The History and The Future of the Internet -supplementing your business English textbook with video

As a Business English teacher, you've definitely stumbled across units in textbooks which use the history of the Internet as their introductory theme.

However, they're not always up-2-date or interactive, are they?

Not their fault - history isn't always that interesting especially when it's a subject which is still evolving.

But if you've been looking ahead, racking your brain, thinking about just how to jazz up your next lesson on the internet - yet keep the content and language you've got to teach - then here's an amazing documentary video produced by Melih Bilgil.

Mr Bilgil is a German freelance graphic designer - he made the video (using PICOL icons which he also created) for his diploma in graphic design at FH-Mainz University of Applied Sciences. You can pick up your own copy here (not sure how to download, come here).

One of the complaints revolving around this video is that it only goes up to the 1990's. See article on Time (which you can read yourself to help brief you so you can spice up the discussion with your students) :Brief history of the Internet


My rough lesson plan/ tips for a lesson on the History of the Internet would be:

• Use the video as a pre-task activity before working with the textbook. There's a lot of great jargon which you can extract (or better yet, get your students to note down key business and IT words and phrases themselves).

• Do the exercises in your textbook, possibly skipping what's now out-of-date or redundant.

• Write the words "The Future of the Internet" on the board and challenge your students to fill in the blanks by talking about web2.0, web3.0 and web3D plus the developments they anticipate.
  

• Present this slideshow from Slideshare:

Future Web Trends - at Innovation series with Jimmy Wales

View more presentations from matthewbuckland. (tags: wales jimmy)

• Discuss the ideas presented - what do your students think - do they agree, disagree? Do they have any examples to put forth, opinions, fears?

Business English Textbooks that have internet related units:

• InCompany, Intermediate, unit 13: Technology
• InCompany, Intermediate, 2ndEdition, unit 13: Entering the blogosphere
• InCompany, Upper Intermediate, unit 7: Information age
• InCompany, Upper Intermediate, unit 18: Shaping the future
• Intelligent Business, Upper Intermediate, unit 4: Information
• International Express, Upper Intermediate, Unit 5: The Internet
• IT Matters, Unit 4: The Internet
• Market Leader, Upper Intermediate, unit 7: E-commerce
• Market Leader, Intermediate, unit 13: Innovation
• The Business, Upper Intermediate, Unit 2: IT Solutions
• Technical English, Unit 12: Innovations

• Do you know of any other books/units? Add them in the comments section.
  

If you're not using a textbook and would like to do this as a lesson:
***for IT students mainly, your normal groups might seriously go to sleep if you try doing this with them.
Upper Int/B2

• Wikipedia, The Internet
• Internet society

• Download and then split up the text you've chosen to use.
  

• Divide students into pairs or groups, handing out different sections to different students to read - encourage them to highlight difficult vocabulary and check meanings.
  

• While they're reading, put some or all of the following categories on the board:
  

~ Dates:
1957-1973 / 1974 - 1983 / 1984-1990 /
1991 - 1995 / 1996 +today
~ Uses of the internet
~ Global impact and cultural implications
~ Difficult terminology
~ Your own idea here

• Get your students to walk around the room telling each other what they did/ learned about and what happened in those events.

• Show the video.

• Discuss.
  

• Elicit answers on where the future of the internet's leading.
  

• Show the slideshare.

• Discuss - what was new, interesting?
  

Extending this lesson:

• Watch the video in detail, pausing often, looking for all collocations that go with the word: network. Then get your students to explain what the differences are between the phrases - basically teaching you the terminology!
  

• Create a mural depicting the time-line/ evolution of the internet using items they learned from the video, using the language taught in the textbook and vocabulary and ideas from the slideshare. (Group activity, project work).

• Use my SimplyConversationsTM and SimplyQuestTM material - question prompt cards and post-task activity: shop here
  

Technology - €1.99 (individual trainers) and €4,99 (institutes)
Email and the Internet - €1.49 and €3.99

Do you have another idea for exploiting these materials and turning them into a really effective and interesting lesson?

Share your tips with all of us by clicking on the comments button - if you've already created a great worksheet of your own (or stumbled across one on the 'net) and you'd like to pass on the details, link it here, (even if it's commercial) no problem, am happy for you to share!

