A Past Simple Game

How to choose a book?

In this 9-minute video, you will get some ideas about - How to choose a book which is right for you level - How to use Oxford Learner's Bookshelf Test link: https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/online-english-level-test Booshelf: https://www.oxfordlearnersbookshelf.com/home/main.html

A super-useful website for improving your writing! Check it out.

Let the Games Begin: Quizlet and Board Games for LD Students Integration

Image courtesy of Graphics Mouse at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

INCLUSION - A CHALLENGE?
Inclusion, in my opinion, is the understanding that each and every classroom is heterogeneous to a certain extent. Some classes are more heterogeneous than others and some less, but as teachers, we constantly struggle with the challenge of diversity. Integrating students with learning disabilities creates even a bigger gap. My term for it is 'multi-levelled teaching'. This type of teaching requires more time for lesson preparation, you also have to struggle to find resources and collaborations. Also, if you teach a big class, more difficulties are to be expected.  How can we turn it into a benefit? This is where fun and creativity come in. Using games, visual aids, and varying strategies to suit the diverse needs of your students and to keep them engaged is the key. 

'Quizlet' sets are easy to create and save tons of time, paper, and money on flashcard preparation and purchasing expensive teaching gadgets. Once combined with some simple and easily varied board games, they become a powerful multi-levelled teaching tool for vocabulary acquisition. Besides, the games can be played independently, which is a great benefit for class management.  

‘Quizlet’-based games to beat the challenges

In the table below I juxtapose the typical problems students with LDs experience and the solutions the games provide:

Problems	Quizlet Solutions + Our Games
•       Perception:	•       ‘3-D Flashcards’ to support all perception channels
ü  Visual	ü  Pictures for each word
ü  Audial	ü  Audio (automatic or recorded) to clarify the pronunciation
ü  Tactile	ü  Easily-made printouts, board games, motion games
Problems	Quizlet Solutions + Our Games
•       Memory:	Several study modes and board games to activate different types of memory
ü  Working& Short-term	A variety of stimuli to engage several perception channels
ü  Long-term	ü  ‘Learn’ and ‘spell’ modes to improve the memorization ü  Step-by-step and Monopoly to use words in the context to strengthen the associations
•       Organizational problems/time planning:	•       ‘Quizlet Learn’ to create a study plan
ü  Inability to organize learning material and tools	ü  Splitting the material into sets
ü  Inability to keep deadlines and work on schedule	ü  Setting deadlines for each set and getting reminders and study goals
Attention deficit:	Token economy (levels, game points)
ü  Inability to focus on a task and shift attention	ü  Turning study tasks into interactive games

Here are some games you might prepare yourself and play with your students:

DIY GAMES:

1) 'Quizlet' -based step-by-step game

Materials:

qprinted game board,

qgame pieces,

qDice

qCards

Game description:

1.Roll dice

2.Open a card from the set

3.Translate the card

4.Create a sentence with the word

5.If you are right, you can move

6.If you are wrong, you must remain in the same position

2) RUN & MATCH

vCan be played in couples or in small groups.

Materials:

qA big screen,

qa projector

qa stopwatch

Game description:

vGroups take turns in matching words and definitions

vEach group sends a representative to the board who has to touch the word and its definition and run back quickly

vThe team with the shortest time wins

vInstead of competing you can ask the teams to help each other and finish the task in the shortest possible time

Enjoy your teaching!

Using TED Talks for English Teaching

Who invented English?

The 'Real' Test

or 

How can the 'real world' be incorporated into assessment ?

Portfolio work

Image courtesy of KROMKRATHOG at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A 'real world' assessment is an assessment adjusted to your students' everyday/professional experience. It is supposed to indicate the odds to succeed in their current or desired environment.  Therefore, it should not be separate from the learning process, but rather an integral part of it. This is the reason why I am a big fan of using portfolio instead of standardized tests. However, I am aware that it significantly increases teachers' workload, so it suits best for small groups and individual lessons.  

So what is the assessment process like?

It is very much like a ping-pong game between the students and the teacher. To illustrate my point I would like to list the steps of such process and a case description.

1) Defining our goals.

Detecting the student's needs at this point, as well as what are the student's goals. My way to do it is to perform a "case study", questioning the student about his/her priorities, likes and dislikes, professional background and plans, etc.

Example: A 24-year-old student has just got a new job in the programming field. His position requires frequent communications with the English-speaking management as well as performing marketing presentations for the potential clients of the company. His English is intermediate, and his goal is to become a fluent speaker and an effective presenter. He needs a boost in grammar and lots of pronunciation training as well as presentation skills. 

2)  Choosing focus

Finding specific grammar, reading, speaking and writing topics that are most relevant to your student.

