesson is below. I hope it gives you a few ideas for using MEC on the IWB in your school. Please excuse the shaky camera work…

Lesson using MEC on an IWB

Resources:  The MEC News Item 'Nanotechnology could be used in food' and the Listening Activity 'Food and Nutrition'

Language: Food vocabulary

Skills: Reading, listening and speaking

Level: Upper-intermediate

Age: Adult

Part 1

I began this lesson with a quick warmer and then I showed the class photos of different types of food on the IWB. I'd taken these directly from the internet by searching in Google images. I elicited the food vocabulary from the learners and then elicited whether each food was healthy or unhealthy. Then I asked learners to discuss with a partner two foods they hated, two foods they loved, and why. Each pair reported back to the class.

Here you see the learners talking about food. I think they were enthusiastic because it was the lesson before lunch!

Here's some feedback from a few individual students.

Part 2

The second part of the lesson was to introduce the learners to the MEC News Item. I showed them the picture that goes with the News Item and asked them to guess what it was about. Then I gave everyone a printed copy of the News Item and asked them to read it. They had 5-10 minutes to do this.

Once learners had read and understood the News Item I asked them to put the article away and look at the activity on the board. As a class I showed them sections of the News Item with key vocabulary blocked out. I asked for a different volunteer to read each paragraph out loud, filling in the missing word when they came to it. Each missing word had a definition at the bottom of the screen to help them work out the answers. Any words they didn't understand we looked up on the board together using MEDO. You can see them having a go in the clip below.

And here's a vocabulary revelation.

For the final activity we opened up the MEC level 5 listening activity 'Food and Nutrition'. As a class we listened to the information about the nutrients found in different foods. Then the learners volunteered to come up and choose the correct options from the list of vitamins and nutrients. This was a great activity for the IWB as they just had to tap the correct answers with their finger. The rest of the class fed back on whether they agreed or disagreed with the choice and as a class we got MEC to instantly mark the activity.

To round up I asked the learners to discuss the 'Food for thought' questions from the News Item in pairs, then we had a group discussion on the feedback from each pair. It was a fun lesson and all the easier to do for having the whiteboard there to make the group activities really interactive. By the time the bell went everyone was famished!

Here in the training department we're always encouraging teachers to use MEC in class. With more and more classrooms equipped with IWBs or projectors we think there's no excuse for shying away from technology in the classroom.

Even as I write this blog posting I can hear the cries of millions of teachers worldwide.

'Yes I’d like to use technology in the classroom, but how? Give me some ideas!'

That's why Steph and I went to EmbassyCES, London to film some demo lessons using MEC and an IWB.

We had a lovely time and have posted a few of the videos below. You can also see a description of our lesson plan. We hope it gives you food for thought and inspires you to send us your own ideas for using MEC in class.

As you're about to discover we're not experts at holding a camera so please excuse the shaky screen and unusual camera moves.

Holiday Lesson using an IWB and MEC listening activity 'Holidays'

Language - Superlatives

Level - Intermediate

Part 1

I began this lesson by showing the class three photos. Each photo represented a past holiday and what I thought of it. For example the first photo was of Tulum in Mexico and represented 'the most beautiful place I've ever been to'. I elicited the superlative from the class and then uncovered it on the whiteboard. I repeated this for three photos and elicited the three superlatives below.

most beautiful

most exciting

most frightening

I asked the learners to make questions out of these superlatives and wrote them on the board.

Part 2

The second part of the lesson was to get the learners talking in pairs using superlatives. I showed the class a slide on the IWB with three questions from a MEC resource they would do later (I didn't tell them this). The learners copied the questions and I gave them instructions to ask each other the questions and make notes.

After five to ten minutes the learners sat back down and we spoke about some of the answers they had given. It was a great way of getting to know the learners, hearing some interesting stories and an opportunity to make sure they were using superlatives correctly.

