Express Publishing ELT

On her website Shelley Vernon presents some of the problems many preschool teachers face.

Preschool learners:
* have very short attention spans
* forget things quickly
* may not be fully confident in their first language
* may not be motivated to learn
* may be fearful
* develop at very different rates which leads to mixed ability groups
* can be easily overwhelmed
* need to be taught with effective language learning techniques and not just with time fillers to keep them busy.     read more >>

10 things you shouldn’t say in the classroom.

1. “Shut up!” or even “Be quiet!” The first is rude; the second illogical. Students should be making a noise if they are engaged in pair or group work.
2. “Get out!” Some teachers use the “sin bin” approach to misbehaviour. If a student is so penalized, he (and it is usually a he) is given the attention of the class as he leaves (something he probably wanted), which distracts from the task the rest of the class is working on. What happens if the student refuses to leave?
3. “That’s wrong!” If you ask a question and the student’s reply is wrong, give them the chance to self correct or ask another student to provide the correct answer. Then go back to the original student to give the correct answer. If peer correction doesn’t work, provide the answer yourself, then invite the student to repeat. What’s important is that the student succeeds.     read more >>

Apologies to all you Trekkies out there, but Space is not the final frontier; that space is reserved for death: “the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns.” – Hamlet

Is it a bit of a taboo subject in class – death?
Well, if the only two sure things in life are death and taxes, and we can at least try to fiddle our way out of the latter, why not think a bit about the former, which we cannot wriggle out of.

We may not be afraid to die, but we probably don’t want to be there when it happens – unless it’s Robert Patterson sinking his canines into your neck perhaps.

So, doing death in class. (Not the practical!)
First a warning! Do not use activities which might upset students in your culture! You have to be sensitive when dealing with death, ghosts, vampires, zombies and intolerance.     read more >>

This text and exercise can be used with higher level classes as a fun activity. After the matching task, they could try and make up their own silly author names and books or share any amusing names in their own language.

What do you call some of the most unlucky people in Britain?

Justin Case, Barb Dwyer and Stan Still. It sounds like a bad joke, but a study of online telephone records has revealed that there really are unfortunate people with those names in the UK. Joining them on the list are Terry Bull, Mary Christmas, and Anna Sasin. And just imagine having to introduce yourself to a crowd as Doug Hole, Tim Burr or Dawn Hobbs. Researchers also scoured phone records in the US and found some unlikely names there too. Spare a thought for Anna Prentice, Annette Curtain and Bill Board the next time you sign your name.     read more >>