CiSELT

This year we are running CiSELT in the centre for our teachers. We are running to course partly online and partly face-to-face. After some initial teething problems, everything seems to be going well, and the first assignments are to be uploaded by the end of next week.

Can you make your class disabled friendly?

There's not a lot of good class material out there that raises the issue of equality in the face of disabilities. However, here's one I can recommend: a lesson plan by Bren Brennan entitled Success or failure???

It's suitable for teenage+/ upper-intermediate+ and comes complete with student handout plus teacher's notes. As you might expect, the lesson get students to consider what makes somebody's life a success or a failure and focusses on a video of Nick Vujicic who talks about how he's faced life's challenges without arms and legs. Quite rousing stuff!

Also, take a look at the Disabled Access Friendly website which has lesson plans listed by CEF level and age group.

Class activities for raising students' awareness of the importance of online safety

Dave Mainwood on his EFL Smart blog has created a series of good lesson plans that you can use for this.

I've had quite some success using Exposed (CEOP Video - Staying Safe Online) with various age groups of students (teenagers+) from intermediate upwards.
This lesson plan gets students to:

• watch a film about internet safety
• do some gap-fill and matching exercises
• practise present simple
• discuss ways to stay safe online

It centres on a well-made, engaging video where a teenage student gets hounded by her classmates because her boyfriend lets compromising photos of her get published on a social media site. I've found that students react positively to the video and the pre and post-viewing activities work well.

Sexting: is technology endangering teenagers?
This lesson plan gets students to:

• listen to a radio debate on teenagers and technology
• discuss the dangers and benefits of new technologies
• do a sentence matching exercise
• prepare and write an IELTS style question on the subject

It centres on a radio debate on sexting - using a smartphone to send indecent images to to others. This leads to a discussion about whether teenagers should be prevented from using these technologies or whether they should be trusted to develop their self-awareness of these types of gadgets. There are accompanying online activities that focus on language and comprehension plus the optional follow up writing task.

Should parents follow their children on facebook?
This lesson plan gets students to:

• discuss social networks
• listen to teenagers discussing social networks
• listen to some teenagers and parents talking about their online relationships and to order their comments
• look at some language used for writing - connectives
• write a discursive essay on the topic

jigsaw thingy

grab and move the pieces
to restart: go to the cog select scatter and off you go
use chrome in classrooms.

join jigsawplanet.com

upload an image
choose number of pieces
easy or difficult
remember link
exploit in class
and bob's not your dad



and here´s one for richard ...

Halloween for teenage and adult learners:

– A Hallowe'en listening activity: finding out about the traditional festival of Hallowe'en.
http://bit.ly/PgTH9s
– Getting your teenage students into the Halloween mood: have them read and discuss this article on apps: “BE WARNED: Insanely addictive!”
http://bit.ly/WD034J And to try out and report back to class on the Doodle Jump app described in the article
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/doodle-jump/id307727765?mt=8
– Scary Halloween stories for teens: – Day of the Dead
http://bit.ly/RnwnTM – The text http://bit.ly/VtKqNE


– From our pacey, entertaining World on the Street video series:
Ashlie and Stephen decide which Halloween costumes to choose
http://bit.ly/S9EEN6
And Rob, our language expert, looks at the different ways we use the verb “think”.
http://bit.ly/R9zdxQ With supporting online activities
Ashlie and Stephen's house is full of witches, wizards, and ghosts... and everyone's having a frighteningly good time!
http://bit.ly/R9zCjA
And Rob looks at how we use personal pronouns
http://bit.ly/PHS5Fw With supporting online activities

Halloween for young learners

Preparing for Halloween:
– How to organise a Halloween party
http://bit.ly/TalQOB
– Make a skeleton
http://bit.ly/RnvLgU
– Free, downloadable Halloween flashcards
http://bit.ly/Pj9LHC
– With this Pron Pal download your students can listen to the Halloween words and phrases and record their own voice
http://bit.ly/RQrQsi


Class activities:
– The history of Halloween quiz worksheet
http://bit.ly/Rf4xth
– Students watch a video and learn how to make a spider mobile for their bedroom - or for their friend.
http://bit.ly/XJ2KzP
– Students read about and draw a haunted house.
http://bit.ly/Vj53Gz
– Match the Halloween words to the picture
http://bit.ly/Tam9sF
– Label the skeleton's body
http://bit.ly/RnvzOP
– The scary skeleton song
http://bit.ly/TrI68p
– Which Halloween costume do your students think is the scariest?
http://bit.ly/TC3H8g
– A witch is making a magic spell. She's putting some strange things in her pot! Can your students colour the five scary animals in this picture?
http://bit.ly/VfpJ2m
– Your turn: a chance for your young learners to share their ideas on Halloween with other students from all over the world
http://bit.ly/ORvViN

Olympic activities

Martin Sketchley has put together a great series of activities (Pre-Intermediate+)
to coincide with the Olympic games. They include:

• a reading dictation
• a reading really
• a who wants to be a Millionaire type Olympics game

There's also a special Olympics set of words to go with the vocabulary game Pic-your-wits that you can play with your students in class or get them to do for homework