Introduction

Are you finding it difficult to start the conversation, or find the right words when communicating
in English? Do you know how to start and end conversations in a polite way? Do you want to
learn more about American, British, Canadian, Australian, South Korean, Colombian, and
Chinese cultures? If so, you’ve come to the right course!

What you'll learn

 Develop conversational English skills

 Listen to dialogues and group discussions to better understand spoken English and
cultural norms
 Learn key words and expressions
 Engage in activities to help you better understand the meaning of conversations
 Learn to initiate your own conversations in English on a variety of topics

This course explores ways of teaching reading skills in English as Second and Foreign
Language (ESL/EFL) using a task-based approach. You will be introduced to the
concept of task and the key principles of task-based language teaching (TBLT) and
learning. TBLT uses communicative tasks as the key unit for creating language learning
activities. You will also examine the role of reading in real-life and in second and foreign
language teaching and current thinking about the interface between TBLT and second
language reading. You will explore how TBLT and teaching second language reading
can be successfully integrated in practice through analysing task-based reading
materials. The course culminates in creating task-based materials for teaching reading
in your own language teaching contexts. After completing the course, you will be able
to:

1. Explain the main components and tenets of a task-based approach to teaching

language;

2. Explain the main issues involved in teaching reading;

3. Illustrate connections between TBLT approaches and the teaching of reading;

4. Integrate tasks into your own teaching;

5. Identify reading texts that are suitable for the construction of tasks; and

6. Construct reading tasks and sequences for use in your own classroom.
Why join the course?

This free online course is for English language teachers around the world. It will help you
develop the skills and practices you need for your continuing professional development (CPD).

This course is part of our Teaching for Success: Practices for English Language Teaching
program. In the program we will look at the 12 professional practices for CPD on the British
Council’s teacher development framework.

You will look at four professional practices:

 Planning lessons and courses

 Managing resources

 Managing the lesson

 Taking responsibility for professional development.

Learn with English language teachers worldwide

Each week will focus on one of these practices. Short video interviews with experienced teachers
will be combined with classroom films from around the world to illustrate the main points of
each week.

Video tutors will guide you through each week’s content, offering tips, advice and downloadable
resources at every stage.

You will be asked to share your own experiences and opinions as you become part of a global
community of English language teachers discussing what leads to success.

The course draws on the British Council’s many years of expertise in teacher training and
development around the world. It will be useful for teachers of English at primary, secondary or
higher levels.

What topics will you cover?

Planning lessons and courses

 Why and how do teachers plan lessons and courses.

 What are the key factors to consider?

 Identifying aims and stages in your own and others’ lessons.

 Managing resources

 Making the most of the resources available to you.

 The role of technology.

 Using flashcards and realia.

 Boardwork, Sharing resources with others.

Managing the lesson

 Factors that influence learning.

 Teacher language and the use of L1.

 Pair and group work.

 Engaging learners.

Taking responsibility for professional development

 Peer observation.

 Identifying professional development needs.

 Personal learning networks.

 Reflective practice.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you'll be able to...

 Compare teaching approaches and experience with others from around the world.
 Reflect on your approach to lesson planning and the factors that inform your planning decisions.
 Interpret other teachers' approaches and decision making.
 Identify appropriate teaching resources and assess their effectiveness.
 Develop strategies to continue your professional development.
Who is the course for?

The course is aimed at teachers of English as a foreign language at all levels. Intermediate level
English (around B1 on the CEFR) is required.

Who will you learn with?

Claire Ross
I research and develop courses for teachers and trainers. I'm interested in inclusion,
plurilingualism, and pluralistic approaches to languages and cultures. I have an MA in Education
(online

Suzanne Mordue
I work for the British Council as an E-Learning Consultant for the teacher development team.
This work includes supporting the build of our online courses and teacher training.
Who developed the course?

The British Council is on the ground in six continents and over 100 countries connecting the best
of UK culture with a global audience and providing high-quality English language courses.
 What topics will you cover?

