Interview with Cecilia Nobre

Cecilia Nobre, Commuter bus classroom, Conferences, DELTA, EFL, Second Language Acquisition, Teacher training, Teachers' Stoires, Uncategorized

In this episode of the TEFL show Robert William McCaul interviews Cecilia Nobre, an ESOL teacher, a regular conference speaker and blogger, about a novel way she was involved in to learn English on that long commute to work!

We also chat about her experiences as a language learner & how she managed to learn English so well, why she’s learning Czech now and how she’s helping non-native English teachers improve their proficiency.

Cecilia, from Brazil, has been teaching since 1999. She graduated with a BA in Portuguese and English and went on to live in the UK for 3 years where she taught Portuguese. She’s done a postgraduate course in English and she’s been teaching 1:1 online for 3 months and is developing her career as an online teacher. She is particularly interested in materials design and applying Corpus L in ELT contexts (classroom and digital materials)

She also chose and developed the materials for ‘English on the Road’ (Business Result by Oxford and I created the course syllabus)

See the commuter bus/ classroom news report (in Portuguese):

http://g1.globo.com/jornal-nacional/noticia/2015/12/onibus-vira-sala-de-aula-de-ingles-no-engarrafamento-no-rio-de-janeiro.html

Her latest blog post:

https://cecilianobreelt.wordpress.com/2016/08/31/conversation-lesson-man-who-wears-all-his-clothes/

Find Cecilia on Social Media:

https://twitter.com/cecilianobreelt

https://www.facebook.com/cecilia.nobre

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Trinity DipTESOL – tips for Unit 1 and Unit 2

Teacher training

In this episode we look at Trinity DipTESOL in more detail, focusing on Unit 1 and Unit 2. The former unit checks the candidate knowledge of SLA and ELT theory including such topics as second language acquisition and teaching methodology. Unit 2 on the other hand is assessed through three action research projects where the candidate can choose and then research their area of focus.
As the two invited guests we have Nicola Meldrum, who is a trainer on the Dip, and Keava O’Brien, who is just about to finish the course. So we’ll hear two perspectives on the course: that of an instructor and that of a trainee.

About the guests:

My name is Keava O’Brien and I moved to Barcelona six years ago to do my CELTA, fell in love with the city and have been living here since! I work in a language academy in the city centre and teach adults. I’m currently a trainee on the DipTESOL and, fingers crossed (!), will finish the course in September 2016.

Nicola Meldrum has been involved in ELT since 1999. She is a teacher trainer, writer and designs and tutors online teacher development courses. She is currently based in Barcelona where she is course director on a Trinity Dip TESOL course at OxfordTefl. She is also a Trinity Dip TESOL examiner. She specializes in teacher development and action research and has given talks recently on this subject for Iatefl and the British Council in Mexico and Algeria.

If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a like and a share, and maybe leave a comment too. You might also be interested in the other episode about DipTESOL and the one about DELTA. Don’t forget that all the episodes are available on a number of music services, while the videos are on our YouTube channel. Just click on one of the logos below, kick back, relax and listen to a few episodes.

How to use the Memrise app – a quick tutorial

Learning languages, Technology

In the last few videos I talked about different features of the website, such as how to create a course for your learners, and you can watch the videos here. However, the app for Android and iPhones is quite different from the way the website is set up, so in this video I will show you how to use it. The tutorial should be useful both for those who have used Memrise app or website in the past, as well as those who are completely new to it.

If you’re planning to use the app with your students (as I’m doing at the moment), you can get them to watch the tutorial at home before class. I found that it really reduces the time you’d need to otherwise spend on explaining how the app works in class.

If you want to find out a bit more about Memrise, you can check out the other video tutorials which are available on YouTube here. The course English for Academic Purposes that you can see in the video can be found here.

Don’t forget that all our podcasts are also available on a number of music services, and the videos are on our YouTube channel. Just click on one of the logos below to be redirected the service. If you enjoyed one of the episodes, we would appreciate if you rated it or left a comment.