Best,
Karenne

p.s More blended learning/TwIT tips here (scroll down). More lesson tips, here
To print only this page, click on the title and then scroll down to the Eco-safe button and hit print as .pdf.

Your style, my style - our ways of speaking

Part one: the art of teaching conversation to language learners

Starting off with the basics is probably a very good place to kick off this series (of at least 7 parts).

Do you know who your students are?

Do you know what they like? Do you know their learning styles and how they learn?

Knowing a little bit about the way people learn anything at all is one part of being a really great conversation teacher.

In general, it's one of those essential life skills, however, when used for teaching English it can help you to unlock your students' great gabbing skills.

Because let's face it, despite the fact that when they are sitting in your classroom they may appear to be all quiet and shy, nervous and uncommunicative, when they're out there with their friends, families, across the boardroom table or with their lovers they probably aren't so very quiet.

In their own language.

And this is probably true, more or less, across cultures.

Okay, okay, maybe some of them are always quiet. But here are some reasons they might not be talking a lot in their English lessons:

* the subject you brought to class isn't interesting.
* they don't like you.
* you aren't teaching them in the way they want you to.

There are many more reasons than the above - hence this is only part 1 - more in the next postings.


For now let's have a look at:

“you aren't teaching them in the way they want you to.”

Don’t switch off the computer just yet, it’s not an attack of your teaching habits. We’ve all been there. The thing is, we teachers, sorry - we humans, often think that the way we do something is the way it is always done, and if not, it should be!

So be honest:

Are you teaching in a way that is

like how they learn,

or like how you learn?

Read through this list of learner styles and have a think, not only about your learners and where they fall into this list, but also yourself and the way that you teach. There is a doorway into getting your students actively conversing, this is one of the approaches that just might work for you:

Visual learners

learn most from things they see.

They love making pictures of new words & phrases and are happy organizing their new vocabulary into little card boxes (color-coded, of course) with little drawings or diagrams to help remember what the words mean.

They enjoy photography and art. Usually they have a good sense of direction and can read maps. When they explain something to someone else, they use a piece of paper so that they can show you what they are trying to say.

Auditory/Aural learners

learn best from the things they hear.

They love music and often can sing well.

They listen to what other people have to say, enjoy audio books and when they are learning a language, they often hear the subtle differences in accents and pronunciation.

They use i-tunes to help them study, especially all the great podcasts.

Kinesthetic/ physical learners

learn most effectively when they use their hands and body, when they touch something.

Usually this type of learner also really enjoys sports and exercise and is very active.

They often talk with their hands - are physically very expressive people and learn from doing.

Activity and movement are what gets these students fired up and interested.

Verbal people

enjoy words.

They like writing things down, increasing and using their vocabulary. They like stories and storytelling.

And boy, do they ever love talking!





They enjoy making speeches and listening to other people's ideas, expressing opinions.

They like words that rhyme, idioms and puns and usually they make an effort to really know the meaning of words they’re using.

Logical people

really need life to make sense. They feel comfortable with security, with rules and systems and actually enjoy learning grammar – it helps them to understand the language and put it into a format.

They think about the placement of words.

They like knowing what’s coming next and being able to prepare –they need to know that what they’re learning is something they can use again in the future.

It goes without saying, right, that you can have visual learners who are verbal and visual learners who are logical.

The logical audio guys love Beethoven, the verbal audio guys like rap.

The next thing we'll have a look at is interpersonal and intrapersonal skills or attitudes. Here we’ll call them social learners and solitary learners:

Solitary learners prefer to study at home and feel good when they achieve something by themselves. They don't mind doing homework, actually like self-study books, think independently, enjoy quiet.

They are pretty good at self-analysis (if they used this blog posting as an activity it would be pretty easy for them, they know their learning styles already).

It’s always a good idea to let them know in advance what you want from them and allow them time to prepare an answer.

Usually, if you hang on for a bit after asking a question, they will surprise you with very well-thought out answers.

Social learners love hanging out in groups and learning together, being a part of a class or community where they can share what they know.

They pay attention to other people's feelings, enjoy making others laugh and learn. They love playing games and activities, doing projects where several people have to create something new, together.

