English Book in Georgia (EBG) has a variety of resources to suit your needs.

The aim of EBG is to facilitate the improvement of the English language in Georgia by ensuring that teachers of English have access to a range of current, internationally accepted learning resources.

With that in mind, we’d like to introduce you to the latest in the next generation of technology! It’s called eBeam.

Plug and Play Interactivity that adapts to you.

eBeam Edge Wireless transforms any flat surface into a plug-n-play, interactive teaching experience. And, it connects wirelessly to your computer, making room setup flexible and easy. eBeam Edge Wireless allows you to place your computer up to 50 meters from your interactive space. Connect the Wireless Adapter to an available USB port on your computer and, done! You now have instant access to a fully interactive environment.

Interactive shouldn’t be expensive

No need for costly electronic whiteboards or new projectors. eBeam Edge makes your classroom interactive with your existing whiteboard, projector, and Mac or PC computer.

Interactivity to go

As small as a TV remote control, eBeam Edge moves with you from classroom to classroom. The system combines an interactive stylus with a small receiver that magnetically attaches to any whiteboard in seconds.

A stylus mightier than a sword

Write and draw with it, use it as a mouse. Our two-button stylus makes it effortless to interact with anything on the whiteboard.

The Benefits:

1. Intuitive tool palette gives immediate access to the tool you need wherever you’re working on the board
2. Bring in word documents, take screenshots of the web, annotate on top of everything in Scrapbook
3. With PowerPoint integration, annotate on a presentation and save all strokes as PowerPoint objects
4. Media rich Gallery provides category specific images and dynamic content built into Scrapbook
5. eBeam Home is a quick dashboard to place commonly used apps and programs to help you personalize your eBeam home experience

Our staff, at EBG, can answer any questions you might have about eBeam. To order or to get more information, contact: englishbookteam@englishbook.ge

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Macmillan Practice Online

When you use Macmillan Practice Online to manage your students and classes you’ll wonder how you ever coped before. Want an instant overview of who’s done this weeks’ homework – easy. Or maybe it’s time to keep an eye on that student you noticed having difficulty in the last lesson, just to make sure they’re progressing okay – not a problem. And when you need a record, just print off the beautifully designed reports – that’s one less job to do before you head off for the evening.

We want to provide the tools to allow teachers to teach on their terms, when and where they want. That’s why we’ve designed Macmillan Practice Online from the ground up to be 100% web-based, allowing teachers the freedom to access the tools and language materials wherever they are.

Pearson’s  MyEnglishLab

When your students are using Pearson’s  MyEnglishLab, you instantly have access to a wide range of useful diagnostic tools. The information that these tools provide ensures that valuable classroom time is spent on activities that meet the real needs of your students. Whether you need to extend the contact hours you have with your students, make homework a more meaningful exercise, or want deeper insight into the areas in which your students need more practice, MyEnglishLab is a great solution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gtw0OCoPk8

onestopenglish

Onestopenglish is a teacher resource site, part of Macmillan Education, one of the world’s leading publishers of English language teaching materials.

Onestopenglish is packed with resources for English teachers. All materials are written and edited by our expert team of teachers and authors and are organized into core subject areas such as Skills, Grammar and Vocabulary, Business and ESP, Exams and Young Learners, so you’ll always find what you’re looking for.

• Access our entire database of over 9,000 high-quality resources.
• Find new materials added every week.
• Benefit from a wide range of resources, whether you teach Business English, Young Learners, Exams or CLIL.
• Save time: organize resources and plan your lessons with our exclusive Learning Calendar.
• Don’t stress: let our articles and tips solve all your teaching dilemmas.

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• They are memorable, and so make students remember the language
• They can be great fun
• They cover the same topics as they kids are covering in the English lessons and other classes: animals (Old Macdonald), body parts (Teddy Bear Teddy Bear) etc.
• They are the best way of marking different stages of the lesson
• Students can listen to the songs at home and revise the language
• They provide an easy way of changing the pace, e.g. settling down restless students with a lullaby-like calming song (Incy Wincy Spider etc.) or wearing them out with a manic, lively song (YMCA etc.)
• They provide an achievable challenge for all levels of learner in mixed ability classes, by letting some students just show their understanding by doing the actions while others can sing along or even improvise their own words
• They allow for lots of repetition of the language without kids getting bored (as long as you add variations), vital for learning in small children. Variations to keep it interesting include doing the song louder and quieter, slower and faster etc.

Next question is how songs should be used. Here are some general principles for making a song ‘work’. First of all, what does ‘work’ mean? What are we aiming for when we use a song in class? Here are some of the things we might want to achieve by using a song:

1. Students have fun and are therefore motivated for the rest of the lesson and future lessons
2. Students learn quicker than with other methods
3. Students remember longer than with other methods
4. Students lose some of their inhibitions about speaking out, using rhythm and intonation when speaking, moving around and using gestures etc.
5. Using the song reinforces other things you are working on in the classroom such as discipline, teaching kids to work together, rewarding good behaviour, fostering learner independence etc.

