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March 2000 - issue 3/00
DEVELOPING TEACHERS NEWSLETTER
This month's theme is Film & Cinema as it's nearly Oscar time.
We had the Spanish equivalent in January - the Goyas - & Pedro
Almodovar predictably swept the board. There is obviously
a lot of material on the net about film but the ones that
stand out on my search are the ones providing scripts to films
- see the links below.
This
month's lesson plan deals with the film 'The Beach'
& Leonardo DiCaprio.
For those of you who are new to the newsletter, a brief explanation.
In each issue there is an introduction - the section you are
reading now - followed by a theme. The theme contains ideas
and activities to use in your classes centred around a different
subject each month. Then come the sections on the teacher
training courses we are running, links to web sites for resource
material, free literature sites, news/jobs & finishing with
the PS section of useful computer/internet related links.
I hope you find most, if not all, of the sections useful.
Happy teaching.
Alistair
Please e-mail a friend 'Developing Teachers'.
Thanks. ************************************************
INDEX
1. THEME
2. COURSES
3. LINKS
4. FREE LITERATURE
5. TESOL CONFERENCE
6. JOBS
7. PS
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1. THEME
- Check out any of the following for good material on the
cinema & the Oscars: http://www.hollywood.com
, http://www.oscars.com
, http://www.allmovie.com
, http://darkhorizons.com
, http://eonline.com
, http://www.hollywoodreporter.com
. - http://www.filmsite.org
- an excellent source of info about film. The author, Timothy
Dirks, lists his top 100 all time favourite films - you'll
probably disagree. Lots of other related topics including
the famous film quotes page.
- http://script-o-rama.com
- a massive collection of film scripts. Gone are the days
of transcribing pages of the script to use in class. Just
copy & paste the part you need.
-
http://geocities.com/SoHo/square/3472/greatscenes.htm
- 'Great Scenes from Movies for Roleplay' - an excellent resource
which gives you the scripts, the vocabulary & the functions
used.
- Oscar quiz - check out the Tim Dirks site above.
- Oscars - discuss equivalent in own country - language of
prediction & comparison before 'X will win because...' - language
of past criticism afterwards 'X should've won because...'
- language of dis/agreement with the Oscar results
- Lexical field - actor, actress, star, an extra, a bit part,
producer, cameraman, studio, to shoot a film, still, clip,
excerpt, set, on location, to edit, script, lines, costumes,
action, different genres (western, comedy, adventure, sci-fi
etc), screening, premier, critic, reviews ...
- A good opportunity to review narrative telling.
- Famous film quotes - match film, character & quote - there
are a few in the lesson plan.
- Film reviews - stds could write them for films they have
recently seen to swap around for colleagues to read & add
comments when seen - an on-going mini-project. There are several
net chat groups for stds devoted to this as well.
- Cinema What's On Guide - a similar procedure as given for
the lonely heart's guide we mentioned in the last newsletter
- we would naturally scan a cinema guide so give out one to
each stds & you ask a question, the stds look quickly for
the answer & raise their hands when they have found it - wait
till half have their hands up & elicit the answer & locate
it for those who are having difficulties. Have eight to ten
questions ready e.g.. Where can you see 'The Full Monty? What
time/How much ...etc. It's a very good way of gauging the
scanning ability in the group.
- Making a film - imperatives - do you remember Streamline
Departures - there's a unit which gets beginner stds to act
out a short scene using imperatives from the director on tape
- total physical response - a great effective way of building
up elementary stds store of verbs. A possible procedure would
be to act it out yourself, taking on both roles while stds
listen & watch you, after several times the stds then act
out to the tape & then they write their own instructions in
small groups for a short scene & you can feed in the verbs
they need. The one std reads out the verbs & the others from
the group act - for the rest of the class to observe.
- Interviews with the stars - dubbing - this involves the
class discussing a picture of a film star & writing a list
of questions they would like to ask the person in the picture.
When a series of questions has been complied, give the picture
to a std who takes on that role & the others interview her/him.
A well prepared roleplay then ensues.
- Interview with a film star - one word collective person
- this is a fun , challenging roleplay. There is an interviewer
& three/four stds take the role of the one interviewee. Each
std supplies one word in the response to a question e.g..
Why did you start acting? A:Well B:at C:school D:I A:was B:always
C:involved D:in A:the B:Christmas C:play. Each std has to
continue the utterance so that it makes sense. Can be difficult
but lots of fun.
- Day in the life of a film star - this could come as a continuation
of the previous activity - stds write up a typical day by
way of compiling the responses from the interview - they take
notes when they ask the questions.
- Discussion topics - Does violence in movies influence real-life
events? - Prefer the book or the film? - The film star you
would like to meet? What say/do? - Where prefer to sit in
the cinema? Front, middle, back? Why?
- Roleplay ideas - son wants to be an actor, Dad wants him
to be a doctor like him, Mum is caught in the middle - you
are an actor in the middle of shooting a film & the director
wants to change your lines (reduce them!) & you disagree strongly
etc.
- Have a class outing to the cinema & then use it in class.
- Using video clips - saved for a future issue!