More in the next postings:

Knowing about your students' styles can help you prepare dynamic and interesting lessons. You can get them chatting about the things they care about simply by paying attention to where the key fits and how to turn it.

I’ll be writing about activities to do with each style, discussing motivation in speaking, giving you a list of phrases inherent, making questions and having in-depth conversations, talking a little about cultural norms and how to provide good, measurable feedback to your language learners.

In the meantime don’t hesitate to give me your own feedback and help steer the direction of these postings by asking questions.

Best,
Karenne

p.s Would you like your students to have a look at this and think about some of the issues presented?
Student version: here


Part 2 on the art of teaching conversation to language learners, here.

More information:

See article that prompted this posting (by Jason West of Languages out there), here

Websites on learning styles:

Vark, a guide to learning styles
Learning styles online
Kolb’s learning styles on business balls.com

Books on learning styles:

Knowing Me, Knowing You: An Integrated Sociopsychology Guide to Personal Fulfilment & Better Relationships: An Integrated Socio-psychology Guide to Personal Fulfilment and Better Relationships



Knowing Me, Knowing You: Exploring Personality Type and Temperament

Helping Learners Learn: Exploring Strategy Instruction in Language Classrooms Across Europe (Language Learning (Ecml, Graz))

The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners (Merrill Education/ASCD College Textbooks)

Learner-Centered Classroom Practices and Assessments: Maximizing Student Motivation, Learning, and Achievement

Seven things you probably don't know about me

I was tagged by Alex Case of TEFLtastic to write up a list of seven things you don't know and / or you probably don't want to know about me but as these things are quite fun I thought I'd give it a go.

1. When I was a little girl I thought I was a blood relative to or the reincarnation of Indiana Jones. I haven't ever really shaken that belief and have spent most of my life chasing adventure.

I have swum with sharks, climbed up and into volcanoes, stroked a maori wrasse (a fish) as if it were a puppy, fallen off a 75ft waterfall, lived through being tied to a mast in a violent thunderstorm aboard a 64ft ketch while we pulled the lifeboat back on board.

Slept with a scorpion on the wall in a Thai buddhist monastery, ridden an elephant, took a bamboo raft down the Mekong, petted a llama, talked to people you normally only see in National Geographic, followed butterflies, hitched on the back of an onion truck across Sumbawa, spent a night in a church built in the 13th Century by the Knights Templar, fed fish to a dolphin and had a face2face with an orangutan in the wild jungles of Borneo.



I took the road less traveled off of the standard Camino de Frances along the St James' way / El Camino de Santiago and got lost too often to count.

However I discovered what it means to follow the stars and the simplicity of using the sun for directions (it's on your back in the morning, in front of you when you're traveling west).

I walked 700+km and made it to Santiago in 28 days.



2. I moved to Germany for the peace and quiet.

I got exactly that.

3. When I grow up I am not going to be a novelist, like so many of my fellow TEFL comrades.

Instead, I am going to write movies and I'm going to win an Oscar before I am 70. Here's an animation film I worked on and here's something I did to entertain myself/ a gift for a friend.

I am not sure I want to grow up though. I'm almost 40 now and haven't really gotten around to this. Maybe when I'm 60.

4. I was asked last year to become an author of a new business English textbook. I turned it down because
a) it didn't pay very well
b) the Ed tried to use the standard 'Headway =look how much they made' example as an excuse for the poor advance and royalties
c) my blogs keep me pretty busy in between all my lessons and
d) I don't want to write textbooks!

I love my blogs and my website and making materials to support these activities because I love teaching English. Yar, yar, scoffers - it's not the best paid job in the world but it just might be the most fun.

I enjoy sharing my knowledge, however, mostly I just like the independence and making learning as exciting and interesting as possible.

Although I use textbooks (not always) and have a great deal of respect for their authors, a textbook would probably not let me, personally, continue to do that. I would consider contributing to something like The art, methodology and psychology of conversation but I'm not really qualified to do this, yet.

5. When I was a teenager I was given an intelligence test, designed for Americans, not for Caribs like me - somehow I managed to get into the top 5% of all students.

