Newsletter 2021#9

Good morning

As I'm sitting writing this, I'm feeling quite relaxed after giving my plenary for TESOL Greece (I was quite nervous beforehand!). The conference's theme is 'Human Rights in Education, Literature and Art', so when they first asked me to speak, I did wonder if they had the right person... still, my talk was entitled 'It's not what you do, it's the way that you do it...that's what gets results' and I focused on situations where we are in authority as a teacher, trainer or a manager and how we can give feedback in a positive, respectful manner. It seemed to be pretty well received and if you're interested (I warn you, it's an hour long), you can see the recording here.

So, what else do I have for you this week? A heads up for the British Council blog, some great no-prep warmers and fillers that work well online or face to face and some food-for-thought articles from Michael Swan. Let's go....

British Council Bloggers
I registered as a British Council Blogger recently and so I thought that I might start this week by highlighting this in case you don't know it. The British Council Teaching English site is an extensive resource and the blog is just one little corner of it, but one worth knowing about. The posts are written by loads of people on a wide range of subjects - there's bound to be something that you'll find interesting. You can find the latest blog posts here.

A sneak preview
You know that it would just be too tempting for me to write some content and not make a little video of it, so here is the content of my BC blog post. It has three great ideas for using your learners' pictures on their phones in class (online or face to face to face) and there are two versions of the video- the one I made originally for my own blog and one that the British Council animated for their Facebook page. See which version you prefer!

A Website
One of my ELT heroes is Michael Swan. He is one of those people who really speak to me. When I've heard him speak at conferences, or read something he's written, I often find myself thinking 'that's exactly right, I just couldn't have said it in quite that way'. So, this week, to finish off, I thought I'd highlight his webpage in case you don't know it. The home page is here and there are a couple of interesting pages to view including 'Some things I believe' and some of his poetry. The best page for me, though, is this one, where you can read a range of articles he's written for free. He has a very accessible writing style so why not go over there now and enjoy an article with your coffee? If you want a recommendation or two, I love 'Language Teaching is Teaching Language' and 'Seven Bad Reasons for Teaching Grammar'. Let me know what you think.

OK - enough for today. Hope that you enjoy the rest of your weekend and I'll see you next Sunday,

Best
Jo