I’ve been using newspaper articles with a couple of adult students for some time now. I thought it was time to share another resource - I just finished preparing an article to use later this week - it’s olympic related and was published today.

If you haven’t milked the olympics to death with your students you might find this useful. Taekwondo fighter kicks referee in the face - I took one article reformated it and found comments on another article and added that two page two - I think it should make for an interesting discussion. If you like it please leave a comment. As usual it’s available both pdf and
publisher.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Monday Aug 25, 2008 at 10:47 AM
Teaching | Materials | |

Hat tip to CotterHue on twitter - Hospital English has a lot of resources for teachers and learners in EAP. I don’t need it, but I’m sure many teachers could use this resource.

HospitalEnglish.com contains FREE resources for medical professionals studying English and medical printables for teachers.  I host medical vocabulary builders, patient counseling activities, disease state directors, healthcare professional articles, medical flashcards, hospital lesson plans, ESP worksheets and more to come.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Wednesday Jun 25, 2008 at 09:20 AM
useful_web_sites | Materials | |

Last fall I taught a couple of classes (3 hours total) with newspaper articles and discussion questions and then again this Spring I’ve been teaching a company class with two students. These students are quite fluent in English and their only requirement was that we discuss newspaper articles. The topic did not matter. I got to choose and format the discussion the way I wanted to.

Instead of merely printing up the article and bringing it to class, I instead copied it into MSpublisher, formatted it, added vocabulary notes and discussion questions. I then emailed the article to students 1-2 days in advance of the lesson for them to read it and be prepared for discussion. The articles are from a variety of news sources and most of them should be usable in any country or context with adult learners.

I’ve uploaded an archive file (11.2mb) with all articles so far in both publisher and pdf format. If you have pdf then you’ll be able to modify them to your own uses. Here are two sample articles to take a look at before you download the whole archive: metrosexual and toronto subway strike.

update

I’ve finished another article on cloning dogs and pets for class this week. It’s not included in the archive, so if you want it, you’ll have to get it separately.

If you like these or find them useful, please leave a comment.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Saturday Jun 7, 2008 at 10:08 AM
Materials | Lesson_Plans | |

I’m teaching an advanced class yet again. This week one of my lessons from last semester was not very good. I needed to replace the second hour so I decided to add another TV show to the mix. This time I chose Corner Gas - A Canadian sit com that just got picked up by an American network. This show is funny, very unique, and I can guarantee that students have never seen it before.

The handout is in pdf format - Corner Gas Whataphobia. If you want an MSpublisher format send an email and I’ll get it to you.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Wednesday Mar 26, 2008 at 10:57 AM
Teaching | Lesson_Plans | Materials | |

A few weeks ago at the KOTESOL conference I attended a presentation by Scott Miles promoting a new book teaching Reading titled Essential Reading. I walked away from that presentation interested in the book and determined to trial it with my students. I used the material with two different first year classes.

Teachers in Japan attending next weeks JALT conference will want to watch Mr. Miles’ presentation.  I have spoken with Scott and confirmed that each attendee will recieve a free copy of the level three book.  The entire series is edited by Mr. Miles and the third book was written by him as well. If you do attend please say hi and let Scott know you heard about the book from my blog.

Below is what I wrote about Miles’ presentation:

The next presentation I attended was also done by a friend, Scott Miles. Scott is the author and series editor on a new series of books teaching reading skills. The series is titled Essential Reading and is designed in a unique way. It’s targetting specifically EFL students in an Asian context. The readings were chosen to be engaging and relevant to Asians at the university level, i.e. material that they would be interested in reading on their own. Each of the readings was also written in a way that it would provide information that students were unlikely to know previously despite being familiar wiht some of the topics. Furthermore the readings were selected to elicit an emotional response and as Scott put it, this means that sometimes “they are not entirely safe”. But if they students respond emotionally they are definitely engaged. Finally there is support for ER built in. There are excerpts from graded readers and each book also has 2-3 graded short stories at the back. All attendees came away with a free copy of book 3.

