Blended learning, English language teaching and the use of technology - the MEC blog - Top tips

Placement test

Steph — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 10:35:52 GMT

MEC Training Coordinator, Sarah Milligan, writes:

For those of you who can't wait to use the new placement test on your English Campus I thought I'd make a few suggestions about how you could get it up and running in your school or university.

1. How will I upload my placement test students on to my English Campus site?

There are several ways you could do this but I think the following options would be easiest:

Use a csv file to upload a group of users with generic names like 'placement1, placement2, placement3' and then assign them all to a special placement test class.

Or get your students to register themselves into a class you have already created for the sole purpose of testing new students. This way you will get the students to write in their own details.

2. Do I assign the placement test to individual users or classes?

I would create one class especially for new students taking the placement test. Once all of the logins in that class have been used up you can (after you've recorded the results) remove the placement test from the class and then reassign it so another group of students will be able to use the same logins. This only works if you have created generic logins. If your placement test users had personal login details you can simply delete them and add new logins to the class.

3. I don't know how to do any of the things you've mentioned above. Can you help?

Firstly, go to the teacher support area here. If you don't know the username and password then contact me s.milligan@macmillan.com. Once logged in go to 'Guide to MEC' then 'Guide to MEC for teachers'. At the bottom of the page you'll find a placement test guide for teachers attached.

4. How will my students know what to do when they log in to the English Campus?

I think it would be useful to make a one page document for your new students explaining how to access the placement test. This would need to be in the student's native language if they have a low level of English.

As always let us know how it goes!

Global Rich List

Steph — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:32:03 GMT

Ever wondered how rich you compared to the rest of the world? You'll find the answer at http://www.globalrichlist.com/

You just enter your annual income and it tells you how you compare, and it might surprise you how well off you are. An annual salary of £15,000 for example, will put you in the top 8.55% richest people in the world. It even shows where you are in a line of people representing the world's population. In case you had trouble visualizing the numbers.

This site is great for generating discussion and debate in class.

· Are students surprised at their richness ranking?

· What does this tell them about the distribution of wealth in the world?

You could even tie it in with a MEC News Item such as Bank that loans money to the poor is still successful or Banks to pay out billions in bonus cash.

Steph Earnshaw

Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition

Steph — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 10:48:41 GMT

Eva is a Trainer & Sales Representative for Macmillan English Campus>. She studied English Language and Literature at University, and taught English as a foreign Language in Austria before joining the Macmillan English Campus Sales, Marketing and Training team in 2010.

Are you looking for real-life incentives for higher level university students?

The Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition might have what you are looking for. On this website you can find plenty of authentic news articles and videos for college students.

There is also a comprehensive online teaching guide for the previous issues of the journal. This guide provides lots of comprehension questions and discussion ideas. Links to thematically related articles in the Wall Street Journal are also included for extra reading. You can find the online teaching guide for May 2010 here.

How to use the Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition?

You could use the material on the site perfectly for an upper-intermediate or advanced lesson about college education in the United States .

Your students could read this article written by a soon to be graduate, and find out about the student experience in the United States . You could follow up the reading exercise with a discussion about U.S. university life. Your learners will naturally compare the author's experience to their own schooling experience, and you could then go on discussing different educational systems.

If you would like your students to find out more about what the ''dean of admissions'' mentioned in the article does for a living, you could link to this video feature about college admission processes in the States. Having watched a panel of college admission officers discuss the crucial points they are looking for in an applicant, you could ask your students to write their own college application.

You could use a short video taken from the Gilmore Girls as an ice breaker for this lesson. Gilmore Girls is a popular US series following a teen, Rory, through her high school and university career. There is a short clip on YouTube showing Rory's graduation ceremony at Yale. Some of your students might know the series – and I’m sure everybody will be eager to find out more about the education system behind this particular graduation moment. >>>>

Role play activities

Steph — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 13:22:00 GMT

Here's a really cool way to get your students to do role play activities – get them to make movies from avatars with xtranormal.com>. Go to the website and just click on 'Create a movie' to get started.

All you have to do is choose a scenario (which comes complete with characters like the footballer below) and then make up a story for them to say. Your students can create their dialogue based on the setting (anything from a night with Sarah Palin to robots on an abandoned planet) or you could ask them to use dialogue that you have recently been working on in class.

It's free to use and you just need to create an account so that you can save your movies and keep them private. Once you've finished you can send them to people using MEC Web Links. You can see some demonstration videos here: http://www.xtranormal.com/watchmovies/>

Even the most shy of students will have no problem expressing themselves with this nifty little piece of software. The 'film producers' have control over everything including the characters' facial expressions, where they look (at camera or at the other character) and how they gesticulate.

If you really like it you can become an even more involved producer and design everything from the set, to the background music, to the characters themselves.

It’s a whole new world!

Steph Earnshaw

News item and word games update!

Steph — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:00:26 GMT

MEC> Editor, Kerstin Schneider, writes:

Japan's women celebrate record old age

This week's news item, adapted for MEC from a news article originally published in the Guardian Weekly, is about possible reasons for the long life expectancy of Japanese women.

You can find this story in the News Items section on your Work Area screen.

August word games

This month's Witch's Pot topics are 'ten types of film' (Easy), 'words or expressions from crime headlines' (Average) and 'words or expressions related to music' (Difficult).

The Swamp Disaster topics are 'vehicles' (Easy), 'words preceded by ''at''' (Average) and 'abstract nouns' (Difficult).

The Wordsearch topics are 'places where people live' (Easy), 'verbs that can be used instead of ''say''' (Average) and 'ways of speaking'(Difficult).

There are new Crosswords and Bridge Builders at all levels too.

Visit the Word Games area to find them all.

> >

Photograph puzzle

Steph — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 15:53:36 GMT

MEC Trainer, Joanna Trzmielewska>, writes:

Teachers try to avoid puzzling students, but why not give them a puzzle to help?

On this website you can upload any picture you want, decide the size and make your own photograph puzzle. Once your puzzle is ready you will get a link that you can use to send your photograph puzzle to your students. Alternatively, you can use the code to put the puzzle on your class blog or page.

Please have a look at the photograph sample here.

How to use the photograph puzzle with students:

Revision activity: Choose a photograph that contains some vocabulary items you did during the last class and make a puzzle. Send a link to the puzzle using the Web Links option on MEC. Ask students to make the puzzle and name as many words as they can from the picture. Then, save the words in their Word Lists.

