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Contents

News and views

Exercise of the month

END OF THE WEEK WIPEOUT REVIEW CLASS

  1. Prepare a bag of about 50 question cards; questions about things you’ve taught in class, general knowledge questions and 5 cards with the word WIPEOUT on them.
  2. Divide the class into three groups, A, B and C.
  3. Begin with group A. Ask them to pick a card. Read the question and award points for a correct answer or offer it to the rest of the class if they can’t answer. Repeat the process with groups B and C.
  4. If a group chooses a WIPEOUT card they have to nominate another team to lose all their points.
  5. At the end of the lesson (or after all questions have been finished), the group with the most points wins! 

This activity works well as a review exercise because it allows the teacher to see what students have learned during the week and what they need to practise more. The students’ interest is maintained due to the WIPEOUT cards, and the activity can work well across lots of different types of classes and age levels.

Word of the month

Krashen’s Theory of Comprehensible Input:  The idea that when instruction is given by the teacher or when language is presented to the students, it should be one step beyond the learner’s current stage of competence. This is often referred to as L+1.

Interview

Hugh Dellar and Andrew Walkley talk about Teaching Lexically, the London Language Lab and the future of teacher training. 

Teacher’s dilemma

You’ve spent a lot of time planning a brilliant lesson, the majority of which hinges on using several audio recordings. However, when the moment comes to hit the play button, nothing happens. You try again … and nothing happens again. The audio is not working and is not going to work no matter how hard you hit that button over and over again. It’s a technology fail!


What do you do?

Q&A

  1. How do you feel about peer observation? Is it something that should be done on a regular basis?
  2. How do you mark writing? Do you have a marking scheme or just correct everything?
  3. What’s the strangest gift you’ve been given by a student?

Downloads

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