We're delighted to announce that Denis' School in Russia has recently started using Macmillan English Campus. Mike Green and I went out to run the MEC training sessions which were held at their St Petersburg school from the 20^th to the 21^st of July. Teachers and administrators came from as far away as Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod to learn about using MEC in class, course building and administration.

The spectacular Winter Palace in St Petersburg, which forms part of the Hermitage Museum

We also took the opportunity to speak to Irina Budtova, the Director of Studies, and capture some of her thoughts on video. Here she tells us a little bit about Denis' School and why they decided to adopt Macmillan English Campus.

In this next clip Irina tells us about how Denis' School plans to integrate MEC into their existing courses.

Irina and her team have already started building MEC courses to accompany their current programme of study. In this way MEC courses will be ready for students when the new term starts in September.

Jane Petrie

Since February, Macmillan English Campus has been attracting significant interest in Asia with the aid of Patrick Hafenstein, our Sales Executive, based in Taiwan.

He's been exploring how and why the Macmillan English Campus is generating such an e-learning buzz. We put some questions to Patrick, to find out more.

Patrick Hafenstein

Why do you think that e-learning is such a hot topic in Asia at the moment?

Where I'm based, in Taiwan, the government is putting a huge amount of money into an initiative known as 'the three Es' - education, English and electronic learning. This means that language institutions are increasingly looking for ways to implement e-learning. The Macmillan English Campus, of course, provides an ideal solution because it fits perfectly with all of the 'three Es'.

What is it about the English Campus that makes it so appropriate for this region?

Institutions which have seen Campus have been really impressed by its flexibility and by the ability it provides to design custom courses. For example, Taiwanese universities cater for a wide variety of language abilities among their students, and yet they all have to reach a particular level of English in order to graduate. The Macmillan English Campus can provide the university with a single solution to meet that variety of needs.

Where do you see the future of e-learning in Asia?

Asian trade is becoming increasingly international, so the demand for English is only going to increase. In Japan, for example, there has been a great deal of interest from corporate customers. The market is also increasingly driven by the need for academic qualifications and many people are trying to raise their English to a level where they can study abroad.

People like this can really benefit from institutions offering the English Campus because it makes it easy for teachers to set work to do outside the classroom, which can be completed anywhere with an internet connection. This is really useful for people trying to combine English learning with already busy lives.

What are your thoughts on e-learning?

Here's another great new feature on www.onestopenglish.com.

Over the last year, the demand for audio resources on onestopenglish has grown considerably, especially for authentic, native-speaker English language resources. In response to that demand, we're delighted to announce a new section on the site – the Live from London podcasts.

In 'Live from London' we go to different parts of London to ask locals and visitors questions about their daily lives.

London is home to more than eight million people. It is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world. You can encounter more than 300 different languages in London and people from every continent in the world. The ‘Live from London’ podcasts bring some of this diversity into your classroom.

Each podcast includes:

• an audio file of around two minutes in length.
• interviews on stimulating topics your students will identify with.
• authentic recordings of visitors and locals in London.
• a variety of accents, including British and North American English.
• a worksheet with vocabulary, listening and speaking activities prepared by onestopenglish author Lindsay Clandfield.
• teacher's notes with answer key, tapescript (including details of where the speakers are from) and extra suggestions for exploitation in class.

In the first of these podcasts, we went to London's South Bank and asked people the question: 'What do you usually have for breakfast?'

Check out the onestopenglish Staff Room to find out more.

Jo Scellier

On Wednesday 11^th July I conducted a MEC Clinic for ANZ (Australia and New Zealand) Embassy schools. Participants linked up via computer and phone and were taken through a 60 minute training session. There were about 13 MEC Champions, administrators and teachers who joined the clinic from their schools in different states such as Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Sydney.

ANZ Embassy launched MEC at the beginning of 2007 and has undertaken several training sessions for their MEC Champions and administrators. These have focused on various aspects of using MEC from general navigation of the different student, teacher and administration areas to building courses and assigning courses to classes. So, before I delivered the clinic I sent out a questionnaire to all participants to find out how they were implementing MEC, integrating it into the classroom and training teachers and students.

