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Dramatic Results

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Dramatic results

Roleplaying activities in classes can benefit students in many ways. This fact is well known among experts. In such activities, students can practice new words while using English more naturally than in grammar exercises. However, it’s usually hard to organise big roleplaying activities, like entire drama projects (mostly because of not having enough time or money), which is unfortunate, because these projects can be very good for children. They get a chance to meet new friends and improve their self-esteem.

Of course, the lack of time can really be a problem, but drama projects don’t have to be very complicated. All it takes is children that are willing to participate. Even if they’re shy, they can still work off-stage as script writers; as long as they’re working in English, they’ll benefit from the activity.

Picking the drama to stage can be tricky. You can find a huge number of scripts, especially those adapted for English learners, but it’s also possible to have the students write their own play. This is incredibly important and beneficial for their English education, since they’ll be able to express their ideas using vocabulary that they find themselves.

Everyone can get involved. Even those that are still beginners can have roles that require more movement and less speaking. The only requirement is for everyone to feel like they’re participating and having fun.

It’s also important to make the children discuss the project throughout the process. Ask them questions about their characters and the situations they find themselves in during the play. This gives the children an opportunity to become familiar with the vocabulary of their characters.

However, don’t forget that drama projects don’t just involve English. The children have to act instead of just memorizing lines, they have to be comfortable with moving on the stage, and, most importantly, they have to be confident on the stage.

Drama project preparation also gives teachers a chance to “sneak in” some pronunciation practice. Since the atmosphere is more relaxed during rehearsals, students won’t be too embarrassed to practice some parts of pronunciation that they find difficult.

Naturally, many students have trouble memorizing lines, especially in English. A good idea is to not make the students remember their whole text in one rehearsal; instead, rehearse only scene by scene.

Using drama projects in English class can give you the chance to improve students’ pronunciation, vocabulary and even intonation without boring them. Though staging a play isn’t easy, it’s worth it.

Source : Hill, Trev. “Dramatic Results.” English Teaching Professional, March 2016, 30-32.

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Integrated skills – Vocabulary : Phrasal verbs

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Phrasal verbs: Teaching phrasal verbs using equivalents/ definitions – tips and activities

Tips and activities for teaching phrasal verbs to intermediate students and above.
Introduction | Stage one | Stage two | Stage three | Stage four | Stage five

Anchor Point:introIntroduction

Many phrasal verbs can be said or written another way. This can be a Latinate one-word equivalent (to put out a fire is to extinguish a fire) or by a series of words (to get on well with someone is to have a good relationship with someone). Whether it is one or several words, many learners of English tend to favour the non-phrasal verb equivalent. This often makes them sound formal:

“Can I remove my shoes?” and sometimes inappropriate “Just a minute, let me extinguish my cigarette”.

It is important to point out to learners that phrasal verbs are often a more informal way of saying something, and as such they are more common in spoken English than in written English. When teaching phrasal verbs according to their equivalents, it is not enough just to have a simple matching exercise. There must be some opportunity to use the language.

In the lesson at the bottom of the page the phrasal verbs and their equivalents are all personalized with a Find Someone Who activity.

Aim: To present and practise 12 phrasal verbs

Level: Intermediate and above

Anchor Point:1Stage one

Distribute the worksheets and explain the Find Someone Who activity. The learners must go around the class asking each other questions to find a person who fits one of the sentences. When they find that person, they write their name in the space. Write the first two sentences on the board and elicit the question for each (Do you recover from illnesses very quickly? Do you often begin arguments with strangers?) Tell them that they cannot have the same name written down more than two times during this exercise. Instruct everyone to stand up and begin the activity.

Anchor Point:2Stage two

After five to seven minutes, stop the activity and ask learners to sit down. Do some feedback on the activity, asking what learners found out about each other. Tell them that today they are going to learn some phrasal verbs related to the Find Someone Who activity they have just completed.

Anchor Point:3Stage three

Distribute the second worksheet. Ask learners to match the phrasal verb to its equivalent. To help them, each phrasal verb is listed with some common collocations (words that go with other words). Tell learners that they can look at their original Find Someone Who worksheet for more help.

