One of the most boring skills for the students to practice is reading, and that's because most of the teachers relay on the reading material that the books provide, therefore, it is imperative that we can find more sources of information, subjects that can be appealing and attractive enough for the students to get interested, so today I will post some criteria to choose text that can be useful and fun:
These texts should
* provide a framework that gradually introduces strategies required for skilled reading
* deal with themes and issues relating to the everyday lives of the readers
* provide opportunities to revisit some subjects, themes and characters
* use a simple language structure, so that students don’t have to review many oral language forms to access meaning
* offer opportunities for exploring language at the text, word, part word, and letter level
* provide opportunities for the acquisition of alphabet letters, letter clusters and common sight words in natural contexts
* present many of the conventions of written language including spelling, punctuation and capitalization
* encourage problem solving on text by having to make analogies, predictions, checking and self-corrections
* have illustrations that give maximum support for the emergent reader, gradually extending experience as reading is more confident
* use appropriate book structure, text size, spacing and layout to match text type, text difficulty and reader skill.
So every time that you want to use a text, try to choose a reading not because it's easy, but because there will be some new things, you and your students will learn.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
5 Thoughts about...
5 strong thoughts about teaching English:
1) We have always been the underdogs in education, I think that authorities don't realize the work we do every day, they want us to give results without any kind of help, some schools think we are magicians, and after a long break without English, They want us to take back the classes as if the students had been practicing every day.
2) There are a lot of pseudo-teachers that don't help us increase the reputation of our job, people that are teaching languages just because they know enough to speak it, but lack of the methodology to really make the students learn.
3) English is what makes a difference between a mediocre professional and an outstanding one, we are that part of the career that will make the difference with that "extra" the students have to offer to the company to get the job
4) Foreign teachers are not better than local teachers, they are a good complement to achieve goals, but we are all needed to give the student what they need
5) One of the teachers' most typical mistake is the fact that they want to adapt the students to his/her particular way of teaching, we need to take into consideration the group's personality in order to prepare a good class.
So I say it¡¡
1) We have always been the underdogs in education, I think that authorities don't realize the work we do every day, they want us to give results without any kind of help, some schools think we are magicians, and after a long break without English, They want us to take back the classes as if the students had been practicing every day.
2) There are a lot of pseudo-teachers that don't help us increase the reputation of our job, people that are teaching languages just because they know enough to speak it, but lack of the methodology to really make the students learn.
3) English is what makes a difference between a mediocre professional and an outstanding one, we are that part of the career that will make the difference with that "extra" the students have to offer to the company to get the job
4) Foreign teachers are not better than local teachers, they are a good complement to achieve goals, but we are all needed to give the student what they need
5) One of the teachers' most typical mistake is the fact that they want to adapt the students to his/her particular way of teaching, we need to take into consideration the group's personality in order to prepare a good class.
So I say it¡¡
Saturday, July 4, 2009
English Phrasal Verbs in Use AdvancedBy Michael McCarthy and Felicity O'Dell
Cambridge University Press | ISBN: 978-05-216-8418-7 | 188 pages
PDF | English | 74 MB
This new level of English Phrasal Verbs in Use is specifically designed for advanced level students looking to improve their knowledge of this often difficult area of the English language. English Phrasal Verbs in Use includes many phrasal verbs useful to students preparing for the Cambridge CAE, CPE and IELTS examinations.
This book includes 60 Units Of Vocabulary Reference And Practice; presents and explains approximately 1.000 phrasal verbs in typical contexts using short texts, dialogues, tables and charts; contains answer key and a mini Dictionary with easy to understand definitions and cross references to units in the book.
Full (74 mb):
http://rapidshare.com/files/222174090/English.Phrasal.Verbs.in.Use-Advanced.rar
Reduced (5.6 mb):
http://rapidshare.com/files/222160816/English.Phrasal.Verbs.in.Use-Advanced_small.rar
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