Part 3

At this point I wanted to introduce learners to some vocabulary they would be listening to in a MEC exercise so I uncovered each word from the IWB using the eraser tool and elicited the meaning. I also asked learners to say the words out loud in order to check their pronunciation.

Finally I opened the MEC listening resource Holidays on the IWB and we listened as a class. Learners had to match the speaker to one of the three questions discussed earlier. We listened to each speaker twice then the learners compared their answers with the person next to them. We listened a final time and I got them to tell me what they thought the answers were.

I hope that was useful and it has inspired you to teach a class using an IWB and MEC. Next week we will be posting Steph's demo lesson from our day at EmbassyCES, London.

On the 26th and 27th of September we were very pleased to organise a two day top-up training session at the University of Trento in Italy. Language training at the university is run by the Centro Interfacolta per l'Apprendimento delle Lingue (CIAL) and this is where the MEC training was held.

A view over Trento

The university has been using MEC for over a year and it was fantastic to see the blended learning courses they have built in order to help their students reach CEF level B2. The CIAL has excellent several computer labs plus a computer and projector in every classroom, so there is plenty of opportunity for students to use MEC at the centre as well as for homework. To find an overview of the blended courses run at the University of Trento just click on the link below.

Uni Trento Blended learning presentation.pdf (350.5 KB)

One of the computer labs at the CIAL

It was a real pleasure to meet all of the university teachers. Some were new to MEC and came to the training to get an understanding of MEC resources, how best to use them and how to use them as part of a course. Other teachers had a great deal of experience with using MEC and building courses which meant they were able to share their knowledge with the less experienced teachers and also provide some very useful feedback on MEC.

We look forward to hearing about how the university students get on with the blended learning courses in the coming months.

MEC is currently being used by a number of customers in South America, including the Cultura Inglesa São Paulo (CISP). CISP is a chain of 27 language schools in São Paulo. They were the very first users of MEC, which they call the 'e-Campus'. They have been using MEC since 2003 and it is now used by 45,000 students and 750 teachers.

The Cultura Inglesa building in São Paulo

The Cultura schools have been very successful in incorporating e-Campus into their courses.

We caught up with Vilson Coimbra, e-learning manager for CISP, to find out more.

Supporting teachers

CISP has promoted the e-Campus to teachers energetically as Vilson is clear that this is the best way to integrate the e-Campus into the working life of the school. He explains how 'all new teachers are introduced to the e-Campus during our pre-service programme ... and work on its inclusion in their lesson plans.'

Indeed, at the LABCI conference last month, Vilson demonstrated in a presentation how effectively the e-Campus could be used with an interactive whiteboard, showing examples of creative activities that teachers could use.

All this really helps teachers to harness the potential of the e-Campus: 75% of teachers using it reported in a survey that they were 'Satisfied' or 'Very Satisfied' with its effectiveness.

Encouraging students

CISP continually encourages students to use the e-Campus at home as well as in the classroom. Research undertaken by CISP shows that 57% of students like using computers to learn English, and 71% say that MEC helps them to improve their English.

So how do they do it?

Crucially important is making sure that students are aware of what the e-Campus can offer. For example, the school's web portal offers sample resources and advertises new content that is published to the e-Campus by Macmillan. There have also been seasonal word games competitions for students to enter - which have proven to be very popular.

Vilson adds: 'Nowadays the e-Campus is part of the daily routine of students and staff. It is used in class as part of the practice needed for a specific language item or skill, as an assessment tool at the beginning of a term - and the exercises can be assigned for remedial work and revision.'

We are delighted to introduce a new guest blogger today. Simone Sucupira is a teacher at Cultura Inglesa São Paulo (CISP) - Campinas. She writes:

Simone Sucupira

This year's LABCI conference invited us to discuss education in a situation of changing learning needs. We were challenged to think about what kind of education our society is likely to need in the near future. We asked ourselves the following question: 'How can we make a difference?'

Bearing this in mind, I chose the title 'The e-Campus and Self-Paced courses: the next revolution' for my presentation at LABCI.