Answers: a) 8 b) 1 c) 2 d) 7 e) 9 f) 12 g) 10 h) 3 i) 4 j) 11 k) 6 l) 5

 

Anchor Point:4Stage four

Write on the board the following phrasal verbs: bump into, get over, launch into, get on well with, give back, put out, talk over, bring up, put off, take off, look into, take down. Tell learners to rewrite the completed sentences from the first worksheet (Find Someone Who) using the phrasal verbs on the board. Tell them that they must try to do this without referring back to the second worksheet.

Answers

____ gets over illnesses very quickly; ______ often launches into arguments with strangers;
 ____ borrows things but sometimes doesn’t give them back; _____ has looked into changing jobs/schools recently; _____ gets on well with his/her brothers and sisters; _____ was brought up in the countryside; ____ puts everything off until the last minute; ____ likes to talk things over before making a decision; _____ never takes down notes in class; _____ bumped into an old friend last week; ______ has put out a fire; _____ doesn’t take off their socks when they go to bed.

Stage five

Ask learners to write an original sentence about themselves using each of the phrasal verbs in their notebooks. Learners could do this for homework.

Source : www.onestopenglish.com
Articles

Catching up with the Trail blazers

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Catching up with the Trail blazers

The Trailblazer Awards, run by the Society of Young Publishers in partnership with the London Book Fair, aim to highlight young publishing professionals in their twenties who have already done great things in the industry. The first ceremony was held in February this year, and the winners have been keeping busy since.

Ella Kahn and Bryony Woods (Diamond Kahn and Woods Literary Agency):

  Kahn and Woods won a joint award for their work at the Diamond Kahn and Woods Literary Agency, launched in 2012. According to Kahn, working at the agency has given her “the chance to work in close collaboration with authors, and to be involved with them in every step of the publishing process, rather than just one particular stage of it”. Since the awards, they’ve been signing new authors and brokering deals. Some of their children’s authors have already added to the agency’s success, with David Owen’s Panther shortlisted for the Sheffield Children’s Book Award. At the same time, however, they both agree that literary agents are finding life harder in recent years due to the rising popularity of self-publishing among authors. Yet, they remain optimistic. “There will always be demand for books and authors-and for agents who can negotiate the best deals in a fast-changing market and protect those authors’ rights and interests.”

Clio Cornish (Harlequin):

 For Cornish, an editor at Harlequin, being named as a 2016 Trailblazer “really was a genuine honour and career highlight.” Like Kahn and Woods, she hopes that publishing remains relevant. “Authors have an ever-increasing number of routes to market on offer–which means that, as publishers, we need to offer the best service possible.”

 

Nick Coveney (Kings Road Publishing & Blink Publishing of Bonnier Publishing Group):

  As the Head of Digital and Social Media at Kings Road Publishing and Blink Publishing, Coveney has a good understanding of the digital market. “We’re definitely going to see things change again in the ebook market soon,” he claims. Though mobile and cloud-based reading is growing at a slower rate in the UK than elsewhere, Coveney believes that there will be “a second of third-wave with ebook sales spiking, but when it’ll come and exactly what it will look like is hard to predict.”

George Burgess

 George Burgess, the Co-Founder of the Edtech Founders Exchange and Founder and CEO of the UK’s most popular exam preparation app company, Gojimo, was just 17 when he created his own A Level prep app. Now, only a few years later, one out of five A Level students uses Gojimo to revise. “It’s an honour to have been named a Trailblazer”, says Burgess. “I think it’s a testament to the innovative work we’re doing at Gojimo. Since winning the Trailblazer award we’ve been working hard to prep for the exam season. This included the development of our new product, Gojimo Tutor, which goes live this month, as well as improving our existing revision app. It is now being updated every three weeks and we’re already seeing a quarter of a million users revising with it each month, and that number will only continue to increase through June.”

