• Divide your class up into groups and give each group a different aspect of the news item to research.
• Divide the class into four groups; A B C and D.
• Group A can research climate change, group B, Arctic sea ice and the Greenland ice sheet. Group C can research the Amazon rainforest and group D, the Sahel region.
• Do this either in the class or as a homework task and learners can compare what they’ve found either after the allotted time or at the beginning of the next lesson.
• End the exercise with a discussion about what has been learnt for each topic.  

MEC Product Trainer, Sarah Milligan, writes:

On the 19^th and 20^th March we held our 8^th online MEC Clinic. The clinic included tips and ideas on how to successfully build a MEC course. 

I ran the clinic which was originally written by Silvia Tiberio, a freelance ELT writer. Click on the links below to see a downloadable PDF of the clinic presentation and summary:

Advanced Course Building Presentation1.ppt (595 KB)

MEC Course-building clinic - summary1.doc (58.5 KB)

Thank you very much to everyone who took part from AISLi, BELL and OPTI. Please don't hesitate to contact us with your questions and comments.

If you are interested in attending the next MEC clinic please contact us by leaving a comment or emailing s.milligan@macmillan.com

Implementing a blended-learning programme can sometimes seem intimidating, due to the gaps in teachers' knowledge as to how technology can be used. To address this, new institutions using MEC are provided with comprehensive training and support. We are also on hand to provide advice and training further down the line.

We caught up with Steph Earnshaw and Sarah Milligan from the MEC training department and asked them about their role and the support they provide for teachers and students using MEC.

Steph and Sarah are both former English teachers, which makes them ideally suited to address the issues that teachers face. Asked about their favourite parts of the job, both agree that it is very satisfying giving teachers the tools that they need to use MEC effectively.

As Steph puts it, 'It's great to see how, at the end of the training, teachers are excited and full of ideas of how to use MEC with their students.' Sarah adds, 'It's very rewarding being able to ease the concerns of those teachers who may not be so used to using technology and to show them how straightforward MEC is to use.'

Online resources
One of the ways in which Steph and Sarah provide support after initial training sessions is in the provision of many different online resources. Asked to summarise what is available, Steph lists the guide to MEC, lesson plans, MEC basics material and dictionary skills worksheets. These are all available on the English Campus support site.

Clinics
Steph and Sarah have also been organising online training sessions, referred to as 'clinics', which are available free of charge to all users of the English Campus, whether new or established. This forms part of the ongoing support provided by the MEC team.

Feedback
If you're a current MEC user, you may have seen that the training team are currently carrying out a survey of all existing customers. Please do join in and return feedback forms to Sarah Milligan (s.milligan@macmillan.com) or contact her for more information.

Scientists pioneer mind-reading technique

This week's news item, adapted for MEC from a news article originally published in the Guardian Weekly, is about a new computer technique that can tell what someone is looking at just by scanning their brain.

Go to the Headline News section on your Work Area screen to find out more about the mind-reading technique and its potential uses.

Here's a lesson idea for a beginner/elementary class learning to tell the time. You will need to be in a computer lab, using an interactive whiteboard or data projector to teach this lesson.

First of all pre-teach the language needed. Perhaps you could draw a clock on the board and elicit different times from the learners. Concentrate on particularly difficult areas like 'a quarter to' and 'half past'.

Then, choose a few MEC resources to do with your learners. For example:

• Vocabulary Activity - Early or late (level 1)

• Listening Activity - Telling the time (level 1)

• Vocabulary Activity - What time is it? (level 1)

• Vocabulary Activity - Telling the time (level 2)

These are just a few examples there are lots more time resources you can find in MEC.

Finally bookmark this link for you and your learners: 

World Clock

To end the lesson, use the world clock to play a game. Ask the learners what time it is in Mexico. The first learner to shout out the correct answer (using the world clock of course) gets to replace you and ask the other learners for a time in another country. Or any other variation you can think of!

March on onestopenglish sees the launch of the Onestop Phonics series for young learners, by Rachel Finnie. This great series will provide teachers with comprehensive support for their phonics teaching, including tips for structuring phonics lessons, as well as teacher's notes, worksheets, audio and flashcards to use in class. The first two instalments are free for all onestopenglish users, so come and join the fun with Alice Apple, Bobby Banana and friends!

This month we've also got a brand-new series of integrated skills video projects by Jackie McAvoy. In the first of these projects - At the movies - students produce their own audio or video recording of a movie review. We'll show some of the best programmes here on onestopenglish, so send us your entries!

There's lots of other great content so please take the time to explore and enjoy another packed edition of onestopenglish!

Here's a link to an interesting video of a presentation by Lindsay Clandfield. He gives us his opinion on one of the many ways to teach grammar. He calls it hammering! Why not have a look for yourself to find out how Lindsay thinks hammering can be successful in the classroom. Just follow the link below.

Grammar Presentation Tips 

Perhaps you have other ways of helping your learners understand and use English grammar. Tell us your experiences by leaving a comment at the bottom of this posting. We'd love to hear from you!

Remember MEC has over 400 Grammar Reference Units which include grammar explanations and practice exercises. The perfect way to enforce your hammering!

British media keeps quiet over Prince Harry's deployment

This week's news item, adapted for MEC from a news article originally published in the Guardian Weekly, is about Prince Harry's deployment in Afghanistan as a member of the British army and the media blackout in Britain surrounding the story.

Go to the Headline News section on your Work Area screen to find out more about Prince Harry's deployment and the British media's reaction to it.

UN cannot feed the world

This week's news item, adapted for MEC from a news article originally published in the Guardian Weekly, is about The United Nations' World Food Programme.

Go to the Headline News section on your Work Area screen to find out why the UN cannot afford to feed as many starving people as usual this year.

You many find it helpful to direct your students to the following website for more information on the World Food Programme. United Nations' World Food Programme

March word games

This month's Witch's Pot topics are 'school subjects' (Easy), 'verbs of movement' (Average) and 'verbs meaning going up or going down' (Difficult).

The Swamp Disaster topics are 'countryside and coast' (Easy), 'in the city' (Average) and 'media and arts' (Difficult).

The Wordsearch topics are 'countries' (Easy), 'the internet' (Average) and 'adjectives describing texture' (Difficult).

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

Visit the Word Games area to find them all.

Have a look at this great website which lets you find proverbs and sayings just by typing in a single word. Just click on this link to start your proverb search: Good Written English

Why not use the site to find a proverb to introduce the theme of your next Intermediate and above lesson?             

As a fun lesson warmer, try getting your learners to use the site to find different proverbs and sayings. You can do this as a group exercise if you are using a data projector, or individually if you are in a computer lab.

To continue the theme, try using the following MEC resources:

·         Proverbs - Vocabulary Activity (level 5)

·         Money money money - Pronunciation Activity (level 5)

·         Single Vowel Sounds - Pronunciation Activity (level 5)

·         Common Sayings - Vocabulary Activity (level 4)

For homework, you could ask your learners to put the new proverbs and vocabulary into their Word Lists area. You could also ask them to translate some proverbs from their own language into English and find an English equivalent, if one exists. Next lesson they can present and explain their proverbs to the rest of the class.