Roaming around EFL sites I was grabbed by a great lesson plan idea on Jamie Keddie's blog which you can find here. It's all about using Microsoft Paint to cover up parts of pictures in a lesson and elicit discussion. Of course, if you've got an Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) you could do this directly using the whiteboard tools.

Why not use some photos from MEC resources and cover bits up to intrigue your learners! Here's one I've done using a photo from a MEC News Item. Can you guess who it is yet?

There are loads of lesson ideas on Jamie's blog, it's well worth checking out. He's also written material for onestopenglish. Click here to see one of Jamie's Methodology articles.

'Beware of heard, a dreadful word'

One of my favourite parts of teaching English is pronunciation. I remember finding the poem I take it you already know which I've added to the end of this blog posting and using it in almost all of my classes. It's particularly good for advanced learners who think they've completely mastered the English language!

In the beginning of a lesson based on pronunciation I often used tongue twisters to get learners going. Click here to find some good ones.

Then I'd read the poem out myself so learners could hear it. Alternatively you could get learners to listen and watch someone else reading the poem. Click here to watch a video of the poem being read on Youtube.

To teach learners the correct pronunciation of the difficult words I would extract them from the poem and find words that rhyme or have similar sounds.

For example:

Bough sounds like cow, now, and how

Bird sounds like heard, nerd and third

I would encourage learners to find some of their own comparisons and if they knew the phonetic alphabet ask them to write the correct pronunciations phonetically.

Lastly learners would get into pairs and practice saying the poem over and over. If the class were feeling brave I would get them to say a line each out loud and correct each others pronunciation.

I take it you already know

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough and through.
Well done! And now you wish perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?

Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead, it's said like bed, not bead-
for goodness' sake don't call it 'deed'!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(they rhyme with suite and straight and debt).

A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth, or brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there's doze and rose and lose-
Just look them up- and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart-
Come, I've hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I'd learned to speak it when I was five!
And yet to write it, the more I sigh,
I'll not learn how 'til the day I die.

Onestopenglish Web Editor, Lucy Williams, writes:

This month we think you should... check out the integrated skills video projects by our author of the month, Jackie McAvoy. Make sure you send us a link to the videos your students make - we'll show the best here on the site and add them to the onestopenglish YouTube channel.

Speaking of YouTube, we had some fantastic entries to the Onestopenglish Video Dictionary Competition. Thanks to everyone who's entered - keep your videos coming in as we haven't chosen a winner yet and the prize is still up for grabs!

And did you know that you can now receive the weekly news lessons as podcasts? Each week, we record an extract from the weekly news lesson and publish it as a podcast. Read Tim Bowen's tips and suggestions for ways to integrate these podcasts into your lessons.

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

Have fewer children and help save the planet, Britons told

This week's news item, adapted for MEC from a news article originally published in the Guardian Weekly is about an article in the British Medical Journal which calls on family doctors to encourage the view that bigger families are environmentally unfriendly.

Go to the News Items section on your Work Area screen to find out more.

This will be a demonstration of how to use the brand new function Test Compiler. The session will last approximately 45 minutes and will include training on how to build, edit, adapt, publish and assign tests.

We will be holding several sessions over the coming weeks. The dates and times are below:

• Friday 22nd August 12.30pm BST
• Friday 12th September 3.30pm BST
• Friday 19th September 9.30am and 4.30pm BST
• Friday 26th September 4.30pm BST

If you can't make these dates or times please let us know as we will be holding more Test Compiler clinics in October.

MEC clinics are short sessions involving small groups of no more than 10. They are on a first-come, first-served basis to any teachers who use MEC.

There is no cost involved: we will set up and host the sessions. Those attending simply need a web-linked computer with sound and ideally a microphone. 

If you are interested in attending this event or you require any further information, please let us know through the 'contact us' section of this site or by emailing s.milligan@macmillan.com.

Ever heard of Googlefight? It's a lot of fun. You enter two words or sentences and see which one has the most results on Google.

It's a good ice breaker for a new class or just a fun game for tired students.

Here are some ways you could use it in class:

You can take two words with a similar meaning and ask your learners to guess which one is more popular then check using Googlefight.

If your learners are not sure how to spell a word get your learners to write it in Googlefight and discover the answer.

Compare spellings in American English and British English

The last resort

This week's news item, adapted for MEC from a news article originally published in the Guardian Weekly, is about a Swedish centre for troubled teenagers. Living in a family environment, they receive vocational training and learn to take responsibility.

Go to the News Items section on your Work Area screen to find out more.

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

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

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

Lesson using MEC on an IWB

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

Language: Food vocabulary

Skills: Reading, listening and speaking

Level: Upper-intermediate

Age: Adult

Part 1

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

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

Here's some feedback from a few individual students.

Part 2

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

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

And here's a vocabulary revelation.

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

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

Add Forvo as a Web Link to your MEC site and send it to your learners. They could use it as an extra resource when completing their MEC Pronunciation Activities. There are 156 to choose from.

Belgium to split in two?

This week's news item, adapted for MEC from a news article originally published in the Guardian Weekly, is about the possible separation of Belgium into two different countries.

Go to the News Items section on your Work Area screen to find out why this might be happening.

August word games

This month's Witch's Pot topics are 'types of film' (Easy), 'words or expressions from crime headlines' (Average) and 'words or expressions relating 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 in different situations 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.

Quite a few users have been emailing in and asking about pen pal services. I found this great website called epals. Their motto says it all 'where learners connect'.

If you're teaching a distance learning course you could use this to stay in contact with your learners. Epals also gives learners the opportunity to practise languages and make new friends from across the world. MEC users could stay in touch using epals, compare notes and give advice on the resources they have found most useful.

Having won various awards it's updated fairly often and there are some interesting news articles on members and their activities. Best of all, its free!