Thursday 4 October 2012

Play online, learn online and feed the hungry | Freerice.com

Play Online, Learn Online and Feed the Hungry | Freerice.com








A win/win learning activity.


Test your English vocabulary and help donate grains of rice to feed the world's hungry

Multiculturalism - EFL CLASSROOM 2.0

Multiculturalism - EFL CLASSROOM 2.0

David Deubelbeiss



Culture

Find out what young people in the UK think 'culture' is.  Follow the title link and listen to young adults/teenagers from London (a multicultural city) express their opinions on multicultural issues, stereotyping and culture in a video. 

Make yourself up a mind map to summarise the video.




Then, make your own mind map up in English to develop and expand your vocabulary awareness around this topic. Explore what you think 'culture' is. 


Talk to your friends and parents and define culture from their viewpoint. 

Are their definitions the same or different to yours?

Wednesday 3 October 2012

MyWordBook

MyWordBook




Click on the title link  above and download the above mobile learning application from the British Council.


An Invaluable Tool in Improving Vocabulary Knowledge


  • Learn, practise and quickly review your English vocabulary knowledge daily.
  • Use MyWordBook 2 every day to build your vocabulary and improve your English. Add new words as you meet them so you never forget them
  • Create your own flashcards and add images, sounds, notes and translations.




English for Medicine - A Doctor's View

English for Medicine - A Doctor's view


Another excellent resource from the Learn English British Council website.




Listen to an interview with a retired doctor, Rajan Mehta, about his life working in the UK.

What do you think a paediatrician is?






Follow the title link

  • do the preparation task and match the words to their correct descriptions
  • put the questions in the order they were asked in the interview
  • listen and locate specific information from an audio file 
  • rewrite a postcard that Doctor Mehta sent to India in 1967


Biotechnology

Biotechnology


An excellent resource from the British Council Learn English website in which two students, Ann and Frank debate their opinions on genetically modified food.





  • familiarise yourself with technical/scientific vocabulary associated with biotechnology and more complex words and phrases from an academic debate.  

  • listen to an audio transcript of a conversation between 2 students, Ann and Frank.  

  • answer true/false questions on the information you have listened to or read.

  • do a comprehension task to test your understanding of the audio script and written text.




What do you think about vegetables with a higher vitamin content or bananas with vaccines built into them?  

Do you agree with the manufacture of genetically modified food?

Monday 24 September 2012

Past Continuous and Past Simple

Past Continuous and Past Simple

An exercise to introduce you to two forms of the Past Tense.  The exercise is a gapfill one where you convert the designated verb to it's past form (continuous or simple). This resource is suitable for A2 CEFR students.  Grammar support points are on the right hand side of the web page.

Saturday 22 September 2012

TEFL Global Grammar Resources

The Simple Past Tense - Regular and Irregular Verbs


Grammatical information on the context, form and uses of verbs (regular and irregular) in the Simple Past Tense.  There are also exercises to practise skills and a short reading and writing task in each resource.

Tuesday 18 September 2012

The Cat That Walked By Himself

The Cat That Walked By Himself


Which pet do you prefer? A cat or a dog.

A lovely poem by Rudyard Kipling which rhymes, has rhythm and a theme already introduced in the podcast comparing cats and dogs. 

Familiarize yourself with the vocabulary, read and listen to the poem and test your understanding of what you have read through the comprehension activities.

Irregular Verbs

Irregular Verbs


A list of approximately 60 or so irregular verbs with the base form, the past simple tense and the past participle in table format.  This resource could be used as a reference tool or you could start trying to memorize the verbs as they are commonly used in English.

There is also an exercise to do here.  Again keep your eyes out for news of my new website where I will incorporate a lot of this type of materIal.


Present Perfect

Present Perfect 

A B1 CEFR exercise on the Present Perfect Tense suitable for Pre- Intermediate level TEFL learners.  There is a combination of questions and sentences to complete for this gapfill exercise.

The Present Perfect Tense Slideshow  can be found on the grammar page of this blog. Check it out as it goes into more detail on the formation, meaning and uses of the present perfect tense.  It is interactive and there are exercises to do as you watch it.  I would say this is for those of you who may be meeting the present perfect tense again and can understand a little bit more detail this time (Intermediate level).

Keep your eyes open here as I am developing another website which will be more of a static one and will include more grammar exercises as they are proving to be popular.

British Council Elementary Podcast 5




TEFL Vocabulary, Grammar and Communicative Skills.



If you are a beginner (A2 CEFR level) these British Council Podcasts are excellent for getting you started.  As the week progresses I will post up other related work which will be appropriate for different levels of student ability.  If you are an Intermediate level of student you may want to use this resource to revise and then extend your knowledge.  Advanced students may just want to dip into the additional and other resources added during the week.



Find the audio link (MP3) right click and save it so you can listen to it whenever is convenient for you. The podcast comes with a support pack and transcript which is 22 pages long.  Use this link:




Download and do the exercises.

Main Contents of Podcast This Week

  • Describing cats
  • What famous person would you like to meet and why? Didier Drogba
  • Vocabulary quiz - words beginning with (single consonant sounds)
  • New Zealand - the landscape and scenery
  • Expressing an opinion - Which do you prefer cats or dogs?
  • Dialogue of Carolina from Venezuela when she meets her new flatmates in Newcastle.
  • Telling/retelling a joke
Here is a summary of the main language points of the podcast. Try to get more practise with these language points during the week if you can:
  1. Regular and irregular verbs
  2. The base form, the past simple tense and the past participle in the present perfect tense
  3. Informal phrases.
I will follow up with work that is related through the week.  This work will be graded for different levels of student ability.





Sunday 16 September 2012

[ THE DRIFTER and the GYPSY ]: Interview: ModCloth

[ THE DRIFTER and the GYPSY ]: Interview: ModCloth


If you are interested in women's fashion ModCloth uses 'vintage inspired designs from independent designers'.  Susan Gregg Koger was the founder of this internet based company at 17 years of age and is totally self taught in the business.  The resource is a transcribed phone interview. Read on and find out about Winston, the pug who is the company mascot!