Deblog

Monolingual vs Bilingual Dictionaries

2011-06-13T14:53:00.000-07:00

I'll just start with what, in general, the students say...

"It's too difficult to understand the definition in the Monolingual dictionary."
"It takes too much time to use the Monolingual dictionary."
"I want a concrete equivalent L1 word so I can remember the English word more easily."
"I don’t know how to use them. Nobody has shown me."
"Because of cultural differences, I cannot understand the exact meaning of many
of the words used in the English definition."
Let's fight back...
Teaching idea

Ask each group to perform their song in front of the class. Count the topic words and vote the the best song and the song which used the most topic words correctly. Kids love this.
Tell the students that they are going to write their own song using as many of the topic words as they can and the song must rhyme. They must use the given tune. Give a set amount of time to finish.
Hum a well known tune, such as 'happy birthday' a couple of times.
Elicit 15 important words related to the topic. Put a few visuals up on the board if appropriate.
Decide on a topic with the students or use a revision topic.
Have plenty of copies of a junior rhyming dictionary which you have previously taught the students how to use.
a rhyming dictionary.
Translating into an ICT Activity

Use an online rhyming dictionary such as http://www.rhymezone.com/

Use a podcast/MP3 of the tune.

Put one keyboard player in each group (if possible) or get keyboard players to move around the group and record the tune on the Google doodle guitar - if it is something simple it will be easy to record. http://www.google.com/logos/2011/lespaul.html

Record their songs using audacity and upload them to a wiki or similar.

Back after 5 years!

2011-06-12T13:59:00.000-07:00

Well here I am back after such a long time. To be honest I never thought I'd be using this blog again.

The years have rolled on and the kids grown up. Look at them here compared to the photo in the postings below! This was taken next to the Turner Gallery in Margate last week.

Now with the sunsine a distant memory I'm back on the course trying to keep up!

Excuse me using an old blog but in the interests of reduce, reuse, recycle - well I'm reducing my effort, reusing a blog and recycling the same old rubbish!

QUESTION
Who has the catch phrase reduce, reuse, recycle?

Teaching Idea

Ask the children to bring in a hardcopy photo of themselves taken 5 years ago. They are likely to be between age 3 and 6 in the old photo. You will aim to make a wall poster to decorate the classroom. Call the poster 'Our class 5 years ago'.
Give each child a small strip of paper. On one tell them to write one of the differences they can see between themselves now and 5 years ago. E.g. I was shorter; I was younger; My hair was lighter; I had fewer teeth! The sentences with contain comparatives. Then give each child a second strip of paper and ask them to write a similar sentence about a friend in the class on it. Jane was younger; He was thinner; Marcel was not as clever etc. Ask the children to paste their photos and sentences onto sheets of poster paper and decorate it.

Translated into an ICT Activity
Ask children to e-mail you the photo and then upload them onto a ready prepared page on your class wiki. Alternatively ask the students to upload their own pictures as per your instructions (depends on aga and ability).
You are going to make the same poster but as a wiki page/set of pages. Children can write their sentences directly next to the appropriate photo.

Don't forget to do one for yourself and think of some fun comparatives!

What I do

2006-11-22T05:09:00.000-08:00

I like to think of myself as a
teacher and teacher trainer, but I have to say that I spend more time doing other things such as materials writing and consultancy these days.

I started my working life in pharmaceutical research moving into teaching physics and chemistry. I taught in an international school in Cairo, which meant an non-native speaking class and became facinated with mistakes like: 'In water germs are free'. Meaning, I presume, germ free water/distilled water/sterilised water. This led me to doing the CTEFLA after which I taught English to children and adults which led to teacher training which led to publishing.

IKURU 3 and 4 is a coursebook I wrote with Cornelsen Verlag in Germany. Here's a teaching idea taken from IKURU 4.

Teaching Idea
For teaching mixed ability or if you have forgotten your dice!

You are going to teach a game that needs a die and has complicated rules that need a lot of explanation. You have some students that you think might not understand the instructions and might get left behind. You can include them in a way that is fun and gives them time to figure out the rules while listening actively and participating.

Put 6 chairs in a row at the front of the class.
Put one student on each chair. Ask them to stand up. They are the die.
Shout throw.
When you shout throw all the students in front of the chairs either stay standing up or sit down. There must be no hesitating. (It takes a few practice goes to get the hang of it!)
The number of students still standing is the number thrown on the die. If everyone sits down then you throw again!

This way you can demonstrate the game with the students actively participating and looking at how the game is played.

Where I live

2006-11-22T04:06:00.000-08:00

I live in Lovington, near Castle Cary, in Somerset.

This is a picture of Lovington taken from Google Earth. http://earth.google.com/

As I said we live in the countryside in a small village. You can see we are surrounded by fields. it is very nice but we don't have any facilities at hand, you have to get in the car to do anything. The village has a small primary school, a pub and a church, no shops for quite a distance.

You can get more information about towns in the UK from upmystreet Go there and look up my postcode, which is BA7 7PY. There's lots of information to be found here. look up my neighbourhood profile or find out where my nearest cinema, hospital or supermarket is.

Teaching Idea
You can use this site with your students.

Find a UK postcode and tell the class that it is the postcode of a famous person. Make sure it is somebody who is popular with the class.
Ask them to find the postcode on 'upmystreet'.
Tell the students they are the 'paparatzi'. They need to get great photos of the famous person for 'Hello' magazine. They need to find out where they should wait for the star. They can find out where they live, where they are likely to shop, eat, take the dog for a walk etc. Half way through you can say there has been a rumour that the star has been taken ill. Quickly they need to find out which hospital they are likely to have been taken to and the plot goes on...

Look the area up on Google Earth as well. Have fun!

My Family

2006-11-22T03:35:00.000-08:00

This is the family. My husband Paul with Matthew now age 4 and Jamie almost 2.

Life is certainly busy with all these boys!

Teaching Idea

Ask the students to make up their own fantasy English family.

You will need a lot of magazines, scissors, glue and paper.
The students look through the magazines and cut out pictures of the family they want to create. These are then stuck onto a piece of paper.
The students give the family names, jobs, friends...
You can create a village of families, with parents with jobs in the village, school, pub etc.

This is good for students with low levels of English. You can introduce and practice names, jobs, family relationships and short sentences.

This family is called...

The mother's name is...

Joe is a teacher in the village school.

Jane is friends with...

Who's Debbie?

2006-11-22T02:53:00.000-08:00

Debbie Candy

I was born, Deborah Anne Smith, in Liverpool on 7th May 1963. First born of 7, that is 6 girls and one boy. That makes me 43 as I write this. I only feel 23 though! I know, I know you can see from my picture I'm not 23...

I married to Paul in April 2002, which made me Debbie Candy and very soon afterwards two fantastic little boys arrived on the scene!

I am an English language teacher and teacher trainer and I run a small consultancy called ESOL Solutions. I am really lucky because my job allows me to meet lots of fabulously interesting people who ask me to do a whole range of interesting tasks in the field of education.

I live in a small village in somerset called Castle Cary, which is near the small market town of Castle Cary.