The context of English Language Teaching online

 Contexts: learners and learning

 Strategies for developing rapport and engagement

 Dealing with classroom management in an online classroom

 Key skills needed to be an effective online teacher

 Tips for finding learners and channels to deliver online learning

How to plan and deliver online skills lessons

 Developing reading skills

 Developing writing skills and dealing with errors online

 Developing speaking skills

 Developing listening skills

How to plan and deliver online language lessons

 Setting context

 Clarifying and practising language

 Dealing with pronunciation

How to continue your professional development as an online teacher

 Getting feedback on your teaching

 Evaluating and reflecting on your teaching

 Joining online communities of teachers

When would you like to start?

Most FutureLearn courses run multiple times. Every run of a course has a set start date but you
can join it and work through it after it starts. Find out more
  7 Oct 2019

Join

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you'll be able to...

 Demonstrate the key skills and knowledge needed as an online English teacher
 Plan and deliver lessons to develop receptive and productive skills
 Understand how to develop language skills
 Reflect and improve on professional practice
Who is the course for?

Experienced or recently qualified teachers who would like to transfer their teaching to a live
online context.
How to Teach English to Beginners Using Music
6/17/2017

2 Comments

Music is great, it was one of the things that first drew me to Spanish as a
beginning language learner. I loved the rhythms and melodies and I
would imagine that I could understand all the words. I couldn’t, I still
can’t, even though I am fluent in Spanish at this point, but hey, I can’t
understand all of the words in English and that is my first language. I
remember as a child every Christmas I would loudly and happily sing
“one-horse soap and sleigh!” while singing Jingle Bells until one year I
stopped and listened to myself and thought, that makes no sense. Why
am I singing about soap? There are whole articles devoted to misheard
lyrics and they are hilarious! Here is one about the 40 most misheard
song lyrics in the UK. I particularly like the one in which people hear
"farting carrots" instead of "14 carat".

So if most people can’t understand all the words in

songs in their first language, why is music such a
great thing to use when teaching beginners?
 Motivation- music is a great way to connect with the culture. The desire
to know what a song it about is a fantastic way to stay motivated to
learn a language. I have found that I am most successful in
learning when I fall in love with the things the language does, and what
language does best is sing.

 Music is meant to be listened to over and over again. How many

times have you listened to your favorite song? I would be willing to bet it
 is a lot more times than you have watched your favorite movie. Music
can be listened to in a focused way for learning, but it can also be
listened to while walking, riding the train, doing the dishes etc. Music
doesn't need a desk and a chair the way writing or serious focused
study often does, it can be enjoyed on the go and that can greatly
expand the about of time a student can spend being exposed to
English especially in an EFL setting.

 Music contains the rhythms of the target language (if you listen to
music that was composed for that language). Many songs are covered
in languages other than the original ones they were composed for, and
you probably wouldn’t want to use those to teach rhythm, but songs that
were written in a particular language often contain the rhythms and
stresses of that language. While most people who learn a language past
puberty have an accent, many people can sing completely accent-
free regardless of when they started learning and what level they have
achieved.This article in The Guardian describes how the author
improved his pronunciation in Spanish and Portuguese by singing along
to songs he loved.

 Language stimulates different parts of the brain than speaking

does. The more parts of the brain you get involved in learning the
better. Music also stimulates emotion which in turn stimulates memory,
both great things for learning language. According to Elizabeth Landau
for CNN, "Brain regions involved in movement, attention, planning and memory
consistently showed activation when participants listened to music".

 Music is universal. All cultures have at some point in history produced

music and most of them produce it prolifically. People listen to it during
most important celebrations as well as the everyday events in their
lives. Music brings us together, even in a language class.
7 Things you can do with Music
in Beginning ESL Classes.
1. Listen for the word. Even if your students can’t hear every word in the
song, they probably can hear one or two words. Have students listen for
specific vocabulary, how many times do they hear it? Then have them talk
to a small group who listened for other words. Together figure out the most
to least heard words.

2.Cut up the lyrics to a simple song, listen to it, put it back together, and
then act it out. Music makes us move our bodies and moving our bodies
helps us to remember things like grammar and vocabulary so get your
students up and moving.

3. Song and Video match. Put up listening stations around the room using
QR codes. Let each group listen to 1 or 2 songs and write any words they can
hear. It is important that they only listen, don’t watch the video yet. Then play
the first minute of each video without sound. After each minute, have the
groups discuss if they think the video went with their song or not. They have
to have a reason that they think yes or no. After going though each song,
play the rest of the songs with sound and listen to hear if they were able to
match the song with the correct video.

