My guest post on take a photo and ........

In a previous post, I wrote about an impressive blog:  http://takeaphotoand.wordpress.com/

A while ago, Fiona Mauchline, manager of that blog, contacted me after I left a comment on one of the posts.  She asked me if I'd be interested in writing a guest post for the takeaphoto blog.  I replied that it would be a pleasure and finally, 4 months later, this became a reality!

So, here is a link to the post.  I think that you'll find it relevant, especially if you're preparing student for the Cambridge English: Preliminary or Preliminary for Schools exam.
http://takeaphotoand.wordpress.com/2012/05/24/buddha-and-oral-exams/

Hope it's useful!

Anne

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Preparing teenagers for the PET exam

I have met Emma Heyderman several times in San Sebastian and in Bilbao.

Photo:  http://ylandtsig.ning.com/profile/EmmaHeyderman

I have never been in the live audience at her seminars, but she has been part of my audiences at seminars, and I hold a lot of respect for her and her publications.

As so often happens these days, I was looking up something else (well, actually - I think I was preparing the previous post for this blog come to think of it!), when I came across a selection of videos featuring Emma on the Cambridfe University Press ELT Youtube channel.

Take for example this one:
Preparing teenagers for the PET exam: Listening.

Emma demonstrates just how important it is for students to listen carefully to the whole of the listening texts and not to choose an answer too quickly.

As well as this video, you can find other clips looking at the other skills tested on Cambridge English: Preliminary.

So now, running up to the main examining period of the year and for us Cambridge ESOL presenters, coming to the end of our live sessions for 2011-2012, watch Emma's tips to gain some advice and ideas for your candidates.

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PET Speaking materials on Writefix

While I was looking at Writefix, a website designed generally to work on the area of argument and opinion essays and describing graphs, I came across a section of the site that focuses on the Cambridge English: Preliminary speaking test.

If you move your mouse over the photo, you can see tabs of text with suggestions for things you could say about this photo.

There are also some Part 2 materials for you to use with students.

I think this could be VERY useful for class and for self-study for Preliminary students.

Hope you're finding my suggestions useful!!!

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Recording students describing photos

Hello again!  Sorry I've been 'missing' for a few days but life has been even more hectic than usual this week!  And it hasn't been for a lack of ideas to share with you on this blog, believe me!  I have a file full of materials and lots of links saved in my 'For later' file on my computer.

So, let's make a start on one of them!

As I told you recently, I gave a talk at the TESOL Spain 2012 Convention.

As well as giving my talk, I was able to attend a few sessions.  The first one I went to a Keynote presentation given by Russell Stannard.  Here he is in action:

(Thanks Donna Koniholm for the great photos you took at the Convention!) 

I've been reading articles and tips from Russell Stannard for a long long time.  Quite deservedly, his website http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/  has won lots of awards.

For a quick (3 minute) presentation of the site by Russell himself, I recommend watching this video.

During Russell's TESOL presentation, the tool that really caught my eye was MailVU:  http://mailvu.com/.

This allows you to record video clips on a computer using the microphone and webcam and then send them to an email contact.

Here is Russell's description of the potential use of this site for language teachers:

… you can get the students to do recordings of themselves speaking in English at home … and then sending those recordings to you, you can then listen to them and obviously give them some feedback on their oral performance…

Watch Russell explaining this site here.


So, of course, me being a Cambridge ESOL teacher and teacher trainer, I thought:  What a fantastic tool to practise the 1 minute talking about photos tasks in the Cambridge English: Preliminary, First, Advanced and Proficiency Speaking Tests!!!

Let's consider how you could go about this:
For homework, tell students which photo(s) you want them to talk about and the question you want them to answer in relation to the photo(s)

For example,

Here are your photographs.  They show people spending their free time in different ways.  I'd like you to compare the photographs and say what are the advantages and disadvantages for the people of spending their free time in these different ways.  

Source:  First for Schools Handbook

You send students a link to MailVU by email.  They open the link, record themselves doing the task, and send you the clip by email.  You watch it and can give them feedback (by return of email/record a video of yourself talking about their performance/discuss the clip with them in class (maybe while you both watch the video).

I believe it has fantastic potential for working on this part of the Cambridge ESOL speaking tests!

If you try it out, please let us know about it!

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Camera Obscura Drop Locations and great photos of London

My previous post talked about the Camera Obscura Project.


10 cameras were left at various locations last Saturday.

You can see where they were left here.

What a great set of photos for using in class!
Precisely because some of the photos (3, 4, 6 and 10 especially) are not so easy to identify because they do not show famous monuments.

So, for example, at Preliminary level (PET) we can practise language of speculation:
(For picture 10)

The camera looks as if it's on top of a bin or something you find in the street.
It could be outside a park or garden, because I can see a fence in the background.  The camera is easy to see but it might fall off and break.

One of the photos showing where the cameras were left looks very like this one:

You can see St Paul's Cathedral on the other side of the river and the Millennium Bridge which crosses the River Thames between the Tate Museum and St Paul's.

You can read the story of this bridge here:
http://www.urban75.org/london/millennium.html


And for some really great photos of London (as well as other parts of the world), visit Shew, the photographer's photoblog.

One of her photos reminded me of my last trip to London.  We saw squirrels everywhere in Hyde Park.

And Shew also has some amazing photos on Flickr.

Hope you find them useful!

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