Next Class Activity: Choose a photograph and send a link to the puzzle to your students and ask them to predict the next lesson discussion topic.

Breaking the ice: At the beginning of the course, when you have new students ask them to make their own puzzle and send you the link using the Messages option on MEC. Next, you resend the links to students and they try to guess the name of the student who made it.

>> >>

Active Pronunciation

Steph — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 17:44:02 GMT

If your students struggle with pronunciation or you find it hard to explain how to produce certain sounds in English, then you might find this site> useful.

It's from the university of Iowa website> and, although it's only available in American English (and Spanish), it's a really useful resource not only for low-level learners, but also more advanced students who get stuck on certain sounds in English.

If you have an IWB in your classroom then it's a great tool to have on standby in lessons for when you come accross any difficult pronunciation. You just click on the link to Launch English Library> and a pop up will appear containing an interactive library of all the sounds in English. When you click on the phonetic symbol you can play the sound being pronounced and also see how it's made inside the mouth. This could really help with sounds that are hard for you to demonstrate or describe.

And if you're really interested in the biology behind it all, there's another pop up screen that you can view if you click Articulatory Anatomy>. You scroll over the terms to label different parts of the mouth.

Subservient Chicken

Steph — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:07:27 GMT

MEC Training Coordinator, Sarah Milligan>, writes:

I'm not in the habit of advertising fast food chains but Burger King's marketing website Subservient Chicken can't be ignored!

You type an instruction for the chicken in the box and it does what you tell it. Honestly I'm not lying. It's hilarious and would make a great exercise for students practicing imperatives.

I asked Subservient Chicken to 'do yoga'and it did!

Engaging and innovative presentations with Prezi

Steph — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:48:40 GMT

Are you tired of using PowerPoint? Are you bored by whiteboard?

Then feast your eyes on Prezi.com>, the clever new way to make engaging and innovative presentations.

Just like any presentation software, with Prezi you can write captions, use images and add design to your presentation. The nice thing about Prezi is that the presentations it creates are much more fluid and organic looking than PowerPoint. With PowerPoint you click from slide to slide and can only really liven things up with some spinning words, and flying in graphics or inserted video clips. Prezi lets you slide smoothly from point to point, or from one group of ideas to the next. Then it floats you around all the points related to each main idea.

But don't take my word for it, take two minutes to look at the getting started guide on the Prezzi website. http://prezi.com/learn/getting-started/

If you teach intermediate to advanced level business English students this could be a wonderful way to keep them on their toes and to liven up the lesson. Show them Prezi in the lesson to make sure they can navigate well around the site. Then, ask them to use it to create an interesting presentation on a topic related to their work to be presented during the lesson.

They might even be able to use what they've done for a really innovative and unusual presentation at work, and impress their boss as well as their teacher!

Steph Earnshaw

> >>>>>

iwise

Steph — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:14:00 GMT

MEC Trainer, Joanna Trzmielewska, writes:

iwise> is a website packed with quotes by famous people. The quotes are organized according to various categories so you can easily find a quote and match it with the theme of your next lesson. The quotes said by a chosen person or on the chosen topic are presented in a slide show and can be downloaded in a powerpoint. The website is quite interactive as is updated with new quotes every couple of seconds as recent tweets and retweets are published.

How to use iwise> with students:

Quotes could be a trigger for a lively class discussion, where students have to give their opinions about randomly selected quotes.

You can use them as a pre-activity.

You could do a gap fill activity when students have to guess what words were removed.

You could bring a bunch of quotes to the class and the students have to match the quotes with famous people.

Drama in the ESL classroom

Steph — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:26:04 GMT

Steph Earnshaw has written a series of blog postings for us which will be appearing once a week on our blog.

Steph is a teacher and teacher trainer in the Himalayan mountain kingdom of Bhutan, also known as the land of the thunder dragon. She teaches students from 5 years to 45 years old in a school, a college, an adult education centre and a monastery. Steph worked for MEC as a trainer from 2007 - 2009.

Drama in the ESL classroom is a site designed to help English language teachers incorporate drama into their lessons. The handouts and other materials are free to use.

The good thing about this site is that it acts as a portal for finding other useful drama in ELT websites. For example, in the Plays section there are some links to ready-to-go scripts and role plays like this one on bogglesworldesl.com which is about visiting the doctor. There are also links to longer scripts like this one from aaronshep.com.It's called Master Man: a tall tale of Nigeria and, due to its length and vocabulary, would be more appropriate for learners of intermediate level and above. You'd probably need to consider doing longer scripts like this over more than one lesson. There are nine characters in the play so if your class is larger than this you'd need to have different groups. Alternatively you could use more than one play and have each group perform their play to the others, who take notes and write a synopsis at the end. Props are not essential but it could be good fun making them! Another link in the Plays section of Drama in the ESL classroom takes you to the drama page of eslflow.com, where you can find PDFs and web pages of role plays for general and business English.

>>>>>>>>>>

There are also some good resources on the drama and role play page of eslsite.com.There's a fun activity on using mime, as well as many ready-to-use role play activities.

Role plays are normally improvised using vocabulary you have learnt during the lesson. As an extension activity it might be useful to get students to write a script and turn their role play into a piece of drama. For example this role play, called Extenuating circumstances, might inspire some interesting scripts.>>>> >>

Image database!

Steph — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 15:09:52 GMT

MEC> Trainer, Joanna Trzmielewska>, writes:

Often teachers find it difficult to find images quickly, for use in class. The problem is that there are many pictures on the internet; it might be tricky to find exactly what we are looking for. Picsearch> has got a couple of unique features. It allows children to surf in safety as all offensive material is filtered out. The site is also very user friendly as it's designed to be simple, fast and accurate.

How to use it with students:

- Find a picture with some people on it and put students into groups of three. Students look at the people in the picture and each of them takes one person. First, think about what they are discussing. Are they arguing? Then, stand up and practise the conversation.

- Show a group of pictures and students try to guess what the connection between the items is. They start with 10 points and lose a point for each wrong answer.

- Put students in pairs and give each student a picture with the instructions not to show it to the others. Students try to figure out the order of the pictures in the story. If they get it right they get a point. You may also add a point if they guess all the items in the group of pictures.

- Give students the story text with some missing words they try to complete the gaps. Next give the pictures from the story, they organize the order of the pictures and check if they have put the correct words into the gaps.

- Prepare a set of different pictures. After the first picture has been placed, the next player puts the next picture next to it. He/She needs to invent a connection of some sort to link the pictures.