A friend, at the time, who didn't get the same who's who letter in the mail, despite the fact she was pulling all A's and I wasn't, told me they had made a mistake.

They may have.

I actually don't think much of grades, levels, intelligence tests or, in fact, exams in general. My sincere belief is outrageously that we should do away with all that baloney and tom-phooey and get on with learning and teaching for the sake of learning and teaching.

There will always be mixed-level, mixed-style, mixed-intelligence type classes, punkt.

6. I don't enjoy television - it's a major time-sink.

I do really enjoy a good HBO series, though, like The Wire or Desperate Housewives and am more than happy to fork over the cash to buy the DVDs (or swapsies) so that I can opt for watching it whenever I want to and not have the box in the room tell me when and where.

I mostly entertain myself with the internet, youtube and blogs - not just TEFL related ones ;-).

I read incredibly quickly and can finish a Harry Potter in a couple of days, the Swarm took 3.5.

Most novels are done within a couple of hours. This reading habit became way too expensive so I switched to reading business, methodology, pop-science/socio-cultural tomes and autobiographies - it takes a lot longer to figure out what's going on on the page.


I'm a big fan of Seth Godin and Malcolm Gladwell and can't wait to read Outliers.

Currently working my way through and enjoying Nassim Taleb's Black Swan. And if you're teaching advanced ESP:financials/investor types, give it/ get them to give it a go.

7. For my 70th birthday, in honor of my Oscar, of course, and because I am just dying to do this - I want to ride in a space shuttle so that I can see the world as a green and blue marble.

I am convinced that it is even more beautiful that it appears to be in the photos.



That's it!

So now, on to my seven great ELTers = I call on

• Lindsay Clandfield of Sixthings,
• Aniya Adly of The English Teacher Online,
• Jason West of Languages out there,
• Margarita of English teacher,
• Isabel Perez's ESL
• Eric Roth of Compelling Conversations and
• Neal Chambers of English Spark
  

Rules = write a list of seven things (okay, Lindsay write 6) about yourself as per above, tag the person who tagged you and then find seven other bloggers (who haven't done this activity yet) and tag them too.

For further inspiration, check out: Nik Peachey's, Gavin Dudeney's, Graham Stanley's, Seth Dickens's, and David V's.

Best,
Karenne

A code of ethics for CEOs

I was browsing around in youtube last night and came across a video from a Columbian youth.

The question was so poignant I immediately knew it would make a great lesson.

Today in Davos, the World Economic Forum begins. To support their activities, other than their website, the WEF have also created an interactive page on youtube for questions and lectures on a number of topics including economy, ethics, environment and politics.

Pablo's answer to the question Should CEOs have a code of ethics was:

You can download the video from here.
Not sure how to take it into class, come here.

I know I'm 100% for this idea, my feelings are "about time" -but what do our business English students think?

Here's a quick lesson plan - don't hesitate to add to it or suggest other uses for these rich and interesting discussions.

• ask students if they know what a "code of ethics" is
• get them to list professions that have one
  

doctors, psychologists, lawyers, journalists, social workers and more

• write on the board - Should CEOs have a code of ethics? Ask why, why not?

• watch the video (possibly more than once depending on your students' levels)
  
• review some of the more difficult vocabulary* (see below, you could also pre-teach)
  
• hold a discussion on the suggestions he makes, feasible?
  

• provide students with these codes of ethics: doctors and lawyers

Quite long: you can split these up into parts or only use some of it,
do a google search for others if you have a large class. Different codes to different students.

• provide this guideline on creating a code of ethics, c.o.e. (or adapt)
  
• get students to brainstorm a new code specifically for CEOs in groups
• encourage them to use some of the 'legal-speak' they've picked up so far
• monitor slightly, remind them of the modals of obligation
  

• choose a presenter from each group to relay their c.o.e, edit as necessary
  
• discuss the pros and cons of their suggestions
  

Important vocabulary

• to be contingent on, to standardize, to compromise
• unethical liberties, human rights, common characteristics, profit-driven
• an international code, international markets
  

Post-task activity

Let your students choose between watching further videos on youtube, listening to podcasts or reading articles, blog postings etc on the WEF and ask them to report back on their activities next week (or next lesson(s)).

