8 Strategies for Teaching Academic Language "Change your language and you change your thoughts." -- Karl Albrecht Understanding Academic Language Academic language is a meta-language that helps learners acquire the 50,000 words that they are expected to have internalized by the end of high school and includes everything from illustration and chart literacy to speaking, grammar and genres within fields. Think of academic language as the verbal clothing that we don in classrooms and other formal contexts to demonstrate cognition within cultures and to signal college readiness. Where to Start It would be a mistake to think that academic language is a garbage pail category involving any word, depending on the context. If you are new to incorporating academic language into your lessons, a good place to begin is with Tier 2, high-frequency, general instruction words (such as paraphrase, summarize, predict and justify) that learners need to know for completing an activity, but that are not a lesson's primary learning objective. 1. 2. 3.
8 Idioms to tell someone to “shhh” or be quiet Do you ever have the need to tell someone to be quiet? In some situations, you might have to tell people to quieten down and stop talking just before someone is about to speak (in a presentation, a meeting or conference) or a play is about to start in the theatre. In those instances, you would politely ask people to stop talking. However, there are many more situations when you don’t want to politely ask the person or people to stop talking, especially if they have really annoyed you or you are fed up with the noise they’re making or the things they are saying. In which case, the idioms below would come in extremely useful! It’s a lot easier to be polite than impolite in a foreign language no matter how proficient you are in that language. So, I wouldn’t expect you to be able to use these idioms naturally especially when angry, impatient or irritated. And what better way to do this than to share this fabulous infographic prepared by Kaplan International. Kaplan International English 2.
50 "Best Practices" for language teachers 50 “Best Practices” For Language Teachers “It’s a funny thing. The more I practice, the luckier I get.” - Arnold Palmer Through practice and experience teachers get better. Here are my 50 suggestions for being the best teacher one can be. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. More ….. 9. 10. More ….. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. More ….. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. More …. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. Here are a few other posts related to “being a great teacher”. What makes great teachers great? It’s the small things that count. The 7 deadly sins of new teachers Read more with these articles and resources. Join the conversation at
How to Start a Great Writing Center As a high school student at Brimmer and May, an independent school in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, I spent many helpful hours in the writing center. Rather than line edit my work with the all-intimidating "red pen" (a badge of honor for many teachers), talented staff members posed deep, prodding questions to help me realize how I could improve my prose, structure, and analysis. I'm excited about returning to my alma mater next year to teach history and serve as the school’s writing center director. To gain better insight into how to do my job well, I recently reached out to Prof. Richard Kent, director of the Maine Writing Project (a site of the National Writing Project), and author of A Guide to Student-Staff Writing Centers: Grades 6-12. In assuming my new position, I'm keeping the following points in mind. 1. A writing center is a place for all writers of all abilities, and writing center tutors are often writers of all abilities themselves. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Authentic video in the classroom: Ireland II | Elisabeth Horn My second example of utilising authentic video in the EFL classroom is based on the same 50-minute travel video as my first. Of course, one can apply this to any video, but this time I will stick with Ireland. How I do it now will, however, differ from my last post because now I’ll concentrate on the language and vocabulary awareness in detail (but I wouldn’t use both methods on the same video in the same class, though). This approach is, however, associated with a lot of painstaking preparatory work for the teacher, because transcription of the video material needs to be done, at least for some of the clips. It takes about 1 hour to take down 5 minutes of video material, so one needs plenty of time to get a complete transcript. I rather enjoy transcribing videos and sound; oddly enough I experience the process as relaxing, especially if there is no deadline approaching. The “game board” that the students start out with looks like this: 1. 2. 3. 4A Road bowling 4B Janus the fertility god
Creating a Caring Classroom Creating a Caring Classroom starts on the very first day of school. I think the most important thing a teacher can do that first week is to establish a warm and caring atmosphere in his or her classroom. You'll need to build an atmosphere of trust, where students can feel free to be themselves without worrying that classmates will make fun of them. There are many ways to accomplish these goals, and I'm going to share a few of my favorites. If you're looking for the free webinar, Sowing the Seeds of Success, you'll find it at the end of the page. Featured Caring Classroom Freebies Seating Arrangements and Team Formation Many people ask me when I form my CL teams. Personally, I start off on Day 1 with the kids in random teams (since I don't know enough about them to form heterogeneous teams). Classroom Management Ideas Visit the Class Management Ideas page for a more complete description of each technique. Teambuilding 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Classbuilding 1. 2. 3.
How to get over a plateau stopping you from making progress: how I’m doing it with my Chinese One of the biggest questions I get asked by people already deep into their language learning project relates to how they should get over the plateau they are stuck in. There are many different types of plateaux you could be looking at. Maybe you have learned some basic vocab but can’t muster up the courage to use it with people? Maybe you’re already talking but can’t get past speaking more than a few words? Wherever you are, it seems like no amount of work, studying, practice or anything else is getting you out of this spot. Today’s advice is very simple for how I’ve learned the hard way to get out of such a plateau, as I’ve encountered dozens of plateaux in my language learning projects over the last decade: Completely change your strategy This may seem obvious, but if what you are doing now isn’t working to bring you forward then what you are doing now is not good enough. “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” REALLY think about what is holding you back
TEDx Last year I spoke at TEDx, an independently organized TED event, about my strategy of Speaking From Day 1. This video introduces some of the concepts I explain in more detail in my international best selling book, Fluent in 3 Months. I expand on these ideas even more here on Fi3m PLUS (free for book owners) and in my new Fi3m PREMIUM package, which includes the very best guides and videos I have to offer. If you are interested in getting a five-day crash-course in language hacking, ending with a two-chapter preview of the Language Hacking Guide for free, as well as monthly hacks, site updates, handy links, and language learning tips, just click below to join! Can’t see the signup box? Join by clicking here instead!
Reaching a Plateau in Language Learning – How to Get Out of It? | Lingholic There is probably nothing as frustrating as putting a hell of a lot of amount of work, and not feeling like you’re making any progress. Sadly, though, this situation happens to a lot of language learners, and it often becomes a dominant factor in people’s decision to stop learning a foreign language halfway through their goals. This is what we commonly call “reaching a plateau”. Routine, and Reaching the Autonomous Stage Dr. There are many causes of plateaus but a major one seems to be routine, according to many experts. In “Moonwalking With Einstein”, a book about memory and skill development, author Joshua Foer says that when people first learn to use a keyboard, they improve very quickly from sloppy single-finger pecking to careful two-handed typing, until eventually the fingers move so effortlessly across the keys that the whole process becomes unconscious and the fingers seem to take on a mind of their own. However, Dr. Marginal utility and language learning Scott H. As Scott H.
Live channel | IATEFL-Hungary blog Watch our Budapest Online 2015 recorded sessions below Budapest Online 2015 livestreamed sessions 11.30-12.15 Uwe Pohl and Margit SzesztayTeaching English with the three CsDownload session slides Watch recorded session here In this workshop we will explore how teachers can bring creative, critical and compassionate thinking into their language classrooms. 12.30-13.00 Jasmina SzazdovskaA brighter future for the non-native teacher? Watch recorded session here As language teaching methodologies change over time, how do the skills required of a language teacher change to follow them and is there a brighter future in stall for non-native teachers in view of the increasing spread of English as a lingua franca? 16.45-17.30 Judit FehérOne step to CreativityDownload session slides Watch recorded session here First, we will attempt to find the essence of creativity: an ingredient that can turn a classroom activity into a creative task. Veszprém Online 2014 livestream sesssions Like this: Like Loading...