Using interactive whiteboards in the language classroom

Interactive Technologies in Language Teaching web site includes some video recordings on the use of the IWB (Interactive white Board) in the English classroom.
In this example a class of special education students practise vocabulary from We're Going On a Bear Hunt story by using the IWB.

Creating photo stories

Time for a Photo Story proposes a sequence of activities aimed at ESO 1 students. It can be carried out in around ten lessons and gives opportunities to develop language, arts, and ICT skills.




Time for a Photo Story: teacher guide

Time for a Photo Story: student materials

A blog on teaching English at nursery levels

El blog de Espe collects a good number of resources that can be useful for teaching English in Nursery.

CLIL units

The Catalan Department of Education has fostered the creation of CLIL units throughout the last years. Resources related to this task carried out by primary and secondary teachers of English can be seen and downloaded from this link.

A CLIL project

Teachers from Escola Maria Osso in Sitges explain their CLIL project in primary education. They reinforce English teaching through maths and science. A video and specifications on the project can be accessed from here.

On autonomous learning

At the beginning of this month, from 4th to 6th October, the 11th Nordic Conference on Autonomous Learning was held in Donostia. Furthermore, a session addressed to teachers interested in getting to know more about the issue of learners' autonomy was organised on 3rd October.

Two well-known experts in this pedagogical approach, Leni Dam and David Little took part in the event. A selection of video and slide presentations by these two lectures can be accessed from the links below:

Leni Dam´s slides on types of activities and basic tools

David Little's slides on the principles of autonomous learning and the use of portfolios

An interview with Leni Dam

Parts of a lecture by Leni Dam: on the use of coursebooks 1 and 2

Parts of a lecture by David Little: on students' motivation and engagement 1 and 2

Use of pictures in the English classroom

This article presents some ideas about the use of photos in the EFL classroom.

Some websites to find copyleft photos:

Flickrcc
10 banques d'images libres
INTEF: Banco de imágenes y sonidos

Using mobile devices in the classroom

In this post from TeachingEnglish website the following video presents some ideas about how mobile devices can be used in the EFL classroom. The topic can be debatable especially when related to some teaching contexts: wouldn't there be a risk of overusing or misusing these devices in large groups?

Certificate maker

Scholastic has created an online certificate maker to reward students.
Teachers can choose a body, hair, clothes, accessory..., Next they a name and then choose one of these messages:

... is working really hard
... is reading very well
... has made us happy today
... keeps on getting better and better
... is a great person to have in our class

Carol Read's ABC of Teaching English

Carol Read is an expert in teaching English to primary children. Some interesting contributions on issues related this area are beautifully displayed in her blog Carol Read's ABC of Teaching English.

British Council wiki

The organizers of the 'British Council Teachers Conference: Celebrating 70 Years of Quality Language Teaching' have created a wiki aimed at collecting information, feedback, resources and links related to the contents of the events held in Bilbao, Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia.

Using photography in the classroom

An interesting article on the use of photography to support learning.

Benchmarking CLIL

BeCLIL website presents and contains the outcomes of a European Comenius project carried out between 2004 and 2007. Its main objective was to identify good practice in CLIL classrooms in order to provide teachers -or other people involved in language learning through content areas- with hints and ideas to improve their teaching.

Bilingual education in different autonomous communities

Thanks to Educantabria TV Congress Channel, we can access interesting lectures and presentations. Among the videos from the VII Jornadas Nacionales: Secciones Bilingües, we find the following two, which can be of interest to get an idea of foreign language learning project implementation in several autonomous communities in Spain:

Experiencias autonómicas en organización de programas bilingües: Educación Primaria

Experiencias autonómicas en organización de programas bilingües: Educación Secundaria

Drama

These are some links to webstites that include advice and resources to use drama in the primary classroom:

Primary resources: Playscripts

The English e-corner: Drama activities

Tom's TELF Drama (video recordings): The Giant Pumpkin, The Scary Hike, The Gingerbread Man, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Some CLIL tasks designed by teacher trainee students

This wiki collects some tasks designed by teacher trainees as part of their course assignments.

The first issue of Prácticas en educación bilingüe/plurilingüe magazine contains a variety of school practice examples and resource recommendations related to CLIL.

Furthermore, Bilingual Education Platform - BEP Ning site pays special attention to teachers' exchange, resource organisation, news, etc... focused on CLIL as well as some other issues related to the teaching of second languages.

VII Jornadas Nacionales sobre Secciones Bilingües

Thanks to Fernando Trujillo via his blog De Estranjis, I've been following the contents of a Congress on Bilingual Schools that is being held these days in Santander. These are the links to a series of posts on this event: Post 1, Post 2, Post 3, Post 4, Post 5, Post 6, Post 7, Post 8.

CLIL Practice: Perspectives from the Field

CLIL Practices: Perspectives from the Field is a publication prepared by the CLIL Cascade Network (CCN), which gives an overview of CLIL developments and of the methodological approaches teachers are experimenting with in Europe.

It includes a set of 24 articles organised in three sections: Regional Features of Practice, Classroom Features of Practice, Supporting Practice through Teacher Education, and Reflection on Practice.

Sharing teaching tips and ideas

What does work in the Primary EFL classroom? You can share your ideas by recording or typing comments around this Voicethread screen: