Teacher's Sharing Zone

We all know the value of visual aids in the classroom. Whether they are used to present a topic, for language practice or revision, attractive visual aids are a must in every classroom.  The best 10 tools to create posters for your class. Choose one of the tools presented and prepare a poster to use in one of your classes.

Generation X, Generation Y, Millennials, Digital Natives... Different ways to describe the kids we have in our classrooms.  But what are they like? What characteristics can you find in them? And most important for us... How do they learn? The main objective of this activity is to understand a little better what makes them tick, what is the best way to reach out and help them grow.  Watch the video and pick out the character traits mentioned or described. We will be sharing your findings and views.     Mashable , a leading source for news, information and resources for the Connected Generation published the following article which provides information on some of their key behaviours and attitudes.    Millennial Consumers: Engaged, Optimistic, Charitable What do you think are the implications of these findings?  Do they agree with your own experience?  Do you think this affects the way you teach? Now let´s see what happens with u...

Seth´s Blog  is one of the many blog´s I follow.  Why?  Not only because he has a unique writing style, many of his posts will for sure,  set you thinking after you  finish reading them.   What does he write about? The following statement was taken from his blog. Seth Godin  " writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything." Have a look at this one.  The cost of neutral If you come to my brainstorming meeting and say nothing, it would have been better if you hadn't come at all. If you go to work and do what you're told, you're not being negative, certainly, but the lack of initiative you demonstrate (which, alas, you were trained not to demonstrate) costs us all, because you're using a slot that could have been filled by someone who would have added more value. It's tempting to sit quietly, take notes and comply, rationalizing that at le...

What do we mean when we talk about coherence? Build a definition of what we understand by coherence.  Can you think of words associated to this term? Let´s build a Word Cloud  with the words we get. Let´s watch the video and see what is wrong...   What question was she asked? Do you understand her answer? What is the problem? Can you explain in your own words why is coherence important? Adapted from:  C is for Coherence

Many times we hear our students say they don´t read, they don´t enjoy reading. Let´s reflect on how we tackle reading in our classrooms, what our ideas are, how we try to develop this skill. Reflecting on The Significance Of Reading In The Esl from Gladys Ledwith

Ok, so you´ve been teaching for a term, a month or a week and it is revision time.  Nothing new under the sun you say... it´s part of the learning process.  The author of the article we´ll be reading describes revision time as " an opportunity to consolidate everything you’ve taught into a cohesive language learning experience" . For sure we all agree on the first part of the sentence, but... what about the "cohesive language learning experience" part?  is there anything we are overlooking?  Let´s go to the article and read the author´s recommendations for creating a review lesson that is really useful to your students  ( and not just a way to buy time till they have the test) .  7 Steps to Fail-proof Your ESL Review Lesson What are your views regarding revision time? But going back to revising and recycling, if you are teaching intermediate or advances students, take a look at this article, written by the same author, full of useful tips whe...

Everybody likes listening to a good story. Have you ever wondered why? What do you think about this statement? Do you agree? A story can put your whole brain to work. This article may give you a few ideas on the power of storytelling.  The Science of Storytelling. Which are, in your opinion, the main concepts? What do you think about the suggestions for telling stories? Do you have any of your own? .-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- There are a million ways in which we can tell a story. An interesting game to develop a number of skills is the following: "This quasi experimental web site is designed to foster visual thinking and build stories. It  draws upon collections of photos specified by a tag in flickr . You are dealt five random photos for each draw, and your task is to select one each time to add to a selection of images, that taken together as a final set of 5 imag...