Newsy lessons

Steph — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 10:47:38 GMT

MEC> Training Coordinator, Sarah Milligan, writes:

Newsy> is a website which contains news videos summarising topics that have been recently covered in the media. Each video has a presenter who talks about the event, shows footage, quotes and plays audio of other people’s opinions of the event. The videos are all under 3 minutes and include a transcript.

These would work perfectly alongside a MEC News Item. For example this week's News Item is on Rural Tibetans dependent on 'fungal gold' and the videos below are also on the similar topic.

Send your students a web link to the video and a bookmark to the news item so they can watch and read them before their next lesson. News Items have discussion questions at the bottom and the presenters in the videos also ask the viewer what they think about the event. Ask your students to prepare their answers for a class discussion.

Onestopblogs

Steph — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:51:26 GMT

MEC and onestopenglish Assistant, Giulia Merlo, writes:

With so many relevant and authoritative bloggers writing across the web, and so many new blogs being born every day, it can be difficult to find and select the ones you like to read and to keep track of all their updates. On onestopblogs, the onestopenglish team brings them all together in just one place, ranking them by most popular and most viewed: this means that you can read the best stories on the web from teachers, trainers and linguists, all in one place.

All the blogs are checked for relevance and quality by the onestopenglish team, and their number and variety means that whether you are specifically interested in business English or you only teach young learners, whether you want to know more about teacher training or about using technology in the classroom, whether you're focusing on linguistics or passionate about Content and Language Integrated Learning, you can be sure to find the information that matters to you.

If you only have five minutes to spare, take a quick look at the Top Stories and see all the most talked-about topics of the moment at just one glance.

If you're looking for the latest news, click on the Latest Posts section to find a virtually instantaneous, chronologically-ordered list of the most recent postings.

If you're interested in hearing colleagues' opinions on the recent writing, go to Publications to find out which coursebooks, dictionaries and articles have been under the bloggers' scrutiny.

If you're looking for specific articles on your subject or teaching field, you can use our Search filter to enter keywords and be taken straight to postings relating to the topic you're most interested in.

Finally, if you're a blogger yourself, let the onestopenglish team know!
There's no better way to make your voice heard and share ideas with teachers and experts from all over the world than to become a part of the onestopblogs community. You can easily submit your blog for the consideration of the onestopenglish team via email.

A class on mystery

Steph — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:47:53 GMT

MEC Executive and Trainer, Pedro Moura, writes:

Videos can open the door for cultural discussions in the classroom, especially when combined with different resources, such as articles and magazines, readers and audio books. Teachers can introduce the topic of a particular book by showing a snippet of a film or part of a documentary, and tying that to questions or debates.

The following video is a good example of material that could be explored in many different ways. It is the adaptation of a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart, and depicts the narrator's strive to hide a mysterious crime. While the language may be quite advanced, teachers can still engage students in "watching for gist" and ask them to present their ideas on what happened.

If you're teaching intermediate students, perhaps you might be interested in creating your own adaptation of this story by copying from this source and stressing vocabularies and/or grammar points that you might be eventually dealing with.

You could also get your students to do some research and then give a presentation on "the father of the detective story". Teachers could divide their classes into groups and give each group a different aspect to be researched – childhood, death, etc –, and raise questions such as "how would someone like Poe be treated in today's society?", among others. Presentations could be given in PowerPoint and students could work with each other.

You may want to link all this to a short documentary on Poe's mysterious death and then discuss the different versions:

If you manage to guide your students bit by bit through these topics and pathways, you shall see how much interest in the class they will develop…

Video bank!

Steph — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 14:41:22 GMT

MEC> Trainer, Joanna Trzmielewska>, writes:

There is no question that using videos during a class makes the lessons more interesting and engaging. However, it can be problematic finding good and authentic videos. If we want to engage our students it is best when the videos are similar to what our students tend to watch in their free time.

Metacafe is an independent video site which contains short videos. You can find Movie trailers, Music videos, TV clips, Sports highlights or Video games. The average video on the site is just over 90 seconds long, which means it is just right to make it a part of your lesson.

Please find below a taste of what you can find on Metacafe:

Movie trailer

TV clips

Play a video but cover the screen. Students write down what they hear and compare in pairs. You can do a similar activity with the screen on, but without the sound.

Hit pause when a character has an interesting expression on his/her face or is about to react/answer a question.

Student A is watching a video, Student B closes his/her eyes. Student A is describing what is happening.

Stop the video in the middle of the sentence and students have to finish it.

Have fun!

>>>>

Say it in 1000 words!

Steph — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 15:49:51 GMT

MEC Trainer, Joanna Trzmielewska, writes:

Teachers always aim towards establishing their students' skills to use language freely. They want students to be able to express themselves, their thoughts and personalities in the language students study. The question that often arises is how we can create a background for that in the classroom.

A Picture's Worth is a website that collects personal photographs with stories to explain the photograph's significance to the author. The site inspires people to bring out the meaning or story behind a personal photograph. The idea is that 'a picture is worth a thousand words'.

How to start using it with students:

Print some photographs and their stories. Ask students to match the stories with the photographs.

Stories are written in good English and they can serve as a real life language model for the students' writing.

Give students the photographs only and ask them to write a story behind it in 1000 words. Next give the students the real story. They check how close their story is to the original one.

Students could try and submit their own photographs and stories to the website.

> >> >> >>>

Make your own video!

Steph — Wed, 12 May 2010 13:59:35 GMT

MEC> Trainer, Joanna Trzmielewska>, writes:

Zimmer Twins> is a site where your teenage students could use their imagination and create their very own movies. Before making your own movie you can watch movies that have already been made by other users. You could treat it as a source of inspiration for your students and yourself.

You can slowly introduce your students to making a movie. As a first step in creating movies, in the tab Make a Movie, you can come up with the ending of a movie that has been started. Then, you could watch an instructor video on how to make your very own movie from scratch. When you make a movie, you can choose from four types of animated clips, you can make the characters talk, yell or sing, using the movement clip you can put your characters into action. Close-up clips give your characters various emotions. The star clip gives you a chance to do fun things.

Now you are ready to make your very own movie!

Why is Zimmer Twins good?

It stirs students' imagination and encourages them to use the language to the extent that they can and want to. It is a great opportunity, especially for teenagers, to express themselves in a foreign language.The site is moderated daily and has various filters in place to make sure the content that is being posted there is appropriate for viewers of all ages. >

> >>>

Use facts in your lesson

Steph — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 12:42:48 GMT

MEC Training Coordinator, Sarah Milligan, writes:

Here are some resources that you could use for a fact based lesson:

Go to the BBC home page here.

