My reflection on Business Result (OUP)

Business Result Intermediate. ( OUP)

I've been teaching Business English for three years and can say without a doubt this course book is the most successfull one as well as its design. What makes it so good? Firstly, it's up-to-date since it covers topics relevant to modern business. By comparison, "In company" (Macmillan)contains too much outdated stuff about the Internet, which made students and me feel quite bored sometimes.

Secondly, Business result teaches a lot of natural functional phrases, sets them under categories and what's more, drills them.

Thirdly, it offers an interractive workbook on CD-rom instead of a conventional paper Workbook and also, it has unit-by-unit online vocabulary support such as crosswords (the link is on CD-rom).

On top of that teachers can get some backing on oup.elt.com. They offer vocabulary flashcards for every unit in the book, which is really helpful for drilling functional phrases and a few BEC Preeliminary resources. You just need to register on this site.

Anything has its merits and demerits, actually. What might be improved in Business Result is Teacher's notes for Case study page or even Case study tasks themselves.

To be honest, the Teacher's book for Business Result seems useless to me, since it gives instructions like " Do excercise 1, do excersise 2 and no extra comments or instructions, it doesn't set aims for a particular activity, unfortunately.

Back to case study page. Every unit case study is supported by a real expert view from a real Management College professor. As far as I'm concerned, it's just a matter of PR.

And in fact you don't know what to do with this piece of text. Just ask students to read it? I mean there's no special task either in the course book or in TB.

Eventually I developed a few strategies to cope with this obstacle.

To begin with, I ask students to read the text and say whether they agree or disagreee with it.
My second question: "Is it relevant to our Russian reality?" If not, why?

Sometimes I ask some students just to read the text and the rest are supposed to read and make up questions to ask their counterparts. Or I ask questions on my own if I want to save time.

How I work with the background article in Case Study. I ask the students to read it and close the book. (BTW, this idea is from TB but it wasn't aimed at Case study article)

While they are reading I'm writing numbers and key words from the article and ask the students to explain my board notes afterwards. (It's fair to say there're a couple of questions to the article in the course book, but the answers seem to be so obvious...). Or if the article has 2 logical passages, I divide students into 2 groups and use a jigsaw reading technique.

What's more about Business Result?

Progress tests from TB checks only Use of English and Speaking skills. To my way of thinking, it's not enough. So I decided to incorporate Practice tests on Reading, Listening and Writing into already existing tests. I used BEC Preliminary resources. My students liked the idea, but now finishing this course I must admit, this kind of testing might prove time-consuming.

All in all, I'm satisfied with this course as well as my students. Hope Business Result Upper-Intermediate is something of the kind.

Efficient Ways to Improve Student Writing

General Strategies

• View the improvement of students’ writing as your responsibility.
  Writing is an essential tool for learning English and helping students improve their writing skills is a responsibility for the teacher.
• Let students know that you value good writing.
  Stress the importance of clear, thoughtful writing. In the syllabus, on the first day, and throughout the school year, remind students that they must make their best effort in expressing themselves on paper (of course it’d be great if they did it in an electronic form.) Back up your statements with comments on early assignments that show you really mean it, and your students will respond.
• Regularly assign brief writing exercises in your classes.
  To vary the pace of a lesson, ask students to write a few minutes during class. Some mixture of in-class writing, outside writing assignments, and exams with open-ended questions will give students the practice they need to improve their skills.
• Provide guidance throughout the writing process.
  After you have made the assignment, discuss the value of outlines and notes, explain how to select and narrow a topic, and critique the first draft as well.
• Don't feel as though you have to read and grade every piece of your students' writing.
  Ask students to analyze each other's work during class, or ask them to critique their work in small groups. Students will learn that they are writing in order to think more clearly, not obtain a grade. Find other teachers who are trying to use writing more effectively in their courses.
  Pool ideas about ways in which writing can help students learn more about the subject matter. See if there is sufficient interest in the topic you give to write about. Provide alternatives. Students welcome handouts that give them specific instructions on how to write papers for a particular purpose or in a particular subject area.