You could also ask them to research the people present or behind the scenes. Alternatively, you can also ask your students to look into the history of the Forum and the location chosen.

Or, if you're lucky enough to be teaching a group with great technology skills, teens /youth perhaps, why not get them to make video responses on their cameras or camera phones and actually participate in the debates - such fun!

Best,
Karenne
p.s don't forget you can .pdf this page or send it to yourself/ a friend. Buttons below.

Obama's big day is finally here!

Yep, that's me.

And yup, that's Obama in the background. Really, it's not photo-shopped.

It was taken in Berlin during the big speech back in July last year... I'd flown up to volunteer with Dems abroad and had a super-super-duper day.

However, as you can imagine, I've got to be around for my boy tomorrow to watch all things, via Facebook this time, so I'm not going to have time to blog about using this mega event in our English lessons.

I'm pretty sure you'll be 'dogme'ing it anyway but just in case you came on over for a tip or two, allow me to point you in the direction of another great teaching blog with lots of great suggestions and cool links!

Jeffrey Hill's The English Blog

Best,
Karenne

Happy! Happy! Day!

p.s. a week later: I used Jeffrey Hill's slideshare of Obama cartoons and got lots of mileage - my students were the ones who spotted the connections (the type of shoes thrown etc.,) that I'd have missed. Provoked much conversation however would recommend doing this only with students who have an interest in Politics, right?!

Flight 1549: disasters as fodder for EFL lessons?

UPDATE 8Mar09 - this lesson plan now has an additional animated video which can you use to discuss process with students -especially good if teaching ESP:Aviation students.


Disasters in the news are great opportunities to get your students talking.

Whenever a major crisis hits the news media, words and facts fly out and students begin embedding statistics about the event in their brains.

If your students are anything like mine, after any major incident, they arrive in the classroom bursting to share what's happened (maybe because I'm constantly reminding them that I want them to small talk).

They're often able to tell us in English- even the lower level students - just how many people were involved, where 'it' occurred and the process: the before, during and aftermath.

They have opinions too.

Sometimes in their passion of finally having a story for me, though, I see clear areas of grammatical weakness and occasionally their sequencing adverbs are a little off.

Does this happen to you too?

If you'd like to test this exercise out, the crash of Flight 1549 into the Hudson River is a great example. It's dramatic, it's almost everyone who fly's greatest fear and it had a happy ending.

A very 'real' way to demonstrate the importance of adverbs of sequence/ adverbials of time.

- first
- then
- next
- after that
- finally

get this picture here

If you'd like to spice things up and get your students stretching their linguistic muscles, add things like:

- initially
- firstly, secondly...
- while

Stick up words/ phrases + adverbial clauses like
- by the time
- during this time
- in the aftermath.

What exactly do stewardesses say?

To really hone in on the point, once you've finished discussing the story as it occurred in the news, why not go through in-flight safety instructions.

And for my TwIT teachers, I really don't have to remind you that you can grab videos of flight 1549's crash (here) to turn this into a great multi-media lesson. You can also use this tracking map from the New York Times.

SimplyConversations lesson:
Business Travel (freelancers, institutions)

Any more tips, tricks? Related links? Don't hesitate to add them below in the comments box. Ta!

Best,
Karenne

New:March8,2009

Animation Video



Recommended book: Aviation English
USA + world
UK
Germany

Noticing the news

Do you occasionally use news articles with your English language students?



Do your prefer using newspapers or do you like searching for articles on-line?

I used to use the articles from the Guardian Weekly (about once a month there's a lesson or two enclosed) however, these days I tend to prefer the stuff that's on-line.

The BBC's Learning English site has lessons bundled together with vocabulary activities. Often the topics they've chosen aren't that interesting or, surprisingly, not that topical either!

There are also a couple of sites which utilize news stories to springboard more in-depth discussions and active conversations.

I recommend:

• Breaking News English Lessons
  

• Languages Out There - materials which go way beyond just reading and looking at vocabulary. Challenging speaking activities - much different from the norm.
  

*if you'd like to recommend a site related to this theme, don't hesitate to add it below.

However if you've checked through these and unfortunately haven't found what you're looking for or you're simply in the mood for putting together your own news lesson, then here's a quick techie-sort-of-tip for you below.