I have the level three book which according to Mr. Miles in his presentation would likely be good for freshmen students in Korea. I chose to do half of unit two (Punishment) and all of unit three (Extensive Reading).Additionally when teaching I did not have access to the teachers book nor did I do anything special to prepare the material. I ran through the material sequentially and alloted time for each section and did not supplement or change anything.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Saturday Nov 17, 2007 at 02:10 PM
Teaching | Book Reviews | Materials | |

In January I talked briefly about bubbleply. I am now using it after having rediscovered it. This semester I am teaching a course titled “Teaching English through the Internet” to English Education Majors. I originally thought the course was going to be internet oriented and general skills but just before the semester started found out that it was for the English Education department. I have since taken a new approach on my course.

I now introduce various web sites and resources to the students and have them use the sites. This is then followed up by a brief discussion about how they could be used in language education as well as some of the pedegogy behind my suggestions or usage. I have told the students that many of the sites introduced in the class will be oriented to adults since they are adults and I do not (re: never) teach children. I am aware that most of my students, teachers in training, will be teaching in public schools so I do try to find sites that can be used at all levels from grade school up to high school.

Anyhow on Wednesdays class this coming week we will be looking at bubblely which I feel has many different potential approaches in the classroom. Bubbleply takes a youtube video and allows you to add a variety of speech, thought, narration, or subtitle bubbles to it. clearly this gives the teacher opportunites to annotate a video, add English subtitles to aid in listening comprehension, add thought bubbles for comedy or even have students find a video of their own to bubblply for task based English use. My students will be finding their own youtube video to bubbleply and then adding it to their class blogs.

Enjoy the sample I prepared for them to watch on Wedesday. You can watch the original YouTube video here or just turn off the bubbles on the bubbleply player if you want.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Sunday Sep 16, 2007 at 09:40 AM
Teaching | useful_web_sites | Video | Materials | |

I’ve put together a lesson for my advanced class on the pilot episode of Lost. Actually it’s only the first half of the pilot. The pilot episode is 2 hours, really 90 minutes, and my classes are only 100 minutes long. It will take the whole two hour class just do what I’ve got planned in for the first half of the pilot and even then it will be tight and rushed.

If students want to see the rest, the can buy the DVDs, borrow them from the library, or acquire them some other way. I’ve watched TV/Movies in the past strait through and you always end up with students sleeping in class. Now when I teach using video I regularly stop the video and have discussion time - usually every 10-15 minutes. This way it keeps everyone awake and is really more about language learning as you are checking listening comprehension, idioms, difficult vocabulary and any number of other aspects.

Page six of the handout was originally developed by Gord Sellar who shared it with me via email a couple of months ago. I dropped one section of what he did with his since his focus was different, but kept the majority of it. You will see his name on page six but no link to his blog since he asked the students not be told about his blog.

For the record I am aware that the picture I chose on page six is from season three, I used it anyhow because I think it is a great image. I hope you find this handout useful. If you would like to make changes let me know and I can email you the original file in MSpublisher format.

lost-pilot.pdf

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Thursday May 24, 2007 at 08:06 AM
Teaching | Materials | |

What is the best method for learning a language? or for that matter teaching a language? In my experience most students have one method of learning and that involves heavy usage of rote memorization. They seem to think that language is knowledged that can be memorized and not a skill to be acquired and/or improved. I spend a lot of time in my classes trying to build awareness of the difference but am not sure how effective I am. I have written on this before and if you were to search my blog you would find several entries, but two come to mind: Lead a Horse to Water and Learner Autonomy.

This semester I’ve been changing things up a bit. This week we’re going to take a general look at what students can do to improve their command of English. To that end I’ve prepared a hand out that I feel will be effective. If you like it, feel free to use it. I’m also looking for some critical feedback from readers.

The file is in PDF format. If you would like the original (MS Publisher) let me know and I’ll send it to you.
best_method_for_learning_english.pdf

update
I could have written How do English learners teach us? but I didn’t. It was written by a Taiwanese English learner and university professor.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Sunday May 6, 2007 at 01:40 PM
Teaching | Learning_Strategies | teaching_application | Materials | |

Next week is special listening week for my freshmen classes. During this week we don’t use the textbook but rather do a number of listening exercises and talk about how to improve listening and various resources including podcasts & audio books. I have a couple of activities from the past that I decided to scrap because I wasn’t satisfied with them. This semester I’m replacing them with a 25 minute lesson around a music video by Twisted Sister. 