At the bottom of the BBC home page there is a little section called 'QI FACT OF THE DAY'

Each day you will find a new fact and also a quote under the fact. Perhaps you could incorporate this into you lessons as a short discussion to start the class. You could allocate a day to each student and ask them to present the information and tell the class what they think the fact or the quote means.

If you click on the link 'QI: FACT OF THE DAY' you will navigate to QI's home page. QI is a television programme based in the UK all about facts. QI stands for Quite Interesting. When I went to their home page I noticed they also use Twitter to tweet topical facts here. Another resource that could be used in class.

If you find your students enjoy researching and finding out factual information, set them a MEC Web Project to complete each week. There are currently 88 Web Projects on MEC for you to access. Just type in ''Web Project'' in the Word and Phrase Search to find them.

Finally you can find a huge amount of factual information here. The facts are all neatly divided up into categories so your students can focus on a topic that suits them.

Happy fact finding!

Face your manga!

Steph — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 14:46:12 GMT

Joanna Trzmielewska>, MEC Trainer, writes:

Face your Manga> is a site where you can create your own manga style images in a few simple steps.When you are happy with your avatar you email it to yourself and download it on to your computer.

How to use it with your students:

You could ask your students to create the images as similar to themselves as possible and bring it to the class. You mix the images and students try to guess who the images represent in the class. Alternatively, students might create images of celebrities and bring it to class for other to guess (language: comparative adjectives).

You or your students could create the images and bring it to the class to exchange with others. Then, they have to create a background for each character: where they are from, what they do and hobbies. (language: Present Simple, Present Continuous)

You or your students could create pairs of the images and bring it to the class. Put students in pairs and distribute the images. Students do not see their partner's image and describe the image they have got. Then, the other student says what the differences are. When they have finished they show each other the images.

You or your students could create a couple of images and bring it to the class. Put students in pairs one person in a pair describes an image to the other student who draws it. Then, they show the original image to compare it with the drawing. (language: clothing, appearance)

Welcome to April on onestopenglish!

Steph — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 14:58:05 GMT

Lucy Williams, Acting Commissioning Editor – onestopenglish>, writes:

Welcome to April on onestopenglish!

We've come over all patriotic with the launch of our new series of mini-plays>, bringing a slice of contemporary British life to your lessons! Our first mini-play takes place at a clothes shop in Manchester, and includes an mp3 file, student worksheets and teacher’s notes complete with tips to get the most out of the material.

And to celebrate this literary feast, we're giving all new and existing subscribers the chance to win a Sony Reader. You can find out more about this special offer here.

'Acting' is also the big issue in this month’s Business Spotlight lesson, as two experts debate whether lying in a job interview is an acceptable thing to do. And there's a spot of role-play in the latest instalment of Fun with Grammar, where students play a game that tests both their imagination and the second conditional.

On onestopclil >, we have the next part of Carol Read's Amazing world of animals> project, where children learn about the habitats of our furry and not-so-furry friends. Back on onestopenglish, we hunt for Mr Crocodile's toothbrush in our latest Selections lesson, and older students can get stuck into the third part of our Using art in the classroom series which focuses on the artist behind the masterpiece.

Our latest free monthly news lesson reveals the richest people in the world according to the US business magazine, Forbes.And don't forget to download the latest Macmillan Dictionary BuzzWord Lesson Plan on the dreaded swine flu.

The Staff Room offers a whole new world of fresh and exiting resources, so why not visit our sample resources page?Then find out how the onestopenglish Learning Calendar can help you organize all your teaching resources.

There's lots more great content – take your time to explore and enjoy another packed edition of onestopenglish!

>>> >>>> >>

News item and word games update!

Steph — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 15:47:11 GMT

MEC Managing Editor, Jeremy Smith, writes:

Scavengers of a populous island

This week's news item, adapted for MEC from a news article originally published in the Guardian Weekly, is about the problems with waste management in Java , Indonesia , and the people who collect waste on landfill sites to earn money there.

You can find this story in the News Items section on your Work Area screen.

April word games

This month's Witch's Pot topics are 'names of continents and oceans'(Easy),'items in the office' (Average) and 'parts of a car' (Difficult).

The Swamp Disaster topics are 'education'(Easy), 'space' (Average) and 'words that follow ''do''' (Difficult). >>

The Wordsearch topics are 'shapes'(Easy), 'verbs related to liking and disliking' (Average) and 'words connected to newspapers' (Difficult).

There are new Crosswords and Bridge Builders at all levels too.

Visit the Word Games area to find them all. >> >

Storm your classes with movies!

Steph — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 17:12:54 GMT

MEC Trainer, Joanna Trzmielewska, writes:

Get your students to use their creativity while improving their English. The way to do it might be Moviestorm.com a website where you can make an entire movie from scratch. You choose the characters, their costumes, how they move, the setting, lighting and most importantantly what they say! You simply type in and record your characters lines. When you are happy with everything you save the movie and you can upload it to any website. However, you can always go back to the movie and change a few bits here and there.

It is very simple to make the movie, please click here to watch the tutorial video.You might also be interested in how to record speaking, just click here.

How to use it with students:

You can practise prepositions of movement.

You can introduce and practise clothes vocabulary and various items.

You can use the movie as project work at the end of a block of lessons about entertainment.

You can introduce and practise various grammar points.

Comparing and contrasting words with Googlebattle

Steph — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:16:47 GMT

MEC> Trainer, Joanna Trzmielewska>, writes:

Googlebattle> is a very simple tool which allows you to compare words, phrases to see how they are used. It is very simple to use. Type in two words or phrases and Google> will give you results of how popular they are.

If you click on 'view' next to the result you will be given an example of the context it is being used in.

How to use it with students:

Compare the use of prepositions

Check spelling

Compare expressions

Compare British and American spelling

Check the popularity of the word, phrase or expression

Have fun!

>> >>>

GIF Animation

Steph — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:09:24 GMT

MEC> Trainer, Joanna Trzmielewska>, writes:

I came across a website which might help you to change the dynamic of introducing, drilling or revising vocabulary with your students. GIFUP.com> is a personal animation and avatar generator. You can capture a photo with your webcam, upload images from your computer or get them from Flickr> or any other website.Then, GIFUP> does the magic and you get your animated avatar, banner or a GIF> slide show. Then, you may save it on your computer or send a link to your students. I hope that both you and your students will have lots of fun doing it.