Example: 

• Grammar: parts of speech, the use of gerund and infinitive, some tenses, punctuation and paragraph structure. While learning tenses I emphasize their practical application, such as using the Present Simple in technical manuals and Present Continuous in resumes, etc.
• Reading: IT-related articles, technical manuals and marketing texts.
• Speaking: practicing phone conversation, marketing presentation
• Writing: creating a marketing presentation, a resume and a LinkedIn profile.

3) Making a task list
Choosing specific tasks that need to be accomplished in order to reach the goals. 

Example: in our case we chose certain grammar exercises, a set of IT-related texts (reading comprehension tasks), vocabulary tests, listening comprehension, resume and profile-writing.

4) Creating a professional portfolio
The above tasks should be done, edited, reviewed, and fine-tuned together with the teacher until they correspond to the existing standards. All the accomplished tasks should be enclosed to the student's portfolio to serve them as reference material in their professional life. Speaking tasks can be recorded, reviewed and discussed. 

Example: 

A  writing and speaking task:

• The student writes a marketing presentation of a product he wishes / needs to market. 
• Together with the teacher, the presentation is edited and all the grammatical issues discussed. 
• The student makes necessary corrections and adds more information. 
• The teacher and the student double-check all the information.
• The student and the teacher write and edit notes to the presentation.
• The student presents and the teacher records it and makes notes.
• The recording is reviewed using the teacher's notes, mistakes are corrected. 
• The student records several takes, until the necessary result is achieved.

5) Grading

Each task should be assigned a coefficient of importance, and constitute a certain percent of an overall grade.
For a sample portfolio grading page, click HERE.

If done properly, the portfolio will help the students immensely in their work, which is, in fact, the ultimate goal of teaching adults.

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Image courtesy of © Tanya Rozanes Olevsky. Licensed exclusively to LinguaCom.

Feedback and Error Correction – Is It Your Job?

What is the most effective way to correct errors? How to develop self-editing skills in your students? This article is about making your feedback an effective learning tool.

Image courtesy of fantasista at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Error correction performed by the teacher followed by a feedback is a usual part of most traditional and even non-traditional school approaches. However, if we think about it, our ultimate goal is to teach the students how to become independent learners and be able to check their own work. Lack of awareness about the necessity of doing this has become one of my teaching challenges.

Most students I encounter as a teacher believe that their work is done once they have accomplished the assignment’s requirements. They tend to submit their papers and worksheets immediately after finishing an exercise. My question of whether they have checked their work is usually encountered with complete astonishment. They genuinely believe that mistakes correction is completely the teacher’s job. This is the stereotype that I strive to change. In my view, the purpose of language teaching is to turn the process of error correction into an automatic process the student should be able to perform independently. Students must develop awareness of their responsibility for checking their own mistakes.

I have developed several techniques that encourage self-check, provide the necessary tools for self-editing and proofreading and develop critical thinking and independence. The positive “side effect” of this approach is that evaluation gradually becomes an internal rather than external process, shifting the focus from grades to self-check and diminishing the tension caused by grades.

Below I provide the main aspects of the approach and some examples.

1. Define what a “mistake” is. A mistake is a misuse of the rule/s that has ALREADY BEEN STUDIED AND EXERCISED. A mistake is NOT a wrong use of rule/s or vocabulary that have not yet been studied in class.

2. Make sure the assignment contains only the material that has been thoroughly studied and exercised in class.

3. Change the assignments' instructions to include self-check as their integral part.

Example: "Please compose 10 sentences describing your day. Check your composition using the provided checklist".

4. Provide a checklist of the typical mistakes. (Especially important for beginners).

Example:

Grammar
Capital letters
Periods
The use of time expressions (usually, sometimes, often, etc.)
Spelling

5. Provide any visual materials that can improve mistakes correction, such as charts, tables, pictures, lists

6. Encourage using colourful markers and special editing signs.

7. Refuse to grade papers that have not been self-checked.

8. Structure reference materials, such as grammar rules, vocabulary, etc. in a way that students can easily access the necessary “help” page. I suggest that each student has a folder separated into sections, such as “Grammar”, “Reading”, “Writing”, etc. We file each page into a corresponding section and create a table of contents of each section.

9. Do not highlight mistakes in the material the student has not yet studied as mistakes, but rather as suggestions.

Example: I can not to read. – Mistake. No “to” after “can”. His name was Kristofer. – “Christopher”. Students often are unaware of the right spelling of foreign names.

10. Always discuss corrections. Encourage reasoning rather than saying which answer is “right” or “wrong”.

Example:

Student: “She is read the book” is wrong. Me: Are you sure? Student: No. Me: Let’s try to check the sentence structure. Let’s use the scheme we have…

Student: “She is read the book” is wrong. Me: Are you sure? Student: Yes. Me: Please explain. Student: It’s because we must use –ing ending if the verb is in the Present Continuous.