4. Make your own songs. Give students a short list of vocabulary words and
then give them a choice of different kinds of music (classical, rap, rock, heavy
metal etc.) Ask them to pick 2 different kinds and create lyrics for both using
the vocabulary words.

5. Introduce students to 5-10 vocabulary words in a song before

listening. Then give them either picture cards that represent those words or
written words. They must put the word cards in the order that they heard
them. Then have students compare what order they heard and see if they can
recreate any of the other words. Then give the students the lyrics to check if
they put them in the correct order or not.

6. Choose an easy song and then play like Weird Al Yankovic and
change the subject of the song. Create a funny music video to go with it.
You could show students the Micheal Jackson Beat it and Weird Al’s Eat
it for inspiration.

7. Use music to teach pronunciation. The brain processes music differently

than it processes speech. For a list of 11 songs that will help your students
with pronunciation, check out this blog from Pearson. You can look at where
the stressed parts of the words are and how that changes the way they sound.
I have found that one of the biggest problems in pronunciation is on the
stressed syllable. If someone puts the stress on the wrong syllable it is almost
impossible to figure out what they are trying to say.

Resources that will help you use Music in your

Beginning ESL Classes
Simply Ieva has a wonderful blog in which she shares lots
of ideas on how to teach ESL including how to use music
in the classroom. She also has a post on where to start
when teaching ESL to beginners.

JasonFluency MC uses music to help students learn all

kinds of English. Check out his YouTube channel.

Beginners can be so much fun to teach. I feel that one of

the biggest jobs a teacher of beginners has is to inspire a
love for the language they are teaching. Music is a
fantastic way to do that. Visual images are also very
important so be sure to check out this post on How to
Teach ESL to Beginners Using Photography.
How to Create Great Materials for your ESL Classroom
4/21/2017

6 Comments

When I first started teaching over 20 years ago, the company I worked for was relatively new
and didn’t have any resources to share with us. They gave us a binder full of pages (one for
each day of the course we were supposed to teach). Each page had a different topic on the top
of the page, the rest of the page was blank and we were expected to fill it in with our lesson
plans. Any materials that our lessons required were up to us to prepare. Now this was before
laptops and the internet so none of us had brought our computers because they were so big
and bulky. We were working with pens, rulers, scissors and glue. Needless to say, those first
efforts did not look very professional but it did teach me that even with limited resources, it is
possible to create course materials that are engaging and help students reach their
goals.

Since then I have created thousands of different kinds of materials for my courses and I get real
joy out of designing things that highlight what students can do and help them expand their
skills further. Of course, sometimes they flop and I have to go back to the drawing board but that
is OK. Failure is where we learn right, so don’t be afraid to use your own materials. Students
almost always appreciate teachers who are trying to create courses for them that address their
specific needs and creating your own materials certainly shows them that you are trying.

It is also great to get feedback from your students about the effectiveness of your materials. It
gives you an opportunity to hone your materials creation skills and it gives them a chance to
think critically and express their opinions. You can explain to your students, that just as you
evaluate the work they produce for the class, you would like them to evaluate the work you are
creating for the class.

Things to Keep in Mind While Preparing

Materials for you Class
1. When designing a worksheet, it is important to keep “teacher talking
time” in mind. I have seen worksheets that are so full of text there is barely
any room left for students to do anything. Just as it is a bad idea to stand up in
front of the class and blather on for a half an hour as your students nod off
because they have nothing to do, it is a bad idea to fill your worksheets with
too many instructions. Such worksheets give students very little to do aside
from read, and let’s face it, how many of us love reading detailed instructions?

2. When designing most material for the ESL classroom, don’t forget KISS
(keep it simple stupid). ESL students are learning English so try to keep the
complicated stuff to a minimum. It is hard enough to be struggling with
listening comprehension, grammar structures and unfamiliar vocabulary
without throwing in super complicated game rules. It is also a waste of
precious class time if you have to spend 15 minutes explaining what they
should be doing.