PREP (10-15mins):

• Go to Google, look at the top bar and click NEWS.
  

Make sure your computer is set for Google.com (in English).

• Look at the left-hand side of the screen where it reads Top Stories >World >US >Business >Entertainment etc.

• Click on one or all of these and choose one article for each student you have. Choose stories you know are currently in the popular papers of their countries, if possible, or articles related to their professional fields. Print.
  

PRE-DISCUSSION

• Hand out a news story to each member of your class.

• Ask them to scan the article for content and also to highlight INTERESTING words and phrases. Make sure they understand that
  

they don't have to understand every word, they should focus on the story.

• Stop them after a reasonable amount of time has passed.

DISCUSSION

• Break your students up into small groups and get them to share each others' stories.
  

• Encourage them to use the words and phrases they highlighted when paraphrasing.
  

POST-DISCUSSION

• Ask students to transfer the highlighted words and phrases that are useful to their lives/professions or interests into their notebooks.

• Ask them to write new sentences using these.

Also read my blog posting on using
CNN student news


Useful links related to this posting:

GoogleNews

NewYorkTimes -LearningNetwork

Simple English News

Voice of America (listening)

A real-techie-TwIT-tip
Manga (good for lower levels, not really for business classes, not really news but you may find a cartoon or two that'll fit).


Useful book
on using newspapers and articles in the classroom

via Amazon, links

• Germany
• UK
• USA + world

If you've got any other top tips, please do feel free to add your suggestions in the comments.

Best,
Karenne

Free Conversation Lesson, New Year 2009

Back to classes so soon?

Back to energizing, inspiring and motivating, getting our students talking in English...

Did you just sigh?

Tsk, tsk. ;-)

Here's a nice freebie for you, a speaking skills lesson, it should provide at least enough material for the first two classes this year!

New Year 2009


Enjoy - some of the answers to the questions in the SimplyQuestTM will be quite surprising!

Best,
Karenne

p.s. You can also pick up a song activity based on Abba's Happy New Year ballad, that's the previous posting, (here.)

Happy New Year, by Abba

Have you realized how poignant that old favorite, sung by Abba way back when, is?

Ideal for taking into class with you at the beginning of term.

Here's a quick little exercise that you can print off and drag in as an ice-breaker or warmer.

Instructions

• distribute sheet
  
• tell class to fill in as much of the blanks as they can, then
  
• play song, first time straight through without stopping
• get them to check with each other and compare answers
• play song, second time stopping after each sentence
• compare answers
• discuss key vocabulary
• discuss meaning of the song and 'the time' it was sung in

SimplyConversations Extension

• the gap fill basically works on a 'lexical chunk' system in order for you (your students) to pay particular attention to the way words group together. If you're working with a group of fairly fluent and motivated students you can also use this activity as a philosophical discussion tool. ABBA sung this pre-internet, pre-a lot of other things and older students who were around when this was a hit will have much to add to the pot.
  

Video of this song


The official ABBA site has a gorgeous video with lyrics on screen. That's here.
More songs related to the new year on youtube here.


Useful links related to this posting:

• Song meanings here, Song facts here.
• Download video on to your laptop, blog about that here.
• Netbooks, blog about that here.

Do you have any suggestions or comments? Don't hesitate to add your thoughts below.

Best,
Karenne

Happy Holidays!

Dear English Teachers




Just a little note to wish you all the very best for the holidays - see you next year!


Best,
Karenne

Most visited postings:

CNN student news
Personally, speaking
BESIG conference
Politics, power and the media
Toys for teachers
Company secrets

Using slideshare for teaching business English

My student Markus called in the early afternoon.

'I didn't have time to do my presentation' he gushed.

Markus is a part of a 3hr, once-a-month evening presentations course I run. Part of the requirements are to bring in their real presentations for "hands-on" practice, powerpoint slides - which we review, discuss and dissect for standard lexical chunks and language specific to Business English.

'Markus,' I said 'Go on over to Slideshare, find a presentation in your field, download that and bring it in. I need your English, not specifically your slides.'

He did.

The presentation he chose was from by Bach, Abraham, Fisher and Dupree of the Moore School of Business and was about Hydrogen Fuel Cells.

