10 March 2022

Professional Development for Early Years Teachers

Known by Cambridge International as Early Years and by Cambridge English as Very Young Learners and in the US as Early Childhood, this group spans approximately ages 3 - 8. We are pleased to offer the following sessions, just for Early Years teachers.

08 March 2022

Advanced Use of English : Commas and Full Stops

 

Let's eat Grandma.

Let's eat, Grandma?

Let's eat. Grandma!

Punctuation matters, it can even save lives. Join us as we review complex and problematic uses of commas and full-stops in English.

05 March 2022

Effective Classroom Reading Groups; lessons from research

Small groups offer one of the most effective classroom approaches, and some recent research shows what works and what can be counter-productive when it comes to reading development and practice. 

This session reviews the findings from five international studies into best practice at the Lower Primary level (G1 - 4), and provide useful insights for Upper Primary / Lower Secondary (G5 - 8). Although conducted into English Teaching & Learning practice, they are also applicable to programmes in other languages.

22 February 2022

Four Transportation Field Trip ideas for Lower Primary

Teachers often ask how to incorporate learning outside the classroom into their programme, and how to do so cheaply, effectively and in a teacher-friendly way. Field Trips can be the answer, and since transportation is a Grade Four topic in the Chilean national curriculum, combining the two does the old two birds and one stone thing. 

This session provides four successful, no-cost or low-cost plug-and-play Field Trips, and although aimed at Lower Primary teachers, the activities are also applicable to Middle School and can easily be adapted.

17 February 2022

Advanced Use of English Vocabulary, Structures and Usages : Dates

 

Dates are like points in time but don't follow the same rule, and in effect are names for those points. This one-hour single-topic session reviews the names and structures of dates, and other periods of time, and related usages and of course the old prepositional bugbears. If time allows, we may also include a problem clinic.

Advanced Use of English Vocabulary, Structures and Usages : Times

 

Talking of time and talking about time can be more tricky than just telling the time, and while English and Spanish have similar world views when it comes to time, they also have some points (and periods) of conflict.

This one-hour single-topic session reviews names for time(s), challenges with point in / period of, analogue v digital and the time v tense conundrum. If time allows (see what we did there?), we may also include a problem clinic.

16 February 2022

13 February 2022

Effective Reading Checks

 

Class-time is so limited that doing some things beforehand can exponentially improve lesson effectiveness. Two related activities are receptive practice and pre-reading; if a student has already read a text, class work can take advantage of this.

When assigning pre-reading, how can a teacher be assured that it has actually been done? This session reviews eight quick-and-easy, plug-and-play, teacher-friendly reading checks, each of which incorporate Reading Comprehension, Use of English and Speaking. Participants will receive a ready-to-use Lower Primary / Middle School lesson!

Foreign, Second or First - the difference matters

Recently a leading language institute in Chile advertised that they were seeking an ESL (E2L) teacher for an ESL (E2L) programme. Of course they were not; they were looking for an EFL teacher for an EFL programme. The evidence? Classes were one hour long, held twice a week which in an English-speaking country would be insufficient for E2L, but in an hispano-hablante country, impossible.

This provokes two questions. Does the institute, and do teachers and do schools, know the difference between Second and Foreign? Secondly, what is the difference between Second, Foreign (and by extension, First)?

05 February 2022

TKT Core and TKT - Young Learners Examination Preparation

 

Cambridge English ("CEE") offers two certification tracks, one for English Language and one for English Teaching. CEE's teaching certification has three levels, and the entry level is known as TKT or the Teaching Knowledge Test which has six modules, the three "TKT Core" modules and three "TKT specialist" modules. These two programmes will prepare you for TKT Core and/or TKT - Young Learners.