Tag Archives: oup

Bulgaria

Slides from my Oxford Teachers’ Days talks in Plovdiv, Stara Zagora, Burgas, Varna and Ruse.

Learning to play, playing to learn
In this session we will look at the relationship between playing and learning. Classroom games provide a rich source of learning opportunities – and not only about language. The games we play in the English lesson also help children to learn important skills and values, while helping us to create a motivating and harmonious classroom environment.. The session will offer plenty of practical classroom ideas and activities and suggest the most effective ways to use games in your classroom.

Working with mixed groups
In this session we look at the challenges presented by mixed groups and consider some techniques that teachers can use to make classroom activities better tailored to individual needs while maintaining – or perhaps even enriching – the group dynamic. The session aims to offer both a selection of effective and practical classroom ideas for the mixed-ability classroom as well as tips for adapting materials to make them more suitable for heterogeneous groups.

Lithuania slides

Thank you to those teachers attending the OUP seminars in Lithuania.

My talk is called ‘Teaching as a daily routine’

I get up, I have breakfast, I go to school….In this session we’ll be taking a closer look at our daily teaching routine. Does everything run like clockwork, or is it a daily struggle? What could we change or improve? The session will look at a range of practical ideas and useful tips to help us establish the kind of classroom habits, routines and traditions that can make our teaching more effective – and make learning lots more fun.

As promised, you can download a version of the slides here.

Latvia slides

Thanks to the teachers who attended the OUP Day in Riga. As promised, the slides are available for download below in pdf format.

My Students Hate Writing – Help!
In this session we will consider the reasons why many teenagers dislike writing in English and attempt to identify those aspects of writing skills with which teenagers tend to experience the most difficulties. Then we will consider a range of simple and practical classroom activities which can help to equip students with the skills and strategies they need to succeed with writing.
My students hate writing

Working with Mixed Groups
In this session we look at the challenges presented by mixed groups and consider some techniques that teachers can use to make classroom activities better tailored to individual needs while maintaining – or perhaps even enriching – the group dynamic. The session aims to offer both a selection of effective and practical classroom ideas for the mixed-ability classroom as well as tips for adapting materials to make them more suitable for heterogeneous groups.
Working with mixed groups

Poland Winter Tour

My session takes a teacher’s perspective of the challenges posed by the new situation in schools in Poland and also addresses those challenges which can generally be found in any classroom setting. We discuss the difficulties of getting students focused and interested in the activities of the lesson and the problems associated with poorly motivated students – and look at what teachers can actually do to have a positive impact on the learning environment.

The talk is called ‘Rising to the challenge’ and a copy of the slides is available here in pdf format.

Using Literature to Teach Language

Thank you to everyone who attended the seminar in Bellinzona, Switzerland last week. I really enjoyed the day and hope that the sessions managed to combine ‘food for thought’ with practical ideas to try out in the classroom. As promised, I am uploading the materials again here.

It would be great to hear how the ideas we discussed work in your own classrooms, so do get in touch and let me know all about it!

Ed

Session 1
Session 1 Handout
Session 2
Session 2 Handout