As the last couple of posts have been for my students, here is something for teachers. Someone twittered (if you don’t use twitter then why not:-)) a link to a really useful site for teachers who are trying to incorporate technology into their teaching. It is a wiki site which means you can look around and add. They also have a discussion space. However this is a ning site so you need to register if you don’t use ning but registration is free. Ning is a social networking site but unlike others it allows greater control over who can see what and there are many teaching nings.
Archive for September, 2009
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Hey class..
Posted by Shaun Wilden on September 3rd, 2009
Just came across this story on the bbc website
“Seventy years ago, on the eve of World War II, Sir Nicholas Winton – a British diplomat – helped hundreds of Czech children escape almost certain death at the hands of the Nazis….”
First lesson of the new year
Posted by Shaun Wilden on September 2nd, 2009
It’s Thursday tomorrow so it will be my first lesson of the new academic year, back to see my class of the last few years (the class of the emails earlier in my blog). They are a rather ‘special’ class, they love English, none of them want to pass exams in it but they love it – some of them translate, some of them teach some of them have no need whatsoever, what unites them is being housewives, learning a language and enjoying it. It’s the kind of class you don’t really need to prepare for - the opening hello could have enough in it to keep them talking for the whole class – they sure keep you on your toes. Over the last few years I have been using the internet based materials (youtube, bbc, etc )for lessons – I do make a lesson plan just in case there is no topic from them for the day – hey if i don’t use it this week it’s always there for next or whenever or I can simply email them what I have found and they can look at it on their own. Anyway over the summer I listened to Fry’s English delight when it was on Radio four. It’s a programme right up my classes street – it’s about English for starters 
so with that in mind I had a look on the interweb thingy to see if there was anywhere that they could listen to it and of course youtube has it and what’s more it’s broken into the youtube ten minute chunk which makes it ideal for class. So what follows is what I might do with my class tomorrow, depending on if they let me Not only is it a nice challenging listening on a relevant topic but also the class can go home, listen again for themselves and use the links provided to extend the topic. If you have a suitable class you could use it with please feel free to download and use.
Is there any hope TEFL?
Posted by Shaun Wilden on September 2nd, 2009
An interesting blog posting from Jason Renshaw this morning, and so thought I’d provide a link to that posting. Jason’s post provides answers to 10 ‘truths’ about EFL from ‘why so many people learn English’ through to ‘Why don’t many teachers do more to develop their skills and professionalism’ and concludes by asking:
Posted by Shaun Wilden on September 1st, 2009
Thanks to those who are asking about the training days we (myself and a trainer called Gareth) run during the autumn here in the Czech Republic – since we have just confirmed the dates and towns, here you go – please do not contact me to book a place, you need to go through your local OUP office:
