American English Webinar 5- Voice of America: Current Events Activities in the English Language

Another over the top night of AE Webinar 5. Top notch performance by the young future and seasoned super teachers of KB. The subject was based on using Voice of America (VOA) as a teaching tool in the ESL classroom. VOA is helpful resource providing news stories, TV news, podacasts, photo of the day and grammar activities.

Media is good a learning tool, because it contains actual language in comparison to textbooks which use more academic language. News can be a greater hook to students' interests. It can also spark a conversation that will continue outside of the classroom. It is a great source of new vocab. Another advantage is it keeps students aware of events happening locally, nationally and internationally. Moreover, it promotes critical thinking.

One of the nice feature of the news articles are divided into 3 levels of difficulty. Shorter stories and easier words for beginners and it increases in complexity as you advance in levels. Some of the level 2 articles have a quiz and audio files attached. This make for a great way to practice receptive skills. All the articles furnish new vocab definitions at the bottom of the article.  A phenomenal way to increase speaking is by using jigsaw activities for an exercise with the articles.

The TV news is student friendly by including subtitles. You can also prompt conversation by giving students the title of the story and they can predict what the story is about. Another activity is to play the news without sound and let students produce the missing language. 

Another merit of all these features are you can create some good group work activities based on the above mentioned resources.  Check it out yourself, I've included the link.

http://learningenglish.voanews.com/

I-MELT Conference March 16-18 Jakarta

Good News gang, I've been accepted to present a 60 minute breakout session at the I-MELT Conference, Breaking Borders, Enriching ELT Experiences, March 16-18. Universitas Syarif Hidayatullah in Jakarta will be the hosting venue for the conference in collaboration with University Putra Malaysia. My workshop is called, The Role of the Teacher in the 21st Century Classroom. If you're in the neighborhood, come on down and stop by. Please take take a peek at the promotoon.




click here for promotoon

AE Webinar Series 5.2

This is a Public Service Announcement: before you paint "all teachers" with a broad brush, take a glimpse of what I see. These are 22 teachers climbing 3 flights of stairs at 9pm during their one week CNY break. I'm gazing at dedication and passion, I have the utmost admiration for this group who choose voluntary professional development. Bravo!

American English Update 31/1

What’s New from AE?

In this week’s Teacher’s Corner, we present two games that can be used to review many different grammatical concepts.

The second facilitated session of our English for Journalism MOOC will begin February 20.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of Black History Month. Attached is a related graphic with vocabulary for English language learners.

[iIn this week’s Teens Talk, Hannah talks about working at a retirement community and a Japanese restaurant, being on the track team, and volunteering.

	Facebook	Twitter	Link
Teacher’s Corner:  Grammar Games	Do you know the game “20 Questions”?  Learn how to use it in your classroom to review question words, adjectives, and prepositional phrases. Your students will have fun while reviewing grammar! #AmericanEnglish #TeachersCorner	Teach grammar and have fun! Use these 2 games to review grammar. #AmericanEnglish #TeachersCorner	http://bit.ly/TCgames4
English for Journalism MOOC	Are you interested in journalism? Learn English while learning the skills you need for a career in modern journalism! Join our FREE "English for Journalism" MOOC (massive open online course). This facilitated online course begins February 20. #AmericanEnglish  #AEMOOCs	Learn English while you learn skills needed for a career in journalism. Begins Feb 20. #AmericanEnglish #AEMOOCs	tinyurl.com/journalmooc MOOC promo video link: http://bit.ly/AEMOOCJourn
Teens Talk: Hannah	Did you know that many high school students in the U.S. volunteer? Read or listen to this week’s Teens Talk interview and learn more. Use our Teens Talk resource to teach U.S. culture, reading and listening, and vocabulary. #AmericanEnglish   #TeensTalk	Learn about the life of a typical high school student in the U.S. with #AmericanEnglish  #TeensTalk	http://bit.ly/TeensTalkHannah

AE Webinar 5-Fun with Grammar-Bringing Language Learning to Life through Games

Katie Bain and Lauren Whitaker presented the first series of AE Webinar 5. I was the moderator for Fun with Grammar-Bringing Language Learning to Life through Games. A noteworthy group of teachers gathered at 9pm at UNITAR KB for the first session. There were a few alumni of AE Webinar 4 and a couple of new faces too. It was a rainy night, no surprise there.

I want to especially thank Tuan Hj Ramlan Awang Omar, who hosted the event. The subject matter was how to use games for teaching grammar. Normally, students get stressed with grammar. Games are a fun way to use the target language. It is important to note, that games are used only after the intended grammar has been introduced and taught in class. One advantage of using games is teachers can monitor the class by walking around the room and make quick assessments. The night's discussion also included a brief Certificate giving ceremony of the teachers who completed 4 out of 6 sessions from AE Webinar 4.

Welcome New US Ambassador to KL- Kamala Lakhdir

We want to officially welcome Ambassador Kamala Lakhdir to her new post in Kuala Lumpur. Her first visit to Malaysia was in 1990. She has been a civil servant serving the State Department for 25 years. Before she worked for the State Dept., she was an English teacher in Kenya and China. I like her already. She has worked in Riyadh, Jakarta, Belfast, Beijing and DC.

Click the link below to watch a welcome-toon from the great state of Kelantan. I apologize in advance, due to some tech issues with YouTube, this toon can only be viewed from a computer. Unfortunately, pads and phones are unable to access it.

click here to view welcome-toon

Teacher Reviews From Fun With Phonics

Howdy, here are 3 reviews from teachers who attended the Fun With Phonics 5 days training session at AIIS. Please note, the training was scheduled during the first week of winter break; therefore, some teachers could not attend all 5 days due to previous travel arrangements. If anyone in the virtual world is interested in this training for their school, please contact me at:
 englishsquadconsultancy@gmail.com

1. I've attended most of the phonics training classes and I have learnt so much! Br. Khidar's teaching style is great, masha'Allah. -Teacher Aziza

2. For the first two days, Brother Khidar taught us the phonemes, the actions associated to each phoneme, methods to reinforce the knowledge, language games, resources and many more.

Since I was not properly trained to use phonics for teaching reading, I found the training to be very rewarding and meaningful. I was only briefly introduced to the concept back in uni, but after attending the training for two days, I now have much a better idea and practical knowledge to apply the phonics to teach young learners to read. I believe that when applied, students would find reading much easier or manageable InsyaAllah. 

I understand that time is limited, especially that I only went for the first two days, I would appreciate it if he could briefly talk about the limitations of phonics in comparison to other methods. I would like to know how other approaches may complement the phonics approach. However, he may have addressed this in one of his talks that I missed. Overall, the training is very beneficial and kudos to Brother Khidar for the excellent presentation. Teacher Insyirah 

3.The training really helped me. I liked how we learnt that each letter has a specific sound and action.

Teacher Mimi