11. In your final error check highlight mistakes, provide suggestions and create a list of repeating mistakes. Give the students more exercises to practice specific points that they have probably misunderstood. If grading is necessary, suggest some extra points for completing the correction assignment.

Using the above tips consistently improves the students’ overall performance, raises their self-confidence and develops their reasoning skills. I hope you find them useful and welcome all the questions and comments on the topic.

Enjoy your teaching! Tanya 

Mirror Method as a Behavior Management Tool for Autistic Students

Photo credit: AleksaMX via Visual hunt / CC BY 

I would like to share a story from my personal experience. One of my 9-year-old students, let's call him Dan, is autistic, suffering from sudden laughter outbursts and repetitive speech. He's often restless and fidgety. When we first met I couldn't believe I would ever manage to teach him reading. However, against all expectations, last week we finished reading our first story in English. He now knows the alphabet, has a reasonable vocabulary and, most importantly, enjoys learning English very much. How did we reach such an impressive result?

Trying to find the right approach I tried different methods of behavioral management, including multiple variations of token economy, which is probably the most popular method existing. Everything would work, but only for a short time. I needed something more effective that would have a long-term influence. That made me think of the idea of putting a "mirror" in front of him to encourage self-control and self-consciousness. 

The "mirror" technique is a very strong tool, which allows students to see themselves from the side. The technique involves teaching and writing a detailed report of each action that takes place in the class simultaneously. The actions are divided into two categories (columns): lesson-related activities and distractions (I marked them with a happy and sad smiley):

	J	L
9:30	Reads a text very smoothly and translates it.
9:35		Laughter.
940	Succeeds to read new words.

Each record should be made in a corresponding column and marked with a time stamp. By the end of the lesson the student gets the report and a short teacher's feedback, such as: "Today you spent most of your time on-task" or "Look how last time you were distracted 4  times and today only once", etc. The teacher and the student may also discuss the time wasted as opposed to the time spent learning. 

In my case the method worked as a miracle: within a period of 4 months Dan has shifted from spending 20 minutes off-task to 3 minutes. He enjoys the concentration and is proud of making visible progress. 

I hope the success raises his self-esteem and brings even more motivation to study.

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This week I have discovered Quizlet. I have always dreamed of having an opportunity to create flashcards based on my own material and turn them into a computer game. Quizlet allows creating a "class" that would be shared with all your students and add "study sets" (flashcards) to your class for all the students to learn and play with. There is also a "test" option, so students can see their own progress. I particularly enjoy that you can add a picture to each word and record its pronunciation. It would especially valuable for non-readers or LD students.
Teachers have a subscription option (about 20-25 USD a year), which allows us to track our students' progress, see who's trained using the cards, how often and what were the results.
Students can learn in several modes that are arranged like attractive and fun games with a more-than-simple interface.
What's more, Quizlet offers an application that allows the students to study on-the-go.

All in all: worth trying.
If you are interested, here's the link:
https://quizlet.com/upgrade?referrer=LinguaCom

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"Treasure Hunt" in the Classroom

This game is very entertaining, and I'm sure your students will enjoy!

You need: 

• Handouts with an apartment map / a big map presented on the board (you can draw it yourself). 
• A list of objects and room names your students are not familiar with.

For a better result, make sure that all the objects and rooms on the map are labeled.

To start the game tell your students that you have hidden a treasure somewhere in the apartment (or your grand-grand-grandmother hid it many years ago). The students should find it by asking YES/NO questions.

Grammar focus: questions using BE and prepositions (in, on, under, behind, etc)

I would like to share these wonderful tips I found today:
How to Use a Whiteboard

Writing a Paragraph

Letter Search Game

Letter Search Game for Beginners

I've just had a very successful experience teaching reading to an autistic elementary school kid using a very dynamic and entertaining game, which involves attention, movement, organizational skills and spelling training. 

It is especially good for kids who are still not 100% familiar with the alphabet or whose visual perception is weak. The game will help them to remember letters and familiar words spelling better. Please note, that the kids are supposed to be pre-taught the meanings of the words. 

The materials used are only paper and scotch. 

1. Choose a group of words to learn.

2. Spell out the words and create cards with all the letters used in these words, each on an individual card. 

3. Print the cards and cut them.

4. Stick the cards using scotch to the walls, board and other objects in the classroom as shown on the picture:

5. Ask your students to search for the first letter in the first word you want them to learn. 
6. Ask them to put it on the floor. 
7. Ask them to search for the next letter, and so on and so forth.
8. As a result, you will get the words you wanted to teach spelled out on the floor like this:

9. Repeat all the letters, read the words together.
10. Translate the words.
HAVE FUN!

Goal Setting and Reflection on English Lessons

Last week I was lucky to become a part of a wonderful WizIQ webinar taught by Starr Sackstein. You can find her teaching blog here. The webinar was dedicated to using reflection as a tool on English lessons in high school. I would like to discuss it in a broader context, focusing on adult education. 
Teaching adults could be easier in some respects, however, the question of evaluation can become an issue. Adults learning in a private setting do not expect to have their work graded, however they quickly get discouraged when they don't see any "progress" in their studies. Sometimes, there is evident progress, but how do we make our students aware of their own learning processes?

