Express Publishing ELT

Don’t we just love tests! We are constantly evaluating, assessing and examining our students. Some of them revel in the opportunity to shine while others get stressed out. We use the results to diagnose student problems, place them in the correct class and measure their overall level of progress, proficiency or achievement. Our course books come with regular revision sections and tests. Students, parents, school administrators, as well as teachers want to know how things are going and tests are supposed to show that.
Well, a good test is reliable / consistent. The same student taking (and completing) two different versions of an exam such as the Cambridge FCE should get the same score in both.
A test should be valid – it tests what it is supposed to be testing and it has face validity – it looks like a test and has tasks that the student is familiar with.
It should be practical, that is easily administered and marked (two different markers should arrive at the same grade); and meaningful (If I tell the students the 10 vocabulary items they will be tested on, I should not be surprised if they all score 10/10)     read more >>

It crops up in our speech dozens of times every day, although it apparently means little. So how did the word “OK” conquer the world? Allan Metcalf, author of OK: The Improbable Story of America’s Greatest Word enlightens us.
 
“OK” is one of the most frequently used and recognised words in the world.
It is also one of the oddest expressions ever invented. But this oddity may in large measure account for its popularity. It’s odd-looking. It’s a word that looks and sounds like an abbreviation, an acronym.     read more >>

 
A Wordle is an image cloud of words you can project onto your board. Go to http://www.wordle.net to see what’s possible. All you need do is paste in a text and it will come up with a colourful image of the most common words in that text, with the most common words larger. It’s fast, simple and you can play with it easily     read more >>

Imagine you’re a young teenager. You’ve got home from school. Something to eat might be a good idea. You need time to settle and reflect on what’s happened over the last hours. Maybe you chill out watching TV or catch up on your social networking. You may even talk with your family. Do you have anything to do later – another lesson, a meeting with friends? Oh. What about the homework? It’s often the last thing you want to do, following that well known maxim: never put off until tomorrow what you can put off until the day after tomorrow.

Now you’re a parent. You like your kids to do homework; it consolidates what they’ve done in class (and keeps them quiet). You’ve bought all these companions, grammar books and workbooks – so they have to be used. Maybe it gives you a chance to share with them, as you speak English and can help them. You can get an idea of their progress through their homework marks.     read more >>