A crash course on mediation

The buzz word around the Escuelas Oficiales de Idiomas (EOIs) in Spain this year is mediation and the importance of teachers at these centres getting to grips with the concept cannot be stressed enough.  In a series of three blog posts we will be taking a look at some of the key issues surrounding this topic.

For our first article we reached out to Manuel del Rio and Francisco J. Pose, two of the teachers who provide teacher training at the EOI in Santiago de Compostela.  Among the courses the EOI will be offering as part of their summer training programme for teachers is one led by Manuel and Francisco on linguistic mediation.  We had a few questions on mediation and we figured getting in touch with them would be a good place to start to get some clear answers.   Here’s what they had to tell us:

Question: Let’s start with the elephant in the room: What is the big deal with mediation?  Is it really all that important in our daily lives?

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Top tips for the First (FCE) writing exam

For English Teachers it’s time to skill up – and celebrate our success - Ilustration by Tang Yau Hoong

Preparing our students for high stakes exams can be a daunting task. We want them to know the exam inside out, we’ll need to give them plenty of practice and we still aim to keep our lessons engaging and fun! This post is concerned with Part 2 of the First writing exam: what should we teachers bear in mind?

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Interview of JJ Wilson, Speakout 2nd edition author, at ACEIA 2015

More than 700 English teachers attended the ‪#‎AceiaConference15‬ by Asociación de Centros de Enseñanzas de Andalucía (ACEIA) in Seville, Spain. We would like to thank all the teachers that attended our talks; thanks to JJ Wilson for his great sessions and thanks to the Pearson Team for your fantastic work. It was great to see everyone there!

Below you can see an interview of JJ Wilson, Speakout 2nd edition author, at the 2015 ACEIA Conference we would love to share with you!

More info about Speakout 2nd edition at http://product.pearsonelt.com/speakout2e

Using your coursebook creatively: Ideas to liven up your lesson

Using your coursebook creatively Ideas to liven up your lessonLast weekend Pearson was at the British Council ‘Learning to Learn’ Conferences with Michael Brand in Bilbao, Brian Engquist in Madrid and Elena Merino in Barcelona. We would like to thank all the teachers who attended our sessions, where we had the opportunity to share teaching ideas and get the most out of our coursebooks.

As promised, we are sharing our presentation and we hope you find it useful for your lessons. Continue reading

Using ESL videos: Hit play and get ready to learn!

ESL videosWhen we watch a film, we are looking at a story which interprets places, people and events. That’s why films and series are a great classroom tool to understand another culture. If the student can identify with a character in the story, follow the fictional narrative, a life story, conflicts, and events, then they will be able to humanize the film, make it more personal, and, therefore, learn from it. With film we do not only learn content–which can lead us to thought-provoking discussions, stimulating critical thinking, etc.,– but we also improve listening, speaking, writing, reading, grammar and vocabulary skills. Any sort of ESL videos can be used for the learning purpose: commercials, news bulletins, political speeches, movies, and so on. Continue reading

Tweeting, yapping, frothing… and teaching (English onomatopoeia)

kapowFor the last ten years or so, delicate birds in English-speaking countries the world over have been complaining about social networking – or to be more precise, about one site in particular. It’s not Facebook that has upset them, or LinkedIn, nor is it Instagram or Tumblr. It’s Twitter that has ruffled their feathers. The reason is simple; they can no longer do one of the things that delicate birds in English-speaking countries most like to do, at least not without everyone expecting them to keep it short and simple and add a couple of hashtags to the message. They can no longer twitter or tweet.

‘Why they had to go with our particular sound is beyond me,’ tweeted Warner Bros. veteran Tweety Bird, in an exclusive interview for Pearson ELT Learning Journeys. ‘Why couldn’t they have called it Oinker or Mooster? The pigs and the cows wouldn’t have minded. They could’ve done with the publicity.’ Meanwhile, groups of birds from other countries have expressed their relief that the site chose to go with English onomatopoeia rather than sound-words from their own languages. ‘Chu-u chu-u!’ chirped a Japanese spokes-bird, visibly relieved, while a Spanish owl in Madrid hooted in to say, ‘It’s bad enough that the pedestrian lights here go pío pío. Frankly, I’m relieved you’re not all pío-ing.’ Continue reading