Here at CISP, we've been using the e-Campus for quite some time and its adoption has revolutionized our regular courses. The e-Campus has made such a huge difference because although it's a single tool, it's brought many new innovations to our teaching! Here are some of the benefits of the e-Campus: 

•       It's a virtual learning environment which offers consistent content and flexible delivery: students can have optimized input of language anywhere, anytime they like.
  
•       It has added a new, less controlled, asynchronous element to our courses: students are much more free to decide what to do when they are not in the classroom. It promotes learner autonomy! 

One of my students, Guilherme Nunes, once told me: 'The e-Campus as it is now, offers students a lot.' This made me wonder what else we could offer given that the e-Campus has already been so successfully integrated to our courses. Then I realized that listening to what our students have to say about their learning needs is the key to understanding how we can make a difference.

Guilherme kindly granted me an interview which became the basis for discussing two of the most important questions I posed during my presentation:

•     What kind of learning opportunities could our students need that we might not be offering at the moment?
•     As an e-learning tool, has the e-campus achieved its full potential?

Here's Guilherme's interview.

In my presentation, I tried to demonstrate that the e-Campus currently offers students at CISP a great deal but has potential for much more! It might evolve from a supplementary tool into a self-contained, independent, on-line learning course.

At CISP we will be as ready to adapt as we are keen to offer the best learning opportunities to our students who, as in the case of Guilherme, sometimes cannot fit their schedules to our regular classes.

Marcela Moya

In a 4,000 kilometre long country where distance is clearly not a choice, the British Institute in Santiago started developing distance learning programmes of English as a foreign language in 2000. In 2004, we decided to incorporate the English Campus as a powerful online source of EFL learning resources into our face-to-face and distance learning programmes. We soon realised that the potential behind the possibility of generating tailor-made courses for every type of internal and external user with a wide range of needs was simply enormous.

At the moment, we have created over 100 different courses for our language school face-to-face teen and adolescent students, face-to-face students from our recently launched Universidad Chileno Británica de Cultura – The British University, students from traditional state and private universities which have signed agreements with us to generate blended English programmes and an important number of 100% distance students spread out along the length of the country. The courses designed for this last segment include Cambridge ESOL KET, PET, FCE, CAE, CPE and IELTS exam preparation courses online and Cambridge ESOL TKT (Teaching Knowledge Test) three-module courses for EFL teachers in need of an international teaching certification.

Map of Chile

 Cultura Inglesa São Paulo

'Here at Cultura Inglesa São Paulo the "e-Campus" (that is what we call MEC) is widely used both as part of the regular curriculum and also for remedial work.

For our business English students, the e-Campus has been used along with two distance courses run by The Club, our business executive unit.

One of these courses is called "emailing" and helps students develop their writing skills. On this course students are emailed activities which require them to write business emails and reports and subsequently submit them to a teacher at the unit. After analyzing the student's text, the teacher replies with comments and suggestions for improvement.

The other course is called "phone classes". On this course students schedule a time to practise their English with a teacher over the phone, and the main focus is on fluency. Prior to the scheduled phone class, the student receives a text to read or a task to work on, such a product presentation. During the conversation on the phone, the teacher makes notes of the student's performance and proposes a course of action for improvement.

For both courses the e-Campus provides activities which help students to practise the language they need for written or conversational English. Specifically the e-Campus provides topics of conversation taken from the news items. It also provides the opportunity for remedial work that the teacher has identified as necessary when analyzing a student's written or oral work.

The improvement achieved by the students as a result of their e-Campus practice can be assessed in future written work or phone conversations.'

5. Peer teaching.

'Divide the class into two or more groups. Members of each group study a particular Grammar Reference Unit (GRU) at home and complete the corresponding language exercises. In the next class, they teach/tell their peers in the other group what they studied and what they have learned.  This could be done equally well to promote discussion by using different news items.

