Monthly Archive: October 2008

Oct
28

Portsmouth makes players take English lessons

Overseas players at English Premier League club Portsmouth are taking extra English lessons to help them communicate on the field more clearly, the Canadian Press website notes. Like all the teams in England’s top flight, Portsmouth has a squad drawn from all over the world, with 16 of its 28-man squad coming from outside Britain. …

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Oct
25

English: A Dolphin or a Lonely Transvestite?

How do we best talk about English in English? There’s a lot to be said for the geographical analogies commonly invoked to describe any language — map, artifact, fossil. Perhaps more than any other tongue, English has been decisively shaped by the series of intense geopolitical events that mark its short but vivid history. Of …

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Oct
24

The ‘Salad Bowl’ of English Teaching

Like it or loath it, diversity has been the chief buzzword in education across the globe over the past 30 years. When we talk about “diversity” in language teaching, what on Earth are we talking about? Is this something new? Is the teaching of English somehow different from the teaching of other languages (and should …

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Oct
23

Controlling the Educational Printing Budget

One thing that we can all relate to in the world of education, especially if you’re involved in the management side of what is increasingly becoming the business of education, is the issue of budgetary control. Keeping a lid on runaway costs for things such as photocopying and printing can be every administrator’s worst nightmare. …

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Oct
20

Sesame Street Targets English Language Learners

In news that fills my heart with joy, I was delighted to learn of the emergence of Sesame Street English, a new 26×2-minute series from Sesame Workshop featuring anime-style versions of the show’s signature Muppets introducing preschoolers to the English language. Sesame Street English, which can be adapted for classrooms, uses research-based methods to provide …

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Oct
15

Win an Online TEFL Course

i-to-i is one of the biggest providers of TEFL courses and TEFL jobs abroad. In the past 12 months alone i-to-i has trained 15,000 people to Teach English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) and assisted them in finding jobs across the globe and have also picked up a clutch of ‘prestigious’ awards and nominations. Throughout …

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Oct
09

EFL in Malta?

Malta has fast become one of Europe’s premier EFL destinations, notes Tom West on the ELT Times online TEFL newspaper, as the island’s ties with the English language, coupled with its fantastic natural resources have made this an attractive location for agents and private students alike. With its rich history of been visited, and often …

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Oct
09

Girls have harder time than boys adjusting in language-learning environment

Girls who don’t share a common language may have more difficulty adjusting socially than boys, according to surprising new Michigan State University research looking at language acquisition among young children. A study of 3- to 6-year-olds attending an international school in Beijing found that in general, girls had more social adjustment problems than boys. The …

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Oct
08

Merriam-Webster’s Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary

United States: Merriam-Webster announces this month the publication of Merriam-Webster’s Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary — the first advanced learner’s dictionary from an American publisher. Created by North America’s foremost language experts, this volume is designed to help advanced students of English as a second language master spoken and written English as it is actually used. …

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Oct
07

Are your students learning anything?

This question, perhaps the most subjective of any that we as teachers could be asked, was inspired by Justme on the ELT World forums. The answers proved to be varied, although the overriding conclusion seems to be fairly clear, as will become apparent as you read on. So what, if anything, are students actually learning …

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