Advanced Use of English : Using Fillers

 

Fillers are a feature of spontaneous and authentic speech and properly managed, serve an essential function however the uncontrolled use of fillers can make a speaker seem unconfident, uneducated, unsophisticated and even unintelligent, losing comprehensibility and credibility. Non-native speakers also run the risk of using fillers inappropriately, of over-using them or of stumbling and hesitating when a filler would have been helpful.

Leadership Philosophy & Practice : developing and implementing a departmental handbook

Effective organisations, such as schools, and organisational units, such as departments, are effective because they have published, available and clear policies and procedures. In short, they have handbooks which define expectations, common language and approaches, historical decisions and precedents, and provide guidance for future actions and decisions.

Four Houses and Homes 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 houses and homes 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.

The three pillars of a Media Studies programme

Media Studies can be a distinct programme, a unit within a programme or interwoven throughout a programme. However you include it, our students need to develop media literacy and sophistication for their individual benefit and for that of society as a whole.

Advanced Use of English : relations or relationships, it's relative

Relations, relationships, relatives, relative, related, in relation to, be related to, the other relations ... international relations or relationships? to be related to or relative to? These are complicated connections. Can you relate? Join us as we explore what looks like an easy distinction. Spoiler alert. It's not.

Cambridge E2L (aka "ESL") Summaries

From our series of Cambridge English as a Second Language (E2L or ESL) Practice and Feedback programmes for teachers and students, this session covers the characteristics of and then writing and reviewing summaries. 

Plug-and-Play Reading Comprehension / Literature lesson : Essay "Fire at Christmas" by Dylan Thomas

Although technically an extract from a longer work, this piece stands on its own and presents what we expect of a reflective essay and as such, is significant as a literary piece.

The text comes from a Cambridge English Literature programme, and is also appropriate for IB Language, Literature and Lang&Lit. 

July 2023

Click on the event title(s) below for more information. Leave your questions or comments below, or contact us for registration information. The events below are open group sessions from our Seminars, Advanced Use of English and Professional Conversation programmes; contact us to ask about scheduling open on-demand or closed private programmes. 

Active Learning : Questioning

Asking questions is a crucial skill for teachers, and is more than just checking for recall. Effective questioning can "can stimulate learning, develop the potential of students to think", clarify ideas, "stir the imagination, and [create an] incentive to act". Join us as we review the role and function of asking questions for learning.

The English of discussing graphs

 

A big part of Middle School Maths is data handling, and a big part of that is data presentation in the form of graphs and charts. This leads to discussing and/or analysing data, which then reappears in Humanities, Sciences and even Physical Education. So let's take advantage of that in our English classes.

Meanwhile, we are not preparing our students for life if they cannot see through a politician's or advertiser's use (or misuse) of graphical presentations.