To make sure we achieve those things we will need to make sure that:

1. The meaning of the song’s words can be made clear in a quick and easy way
2. Whether the students understand the meaning of the song or not is easy to gauge
3. The meanings and the song are easy to remember
4. The song is suitable for the students in terms of age, speed, content, embarrassment factor
5. The language in the song is similar to language they will be able to use in other parts of the class and/ or outside the class

Source

Throwing or bouncing balls to drill language

The simplest use of a ball is for students to throw and catch it while drilling something like months of the year or pairs of infinitive and irregular past forms of verbs. This can be done with all three of the ways mentioned in the introduction above – one student on their own, two or more students cooperating, or a more competitive version with more challenging throws or things said to catch the other people out. You could also have one or two people throwing and catching while everyone else chants, perhaps as teams. Other sequences which students can drill include Days of the week, Numbers, Times and Dates, Adjectives and adverbs, I me my mine, you you your yours, etc.

Going beyond drilling with throwing and bouncing balls

Another obvious activity that could be considered one step above drilling is brainstorming as a ball goes back and forth, e.g. “banana”, “apple”, “grape” etc if the topic is fruit. The same thing can be done for grammar by brainstorming things like past participles (“been”, “seen”, “watched” etc) and uncountable nouns. You can also do the same thing for pronunciation, brainstorming words with “iz” ending (“passes”, “churches” etc), words with long vowel sounds (“arch” etc), single syllable words (“fan”, “bar” etc), words stressed on the first syllable (“power”, “waterfall”, etc), and so on.

Target practice games for practicing English

Target practice in the classroom can be played with students aiming balls at the places that the teacher or a student says or writes up on the whiteboard. If you don’t have enough balls for one per student or don’t want lots of things flying around the classroom at the same time, students can use paper (screwed up into balls or made into paper aeroplanes) or one person from each team can throw, with their teammates helping them work out where to do so. To add extra language, you can let students try again if they can describe where their ball actually ended up (“It’s in front of the box” “That’s right. Try to throw it behind the box again then.”). You can also play the opposite game of one person throwing and the other students competing to be first to correctly shout out where the ball has ended up.

Ball actions

As well as listening for where the ball has gone, students can listen for what someone is doing with the ball, e.g. “You are bouncing it on the door” and “You are kicking it”. Students can also race to do the action that is shouted out or written up (“Balance the ball on your shoulder”, “Hold the ball between your knees”, etc), challenge each other to do tricky things (“Can you head it four times?” etc), or think of and do actions that no one else has (“We are holding it with our little fingers”). One person or group can also do a whole sequence of actions that the other people must try to remember, as practice of Past Simple and/ or sequencing language (“after that” etc).

TEFL dodge ball

This is kind of the opposite of the throw and catch games at the start of this article. People try to avoid the thrown ball, and if it hits them they have to answer the question, come up with the next word, guess the next missing letter, etc. If they are wrong, they lose a point or are out of the game. If they are right, they can throw the ball next, perhaps also setting the next challenge. If you and the students can stand the chaos, this works best with everyone running around freely, rather than gathered at opposite walls as in the normal rules of dodge ball.

Article written by Alex Case for UsingEnglish.com
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Describing with comparatives guessing games
One of the simplest games for this grammar point is for one person to describe an object using comparatives until someone guesses what it is, e.g. “It is the biggest thing here, but it is shorter than a giraffe. It isn’t as heavy as a whale” for “elephant”. Wrong guesses should be replied to with another clue comparing the real object with that wrong guess, e.g. “No, this thing isn’t a snake. It isn’t as scary as a snake.”
The objects described can be ones in the room, on a worksheet or on the board – or students can think of their own ideas. Instead of shouting out the name of the thing to guess, students could slap the relevant flashcard, run and touch the relevant classroom object, etc.

Guess the comparison
This game is in New English File 1 photocopiable materials. A student reads out a comparison with the adjective missing and the other students must try to guess the missing bit, e.g. “more informal” from “(Mobile phone) texts are usually __________ than emails”. You could allow one point for other adjectives that are true, but to win or get the maximum number of points students must guess exactly the adjective that is in the original sentence. As with this example, this game can be used as a way of showing the differences between easily confused words. It can also be used to present cultural differences. After the examples on the worksheets, students can make their own gapped sentences to test other groups.

Guess the comparison hint by hint
This is a slight variation on the game above. Students give more and more example sentences with the same missing comparative until someone who is listening works out what the missing word is. Each hint should be linked to the last one. For example, they could start with “The projector is probably the most lalala thing in this room”, then “A car is even more hmmmhmmmm than the projector” etc until their partner guesses that the missing words are “expensive”. The game then continues with different adjectives.

Perfect picture dictation
A Picture Dictation is a task in which one student describes something that the other student can’t see (e.g. something on their worksheet) for the person listening to draw. In one variation, the person speaking is allowed to see what the other student is drawing or has drawn and to tell them what changes are needed with language like “The nose should be longer” and “The glasses should be more rounded”.

Warmer/ cooler numbers
Students are asked to guess a number, e.g. the population of a country or the height of something in the classroom, and are given hints like “No, it’s much shorter” and “Nearly, but it’s a little heavier” until they get exactly the right number. As the comparatives are in the hints rather than the guesses, students should then ask similar questions (from their own knowledge, their research or a worksheet) to test each other in the same way.

Comparative forms race
The teacher or a student shouts out one adjective and students race to shout out the correct comparative form, getting one point for a correct answer but minus five for a wrong guess. This works best with regular comparative adjectives they haven’t seen the comparative forms of before, plus maybe a few ones that don’t match the most common rules such as “more fun”. You could also let them use their dictionaries (racing to be first to find the correct answer) if none of them are confident enough to use their own knowledge or guess.

More activities can be found here