As a rule, I ask my new students why do they want to learn English. Is there a particular purpose (business, academic, relocation)? I have decided to take these questions a step forward and transform them into an actual evaluation tool for myself and my students. Here are the steps:
- I create a Google Spreadsheet with a pre-set form:

	Student's reflection	Teacher’s notes
Information
Strategies
Skills
Time Invested

• I ask the students to brainstorm their study goals: what information, strategies and skills would they like to acquire? How much time can they invest into it (considering free time and financial aspects)?
• I "translate" the students' wishes into my own professional goals and particular tasks and ideas. Here's an example:

	Student's reflection	Teacher’s notes
Information	I want to be able to write job applications, tell about my experience	Grammar: Present Simple/Continuous, Past Simple/Continuous Vocabulary: terms related to the student's career, verbs Writing: Short paragraphs about past and present experience. Listening: Job Interview videos Reading: Cover letter samples
Strategies
Skills
Time Invested

• Finally, after accomplishing each study unit I ask the students to report on their progress using the same table. 

As a result, the students become aware of the learning processes they undergo, they learn to distinguish the types of different tasks and to see how they can benefit from performing them, and most importantly, they get the sense of moving from a milestone to milestone, which should keep their motivation at its peak.

Good studies!

"Talking Cards"

I often use memory cards with all my students, and especially with LD students. Recently, I have decided that this method can be significantly improved by introducing technology: I send a WhatsApp message to my students with a picture of the word and right after it I send a voice message in which I read the word. Dyslectic students often misread and mispronounce complex words, and this simple technique helps to strengthen the association between the spelling and the sound of the word.

The days when a ruler and a board were the only teacher's gadgets are over.
Let's jump together into the sea of entertaining, attractive and useful teaching tools!
I constantly research the existing technological teaching tools and share the results with my colleagues and students.
To read my posts about teaching tools search for the #Gadgets tag on the blog.
If you are willing to share your ideas or discoveries or ask me a question, you are welcome to email me: tanya.english@gmail.com

Welcome!

Dear Guest,
Welcome to my little studio!
Being passionate about discovering new learning techniques, platforms, materials, etc., I am happy to share my knowledge and expertise with other ESL teachers and learners all over the world.
Your participation and comments are most welcome!
Yours,
Tanya Rozanes Olevsky

Law Education in Australia and English Language Proficiency

Lingua.com's new Academic Writing course has just started. 

I am happy to share an article written by my friend and colleague Jon Yaakov Gorr, who explains why this course is useful, analyzing the current situation in law education:
 

Something really weird happened to public education across the English speaking world in the 80s and 90s.  Suddenly grammar, structure and even spelling was no longer important - there were software packages to correct everything.  People started communicating, twitter-style, in shorthand text messages of a maximum of 640 characters, and the public education system let them get away with it. 

From Alaska to Brixton to Calgary to Zeehan (and we’ll tell you in a few seconds why Zeehan is really important) functional literacy dropped, not only in the lowest deciles of the population but across all segments of the population.  

Surprisingly, at least for observers in parts of the world that still take education seriously, the lack of ability to read or write functional English did not stop people from being promoted from one grade or class to the next.   This lead to at least one shocking headline in the New York Post in 2013: A stunning 79.3 percent of those graduating from New York City’s government-operated-school grads into New York City colleges arrived without having mastered the basics, up from 71.4 percent in 2007.

Functional literacy in the region in Australia famous for having that dry country’s highest rainfall, the mining town of Zeehan in Tasmania, is supposedly the Australia’s highest amongst the non-indigenous population.  Tasmania’s functional illiteracy climbed to above 50% for the first time in 100 years in 2013.  That means more than half the population can’t read the side of a box of medicines.  However, many of Zeehan’s residents complete high school and make it to university.

Doing well in school might not be enough to get you top marks in your university course.  By the time you are admitted to the law or medical faculties it is expected that you will have first-class abilities in English.  Our work with students over the last 15 years proves, however,  that students may enter those faculties without the mastery of a sufficient level of English.

Given the need to constantly promote oneself by achieving publications, or by presenting papers at conferences, underachievers in written English are unlikely to be able to achieve a high profile in their studies.  This means that they cannot compete adequately for the increasingly limited supply of entry-level graduate jobs.

Our course is designed to assist you to produce work of publication standard every time you write.

For details, leave us a note at info@lingua-com.com