• Remind students that writing is a process that helps us clarify ideas.
  Tell students that writing is a way of learning, not an end in itself. Also let them know that writing is a complicated, messy, nonlinear process filled with false starts. Help them to identify the writer's key activities:

• Developing ideas
• Finding a focus and a thesis
• Composing a draft
• Getting feedback and comments from others
• Revising the draft by expanding ideas, clarifying meaning, reorganizing
• Editing
• Presenting the finished work to readers

• Explain that writing is hard work.
  Share with your class your own struggles in grappling with difficult topics. If they know that writing takes effort, they won't be discouraged by their own pace or progress.

Give students opportunities to talk about their writing.
Students need to talk about papers in progress so that they can formulate their thoughts, generate ideas, and focus their topics. Take five or ten minutes of class time for students to read their writing to each other in small groups or pairs. It's important for students to hear what their peers have written

21st century Teacher:)

Amazing Web.2 Projects

I came across a very nice resource (a PDF) book, I guess. It can contribute somehow to our project.

It has

• 87 projects.
• 10 further resources.
• 52 applications.
• 94 contributors.
  The benefits of using Web 2.0 applications.
  The challenges of using Web 2.0 applications.
  How the folk who ran these projects handled the issues...
  ... And what they recommend you do if you run them.
  What were the learning outcomes?

I hope you find it handy as well.

Here it is! http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4392166/ICT/Amazing%20Web%202%20Projects.pdf

Extensive reading

Extensive reading is believed to have considerable benefits for learners both in terms of learning gains and motivation and seems to be becoming ever more popular in the ELT world.
The idea behind extensive reading is that a lot of reading of interesting material that is slightly below, at, or barely above the full comprehension level of the reader will foster improved language skills. Graded readers are often used. For foreign-language learners, some researchers have found that the use of glosses for “difficult” words is advantageous to vocabulary acquisition.

What are the benefits of Extensive Reading?

* It improves language fluency as learners develop active and passive (sight) vocabulary proficiency
* It can enhance learners’ general language competence
* It leads to improvement in writing
* It teaches learners about the culture of the target language users, which will allow learners to more easily join the L2 speech community
* It can consolidate previously learned language
* It helps to build confidence with extended texts
* It facilitates the development of prediction skills
*It allows learners to follow their interests in choosing what to read and thus increase their motivation for learning
*It provides the opportunity for learning to occur outside the classroom

BUT using extensive reading in a classroom is, by nature, a difficult thing to do.

And teacher's role is to explain the idea and methodology to students, keep track of what each student reads , and guide students in getting the most out of reading in general and set extra tasks based on reading.

Extensive Reading Activities

Some sample ideas for semi-extensive and extensive reading activities

Drawing and designing:

· Design a new cover for your book.

· Draw a series of pictures illustrating the story or main events of the story.

· Draw a map showing where the story takes place.

· Design a movie poster for your book

· Make a time line of major events in the book

• Create a bingo game which includes words like names of characters, places and items from the story.

· Design an advertisement for T.V., radio or newspaper, trying to sell the book.

· Make up a “wanted” poster for one of the characters.

Writing:

· Write a letter to one of the characters.

· Write a diary for one of the characters.

· Make up a different ending for the story.

· Make up a different beginning for the story.

· Have an interview with one of the characters.

