ELTMentor News
Here’s our weekly digest of forum comments, upcoming dates and other snippets of useful information.
Sorry I have had my head in a really intensive, immersion course for the past week so I haven’t been online much.
These courses are great for a blast of language but quite exhausting for all concerned! – Fun though!
Great News!
I have finally got all the recordings together on Gapfillers and made a special section for us! YEAH!!
Now you can access everything from the Gapfillers site. When you log on you will see an ELTMENTOR section on the left of the Home page. Clicking on this will bring up a menu of everything and all the links – Yes Cintia, including the VERY FIRST webinar which I was having so much trouble with!!!
I’m so excited about finally having everything together.
(I’m working on getting the RSS feed for the newsletter archive. At the moment it’s defeating me but I’ll get it going very soon).
Go and check it out!! http://www.gapfillers.co.uk/default.aspx
Forum:
It’s been very quiet on the forum lately Go and see Anastasia’s bio which she posted recently. Thanks Anastasia.
Here’s the link again:
If you haven’t managed to find the forum yet let me know.
We haven’t had any new members recently – partly my fault for now doing much promotion recently do tell any colleagues about it it will be a rolling programme so they can join at any time!
#eltmentor
I’ll try and get the #eltmentor hashtag going again.
If you are still struggling with twitter just let me know and I can go through it with you.
(Sign up to twitter, then sign up to tweetdeck and post a comment there).
#eltchat
I do urge you to have a go at #eltchat you don’t have to join in you can just observe using tweetchat. You will be amazed at what you can learn and you will also find the people there who have similar interests or a similar teaching environment to you. I’ve seen some great collaborations take place with teachers who met on twitter and got their classes together online – food for thought.
Check everything out on the #eltchat site.
For those of you who would like to follow #eltchat but haven’t signed up to twitter and would prefer to ‘lurk’ and observe before taking the plunge, you can observe #eltchat on Tweetchat.com. Here is the link:
When you get to the site add eltchat to the # box. You can then sit back and watch the action! If you want to contribute you can sign in but this is really the best place for smart lurking :-0
#eltchat is held on Wednesdays at 12.00 and 21.00 UK time – but the # is in use at all times so you can check in anytime to see what is going on.
To find out more about eltchat here is a link to the site – even if you don’t attend the chat you can get great information and links to resources via this site:
Useful articles
Here are some articles which you might find useful
Teaching Grammar:
Teaching Grammar In Business English Classes
Looking at the practicalities of bringing grammar into classes that are mainly about business communication.
Teacher’s Tips: Online Grammar Teaching and Learning
By Caroline Ho Mei Lin
Passive Grammar: We’ve Got It, Let’s Use It!
By Michaela Borova and Bryan Murphy
Other:
Classroom Activities For IELTS Reading
Easier, more fun, more challenging and more useful classroom tasks for IELTS Reading.
Using Volunteers in Your ESL Classroom: Suggestions for Newer Teachers
By Kate Singleton
Gapfillers
Don’t forget to give me feedback if you use the site for yourself or with students. Also if you have suggestions they’re always welcome 🙂
Just a reminder that we do offer a school licence so if your school has advanced students (if wants to use it for teachers) this is possible – just let me know.
We can also syndicate content which means we can deliver straight to your school site or intranet.
Next Session January.
Tomorrow – January 28th (at the usual time – 12.00) Grammar in the Classroom – I can’t wait to hear all your experiences of this!
This is rescheduled from Monday as I will not be available at that time.
You should already have got an invitation to this but just in case here is the link to the classroom:
http://www.wiziq.com/online-class/734028-grammar-in-the-classroom
If there are any topics you would like to see covered in future sessions please post these on the forum.
Need help with anything?
If anybody else needs help with anything just post in the forum, or on twitter or email me or send a message in Gapfillers. I am really pleased that you are using the forum – let’s get more things posted to discuss.
Don’t forget to put any suggestions in the forum, this is your space to share ideas or experiences and to ask questions.
Until next week
Berni