 

Source : Kirkbride, Jasmin “Catching up with the Trailblazers’.” London Show Daily, April 2016, 27

Professionals

Here’s How to Make Money Doing Anything

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Reflect on what matters to you
The first barrier to pursuing an interest — especially one outside our mountain of daily responsibilities — is recognizing that it’s worth our time. We get trapped in the flurry of to-dos and even when we have a free moment, a Netflix binge tempts us more than working on self-improvement. But disconnecting from routine is crucial in assessing whether you’re really satisfied or ignoring your needs. Take a walk or weekend away and ask yourself some tough questions. Are you burying what you want to do under what you “should” do? If you were unshackled from the choices you’ve made, what would you do with your time? Your answer might be “working with animals,” or it might in fact be “watching bad reality TV until my eyesight worsens.”

Take small steps
Even after you’ve vowed to allot time to an interest, maintaining momentum can be a challenge — particularly when you’re first starting out and the end goal feels light years away. When momentum lags, remember that accomplishments are the aggregate of small steps. Start by doing one small thing a day in the vein of your interest. It could be following someone on Twitter who does what you love, writing a blog, making a craft or just watching a YouTube tutorial. This will allow you to slowly incorporate more of what compels you into your daily life — and with the cumulative power of tiny actions, you’ll soon find you’ve made progress.

Tell people what you’re doing
When someone is watching us, we hold ourselves to a higher standard. Stay on track by cultivating a community of supporters to keep you accountable. Join an online group of people with like-minded interests, attend Meetups, go to conferences or just announce to Facebook you’re starting a new pursuit. Not only will it keep you beholden to your goals, but it can also lead to jobs, collaboration and opportunities you wouldn’t have otherwise known about.

A career is a container, nothing more. The traditional model forces you to commit to a career in high school or college and then reverse-engineer yourself into it. The interest-based approach suggested here is the opposite. It’s expansive. Instead of leaving with a narrowed-down version of what you could be, this approach broadens the scope of what’s possible for you.

Professionals

Hey, You! Try These 5 Ideas to Stay Focused While Working Online

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Let’s face it, we’re surrounded by distractions. Whether you’re working from the quiet of your office, your dining room table or the local coffee shop, things are going on all around you that try to capture your precious attention.

Even in the most quiet of places our own technology seems to be working against us with obnoxious popups, noisy alerts and new tabs opening with almost every click of the mouse. What can we do to remain focused amidst the barrage of distractions on our senses?

1. Use technology to keep on track.
There are some interesting technologies, built specifically around focus, that can help keep you engaged on your tasks. One that is particularly helpful is called Momentum — which displays a beautiful scenery shot on the new tabs that you’re opening and has a spot for you to define your particular area of focus throughout that particular day.

The beauty of Momentum is that it distracts you when opening new tabs with an incredible landscape photograph, while reminding you of your focus point for the day, all in attempt to keep you from opening 23 subsequent tabs — which is clearly a focus disaster.

2. Close your email.
This is one that is a big struggle for everyone. Close your email when you’re not specifically working on reading or sending emails. The problem is, when your inbox remains open you’ll see the little icon that tells you you’re receiving new email, which is going to naturally pull you away from whatever you’re working on, and thus, kill your focus.

3. Say no to social.
This seems like a pretty straightforward one, but it’s important to bring up. Stay away from social networks. Yes, that video of the tiny Chihuahua playing with the giant dog is highly entertaining, but all you’re going to end up doing is meandering through the wormhole they call Facebook, only to realize that all of your “friends” are lying to the world about how awesome their lives are — and now it’s been two hours and you’ve accomplished absolutely nothing.

4. Turn off your cell phone alerts.
The noises that our pocket computers make throughout a given day are like a little electronic orchestra of distraction. Unless an alert is of immense importance — meaning that if you don’t respond to the particular need in five minutes or less, you’re going to spontaneously explode — just turn them off. It may be a bit uncomfortable at first but you’ll get used to it and your focus will improve greatly.

5. Tape your computer.
Take a 25-centimeter-long piece of masking tape and write yourself a question on it with a marker, then stick the tape along the top edge of your computer screen.