Hydrogen Fuel Cells

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: hydrogen fuel)

As this topic is directly related to his industry and key responsibilities, he was able to follow the original authors' work and successfully add his own specialized knowledge and input.

What slideshare offers are presentations: on each slide there are only key words and/or images so the success of the exercise is entirely dependent on the student's ability to elaborate on the information and statistics.

In our case, a quick, less than 5 minute download led to a half hour presentation which we then could turn into a dynamic pedagogical exercise. As a group, we discussed his lack of 'signposting' (language indicators of where one is within a presentation), worked on his introduction and summary language, reviewed phrases they'd been taught previously from Business Builder, 7.2b and Macmillan's Presentations English, unit 1.

What was also interesting was the territorial aspect Markus to on to the work - he didn't agree with all of the statistics or the slant on each slide and didn't hesitate to let us know what he thought they should be or what Germany is doing in these ventures.

Try this type of exercise with your students -low prep on both your parts, maximum speaking practice on your student's - and, of course,

do let me know how it goes!

Useful links related to this posting:

www.slideshare.net
More lesson tips using slideshare

Some links to sets for Business English and ESP (English for specific purposes) included below but not limited to:

• English for Automotive
• English for Business and Management
• English for Finance
• English for Health
• English for Marketing
• English for Real Estate
• English for Technology

Related textbooks/supplementary:

Business builder - Germany, UK, USA +world
Presentations in English - Germany, UK, USA +world

Authentic books related to teaching presentations:

Harvard School of Business - Germany, UK, USA+world
Beyond bullet points - Germany, UK, USA+world


Best,
Karenne

Nothing more important than your family and friends

Teaching English to speakers of other languages usually means living far from home and we don't often get the chance to see our families at this time of year. Once you've been doing it for a while, traveling around the world, friendships become stretched across the continents (but thank g, for Facebook, right!).

Are you in this situation too?

Me, I always dread Christmas - it's the most prohibitively expensive time to go on home and most of the time I can't afford to do this. Too much competition from the tourists ;-).

However two years ago my sister and I plotted to return just before my Dad's 70th birthday.

We spent Christmas day together in London and then flew on over to Grenada on the 26th. We'd set it up with my uncle to go directly to his house from the airport and then hid there on the 27th. My mother was in on the secret as was my little brother.

It sure was murder looking out at the beautiful Grenadian sea, watching the sun slip into the ocean, realizing what both of us had been missing out on by living in Europe and knowing that we still had to stay hidden for yet another day.

Of course, Marty came on over to visit us - to give us a big hug, check that we'd really made it and to find out what we'd got him for Chrimbo. It was wonderful seeing him but we quickly sent him off with pleas not to give the game away.

Our greatest fear was that Dad would pop 'round to see our Uncle so our eyes were peeled out for his car all day.

On Dad's birthday we sneaked over just before breakfast, giggling the whole way, laden down with chocolates, sweets and gifts.

When we arrived, around 7.30am, we knocked forcibly on the door and heard my mother calling out "Now who could that be, bothering us at this hour?"

When she opened the door up wide we burst into the room singing "Happy Birthday, Daddy!" - my father just about had a heart attack!

His girls were home.

Aah...

Do you have a great memory like this? Do your students? I'm pretty sure that you do and isn't it lovely to talk about these.

This month, registered users of the Kalinago English website can download a free set of conversation cards all about family and friendships.

Click here to get your students telling their stories - laugh and cry through their memories and impressions.

And for the teachers who teach with technology, looking around for a great pre-teaching/vocabulary review activity, what about using this video from the Boston Globe, on America's first-grandma:

If you're uncertain how to download video on to your laptop come here - if you're interested in getting a mini-computer, come here.

And, as it's coming up for Christmas, all teachers can also download a set of excellent Christmas conversation prompts.

Supportive materials related to Christmas

• Youtube
• Delicious

For more lesson tips and ideas about Christmas, check out these blogs and sites:

• Alex Case
• Larry Ferlazzo
• Fun cartoon on Jeffrey Hill's
• Isabel Perez's list of songs, quizzes word searches and more
  
• Randall's listening lab
  

Best,
Karenne