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Sunday Mar 25, 2007 at 09:59 PM
Video | Materials | Lesson_Plans | |

This is a lesson for advanced students on Internet Piracy. Using the website mentioned here, I have saved all the youtube videos to my harddrive so I don’t have to worry about lack of internet during class. I will be teaching this class today and hope it goes well. If anyone uses the lesson I would of course like to know how it goes for you.

piracy.pdf (393kb)

Enjoy
update
Too bloody difficult. It seems I’m going to have to adjust my expectations down for this class. They could do the discussions but the documentary (only 10 minutes) was too difficult even with two viewings.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Friday Mar 23, 2007 at 07:35 AM
Teaching | Lesson_Plans | Materials | |

As mentioned previously I have been planning a lesson using Van Halen’s video Hot for Teacher. I’ve finished the lesson but am unsure of whether to proceed with teaching it. The order of the handout is not in the same order that I would be teaching it. The class is for advanced students and is all male. Feedback appreciated - the hand out is here in pdf format hot_for_teacher.pdf

for the record, this lesson is going to be taught 28 hours from now, quick feedback needed.
Update in the extended entry

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Thursday Mar 15, 2007 at 09:25 AM
Teaching | Lesson_Plans | Video | Materials | |

I’m a big fan of games or game like activities in the class assuming they are done for educational purposes and not just to waste time. I have created several of my own games and modified several others from resource packs for teachers. However this card game has taken it to another level. Visit GoKorea and download the sentence building card game. The rules for the game are two pages at font size 9 so it does seem to be overly complicated. I’m not sure I would be able to invest the time to play this with my students. If however a teacher was able to use the game multiple times with the same class then it would probably be a worthwhile venture.

Found this game via this thread on Dave’s Cafe. If anyone plays it, I would love to hear how it goes with your classes. I used to play Magic: The Gathering regularly before I left Canada to come to Korea and think this is a great concept for EFL/ESL. At one point I was also considering developing a role-playing game for EFL students but stopped. Perhaps it’s time to think about that again.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Sunday Nov 26, 2006 at 12:37 PM
Teaching | Materials | |

I’ll be going over the unreal conditional this week. I’ve got a couple of great activities that I regularly do for this sort of lesson. I decided this time around to add another one. Last week was special listening week and that got me inspired to use If I had a $1,000,000 by Barenaked Ladies. This is a great upbeat song that uses the target langauge repeatedly.

I’m not going to do a cloze or gap-fill with this, though the song easily lends itself to that sort of activity. Instead I’m going to focus on generating conversation and fluency after having done some focus on form earlier. This will be a great way to lighten the class mood and enjoy some music the students have probably never heard before.

I’ve uploaded the PDF (226kb). If you have MSpublisher and would like to modify the file to your own needs send me an email and I’ll pass on the original file.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Sunday Sep 24, 2006 at 06:34 PM
Materials | Lesson_Plans | |

In fall semester I will be teaching a presentation skills course that will meet once a week for two hours over a sixteen week period. I have a number of thoughts and opinions on what makes a good successful presentation and feel that they are correct since the presentations I have given went well and I recieved loads of positive feedback. However I’m a little unsure of where to begin when teaching this. I’ll be heading to the bookstore later today to get some ideas for course materials, but would appreciate any help that readers would be able to offer.

Websites, resource books, materials, or ideas that you have used in presentation skills courses would be greatly appreciated. I need to have a syllabus and materials chosen by July 31 so that the University can put it up on the web site enabling students to decide if they want to take my course. Looking forward to your feedback.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Thursday Jul 20, 2006 at 01:47 PM
Teaching | Materials | |

I just spent some time creating a Jeopardy game in powerpoint for my class on Monday. It works pretty good and I thought I’d share the blank template with everyone. I added an eflgeek icon in the top right - feel free to change it if you want, you’ll need to edit the master slide file. jeopardy.zip

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Thursday Jun 29, 2006 at 09:17 PM
Teaching | Materials | |

I start a new class tomorrow at the university hagwon because I obviously don’t want to enjoy my vacation. Well the coursebook that is assigned to the class is American Cutting Edge 4 which looks pretty good as far as course books go. It’s got a lot of activities and the teachers book as several supplemental activities that look good.