Examples of a question could be, “Is what you’re doing productive?” or “Is this going to grow your business?”

This may seem a bit ridiculous, but there isn’t a more simple way to remind yourself to stay on task than have an obvious question that has an obvious answer smacking you in the face every time you look at your monitor.

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Professionals

8 Ways to Radically Increase Your Productivity

Productivity

1. Change your environment.

Making slight changes in your working environment will make a huge difference in your willingness to work. When you shift things around it makes work feel new again which is great for re-igniting motivation.

To be more productive do some of your work outside of the office or redecorate your office and add more color. See what would happen if you sat on the other side of your desk to face a new wall or window. Try adding soft music or white noise. It is also of great benefit to add some form of life such as plants, fish or a fountain for the sound of water.

Changing the appearance and location of your working space helps you to think in different and more innovative ways. The more innovative you are the more you thrive in business.

2. Strive to be your best.

Always envision yourself as being your “ideal successful self,”  that part of you which is out in front encouraging you forward. This part of you is holding up the guideposts, ideas and possibilities for your growth, happiness, expansion and success.

Work backward from your “ideal self” by setting small, incremental goals for each area of your business. Keep your mind focused on the positive. Before you know it, you will be thriving at higher levels than you ever anticipated were possible.

To succeed at these levels you must not only be a great starter but an even better finisher. Accept that you may get redirected on your path, but strive to have the resilience never to quit. Hold the belief that if you can dream it, you can achieve it.

3. Change your patterns.

When you break routines you essentially create new life. Habits are easy but there is no risk because habits are lazy. You cannot succeed stuck inside the traps of familiarity and comfort. To increase your productivity you must be creative and brave.

Make healthy changes to your diet. If you go to the gym after work, try raising your heart rate before you get to the office. If you feel tired during the day get up, move around and change your scenery. Spend time outdoors. Leave your cubical and go out for lunch.

Expand your perspective by changing patterns and breaking outdated habits.

 4. Shift your priorities.

Your daily schedule is a reflection of your deepest priorities. If your calendar is booked up with meetings and other responsibilities, with no free time for fun, family and friends, you are missing out on the juiciest parts of life.

To inspire your passion for work, make sure to schedule time for yourself. On a plane they always tell you to put your oxygen mask on before helping someone else. Once you have scheduled personal time to refuel, then block times to enjoy with family and friends, adding joy and vitality to your life.

In your last moments of life, you are not likely to look back and wish you had spent more hours in the office.

5. Invest in personal growth.

The responsibility for achieving success is on you. Make the effort to keep yourself in a place of personal expansion, whether that means going to seminars, meeting weekly with a coach or therapist, reading books and writing down goals, or making the commitment to become fully knowledgeable in your field of service.

Life is your greatest mentor. View every challenging situation as a necessary lesson. Utilize people and sitautions, which are against you, to create such a deep stirring within you that they serve as a counterforce motivating you to be even more successful. Allow people and situations to help refine your skills and, ultimately, drive you towards levels of success you may not have been able to reach without those types of pressures.

6. Change your circle of influence.

The people with whom you surround yourself profoundly influence you. If you are lacking motivation and feeling down, it might be time to upgrade your circle of influence. Negativity is contagious, as is positivity. Those closest to you should bring out your best qualities and inspire you to work harder.

The best-of-the best, have the best-of-the best as mentors, friends and partners. Learn as much as you possibly can from other successful, fulfilled people who want to share their wisdom with you. When you spend time with successful, happy, fulfilled people you elevate your own personal productivity, so choose wisely.

7. Change your thoughts.

You are what you think. You cannot think negatively and have unlimited success. If you think negatively about business and finances, your subjective experience will be a lack of both, whether or not that is true in reality.

Discipline your mind towards the goals of what you want your productivity to look like and start putting the effort in right now to get there. Keep in mind that suffering over your own suffering doesn’t work.

Know the negative thought patterns you hold which require change and be deliberate in changing them.

