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.'

Jeremy Smith

'July word games

The MEC word games for July are available now!

This month's Witch's Pot topics are "countries" (Easy), "school subjects" (Average) and "containers for liquids" (Difficult).

The Swamp Disaster topics are "all sorts of things" (Easy), "things you put things in" (Average) and "words that follow 'go'" (Difficult).

The Wordsearch topics are "nouns connected with the theatre" (Easy), "adjectives describing people who are good at things" (Average) and "humour" (Difficult).

As usual, there are new Crosswords and Bridge Builders at all levels too.

Visit the Word Games area to find them all.

Tagging Tokyo

 Tokyo, Japan

'The second MEC clinic was held on Thursday 28^th June. Judith Dick of OPTI, Switzerland presented her ideas for using MEC with low-level learners.

Judith Dick

Below are the three main ways in which Judith supports her low-level learners with MEC:

1. Increase students' autonomy - Judith uses Mozilla translation add-ons along with Word Reference to help increase students' independence with MEC.

2. Use vocabulary lists - Judith encourages her students to make their own translation tables of MEC vocabulary, as mentioned in her previous posting on the blog. They then transfer vocabulary to their MEC wordlist, reinforcing what they've learned.

3. Set fun homework using MEC - Judith works mainly with teenage students who are often lacking motivation. To solve this problem she gets them to do MEC web projects in class and for homework. Once the research is done students present what they have learned using a movie slide show, which can be created in iMovie or Windows Movie Maker. This is a great way of incorporating a speaking activity into MEC web projects. It also makes sure that everyone does their homework with enthusiasm!

By using online resources alongside her own worksheets Judith has made MEC easily accessible to her low-level learners. As a result she's found that using MEC has hugely improved their motivation to learn English.

Judith's ideas provide some real food for thought. The general consensus from clinic participants was that blending MEC with traditional programmes of teaching and assessment is the most effective approach to using it.

You can find an overview of Judith's presentation here: MEC clinic1.pdf (879.26 KB)

The clinic participants were:

Fernando Cabral and Vinicius Silva - Cultura Inglesa, Brazil

Christina Kaku - International House, Czech Republic

Olga Nikulina - Talisman, Russia

Silvia Tiberio - Freelance, Argentina

A huge thank you to Judith and everyone who took part. Keep watching the blog for news of the next MEC clinic, and don't hesitate to contact us with your questions and comments.'

'Since the launch of MEC two years ago, we've been travelling the world, training teachers and listening to feedback from thousands of users worldwide. This has led directly to the development of our new edition.

So what's new?

The new edition will enhance the functionality and navigation of the existing MEC and will maintain our high standards of English language teaching content, reliability of service and dedicated customer support.

Innovation and design

The new edition will reflect the structure of the current MEC but will also take advantage of new concepts in web design and navigation to ensure an improved user experience for both students and teachers.

Ease of administration

New functions will be included to help you manage your students more easily within MEC. For example, user and class administration will be integrated into the main MEC interface, users will be able to self-diagnose login problems and more detailed statistics will be made available.

What will this mean for existing users?

The new edition will be rolled out to all our current customers around the world over the next few months and will be made available to all new customers from September this year.

No additional face-to-face training will be required for teachers and students: the new edition has been carefully designed to be intuitive for users already familiar with MEC. For those involved in the administration of MEC, step-by-step training materials will be provided to walk you through the new system and we'll also be publishing more support materials on our MEC teachers' support site.

Watch out for more information on this exciting new edition of MEC here on the blog. You might also be interested to check out the blog posting from our very own CEO.

And, of course, if you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact us!'

Here's a helpful tip from the MEC Training Assistant, Steph Earnshaw:

'Don't forget about MEDO! To access it all you have to do is click on the Dictionary link in MEC as shown below.

The pronunciation tool is excellent for training students to distinguish between British and American English pronunciation of words. Simply click on the relevant speaker icon next to the word you have searched for.

For a fun, whole-class dictation exercise, choose ten words you want to practice or revise and use the pronunciation tool to "test" your learners. Here's how to do it:

1. Make sure your computer speakers are loud enough for everyone to hear.
2. Make sure that no one can see the word on your screen. You may need to cover up or switch off your projector, if you are using one.
3. Play each word twice, either with British or American pronunciation.
4. Ask your learners to write the word down with the correct spelling and to note down whether the pronunciation is British or American English.
5. When you have finished, go through the words together, beaming them up on the board and drilling any difficult ones.
6. If they haven't already done so, ask your learners to put all the new words into their wordlist for homework.

If you are using a computer lab you could get your learners to test each other in pairs or small groups.

For more ideas and ready-made worksheets to help you use the dictionary in class or as homework, have a look at the MEC Skills page of the support site.  

Have you ever used the pronunciation tool or other MEDO features in class?'

Jo Scellier

'How has English language teaching changed in the past few years with the increasing use of technology and multimedia? Is my experience similar to other English language teachers in Hong Kong?

I taught general and business English in Hong Kong from 1998 to 2004 at various language centres and companies. In my experience, we mostly tailored our teaching material to suit the needs of the students who were mainly local, Japanese or Korean. There was little use of multimedia in classrooms and although I came across some sophisticated computer laboratories they were used only on occasion. This was because it was seen as a bit daunting having to learn the software and deal with any technical concerns.

I found it quite common for teachers to steer away from the use of technology and multimedia in the classroom. On the other hand, students were very familiar with technology often spending time talking about and comparing their latest phones, cameras and computers.

Since returning to Australia, the use of technology in language learning seems much more prevalent.  Perhaps that's not so much a comparison of Hong Kong and Australia as it is a sign of the increasing use of technology and multimedia in learning today.

Having been involved with MEC over the past year, I want to point out a few benefits of using technology in the classroom that spring to mind when reflecting back on my days of teaching English in Hong Kong.

• Access 24 hours a day - MEC offers the opportunity for students to access such a wide variety of over 2800 resources whenever and wherever they want just by having a computer, the Internet and logging onto the system. This certainly appeals to students living in a 24 hour city!
• Course building - Courses can be built by teachers from the vast pool of MEC resources to supplement any current learning programme. This is a great way to supplement tailor-made materials and offer students a sophisticated and integrated learning opportunity.
• Use in classroom - MEC is designed for a blended learning approach so teachers can choose from the interactive resources and integrate it into their teaching. This allows both teachers and students to benefit from another dimension of language learning.
• Simple to use with lots of support - Not only is MEC really easy to navigate but there is also so much support provided by the MEC staff in the form of training for teachers and administrators, and also the MEC support site. 

What are some of the benefits you've found with using MEC?'

This week's news item, adapted for MEC from a news article originally published in the Guardian Weekly, is about Bhutan's government changing from a monarchy to a democracy. Find out how the people of Bhutan feel about the change and all about Gross National Happiness by going to the Headline News section on your Work Area screen.