3. It is almost always more effective to show rather than tell. I know that
when someone spends too much time telling how to do something my brain
starts to shut off or I start to feel stressed out that it is so difficult that I will
never get it. If you show me an example of how you want it done however, I
have a much better chance of understanding what you want. If you create
materials for your activities that show in their design what students are
supposed to do with them, just hand out the materials and let them figure it
out. If your materials need a bit more explanation, try filling it out yourself to
show everyone what to do. For example, if you are going to give students a
graphic organizer like the one below, show them an example of what it should
look like.

Different Kinds of Materials you Could

Create
In most of my Turkish and Japanese classes, the only materials that teachers brought in for us
were worksheets, usually grammar worksheets. While I think grammar certainly has a place in
a language classroom, there are so many other kinds of materials you could bring in with you
that will make your classes more engaging. The following are just some of the things you could
create for your students.
Games There are a myriad of games that are ready made for teachers to grab and use
but they won't be focusing on exactly what you have been studying in your classes or on your
unique group of students. I like to make card games using the vocabulary we are learning in
class. Usually I used Canva to make cards but even just a simple table on Word works great.

The cards I create can be used for warm up activities (give each student a card, have them
think of a question using that word and then do a "mixer" style party in which students have to
ask 2 or three other students their question). They can be used to play Memory, Go Fish,
Dominoes and many other games.

You could also make board games, puzzles or role playing games for your students just
make sure that the games are designed around helping your students build and practice the
skills that form the foundation of your curriculum.

Songs I am not personally talented at singing or songwriting but I like to bring music into
my classroom. One activity I like to do is find songs about the topic we are studying, print out
the lyrics for several songs, cut them up, give one line to each student. The students must then
find people who have lyrics to the same song and form groups. Then they have try to figure out
the order of the lyrics before listening to the song to see if they were correct. When that is
finished, they have to perform the lyrics in some way. They could either sing it, act it out, do a
dramatic reading or something else they think of. There are many other things you could do
with music, for more ideas, check out this website.

Reading Passages Sometimes it is difficult to find just the right passage on just
the right subject at the right level for your students so, why not create your own. You could write
passages about your own life; I have found that students often love finding out more about
who we teachers are outside of the classroom. You could write passages using your students
names, that is always a hit! You could also take an existing passage and modify it to better
fit your students' levels. By sharing your own writing with your students, you are setting an
example as a writer and showing them that it is not just something you ask them to do.

Tests - You know exactly what your students have been practicing in your class so you are
the best person to create tests for your students. Think about the goals of your class and
plan your tests accordingly. If the goal of the class is to pass a multiple choice test, your test
should focus on the skills they will need to achieve that goal. If, on the other hand, your
classes focus on essay writing, the test should require them to demonstrate that they know how
to write. I have found that so often, a course focuses on one skill while the exam expects
students to present their learning using a totally different skill. Try not to do that.

Manipulatives People love to touch things and move them around. I remember
one class I taught in Turkey in which I brought in homemade play dough. I was teaching
university students and I can't remember why I made play dough for them, but I had it all laid out
on the table in the front of the class as the students were coming in. The first student looked at
it, smiled and asked if she could borrow a chunk of it. I said sure, then the next student came in
and did the same thing. Soon all of the dough was gone and the latecomers were begging their
classmates for a piece. They just loved holding and shaping it.

I have used play dough to help students play vocabulary games in which students shape the
dough to represent words while another classmate guesses the word. I have used it to help
students identify the most important idea or scene in a story. They create the scene with play
dough, take a picture and illustrate the story.

photographs I love photography so I often bring my pictures to class with me. In this
previous post, I explain in detail how I use photography to teach beginning students. You
could also take your own photographs of your class and bring them in for your students to use
as writing or speaking prompts.

Bringing materials that I have made for my classes is great both for me and
for my students. I have found that when I create what I give to my students, I
have a much clearer idea of why I am giving it to them and how I want them to
use it. Quite simply, I have thought about it more and put more of myself into
it than when I grab something from a book or from some other source.
Creating my own materials also gives me a sense of pride in my teaching. I
love seeing my students interact and learn by using something I made just for
them.

What kinds of materials are you making for your

classes? What are your greatest material making
successes? Please comment below!

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