Thanks to Steven Wallace for contributing some of the above.
Back
to the top
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2. COURSES
LONDON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE & INDUSTRY EXAMINATIONS
BOARD FOUNDATION CERTIFICATE FOR TEACHERS OF BUSINESS ENGLISH
(LCCIEB - FTBE)
The British Language Centre is offering this recognised training
course in teaching business English - the only centre in Spain
running this. It is aimed at the teacher who either wants
to get a solid grounding in this area or business English
teachers who would like an official qualification to show
for their experience. The course covers three main areas;
the professional skills required of the business English teacher,
effective methodologies for the business English classroom
& thirdly the basic business concepts & practices that the
business English teacher is expected to be familiar with.
It is a thirty hour course that runs intensively over a week
or part-time over ten weeks.
Other courses we are running at the moment:
CAMBRIDGE CERTIFICATE IN ELT - CELTA
CAMBRIDGE DIPLOMA IN ELT - DELTA
TEACHING THE YOUNGER LEARNER
PRE-DIPLOMA COURSE
TEACHING PHONOLOGY.
You can see brief descriptions of all of the courses on the
BLC web site http://www.cospa.es/blc/ted/ttframes.htm
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3. LINKS
http://www.thisisbritain.co.uk
Not only a news, sports & features site about Britain but
it is also linked up to over eighty local sites that are maintained
by the local newspaper of the area. This allows you to keep
up to date on news in a local community & let your students
know what happens in the local news. Instead of always looking
at national news you could choose an area to draw articles
from & build up interest in the area. The main page has links
to articles from all over the country under headings such
as Hot Topics, In The Courts, Would You Believe It?, Heart
Warmers & Heroes & Villains amongst others - all highly usable
in class. I found an article about an ancient law still on
the books that allows an Englishman to do away with a Welshman.
Reasonable you may think but then it goes on to be just a
bit too much like hard work in that it must be in Hereford's
Cathedral Close on a Sunday & you must use a longbow & stand
exactly twelve yards from the victim. That's local news for
you.
http://eslss.tripod.com/eslnn.htm
More newsletters! Never feel you're teaching out on a limb
again. The British Language Centre - with the 'Developing
Teachers' newsletter is a member of the ESL Newsletter Network.
To sign up for other excellent (and free!) newsletters for
ESL students & teachers go to this link.
http://www.eslcafe.com
This is the famous ESL Café from Dave Sperling, the guy who
was already set up on the net before anyone in the ELT world
realised its potential. This is a huge site with a stack of
useful info, forums, e-mail & an excellent links section -
for both teachers & students. For those attending the TESOL
Spain conference in Madrid this year Dave will be giving three
talks.
http://www.arrakis.es/~chrisv/cjv
This is Chris Vallely's site devoted to crosswords. As well
as the existing crosswords there is a new one each week both
for native speakers & also intermediate upwards stds - photocopiable.
There is a good links page where you can connect to a link
for some software to download that designs your own crosswords.
Back
to the top
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4. FREE LITERATURE
http://www.literature.org
Lots of classics.
http://tech-two.mit.edu/Shakespeare/
Bill's complete works. Why not try out an excerpt or sonnet
in class?
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5. TESOL CONFERENCE - Madrid, Spain - 24th - 26th March 2000.
The theme of the 23rd TESOL-Spain National convention is 'Managing
Learning: Learning and Helping to Learn'. This year there
will be over 110 presentations by speakers on a host of ELT
subjects and there will also be publishers' presentations.
For more information phone Spain 617 864 318 or e-mail marlamiller@grupobbv.com
The web site is http://www.eirelink.com/tesol/sp/
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6. JOBS
I've recently received information about summer jobs in the
UK & Ireland & full-time posts in Costa Rica. The former are
Embassy CES, who have recently taken over the ILC operation.
They have lots of summer work in thirty two different locations.
The contact is Matt Hill, the Recruitment Manager, & his e-mail
is emb_recruit@bsg.ac.uk
.The Instituto Britanico school in Costa Rica contact
is Tim Groombridge & his e-mail is instbrit@sol.racsa.co.cr
instbrit@sol.racsa.co.cr
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7. PS
www.deja.com
A vast collection of newsgroups. My brother put me onto this
after telling me how he got his Walkman mini-disk repaired
free of charge after quoting to the manufacturer other similar
cases he'd found in a newsgroup. So last week I thought I'd
check it out for the scanner I'd promised myself for Xmas.
The pros & cons were discussed - an Acer Scan Prisa 620 U
by the way - & I felt happy going to buy it & haven't looked
back since. It doesn't have to be computer related either
- anything is discussed. Another similar site, considered
better by some, is
http://www.remarq.com
http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/home.
, http://www.guru.net/
, http://www.pcwebopedia.com
After mentioning the http://www.whatis.com
last month here are some more excellent dictionaries of computer
terms all free. Check them out & find which one suits you.
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Developing Teachers' is written
by Alistair Dickinson at the above address.
This newsletter is a free service
of Developing Teachers.com and is Copyright © 2000 Developing
Teachers.com All rights reserved.
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