Vegetables

TeacherTube

Steph — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:58:13 GMT

MEC Trainer, Joanna Trzmielewska, writes:

TeacherTube is an online community for sharing videos. It is a site where teachers can post videos designed for students to view in order to learn a concept or skill.

The most important thing about this website is the fact that videos refer to our students' interests and discuss their everyday life. The videos might also be attractive to students as a lot of them are made by their peers. The language in the videos is real and provides students with a chance to experience various accents.

Teachers can also find some videos that provide them with tips on how to teach effectively.

You are using you could send particular videos to your students as homework with a set of questions to answer. Videos could start a speaking class, stimulate students to express opinions. You might want to use videos as the basis of bigger projects. Alternatively, you might ask students to make their own videos and publish them on the site.

Example of videos:

Texting and Literacy

Cry Me a Verb (maybe your students could do something similar about Irregular verbs in English)

Introduction to The Catcher in the Rye

Interactive Read-Aloud

How NOT To Use PowerPoint
>

Creating a photobook

Steph — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:59:20 GMT

Joanna Trzmielewska, MEC Trainer, writes:

We know that images and stories help to establish and revise vocabulary and grammar. We often do storytelling with young learners, who are always very excited about the idea of listening to and creating a story. However, the question is how to bring stories into teenage and adult class, without students thinking that it is childish and silly.

The solution might be bookr.Bookr> is a tool to create and share your own photobooks using Flickr images.

Why create a photobook?

● to revise vocabulary

● a way to practise writing

● introduce/revise grammar points

How to create a photobook?

Before you start creating your own photobook you may want to see how others have done it by going to the bookr archive>.

Go to Bookr

Search for images to use as the cover of your photobook and write a title and the author.

Turn the page and search for images and add some text.

If you want you can add some more pages by clicking on the + symbol next to the photobook.

When you have finished creating your photobook, click on Publish.

You can send the photobook by providing an email address/s.

How to use it?

● in class activity

● group/individual project

● copy the url of your photobook and send it as a web link on Campus

Photobooks samples:

Haiti Tragic Earthquake

A Mini Biography of Hugh Jackman

Books by J Lanham

Drop.io

Steph — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:52:36 GMT

English teacher in Paris, Todd Burch, writes:

One challenge faced by many teachers is to find a simple way to distribute, receive and exchange documents with students. Email is too limiting when it comes to managing a large number of documents , and the file size restrictions make sending large documents difficult, if not possible.

An alternative is to make use of an online file storage and collaboration service. Many such services exist; however, from my experience, the best is drop.io.

Think of a ''drop'' as a place where you drop off things for others to pick up. It is perfect for storing course materials for students, and for any type of group project where students need to collaborate.

On drop.io you can store up to 100 MB for free (more than enough for most uses) without creating an account. Check out the great video on the home page:

Here’s how it works:

1. Go to http://drop.io:

2. Each time you go to the site, a random url address is generated automatically. In the example above it's: http://drop.io/thl6r6i. You can change the end to something easier to remember, such as http://drop.io/my_english_class.

3. Click on ''Select Files'' to upload files to your drop.

4. You can configure your drop.io space by clicking on ''Additional options'' just below ''Select Files.''

· Set a ''Guest Password'' to limit access to your drop

· Choose when you want the drop to expire, i.e. when your drop and the documents, photos, etc. you added to it, will be deleted.

· Decide whether ''guests'' (your students, colleagues, . . .) can add, delete, download or comment on files.

5. When you’re finished, click on ''Create a Drop.'' Your drop will be created. On the new screen you have an option to set an administrator password so that you can change the drop’s settings or receive an email in case you forget your drop address or password. This is optional, but it’s a good idea.

6. Communicate your drop url and password (if you created one) to your students and/or colleagues.

7. When others go to your drop, they simply have to hover their mouse over a file they would like to download to see a menu appear.

That covers the basics. You can actually do a lot more with drop.io, but the best way to discover the other functions is to go the site and play around with it. I suggest you start by creating a sample drop to discover all the possibilities.

Hope you find that useful!

Lessons broadcasted from Bollywood

Steph — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:38:58 GMT

Barbara Toth, English language teacher at Katedra (Hungary), writes:

Nowadays, teachers find it challenging to draw and keep students' attention, especially while discussing grammar elements during the class.Students have become more demanding and picky in terms of what types of resources teacher use. It is mostly due to the fact that students use various ways to communicate amongst themselves.

Of course, there are loads of attractive resources that we tend to use in the class like songs or video clips. However, it can be difficult to pick out one that is new to students and raises their interest and attention at the same time. It would also be good, if it provided some entertainment and took students' minds away from the fact that they are studying.

Here is solution to break the routine: BombayTV

This is an amazing website which not only offers enjoyable activities, but also provides an enduring experience for students. You can find there scenes from Bollywood movies, which are usually packed with melodramatic acting. Students are quickly hooked by the extraordinary intonation and situations presented in the clips.

BombayTV gives teachers a lot of opportunities to work around nice lesson plans.

You could easily present and practice such structures as: 'if only' or 'I'd'. Students could use the target language in the form of subtitles to go with the video clips.

However, the best point of the site is that you can save students' final work and send it or watch the film clips during a lesson. Then,you could use students' work to organize a Bollywood Award Ceremony. You could also make recordings using the microphone option to make the task even more enjoyable for students.

Have fun and explore the opportunities of this website and enjoy it with your students!

Free MEC top-up training!

Steph — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:25:34 GMT

MEC>, Sarah Milligan, writes:

We are very happy to let you know that we are organizing MEC online top-up training sessions free of charge. If you feel that you need MEC revision or you have new teachers using MEC, we would be delighted if you joined us. Each session will last 1 ½ hours and will be held three times a day so you and your teachers have plenty of choice.

The training schedule is as follows:

1^st March - MEC overview

9am UK time, 12pm UK time or 4pm UK time

2^ndMarch – MEC test building

9am UK time, 12pm UK time or 4pm UK time

3^rd March – MEC course building

9am UK time, 12pm UK time or 4pm UK time

4^th March – MEC in use

9am UK time, 12pm UK time or 4pm UK time

5^th March – MEC administration

9am UK time, 12pm UK time or 4pm UK time

If you would like to come along or have any questions please send me an email with your name, organisation and the time and date you would like to attend.

See you online!

Games, games...

