Let’s forget this is an ELT blog for a while. This video from Matt Harding shows us the plain truth: The world is full of good people who are always ready to start dancing when they hear the simple beating of a rythm. Dance is in our souls, and when we take out our inner child and start moving, jumping and swinging to the rythm of music, we take the best of ourselves. This is just a tribute from a simple language teacher, to all those teachers of the most important language across boundaries: Dance
Visit Matt’s webpage Where the hell is Matt? This website offers different possibilities for us teachers. It is worth reading the section “About Matt” after you have watched the video with your students. It tells Matt’s story… really interesting, and easy to read. In the section “Journal”, a blog shows different articles concerning Matt’s project… his travels, his meetings…
Use this website to talk about values, about friendship, peace, music, dance, life… I knew we would end up saying we could use it in our lessons!
Watch this video if you believe lessons are a place to innovate, create, produce, share, feel, learn and, of course, teach. I wish everyone agreed with the terms Ken Robinson deals with. Are we really all made of the same pattern? Should people gifted for dance be trained to be a linguist? Should natural born mathematicians be pressed with learning biochemistry or latin? …well, they all should learn English anyway
Jolly good! Listen to this great actress playing up different English speakers with different accents. If you like phonetics, dialects, and English, you’ll love it. Why don’t you show it to your students and help them see how different can English sound?
Watch the telly and learn languages! Lingorilla is a very interesting initiative where you can watch TV episodes to practise English , be part of language groups where you can talk and also keep your own folders with your favourite resources to learn English… or other languages! There are tests, quizzes and other very helpful resources. You only have to register and there you are!!
This short films from Animals save the Planet give us the chance to help our students learn the most important concepts of global conscience and sustainability. Funny animals show our children how to be green! Language is not very difficult, and of course, there are lots of other possibilities to exploit.
Cooking recipes are a source of resources for language teachers. iFood’s.tv gives you both the instructions and ingredients, as well as a video where you watch the chef showing you the way to cook the meal properly. The units are not metric, they are US, but it’s good!
We often look into the future trying to find newbies that make our teaching catchier. These videos from Schoolhouse Rock are still nice to watch. With the teacher’s assistance, primary students can learn a lot as they have a very good time. Just go to YouTube and type Schoolhouse Rock, and there you are: adjectives, prepositions, verbs… There’s an unofficial website where you can listen to the songs and read the lyrics. Up to you!
I think this is worth a try… why don’t you use it in tutoria in English… or even in your own ELT class if you want to teach values? Do parents always behave as they should?
Here’s a very interesting website offering free TV programmes related to ELT.
Australia Network offers different sections to learn English with TV programmes. The section English Bites lets you watch the episodes and also download them into your computer without cost. You can read the transcript and the programme plays the video twice stopping at cuts where relevant expressions are used.