However the book only comes with cassettes. I don’t even own a cassette player so how am I supposed to prep for the class at home. What kind of ELT publishing company makes a textbook without CDs. Honestly I don’t even know a single person who owns a cassette player. The advantages of a CD far outweigh that of a cassette. CDs are cheaper to produce, no more rewinding and stopping to find your place just choose the track you want and go! Additionally you can easily rip the CD to mp3 and move files to a portable device for playback that way. That is my preferred method and then I run a line from my mp3 player to the a pair of speakers. Of course students (the keeners) could also put the files on their own mp3 players and get extra listening practice while commuting.

Cassettes bite - longman join the 1980s and publish CDs with your coursebooks

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Sunday Jun 25, 2006 at 12:50 PM
Teaching | Materials | |

ESL & Archie Comics is a blog that posts one Archie strip with accompanying audio and simple vocabulary explanations. currently the audio is set up for download only rather than an inline player, but the RSS feed has enclosures all set up to run like a regular podcast.

The author of the blog sent me an email.

Perhaps your students would enjoy my blog… ESL with Archie Comics… sort of a short (but hopefully sweet) ESL lesson for elementary and middle school kids (maybe even up to adults?). Anyway, I taught an ESL class this spring and have just learned about doing podcasting and thought it would be a neat extension for my students. If you can offer any helpful advice, I’d appreciate it.  (BTW I am working on fixing the audio player to be viewable in the same window rather than opening a new one.) http://www.eslarchie.wordpress.com

I responded suggesting that there might be problems with copyrights and found out that the author works with archie and if you check the mp3 address it’s actually on archie comics, so this is a legitimate comic resource for ESL/EFL learners. Go and enjoy.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Sunday Jun 4, 2006 at 10:31 AM
Podcasting | useful_web_sites | Materials | |

Recently I’ve posted a few videos or links to videos that are amusing. For the most part these focused on language or language learning: I speak no English, Berlitz commercial, and another English commercial. In the comments to I Speak no English Gord and Jamie both suggested the possibility of using that clip with their students.

I have since created a page on my student site that incorporates the video and script. I realize that the video may be a little complex for many students but the script is there and the context of the page should help as well.

I know that it is common for students to try to memorize conversations and speeches. However most teachers do not like to listen to memorized conversations as they are not natural and are very difficult to listen to. In fact, most teachers I know would rather listen to a natural conversation with grammar and vocabulary mistakes. This serves two purposes it shows the students true English ability and also helps the teacher to find areas that the student needs to practice.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday Apr 25, 2006 at 08:05 AM
Teaching | Moodle | Materials | |

I prepared a two hour lesson on the pilot episode of Smallville for my advanced students doing independant study. The prep for this lesson took a large amount of time and I thought that it would be nice to see the lesson used by other teachers if they are interested.

The class met for two hours. The first fifteen minutes I had students discussing what they knew about Smallville and Superman in general. I talked a little bit about what native English speakers, especially from North America, would know due to superman being embedded in pop culture. You can see the handout for that section, which students downloaded and printed before class, here: Smallville Assumptions (pdf).

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Thursday Mar 30, 2006 at 06:47 PM
Materials | Lesson_Plans | |

I’ve been thinking about the games I use in my classes and one of the most successful games I use for review - and occaisionally to break up the routine - is a jeopardy style quiz game. I’m sure many teachers have played similar games and found them equally successful. However I want to take it one step further and not only have questions and answer but a real buzz circuit.

Too many times the class gets too excited and noisy and it is difficult to tell which team should have the opportunity to answer the question. The quiz buzzer will solve that problem and add some authenticity to the game show feel of the activity. I already have access to a 2 meter by 2 meter wall hanging jeapordy board so this will just complete the feeling. I did some googling and searching on ebay and found what appears to be the best option: SVBZ Quiz Buzzers. I’m ready to shell out the bucks for the six player version provided they ship to South Korea. I’ve already sent an email and am waiting for a reply.

The thing for me is that I would like to have 6-7 table top versions of this so that my students could play individually at their tables in addition to playing as a whole class. But that is clearly not affordable. If anyone knows of a more offordable solution I would be grateful. I’ll probably buy the one linked above for my whole class activity, but I would really like something cheaper in order to have students play at their tables.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Wednesday Dec 21, 2005 at 05:47 PM
Materials | |