miguel bengoa elt Blog

Tag Archives: vocabulary

Protected: Post-Focus Assessment Task 2

By Miguel | November 5th, 2009
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
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Johanna Sterling: Site Review

By Miguel | April 20th, 2009
Joanna Sterling’s site has been in existence for many years and is thoroughly recommended for teaches and learners alike. Activities for learners  include: spelling activities, parts of speech, English jokes, advice about improving speaking as well as links for students. For teachers the site includes: lots of practical ideas, the Portable Electronic Dictionary,remedial spelling, helping [...]
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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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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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False beginners

By Miguel | March 6th, 2008
This is my definition of a false beginner. ‘False beginners are those learners in any ELT program who have consistently failed to master sufficient language skills at each level of instruction: they are operating at an inadequate level of performance at whatever level of instruction they have reached.’ Although no formal definition of the false [...]
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Activity: vocabulary tennis

By Miguel | February 29th, 2008
This is an activity that requires no setting up and can be done at the drop of a hat just the kind of activity that I love to have in my toolbox! Essentially, the idea is to promote automatization through quick responses, under moderately stressful conditions. Aim: learners will recycle vocabulary and/or create short sentences [...]
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Recycling specific vocabulary: the vocabox

By Miguel | February 15th, 2008
The Vocabox Activities for developing and activating vocabulary in the English classroom (the original idea came from Johanna Stirling July 2000 Bell Teacher Training Summerfest). The original article can be found here: http://www.elgweb.net/articles.html. A review of Johanna’s site can be found on this site, here. Introduction One constantly hears of presenting this that and the [...]
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Exploiting sources of vocabulary

By Miguel | February 9th, 2008
There are many sources of vocabulary in the classroom. This article looks at three: the course book, specialized vocabulary books, the teacher and other learners.
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