TweetWhat is the statement of purpose? College applications are generally very dry and impersonal representations of a person’s scholastic achievements and abilities. The personal statement is designed to breathe life into an otherwise lifeless and unoriginal college application. Basically, the statement of purpose is a way for you to put a face on your application, [...]
TweetAttached below is a PDF version of a PowerPoint presentation I wrote to give English teachers an overview of the current guiding principles and approaches to teaching writing in the language classroom. I also touch on benefits of teaching writing and some of the difficulties faced by non-native English speaking teachers who teach writing. Download [...]
TweetThis is a workshop designed for teachers of English on the music of American singer-songwriter Tom Waits. The activities included are for the songs, “Hold On,” “San Diego Serenade” and “Clap Hands” and they encourage students to develop their listening and speaking skills by exploring the uniquely American themes and landscapes of Waits’ music using [...]
TweetFormat: Workshop Time: 45 minutes Title: “Register, Face and Email: A Writing Lesson for the Electronic Generation” Target Students: Intermediate to advanced One of the most important skills our students learn is how to use language differently in different situations and with different people. Speeches are not like telephone conversations. Essays are not like newspaper [...]
TweetWhat is a WebQuest? A WebQuest is any student activity that requires research on the Internet as a means of exploring a topic or answering a series of questions. It is a way to encourage students to explore real-world use of English written for native speakers. They often take the form of a list of [...]
TweetFormat: Workshop Time: 90 minutes Title: “Community and Process: Building Engaging Writing Lessons” Target Students: Beginner to advanced, any age group We are all writing teachers, but we sometimes forget. A writing lesson can be dynamic, energetic and creative. In fact, it should be. As teachers, we want our students to work together and share [...]
TweetDownload this text as an MS Word document The Communicative Approach to Language Teaching What is an approach? Your approach as a language teacher is a set of principles about learning and teaching on which you depend to form the way you operate as a teacher. It is not a permanent state, indeed, the good teacher knows [...]
TweetFormat: Plenary Time: 45 minutes Title: “Written Corrective Feedback: How to Respond to Student Writing” Target Students: Intermediate to advanced When students who are learners of English produce writing in an academic setting, some amount of written feedback is required from their professor. Indeed, research has shown that the type of written feedback teachers give [...]
TweetFormat: Workshop Time: 45 minutes Title: “Negotiating Face and Making Requests: Speech Changes and Imposition” Target Students: Intermediate to advanced One of the most important skills our students learn is how to use language differently in different situations and with different people. Speeches are not like telephone conversations. Essays are not like newspaper articles. And [...]
TweetWhat is Pair and Group Work? Used in conjunction with individual and whole-class work, pair and group work is the act of dividing students so that they work cooperatively with only a small number of their classmates on a specific task assigned by their teacher. Pair and group work first came into usage in the [...]