Steph — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 10:43:28 GMT

MEC Trainer, Joanna Trzmielewska, writes:

Students love games; however teachers are usually afraid that a lesson will end up with students just having fun and not learning anything. Gwap.com offers your students a wide range of games which will help them to recycle and extend their vocabulary. On Gwap.com you can find lots of games that are fun but at the same time have an educational background. Among the games your students could play are:

ESP Games where you and a partner see the same image and each of you must guess what words your partner is typing.

Tag a Tune is a game where you and a partner hear a tune and must describe it. Based on the descriptions, you have to figure out if you are both listening to the same tune.

Squigl>shows you the same image and word. You need to hold down the mouse and trace the object described by the word. You get points for matching your partner’s trace.

There are a few other games you might want to use in your class just go to Gwap.com and choose the one you like best.

How to use them:

The games could easily be used as individual or pair work in a computer lab or as a whole class activity on a data projector or interactive whiteboard.

They could serve as a warm up or filler activity.

You could send your students links to the games using Web Links on MEC so they could try them for homework.

> >>>>>

PhotoFunia

Steph — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:11:12 GMT

MEC Training Coordinator, Sarah Milligan, writes:

Here's an idea:

1. Ask your students to bring in a photo of themselves on a usb, disc or saved somewhere on the internet

2. Get your students to go to Photofunia and choose one of the many backgrounds and effects to add their photo to. I think your teens will be particularly excited about the Twilight example below.

3. Take your group back to the classroom and give them ten minutes to think about why they chosethe effect they did.

4. Get students to show their photo on an interactive whiteboard or a data projector and present their photo and explain the reasons for choosing it to the class. The class could vote on their favourite one.

I found out about this photo site by reading Life Feast an EFl blog which has some lovely examples of what you can do with Photofunia. I thought I’d better join the club so here’s one I made earlier…

Verbix

Steph — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:26:30 GMT

MEC Training Coordinator, Sarah Milligan, writes:

Have a look at this website. It's called Verbix and you can conjugate verbs in over a hundred languages including English. You just write in the stem of the verb and click Go.

It might be a nice MEC Web Link to send to your students. They could have it open when they are completing writing exercises as homework or when they are doing MEC resources in the computer lab.

Christmas lesson ideas

Steph — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:14:09 GMT

MEC Trainer, Joanna Trzmielewska, writes:

It is December and festive time is around the corner. The streets are lit up with lights and Christmas songs are playing on the radio. The holiday mood is not only in the streets, but also in the classrooms.

Eve ry year we face the prospect of preparing festive lessons. If you do not want to sing another Christmas song with your students or talk about the origin of the Christmas tree, try out the following ideas:

Good but cheap Christmas gifts

We all spend far too much money on Christmas gifts, which are not always successful. The article Twelve good, cheap Christmas gift ideas lists a few ideas to help make our loved one’s day. You give your students gifts categories from the article and they come up with twelve ideas for cheap presents. Then you give them the article or you send the link to the articles using Web Links on Campus. They read the article and compare the ideas. As a class you look at both lists and select, as a class, the top twelve. Students save new vocabulary items in their Word Lists.

Internet shopping

Ask students what the worst gifts they have ever given to their loved ones are. Play the first part of the following video What Gifts Would you Buy if you had $2000 to spend Online? and check if the students had the same ideas. Then ask them to decide in pairs/groups what gifts would they buy online if they had $2000.
You could follow up with this article about shopping online:This scam will ruin your Xmas.

Planning a lesson on nature

Steph — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:38:10 GMT

MEC Training Coordinator, Sarah Milligan, writes:

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>.

Guardian interactive guides

Steph — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:42:39 GMT

MEC Training Coordinator, Sarah Milligan, writes:

While looking at the Guardian website I noticed they have 'interactive guides'. These take on various forms, they can be slide shows, pdfs that you can zoom into, or diagrams with areas you can click on to get more information. These guides are added regularly so you’ll find current topics and because it's online the older ones are stored safely there too.

In class you could introduce a topic by showing one of the guides on a projector or IWB. Alternatively your students could choose a guide to read for homework and present in class the next day. If you have a computer lab you could give your students some questions which they have to answer by reading one of the interactive guides during the lesson.

Here are four of my favourites:

Berlin Wall timeline

Pliosaur: a ferocious prehistoric predator

How I paint: Yoshimoto Nara

UFO sightings in Britain

> >

SchoolTube

Steph — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:44:01 GMT

MEC Trainer, Joanna Trzmielewska, writes:

SchoolTube> is a free media sharing website that provides students and educators a safe, world class video database. All student created materials on SchoolTube> must be approved by registered teachers.

SchoolTube> is a great source of real life videos for your teenage students.

You can watch videos or create your school account and upload videos.

How to use it with students:

You could use the videos as realia during your lessons and help your students to develop listening skills.

The videos could be part of cultural projects.

Dream it, Live it, Love it

Cafeteria Power Outrage: Can it happen again?

News items and word games update!

Steph — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:50:22 GMT

MEC Managing Editor, Jeremy Smith, writes:

Land of history, land of legends

This week’s news item is our monthly news item for teens. It is about the south-west of England and the various attractions that can be found there.

You can find this story in the News Items section on your Work Area screen.

You can also find longer versions of the news item with extension activities by logging in to our teachers’ area here.

November word games

This month's Witch's Pot topics are 'places in and around the house'(Easy), 'items that can be used when you are camping' (Average) and 'adjectives describing build' (Difficult).

The Swamp Disaster topics are 'words related to shopping' (Easy), 'words related to money'(Average) and 'materials' (Difficult).

The Wordsearch topics are 'office items' (Easy), 'travelling by plane' (Average) and 'words meaning ''miserable''' (Difficult).

There are new Crosswords and Bridge Builders at all levels too.

Visit the Word Games area to find them all.

TED Talks

Steph — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:14:48 GMT

MEC and onestopenglish assistant, Giulia Merlo, writes:

TED is a non-profit project started in 1984 to bring together the best ideas from all over the world, on any subject. Today, it is a global community, which includes various conferences, an annual prize, and the website TED Talks.

TED Talks, which is very popular in the blogosphere, offers you the videos of all the best talks from TED's conferences, all for free.

The talks focus on many different fields of knowledge, from technology and science to entertainment and design. They are various lengths, from a few minutes to more than an hour; you can search them by subject, popularity, speaker, theme, or through a simple alphabetical list of content tags.

TED provides a fantastic way to engage your students and to improve their listening skills, and it can also be used to provide them with starting points for oral or written tasks. All the talks can be watched with closed captions in English, as well as having a full transcript; many of them also have subtitles in other languages that can help students at lower levels.

