Blog
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Spending time with Time
Has another week already passed? You know, I daren’t close my eyes in case I miss another decade! Time was very much a central theme of two enjoyable events I was lucky enough to see here in Auckland this week. One very old – the play Romeo and Juliet by more…
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Energising the gapfill 2
Last week’s tip looked at a fun way to inject new life into a gapfill exercise, making it hopefully more memorable for students. Here are one or two variations.
1 With a monolingual class, get students to do the same activity but this time, instead of ‘beeping’ or ‘banana-ing’, get them more… -
Lesson plan 30: Face to face
This eLesson is about the increasing popularity of social networking sites.
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Energising the gapfill 1
Gapfill exercises occur with relentlessly high frequency in coursebooks, and other supplementary materials. They are a useful, quick and focused way to check or diagnose students’ knowledge of a lexical item or a structure and, from an author’s perspective, they are also quite easy to write! Here’s my favourite way more…
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Latest from rainy Auckland
This has been one of those mild and wet winter weeks here in Auckland. But good weather to sit inside and catch up on some studies! I had the pleasure of meeting my new student through English Language Partners: Navinder, who has come here from India and is starting a more…
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Lesson plan: hindrance or help?
Is the lesson plan like having a ball and chain around your ankles? Some would argue that it limits a teacher’s ability to respond to students. In focusing on getting through the plan from A–D, any deviation off the pre-determined route is viewed negatively by the teacher. Thus, any sort more…
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When words are not enough – wear a funny-looking hat!
I received a rather unusual looking hat as a gift from a student recently. I won’t say from which country, but it is … unique. My students love the hat, and have been pestering me for days to put it on. I declined. ‘I tell you what, I said, if more…
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Lesson plan 28: Scott of the Antarctic
This eLesson is about Robert Scott, who led the British expedition to the South Pole but arrived in second place. 2010 is the centenary of the expedition.
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