8. Be authentic.

There is nothing more success promoting than having a natural and understated charisma about yourself. When you are committed to respecting yourself you exude a quiet confidence. Your focus is on being genuine, kind, strong, courageous, intelligent, successful, steadfast and fulfilled.

Be successful, not boastful. All successful businesses are built upon the foundation of good relationships. In being authentifc, you are who you are and who you are doesn’t change from person to person or situation to situation. This authentic quality builds trust into your relationships. In business, take care to cultivate relationships that can be depended upon and which serve both parties equally.

These changes are not easy. Each requires a deliberate change of habit. However, because reaching for those higher levels of business productivity is critical to your overall success, it is certainly cause for some radical changes and the outright shattering of your outdated habits. Great things can come only from feeling passionate and motivated every day for your work, for your family and for yourself. In this way, your success is a win for you and a win for those who depend on you.

Professionals

How to Be Smarter

By Steve Tobak, Author and Managing Partner, Invisor Consulting

 

When we’re young, life just seems to happen without us having much say in the matter. Then responsibility begins to shift from our parents to us. From that point forth, our own decisions and circumstance dominate our lives. Those two factors are largely responsible for how things turn out for us. And the two are intimately related.

We often observe how successful people make their own luck, but that’s really just another way of saying they make smart decisions when it comes to taking risks and creating or capitalizing on opportunities. So success in business – and in life, I would argue – is primarily a function of making smart decisions.

Since every decision you make is based entirely on your own thoughts and feelings –how your brain processes experiences, events, and information from a variety of sources to draw conclusions – it’s actually not that complicated to determine how to make smarter decisions. This is how you do it.

Be present in the moment.

The first time I told the story of how an ex-girlfriend’s father took me in his Porsche to visit his startup company, where I learned about the coming wave of digital electronics (that was the late 70s, mind you), I remember thinking, what if I hadn’t been paying attention to the guy?

There have since been maybe seven or eight similarly critical random events that changed my life. And if I hadn’t been engaged in the moment they would have simply passed me by. I never even would have known I missed them. And where would I be today? It’s a sobering thought.

Trust your instincts.

Using the same example, what if that simple event hadn’t resonated with me the way it did? What if I hadn’t jumped right on it without hesitation and capitalized on the opportunity? I never would have gone back to grad school, gotten into the high-tech industry, and had an awesome 20+ year career.

When it comes to decision-making, listen to what smart, knowledgeable people say but, in the end, you have to make the right call. If you learn to trust your gut, you won’t hesitate when what you’re hearing is right. And when you do hesitate, you’ll know it isn’t right.

Think critically.

The more you allow yourself to be overloaded by information, interrupted by communication, and bombarded by distraction, the less time and attention you have left to focus on what really matters and question the accuracy, efficacy, and applicability of what you’re learning and experiencing.

Let me say it another way. By opting for quantity of information, communication, and possessions over quality, you sacrifice deep understanding through logical reasoning in favor of the next shiny object, inspiring post, or other feel-good nonsense that grabs your ever-shrinking attention span.

You would not believe how much dumber that makes you. Without logical constructs like deductive reasoning and the scientific method, our society would never have progressed. There would be no technology. We’d all be stuck back in the dark ages. Stop and think about that for a minute … without checking your phone.

Stay sharp.

Every time I see some popular and unsubstantiated nonsense about a miracle diet, pill, vitamin, or nutritional supplement that’s supposed to do magical things like make you thinner or smarter, it drives me nuts. None of that stuff works, folks. They’re all scams – moneymakers courtesy of our quick-fix culture.

Look, your brain is part of your body, right? Think. Just eat a good variety of reasonably healthy stuff, don’t eat too much, get out and exercise once or twice a week, and you’ll be fine. If you keep your body in pretty good shape, guess what? Your mind will come along for the ride and maintain its plasticity as you age.

One last thing. There’s been some negative stuff about caffeine from questionable sources, lately. Don’t believe it. It’s an amazing and, read my lips, naturally occurring stimulant. For the vast majority of you, a cappuccino or a few cups of tea a day will not harm you. And it will make you sharper. No kidding. As with anything, just don’t overdo it.

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