You can share the TED videos via email or on your website, save them on your desktop, add them to a social network page – and, of course, you can publish them on your Campus Web Links.

Below you can find two examples of talks; the first one is only about six minutes long, and it reveals the key to a successful life.

The second one lasts about twenty minutes, and it focuses on the secret of happiness.

Finally, if you would like to share ideas on how TED can used in the classroom, you can visit Teaching with TED, a new wiki where you will find additional resources and activities on several talks – and you will also be able to add your own suggestions.

musicANDmuffins

Steph — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:10:29 GMT

MEC> Trainer, Joanna Trzmielewska, writes:

Songs are nice additional elements to English classes. It is one of the few listening activities, where students are fully engaged and eager to complete the task.

If you want to refresh your lessons using songs go to musicANDmuffins. They create great cartoons that go with various songs and they also include lyrics.

How to use it with your students:

Elementary/pre-intermediate classes: You could take screenshots of the video and the students first put them in order and then listen again to finish the lines.

Upper/Advanced classes: At first, you could play only the song and ask students to select key vocabulary to visualise the song. Next they make simple drawings. Finally, they watch the video and check how it differs from their work. It is a good way to practise listening for specific information.

Note: Don’t forget that you can send the links to the particular song in the Publish Web Links option on Campus!

Below is an example of the animation done by musicANDmuffins.

MEC online clinic 27th November 2009

Steph — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:43:27 GMT

MEC> Trainer, Joanna Trzmielewska, writes:

This month on MEC, we published five new web projects, at pre-intermediate and intermediate levels, bringing the total to 52 for both British and American English users.The coming clinic will be giving ideas on how to use it with your classes. In addition, we will see how you could include it as a syllabus item in your course. This will all be tied up with demo lesson ideas.

The clinic will take place on 27th November at 10am and 4pm UK time.

If you or any of your teachers would like to attend all you have to do is send me an email at j.trzmielewska@macmillan.com.

What are MEC clinic?

MEC clinics are short sessions involving groups of no more than 25. They are on a first-come, first-served basis to any MEC teachers.

How much is it?

It is free of charge!

How can it benefit me?

MEC clinics give you an opportunity to develop your knowledge of digital resources. You will have a chance to find out more about online learning, resources and the use of technology in your day to day teaching. After the clinic, you will receive

a certificate of attendance.

How long is it?

The session is 1-1.30 hours long.

What do I need to do?

We will set up and host the sessions. Those attending simply need a computer with internet access, sound and ideally a microphone. Don't forget a cup of tea!

Movie maker

Steph — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:44:14 GMT

MEC Trainer, Joanna Trzmielewska, writes:

Dvolver provides you with the creative tools to make a movie in just a few steps.

If you think that your students would be interested in practising their English by making short movies, go to the Movie-maker tab at the top of the home page. You can either view a sample movie or go straight to the Moviemaker function.First, select a background, a basic plot, and your characters. Next, type in their lines - there is a limit of 100 text characters per line, but you can add however many scenes you want. Finally, select the background music and the style of the opening titles. Once you are done, click on 'Finish movie'. You will be able to view the movie and get the embed code for it. You could send it to your students via email, or save it on your website.

Below are two examples:

Teenagers:

Adults:

How to use it with students:

Send students a link to the movie you made using the 'Publish Web Links' option on Campus, and ask them to spot as many language mistakes as they can.

Ask students to make a sequel of your movie.

Use the movie to introduce grammar points and vocabulary.

Get students to summarize a reading they have done through a short movie.

Since you can add several scenes, you could create a starting scene together, and then ask each student to add a new scene – this way, the final result would be a collective effort!

Phrasr slide shows

Steph — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:12:07 GMT

MEC Trainer, Joanna Trzmielewska, writes:

Nowadays, images play an important part in our lives. Pictures and photos help us to create associations, and thus make it is easier for us to remember people and places.

If your students find it difficult to remember idiomatic expressions or phrases, you may help them by including phrasr in your vocabulary lessons.

Phrasr is a website that gives you the chance to input sentences, phrases and idioms and turn them into slide shows with the help of Flickr images. You simply need to type in your sentence, and the images associated with each word will start to load. Click to change any images you do not like and select the one you prefer. When you are happy with your selection, click 'done'. Then add a title and a name, and click on 'publish'. You will now see your illustrated phrase. You can send it to a friend by email; the slide shows are stored in the archive.

Below are two examples of what you can do:

A day late and a dollar short

My imagination is a monastery and I am its monk

There are different ways to use this with your students: for example, you could use it to introduce or revise idioms and grammatical structures. You could also ask students to illustrate a story. This way, your vocabulary classes will surely be more interesting and stimulating.>>

Cartoon stories

Steph — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:33:56 GMT

MEC Trainer, Joanna Trzmielewska, writes:

Storytelling is a great way to introduce or practise vocabulary, grammar, and speaking. While it is quite easy to use books during storytelling lessons with your young learners, it is not so easy with teens and adults, who sometimes think it is a waste of time. You may change their opinion by including cartoons from aniboom.com in your classes.

This website is a community of independent animators from 72 countries around the world. You can simply go and watch a cartoon, or if you prefer you can create and submit your own work to Aniboom via online competitions.

There are many different ways to include a cartoon from aniboom.com in your English lessons.

On Campus, using the Publish Web Links option, you could send your students a link to a specific cartoon and ask them to brainstorm vocabulary related to it. You could also divide a class into small groups and send each group a different cartoon; their task would be to come up with a story.

Alternatively, you could prepare a cartoon for the lesson together with a basic story, and students could write either the beginning or the end of it.

Below I have included some cartoons:

Something to add to your class about food:

This one looks like a videogame and it is great when you are teaching teenagers.

There is also something for young learners:

The Mousse Tale

And of course, there is a cartoon for adult students:

> >>

FCE videos

Steph — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:01:06 GMT

MEC Trainer, Joanna Trzmielewska, writes:

A few weeks ago there was a MEC online clinic on the FCE exam and FCE resources on Campus. We talked about parts of the exam with the focus on listening and vocabulary. I thought you might be also interested in the speaking part and the changes that were made.

You could start the lesson with this Thai Airways (FCE funny) video. After your students have watched it, ask them to create their own definition of FCE.

In the second video you find out what's new in the FCE Speaking Test.