Key skills teachers need to have successful classes – Teaching English chat

Issues in ELT

Tomorrow, Friday 8th July we’ll be chatting about ‘Key skills teachers need to have successful classes’. The chat will take place on Twitter and on Facebook. On Twitter you can take part by using the hashtag #techat We’ll be tweeting from @theteflshow. If you’re new to Twitter, you can check out this explanation of how Twitter chats work. On Facebook we’ll be chatting on Teaching English British Council FB page, which you can find here.

Before the chat, you might want to listen to one of our previous episodes on qualities of effective teachers.

Looking forward to the chat and hope you can join us 🙂

Tips for IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 and Task 2

Exams, Learning languages, Technology

The image is under CC by Karl Baron from: https://flic.kr/p/4nFTB6 Changes mine.

In this episode we look at IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 and 2. We go through some of the key things you need to know as a teacher and a student to get a high score. The episode is aimed both at teachers who are teaching IELTS preparation classes, as well as students studying for the exam.

Let us know if you’ve got any other tips. Would love to hear from you!

Memrise – a few features that make it a really useful language learning tool

Learning languages, Technology

In the previous video I showed you how to create a vocabulary course for your students on Memrise, which is a free website and an app for learning languages. I’ve used it myself as a language learner and with my students, and I think it can be a very powerful and fun tool for learning languages. So in this episode, I go over a couple of key features which make Memrise stand out from the crowd of language learning websites and apps.

Check out the previous video about Memrise if you want to get some tips for creating a vocabulary course for your learners.

If you want to find out a bit more about Memrise, you can check out two other articles that I’ve written about it:

Learning vocabulary with Memrise – my response to the critics;
Mem up your memory.

5 Reasons why native speakers should learn how to use English internationally

EFL, International English, Pronunciation

Are you a native speaker? Do you often get misunderstood in meetings where there are many people who speak English as a second language? Why are you being misunderstood? What can you do to avoid this situation the next time?

In this episode we discuss Chia Suan Chong’s recent article for the English Teaching Professional ‘5 Reasons why native speakers should learn how to use English internationally’, which you can read here.

Which pronunciation model should we teach?

Pronunciation

In this episode of The TEFL Show podcast we follow on from two previous episodes where we discussed the phonemic chart focusing first on vowels here and then on consonants here. So in this podcast we look at the various pronunciation models that teachers offer to students and try to answer the question which pronunciation model should we teach. We focus on our experiences as teachers in Asia, discuss linguistic imperialism and English as Lingua Franca.

As usual, we’d love to hear from you, so please leave us a comment below and take part in the poll below. Which pronunciation model should we teach to our students?

Don’t forget that it’s also available on a number of music services. Just click on one of the logos below to be redirected the service. If you enjoyed one of the episodes, we would appreciate if you rated it or left a comment.

A guide to English pronunciation part 2 – consonants

British English, IPA, Pronunciation, Underhill's Phonemic Chart

In this episode we continue our discussion from the previous one, where we spoke about English vowels, and now look at the consonants. We go through each of the consonants, discussing how they are produced, giving example words and offering some tips for remembering the symbols. We finish off with practical implications, so the episode should hopefully be useful for all those teachers who’d like to be better able to teach pronunciation.

Don’t forget that the podcast is also available on a number of music services. Just click on one of the logos below to be redirected the service. If you enjoyed one of the episodes, we would appreciate if you rated it or left a comment.

Teaching writing

Methodology

Photo by Fredrick Rubensson under Creative Commons from: http://bit.ly/1O300JB

In this episode we look at different methods and ideas for teaching writing. We discuss the pros and cons of the two main approaches, that is product and process approach. We also look at the importance of writing and ways of encouraging our students to write more. We mainly focus on academic writing, but also discuss issues relevant to teaching writing in a general English class.

We’d love to hear from you. How do you teach writing? Do you have a favourite approach? Any tried and tested activities? Leave us a comment below the post.