Grammar reference unit

6. Vocabulary quizzes.

Learners read a particular news item at home, check MEDO and add any new words to their Wordlists, but without the definitions. In pairs, they then "test" their partner next lesson to see how much they know and can remember. They then do the food for thought questions together as a class.

MEDO

7. Web projects.

Learners do a web project at home (remember they can also print them out in hard copy) and add any new vocabulary to their Word Lists. They then present their findings to the class. As a follow-up, they could create their own short web projects for their peers to complete.

8. Consider modifying the level of challenge or the task.

Why not rethink the way learners approach resources? For example, get them to read different levels of the same news item and compare the language used, suggest they use the Hint or Audio box to hide the questions when doing a listening activity or encourage them to use the audioscript as a reading text - but without the audio. Be creative!

This list is of course just a taster of what's possible. We'd love to hear the ideas you've got for things which have worked well! Leave a comment.'

'What homework have you been setting for your learners on MEC?  Have you been pointing them to a particular part of their course and giving them specific resources to complete or just letting them dive in and explore? 

While neither approach is necessarily wrong, a "guided discovery" approach will allow your learners to use MEC in a more structured way and give you scope to exploit the full range of resource types on the database.

To whet your appetite, below are a few ideas for MEC homework which you might like to consider. Have a look also at Part 3 of the Guide to MEC.

1. Get them to practise their basic MEC skills. 

We've put together some ready-made worksheets for you on our support site. You can print these off and give them out as homework. Easy! There are even separate teacher's notes with answers.

2. Give them a list of resources.

Another quick and easy way to set homework. Simply give your learners a list of relevant resources by title. They then find the resources for themselves at home, bookmark them and complete them. This has the added advantage of getting learners to practise their searching and bookmarking skills!

   3.    Finish an activity at home.

Start a MEC resource in class. For example, you could just do the first few questions of a language exercise together, get them to predict the contents of a news item from the photo or headline or just listen to the audio of a listening activity. Then you could get your learners to complete the activity at home.

4. Treasure Hunt.
   Prepare a hidden sentence comprised of, say, 10 words found in different parts of MEC. They could be words from an audioscript, from the questions to an exercise or even from the MEC interface itself. Your learners have to search the database to find the words and complete the sentence. They then prepare a similar sentence for their peers next lesson. This could be done as a race - first group to find all the words wins!'

Have you ever tried any similar ideas? Do you find them useful? There will be more tips from Mike in tomorrow's posting so keep watching the blog to find out what they are.

Judith Dick

'Hi! I'm Judith from the French speaking part of Switzerland. I manage MEC at OPTI alongside Pierre-Alain who looks after the technical details. We have more than 1000 students and well over half of them are absolute beginners or low elementary.

Our problem: many of our teachers were reticent to use MEC at first, complaining that beginners couldn't understand the instructions! We devised the following solution:

When students start using MEC for the first time they download a pre-prepared exercise from their individual servers, or they watch and copy from the projector. They must translate and order the MEC vocabulary correctly. We used TextEdit to create these exercises as we are all using Macs here. You could also use Word on a PC. Here are some examples (tables are shaded in yellow where students have completed the exercises):

The exercises are then saved into a MEC folder on the desktop, always ready for use. Within this folder students keep the files for different MEC activities, vocabulary and instructions that they have translated. This helps them gain greater independence right from the start.

For translations we encourage students to open Wordreference.com in a separate browser. Monolingual dictionaries are great but not much use for real beginners. I suspect quite a number of elementary students find them a challenge too.

We also have another great idea for easy translation if you use Firefox as your web browser. Within Firefox2 (US) you can add a useful instant translation tool. Go to Mozilla Addons click on dictionaries and install the language you require. Then when you hover over a word in your browser, up comes the translation. It's brilliant and defies all those "can't dos"!'

What do you think of the OPTI approach? How does it compare to your organization? Leave a comment.

Judith will soon be back with a clinic on her experiences with MEC at OPTI. For more information, watch this space!