UN balance of power tips against the West

This week's news item, adapted for MEC from a news article originally published in the Guardian Weekly, is about how the West is losing its influence in the United Nations as emerging countries become more powerful.

Go to the News Items section on your Work Area screen to find out who these emerging countries are and why the West's influence is declining.

The beginning of September brought about an exciting opportunity for me to travel to Siberia. I was there to give a presentation to teachers from all around the Tyumen region in Northern Russia and also to train teachers from the Tyumen Teacher Training Institute.

The photo below shows me being interviewed by a local television company looking very serious I might add! It was brilliant to be able to give the presentation in such an amazing space with a huge screen.

After the presentation it was time for training in the Tyumen Teacher Training Institute.

Teacher trainees will be using the Campus and also their trainers. 

It was a great experience for me to meet all of the teachers and trainers in the Tyumen region and it was so nice to hear that some of them had travelled a long way to find out about MEC. It's fantastic that the Tyumen Teacher Training Institute has chosen Macmillan English Campus for their English training program and I wish them all a great start to their academic year.

Do you like a challenge?

Would you like to win your class five Macmillan readers?

We are holding a competition for all teachers using Macmillan English Campus.

We have uploaded an image and some text from one of our News Items onto Voicethread and would like your learners to leave their comments. The best comments from a class win five Macmillan Readers!

If you've never heard of voicethread before click here.  

All of the instructions are written on our Voicethread slide show. To access it all you have to do is send us your name and the email address you'd like us to send the voicethread link to and we'll send you an invitation. The competition ends at 5.30pm on October 31st 2008.

Here is one way you can use the competition with your class:

 ·         Have a look at the voicethread and familiarise yourself with the commenting tool.

 ·         To leave a comment you need to click on comment at the bottom of the voicethread and it  will give you two options. Click on either type or record. If you choose type you can write in your comment and if you choose record you can record your comment but only if you have a microphone.

 ·         Before your computer lab lesson pre-teach your learners vocabulary from the News Item in the competition.

 ·          Take your learners into the computer lab and encourage them to think about their answers and what comments they'll make.

 ·          Finally have lots of fun typing or recording comments, remembering to mention what school or class you are from.

 ·         If it's good you might find yourself with a brand new set of Macmillan readers.

We look forward to reading your comments!

One giant leap as freerunning joins the sporting establishment

This week's news item, adapted for MEC from a news article originally published in the Guardian Weekly, is about freerunning, a new sport becoming popular in Britain, which has just held its first world championships.

Go to the News Items section on your Work Area screen to find out about freerunning and its origins.

You could also direct learners to YouTube where there is lots of footage of freerunning. Learners can simply type 'freerunning' into the YouTube search engine to find it.

Grammar is often seen as the most boring part of learning a language. However hard students study they still make errors when they attempt to use the language in context.

I found a very interesting grammar exercise on esl.about.com which is a fantastic resource site. In the link below you can find a couple of popular quotes made by George W. Bush. The quotes can be used during a warm-up or practice stage. Simply, give the quotes to your students and ask them to try and find grammar or vocabulary mistakes.

It is a great chance for students to experience real language in real context.

Have a look around the site by clicking on the link below as it is full of Bushisms.

esl.about.com - Bushisms

Also, why not check out our American English vs British English resources on MEC. Below are just a few of them.

• British v American English: verb and tense use - Grammar Reference Unit
• British v American English: vocabulary - Grammar Reference Unit
• British v American English: spelling - Grammar reference Unit 

August was a busy month for the training team. I was lucky enough to spend the end of it in Russia training teachers from Denis' school and Talisman.

Football match kick-starts Armenia and Turkey ties

This week's news item, adapted for MEC from a news article originally published in the Guardian Weekly, is about improved relations between Armenia and Turkey that have begun with a football match.

Find out about the reasons the two countries are trying to create closer diplomatic relations by going to the News Items section on your Work Area screen.

Onestopenglish Web Editor, Lucy Williams, writes:

Welcome to the onestopenglish Staff Room Open Day! This month, we're showcasing our huge range of subscription resources - click here to take a sneak peak inside the Staff Room.

September also sees the launch of Adrian Underhill's interactive phonemic chart. This excellent teaching tool can be played full-screen and gives clear audio examples of the English phoneme set.

The onestop reporters have been busy over the summer, travelling far afield to bring you Live from Oxford and Live from Edinburgh. And this month, the intrepid duo are back in London, asking locals and visitors questions about music and the news.

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