You could use the following video as a mock exam resource with your students. Put students in pairs and play the video, they have to answer the question asked by the interviewer. It is a fun way to practise for the oral part of the FCE.

> >> >

Pronunciation is fun!

Steph — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:40:09 GMT

MEC Trainer, Joanna Trzmielewska, writes:

Pronunciation is a very important aspect while learning a new language. However, very often students see pronunciation classes as boring and not very useful. If you want to encourage your student to practise pronunciation and show them how important it is, I recommend you the following videos.

You may want to start your next pronunciation class with this video where Steve Martin is taking part in a pronunciation class to speak with an American accent.

Next, ask your students to list five ways to learn English pronunciation. When they create their top five play them this Five Ways to Learn English Pronunciation video.

You may finish up with this advert to show them what happens when you do not practise your English pronunciation and listening skills!

BrainPOP Educators

Steph — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:19:39 GMT

MEC Trainer, Joanna Trzmielewska, writes:

If you want to incorporate a little bit of arts and music, maths and science into your English classes you may want to have a look at BrainPOP Educators. This part of BrainPOP includes over 600 resources: lesson plans, videos and classroom tools. In the video tutorials you can find student-made videos as well as professional videos. If you are interested in the free resources you need to register. There is also a blog which keeps you updated about the new content.

The latest update is about Hispanic Heritage.

BrainPOP

Steph — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:58:03 GMT

MEC, Joanna Trzmielewska, writes:

BrainPOP ESL offers English learning content: vocabulary and grammar in level appropriate modules. Each module is made of an animated, three-part movie, composed of a story, an introduction to the new vocabulary, and an illustration of the relevant grammar topics. Students are walked though the content by two characters; Ben and his robot pal Moby.

BrainPOP ESL is great supplementary material that you can use with your young learners.

You may want to send a link to BrainPOP ESL using Web Links on MEC and ask your students to watch a video and then do the practical part in the class. Also, you may ask the students to do a vocabulary activity and save the problematic words in their Word Lists with the definitions found on the Macmillan English Dictionary Online. However, you may also use a story or a video from BrainPOP ESL as an in-class tool.

Writing inspiration from Paul McCartney

Steph — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:31:52 GMT

MEC Trainer, Joanna Trzmielewska, writes:

Why don't you bring a little bit of music into your writing classes. TIMESONLINE recently discovered, in a local library in Liverpool, an essay written by Paul McCartney at the age of 10. At the beginning of the essay, young McCartney mentions the coronation of William the Conqueror> and then focuses on the Coronation Day of Queen Elizabeth II. The essay is praised for its good turn of phrase and neat writing.

The essay won McCartney a book token, which he received from the lord mayor of Liverpool .

You can easily use the essay during your writing classes with teenagers and adults. The writing provides an excellent opportunity to look closer at sentence construction and the usage and range of adjectives while reporting an event. The essay may also serve as an aid to practise present and past tenses as well as the passive voice.

If you want to download the essay and the article click here.

Dream gadgets

Steph — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:15:10 GMT

MEC Trainer, Joanna Trzmielewska, writes:

Twelve celebrities and scientists reveal their dream gadgets in The Guardian. They write a description of a gadget they would like to have accompanied by a picture.

You could send your students a link to the weird and wonderful gadgets using MEC Web Links.

You may want to use Celebs and scientists' dream gadgets, when you are doing a lesson about inventions, dreams, Second conditional or Future.

Here are some MEC resources and ideas you could use with The Guardian's gadgets:

The invention of a new pair of glasses could help the poor (Multi level)

This news item is about the invention of a pair of glasses which people can adjust to correct their eyesight. The invention could help a lot of people in the developing world.

Inventions (Level 6)

In this listening activity you listen to a radio debate concerning the greatest inventions of the past 200 years. You read opinions and select the correct speaker.

No geeks allowed (Multi level)

This news item for teens is about young people who are successful in the world of science.

The technological revolution in education (Level 5/6)

This English for Academic Purposes (EAP) language exercise focuses on avoiding grammatical errors in academic writing. You choose the correct words or phrases to complete an academic text.

Science is proving popular with young people (Multi level)

This news item for teens is about young people who are successful in the world of science.

Blended learning, English language teaching and the use of technology - the MEC blog - Top tips

Placement test

Global Rich List

Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition

Role play activities

News item and word games update!

Photograph puzzle

Active Pronunciation

Subservient Chicken

Engaging and innovative presentations with Prezi

iwise

Drama in the ESL classroom

Image database!

Newsy lessons

Onestopblogs

A class on mystery

Video bank!

Say it in 1000 words!

Make your own video!

Use facts in your lesson

Face your manga!

Welcome to April on onestopenglish!

News item and word games update!

Scavengers of a populous island

Storm your classes with movies!

Comparing and contrasting words with Googlebattle

GIF Animation

TeacherTube

Cry Me a Verb (maybe your students could do something similar about Irregular verbs in English)

Introduction to The Catcher in the Rye

Interactive Read-Aloud

How NOT To Use PowerPoint >

How NOT To Use PowerPoint

Creating a photobook

Drop.io

Lessons broadcasted from Bollywood

Free MEC top-up training!

Games, games...

PhotoFunia

Verbix

Christmas lesson ideas

Planning a lesson on nature

Guardian interactive guides

SchoolTube

News items and word games update!

Land of history, land of legends

TED Talks

musicANDmuffins

MEC online clinic 27th November 2009

Movie maker

Phrasr slide shows

Cartoon stories

FCE videos

You could start the lesson with this Thai Airways (FCE funny) video. After your students have watched it, ask them to create their own definition of FCE.

In the second video you find out what's new in the FCE Speaking Test.

You could use the following video as a mock exam resource with your students. Put students in pairs and play the video, they have to answer the question asked by the interviewer. It is a fun way to practise for the oral part of the FCE.

Pronunciation is fun!

BrainPOP Educators

BrainPOP

Writing inspiration from Paul McCartney

Dream gadgets

You may want to use Celebs and scientists' dream gadgets, when you are doing a lesson about inventions, dreams, Second conditional or Future.

Here are some MEC resources and ideas you could use with The Guardian's gadgets:

The invention of a new pair of glasses could help the poor (Multi level)

This news item is about the invention of a pair of glasses which people can adjust to correct their eyesight. The invention could help a lot of people in the developing world.

Inventions (Level 6)

In this listening activity you listen to a radio debate concerning the greatest inventions of the past 200 years. You read opinions and select the correct speaker.

How NOT To Use PowerPoint
>