Back to warm-ups

Every teacher knows it's crucial to tune students for the lesson. But it's not just the matter of switching them off. The thing is the whole lesson might be ruined if your students don't see the point why you ask them to do this or that task. Actually the aim is not always as obvious as most teachers believe.
If you want to make the lesson on the whole and every stage in particular successful, first of all set aims and provide incentives.
Explain to your students how they will benefit from doing this activity. In reality it doesn't take long. But your students will get focused if not interested.
Another challenge… How to inspire them to learn Unit for instance on Logistics and be involved and motivated?
To begin with, get motivated yourself. When I encountered Unit Logistics in the course-book, for me it was nothing but a word. I was aware that if I wanted to succeed in teaching it, I had to convince myself that it's extremely important. The idea is that you sound more persuasive to anyone when you strongly believe in what you're talking about. What’s more, you need facts to support your opinion. So I talked about Logistics with people whose job involves logistics issues, read an article in Wikipedia and eventually got interested which means ready to teach.
So how to lead-in a new topic which seems to be dull and you want to escape boredom?

Try to use sinquain for a change. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinquain

Logistics
Interesting and boring
Supplies, delivers, delays.
Better late than never.
It makes business life easier.


One girl, she works in a fashion store, wrote:
Shop
Noisy and bright
Invites, assists, inspires
What's good for one, is bad for another
We work from morn till night.

Read more about sinqain patterns here http://hrsbstaff.ednet.ns.ca/davidc/6c_files/Poem%20pics/cinquaindescrip.htm

P.S. I don't think that I'll use this technique on regular basis, but we (my students and me) liked that experience:)

If you got interested, download this worksheet http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4392166/Methodology/cinquain.pdf

One More Idea of Collaborative writing

It’s called Storybird (www.storybird.com), and its tagline is “collaborative storytelling for family and friends.”

It’s a website that allows users to create the stories for picture books alone or collaboratively with a friend or family member, using illustrations provided by various artists.

According to Storybird, “making stories can be social, fun, and easy. Stories are the currency of life, particularly in families. Parents entertain and educate their kids through stories. And kids contextualize and imagine the world through narrative. It’s how our brains work. For us, the goal was to design a service that made storytelling effortless.”

Here’s how it works. A user sets up an account, browses through the work of available artists, chooses an illustrator that he/she likes, and begins writing. A user can add or delete pages; a title page (which can be edited, of course) is immediately added each time a new “book” is created. The works can be created alone or in collaboration with friends or family members.

Works-in-progress are placed under a user’s “Unpublished Storybirds” list and finished pieces are saved under the “Published Storybirds” list. Users can also browse through other works on the site and create a “Reading List.”

According to the site, “making, sharing, and reading Storybirds online is free and will always be free. Printing and premium services—when we introduce them later this year—will have a fee associated with them.”

An entire website devoted to the joys of words, and art, and creation.

For more info:Start creating at http://storybird.com/.

Famous about Teaching

"Every truth has four corners: as a teacher I give you one corner, and it is for you to find the other three."
Confucius

"Teaching is the profession that teaches all the other professions."
~Author Unknown

"A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary."
~Thomas Carruthers

"Good teachers are costly, but bad teachers cost more."
~Bob Talbert

"Teachers who inspire know that teaching is like cultivating a garden, and those who would have nothing to do with thorns must never attempt to gather flowers."
~Author Unknown

Wall wisher

Wall Wisher is an online notice board maker. It gives you a virtual space where you can post short text notes in the same way that you could put post-it notes onto a notice board in your classroom. But this noticeboard can be shared between people all over the world. As well as text notes you can add images, video and links to other websites.

It’s a neat way of getting a shared space to collect ideas from people for a brainstorm. Or to post resources for a topic. Students could ask questions about a topic which you (or each other) can then answer:)

http://www.wallwisher.com
/wall/lightschool


Obviously with any open online space there is a risk of abuse. Wall Wisher only has two mode – one where only you can add stuff to the wall, and one where anyone can add stuff. Obviously it would be nice to have a more controlled protection where you can set people up to access the wall, or need a password to get onto it. You can lock the wall to protect it once you have enough ideas on it.

Wall Wisher is an interesting idea – and I am sure there are lots of ways it could be used in the classroom. I’d be interested to see how it develops, and whether there will be future modifications that allow more control over the space.

Smile:)