Articles

Topical news stories are a great source of teaching material. This article presents different ways to exploit news reports in the classroom and focuses on raising the level of involvement and participation that the students have in the lesson.

LearnEnglish Kids is the British Council’s website for children aged 5-12 who are learning English as a second or foreign language. Find out about the different features of the site and how you can use it in class.

Homework is fundamental for learners to make effective progress. Learning a language takes time and time is something we don’t always have in the classroom.

The Magic Pencil exhibition and website celebrated children's book illustration and brought together the work of 13 illustrators who offered familiar as well as new and varied ways of approaching book illustration.

Children all over the world love listening to songs and most of them love singing too! Using songs to introduce language and revise vocabulary is a great way to help children remember. Having a rhyme, music and actions helps to quickly pick up the vocabulary and retain it.

Fairy tales provide a wealth of possibilities for teaching English topics. Each fairy tale has its own magical setting and is split into several scenes. Within each scene there are sets of vocabulary that you can exploit. Below we will look at a few of the better known fairy tales and highlight some of the possible areas you can concentrate on in class.

Like any piece of authentic material the possibilities for using a sitcom in the classroom are boundless.

In any English class it's important to vary the activity type to maintain interest. You will always be dealing with different types of learners, some prefer solving puzzles and singing songs, and some enjoy working in groups while others prefer working on their own.

Teaching with minimal resources can seem a daunting prospect for those of us lucky enough to work with coursebooks, photocopiers, audio and IT facilities in our schools. Karen Waterston recently returned from Mongolia, where she ran an in-service teacher training course. Here she writes about how she adapted to her new working environment.