Podcasts – ESL Teacher Talk – ESL Podcasts for Teachers

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This show was recorded back in the summer and a few shows got bumped up, so if you feel we’ve gone back in time, I guess we have But first, we of course have some new things on the web to talk about ... Check those out at the end of the show notes.

Teaching toddlers:

This show goes over some basic problems that come up in teaching classes with 1-3 year olds: short attention spans, running around the room, eating your materials, high expectations of the parents and more. Each problem is addressed and a few ideas for dealing with each are discussed.

More advice and focus is given to the actual planning and running of the classes:

• language production and what to expect
• handling zero production
• eliciting language from this group
• activities: what do they like
• activities: what qualities do they like
• vocabulary: how to introduce it
• working with music and actions
• play and explore vs. teaching at them
• how to motivate them

Quite a bit in this show and we hope some of it is helpful if it’s not all applicable.

If you have anything to add to the show, your own advice or questions, please let us know. Post them here or over at the ESL Teacher Forums. We’d love to hear from you!

Thanks for listening!

New materials from Matt and Mark:
Matt has a new phonics section with Touch and Say phonics over at Dream English. There are chants to download, worksheets, flashcards and more. Check those out!

Mark has a new site, 123 Print Calendars.com. You can make custom calendars for you classroom or for home. Enter events, class schedules, vacations, students’ birthdays, whatever. All the text is 100% customizable.

There are all kinds of themes to choose from. I hope you are able to find something you like.

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There have been 30 shows over the past year, and this week’s show is the season finale. Mark and Eric go over why they created eslTeacherTalk. What they hope they have done to help other teachers and the future of this show.

Sorry, no game of the week this week.

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Clive of ESL Podcards is with us again this week. He’s been working his site and enrolled in a new course. He’s learning about Content and Language Intergrated Learning (CLIL.) In the beginning Clive gives us a quick run down of what CLIL is.

Clive and Mark take a look at their experiences team teaching. Some of their experiences have been positive and some haven’t been so positive. However, these experiences are all with other languages teachers. This is where CLIL differs.

CLIL uses one language teacher and one subject teacher. The subject teacher is the content pro and the language teacher is the language/linguistic pro. Together they work to teach content and improve language skills. The goal of the lesson isn’t a linguist goal, but a content goal.

Other parts covered include:

• positive and negative aspects
• using multiple intelligences

Discuss CLIL or ask questions over on the ESL Teacher Talk forums. We’d be glad to keep the show going!

Check out Clive’s site ESLpodcards for listening resources for teachers with accompanying worksheets and transcripts.

Game of the week: Bounce Around

This is a simple board game that can be used for practice or for review. The game can be adapted to any level or any linguistic target. It can be used with elementary school students to adults, large classes, small classes and it’s great for one-on-one. All you need is a board, markers for the students and a die.

You can make a board with all text, mixed text and images or all images. That board maker is available at Tools for Educators.com. If you have more questions or would like to see everything written out, as well as read some of the variations, you can check MES-English for the Bounce Around game write-up.

Thanks for listening!

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This week Chris Cotter from Heads Up English.com is with us again. Heads Up English.com has some new lower intermediate exercises: speaking activities, listening activities, grammar worksheets and vocabulary exercises free for download! Please check out Heads Up English.com!

Mark starts the conversation off and offers quite a few ideas about what makes for good speaking activities:

• less about the language and more about the language goal
• lower levels – very repetitive
• higher levels – the language is functional and real
• make sure the activity is student centered
• ...

and Mark goes on with more tips for creating a successful speaking activity.

Chris adds to Mark’s list with some other tips:

• high talk time
• expanding on the activities
• variability in the activity structure
• decide whether the activity is for fluency, accuracy, or one then the other.
• ...

Ron batting number 3 in the discussion added his tips:

• creating student interest in the activity
• tips to decrease student anxiety
• don’t overextend a short activity – killing it and your audience

Part 2 goes into how to actually accomplish some of these ideas to make speaking activities and language practice more effective. We give some examples of what we think are good examples of these ideas, some examples of what we think aren’t good examples and how those can easily be changed to more effective speaking task.

Ideas for beginner, intermediate and advanced levels.

Some of the games and ideas discussed in the show can be found in previous games of the week or in the following links: the Paper Game MES Games Get Four

Discuss this podcast and what you think makes for a great speaking activity on the ESL Teacher Talk Forums! We’re listening.

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The new school year has started in Taiwan and Ron is back to work.

Easter and St. Patrick’s Day are upon us this month and Mark has some new materials for these holidays if you’re interested.

Easter – flashcards, coloring, stickers, sticker charts, printable greeting cards, certificates, Easter bingo cards, an Easter board game and more!

St. Patrick’s Day – flashcards, coloring, stickers, sticker charts, printable greeting cards, certificates, bingo cards, a shamrock board game and more!

Have fun!

This week’s show is about using projectors in your classes. The projector is a great tool for engaging the students and adding tchnology to your classes. Ron’s school just added new projectors to the classroom and he’s all hyped up about them.

Ron and Mark offer ideas for what you can do with projectors, explain why it’s useful, how to use them in children’s, teen and adult classes . There is also a warning section about problems and possible pitfalls with projectors in the classroom.

If you are using a projector already, hopefully this will give you a couple ideas to add to your lessons. If you aren’t using a projector currently, maybe this will help when the day comes.

Discuss this show over on the ESL Teacher Talk forums. Ask questions or leave comments about how you use a projector in your classes.

Thanks for listening!

The Game of the Week: Speed Dice and the Sentence Race

Mark has been enraptured with dice games for the past year or so and brings 2 games this week. These are simple to prepare and can be used with children to adults, one-on-one classes to the dreaded 80+ classes as well. We hope you can use the activity.

More dice games and a write up of these games.