Melbourne

Some really valuable feedback from the questionnaire was received. Here's a summary:

• Communication between teachers and students regarding MEC is really good within the schools. However, between the schools it's a bit trickier to keep in touch and share information. So, I suggested setting up an online forum using a free site such http://www.runboard.com/ or http://makeforum.org/home.php. Alternatively, this blog could be a useful way to connect with other schools by placing comments or writing postings.

• Teachers have generally taken to MEC well with some teachers really loving it. The Embassy MEC Champions have used MEC training materials to train teachers during in-house professional development sessions and found it really useful. They've also developed some simple training materials for students. (You can find more teaching materials on the MEC support site.)
  
  
• Students at ANZ Embassy love the games and teachers have found them to be a positive way of introducing MEC. I'm not surprised as the games are not only fun and interactive but also useful English language learning tools. The other resource areas that have been popular so far are the Language Tests and Exam Preparation exercises. Teachers said they find these very useful and students are really taking to them, too!

Below are five points I asked the participants to think about. You might find them helpful for own institution or school:

1. How are your Campus champions and local administrators getting on with MEC? How could they be helped or supported further?

'During my presentation at LABCI I aimed to demonstrate the benefits of different learning technologies from the perspective of their suitability in whole class teaching contexts, and outside the classroom for independent study and practice. I proposed that on-line and LMS-style products have the capacity to extend the classroom learning experience in interesting, creative and productive ways. I also explored the notion that "technology" cannot be viewed in isolation, and that without high-quality content, and training for teachers, the benefits of investment in technology will not be fully realized.'

John giving his talk at LABCI

You can download a pdf of John's talk by clicking the link below.

JM_LABCI 07 talk.pdf (3.67 MB)

And here's a clip, taken at LABCI, with a few words from blended learning expert, Pete Sharma. (This was taken on the Macmillan stand during a busy coffee break so apologies for the sound quality.) We asked him, "What is blended learning?"

'During my presentation I wanted to demonstrate how technology enables us at MEC to support all those teachers using Campus with their learners on an on-going basis. We looked at the the MEC support site which is regularly updated with new, freely downloadable worksheets for teachers, and an exciting new addition to our training repertoire in the form of this blog. The area of ELT blogs is growing rapidly, with more and more teachers blogging or encouraging their learners to set up their own or class blogs. We also looked at some of the many materials available to teachers on the well-known resource site onestopenglish.com. 

I promised I would make a copy of my talk available on the blog so click the link below to download the pdf.

MG_LABCI 07_talk.pdf (2.11 MB)

The audience were great and even helped me post a comment to all our blog readers during my talk. Obrigado!'

Mike and Jenny at LABCI

Check the blog tomorrow for notes from John Murray's talk.

MEC Commissioning Editor, Jenny Lovel, writes:

A view over São Paulo

'If there was one buzzword at this year's LABCI conference it was “e-boards” (better known as interactive white boards). Delegates and presenters alike were buzzing about the use of e-boards in the language classroom. Presenters such as Vera Costinhas from the Cultura Inglesa Rio de Janeiro and Lizika Goldchleger from the Cultura Inglesa São Paulo showed how using technology in the classroom enhances the engagement and motivation of both students and teachers. But throughout the conference presenters were careful to strike a note of caution: technology in the classroom is good news - and great for the "wow" factor - but we must be careful to make sure that the board doesn't become the star of the classroom. Lessons must have a language focus and appropriate electronic materials are therefore still of paramount importance. Luckily the conference was awash with great ideas. Vilson Coimbra, from the Cultura Inglesa São Paulo, showed how the e-board can be used in conjunction with the Macmillan English Campus, using the e-board to brainstorm language, pre-teach vocabulary, complete MEC activities and access web projects online - all using one flipchart.

Vilson Coimbra presenting at LABCI

Marcela Moya from the Instituto Britanico, Chile, presented a range of creative ways of engaging "digital natives" in the classroom, including computer games, writing websites and wikis, uploading photos and, of course, blogging.