miguel bengoa elt Blog

Monthly Archives: September 2008

PPP: a small addition

By Miguel | September 25th, 2008
Sometimes the presentation phase of a lesson can take up most of a lesson. What percentage of an overall lesson do you spend in presenting particular language point and what percentage do the learners get to actually use the language? Half of the lesson, or just five percent of the lesson time? Do the learners [...]
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What is communicative language teaching?

By Miguel | September 25th, 2008
Communicative language teaching (CLT) is a label that is often used to describe courses and it seems to be a label that has become so over-used and easily used that it has perhaps begun to lose its meaning. When asked in a recent seminar what the characteristics of community language were, there did seem to [...]
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Ideas for creative workbook use

By Miguel | September 23rd, 2008
Introduction: Setting the Scene I know that I am generalising, but so often workbooks are relegated to the ‘also ran’ or ‘lemon’ status of materials. Lacking vivid magazine-like colour and language (read grammar) input, workbook exercises are often given as a homework after thought…
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Activity: Planning a holiday

By Miguel | September 22nd, 2008
Here is a very simple activity that is very useful to have in your toolbox as a no materials activity. Aims: Fluency in speaking, listening and group negotiation. Giving advise and suggestions. Skills: Speaking and listening. Materials: A board and board pen. Level: Elementary and above. Preparation time: None, save a little time thinking…
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Activity: Why are these things important to me?

By Miguel | September 22nd, 2008
Here is a very simple activity that is very useful to have in your toolbox as a no materials activity. Aims: Question forms and demonstrative pronouns. Giving personal information/getting to know you. Skills: Speaking and listening Materials: A board and board pen. Level: All but the most early beginners. Preparation time: None save a little [...]
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Activity: Dicey Questions

By Miguel | September 22nd, 2008
Here is a very simple activity that is very useful to have in your toolbox as a no materials (save a die) and no preparation required… Aims: Question and answer forms, targeted vocabulary recycling. Skills: Speaking and listening Materials: Set of dice for learners – or, if you have internet and a large enough screen, [...]
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The Article Flowchart

By Miguel | September 17th, 2008
Simon Mumford and Nesta Parry presented this week a short seminar on academic writing at IEU, Izmir. In the seminar they focussed on common mistakes of L2 academic writers thast they met as academic proof readers of academic work. They chose to focus on articles, prepositions and relative clauses. My interest was to see how [...]
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Strategies for listening, note taking and discussion

By Miguel | September 15th, 2008
These notes are based on a presentation given by Theresa DoÄŸuelli University. The presentation was after sales service from Oxford University Press on the Lecture Ready series of academic English text books. The aim of the book is strategy training and this was where Teresa began her presentation. The differences between a strategy, skill, plan [...]
Posted in Curriculum & testing, EAP, Methodology, Skills | Tagged , | 2 Comments