Engaging lessons with Headway iTutor

I wanted to think about how we can use the topics and materials from Headway to provide engaging and stimulating lessons for learners; lessons that not only provide them with the chance to practise and improve their English, but also with the chance to broaden their horizons and begin to think about some of the more exciting implications of being a young speaker of English in 2012.

The session zoomed in on one aspect of modern living in particular: multiculturalism and mixed-heritage families, a topic area that features quite strongly in the series, but especially in the video materials of the iTutor. I’ve tried these materials out both with my own students at Babits and with a group of students in Paks, and I’ve found the topic area lends itself extremely well to class discussions and also prompts students to contemplate how their own lives might develop in a multicultural direction.

The session contained a quiz, activities in connection with the listening and video materials from Unit 1 of the iTutor, and some examples of written work done by my students in response to the topic. I was pleased to see that my students’ views of mixed-heritage families were overwhelmingly positive, and that the importance of language learning was reaffirmed and validated by their comments. Whatever their future lives have in store for them, they are already clear in their own minds that knowing foreign languages will bring them closer to other people and other cultures. And that has to be good news.

The slides from the session in pdf format: Engaging lessons with Headway iTutor

Quiz answers: B A C B A B C A