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This show starts off with a quick discussion about the new teacher tips video blog that Matt has put together on DreamEnglish.com called the Teach Kids English Show.  They are short 3-4 minute videos packed full of tips for teachers that are teaching young learners.

Talking briefly about MES-English‘s 5th anniversary on the web, Matt brings in the show’s main topic, Dolch Sight Words.  We first go over briefly what sight words are for those that are unfamiliar and then discuss how Matt found them to be inspiring and exciting in some classes where phonics-only was failing.  For Matt’s class they really sped up reading and the learning process.

Mark has taken the original list and made a graded and short version for his ESL classes.  You can find those downloads and a more in-depth explanation of the lists on the MES Dolch Sight Words Resources page.

We also go over:

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This week we welcome Dave from http://www.learnenglish-online.com.  Dave is working at a language school and international high school in Canada.  Additionally he runs his own website for students to “learn English online.”  We’ll talk a bit about his website and also in general about website building/promotion later in the show.

In the second part of the podcast we discuss Dave’s website.  It offers students listening exercises with videos and music, help with grammar, quizzes, and provides them with a lot of feedback.  The website is growing and the response has been positive for Dave.  Mark and Dave also discuss a bit about how Dave built up the site and any mistakes people might want to avoid in make their own site.  There are also some tips for promoting your ESL website or blog and getting more traffic.

Right at the end, we had some technical problems and I lost Dave, but Dave was kind enough to email me the Game of the Week section of the show that got cut off.

If you have any questions or comments about teaching students with advanced grammar but low speaking competence or if you have any questions about building and promoting your ESL site, please comment below or over at the ESL Teacher Talk forums.

We’d like to thank Dave for coming on to the show and encourage everyone to visit his site Learn English – Online.

Game of the Week: Speedy Subject Verb Agreement

This game is used to practice subject verb agreement in conversation.  It is also designed to improve fluency and speed when speaking.

* Put the students in partners

1. Do/Does

* Student A randomly says pronouns to Student B.  (I, You, He, She, It, We, They)

Example: Round 1

Student A:  He

* After 7-10 words, the partners switch.  After switching, they go to round 2.

Another option is to put the students into two groups and the teacher says the pronouns.  Working through each round with one pronoun for each student, the two teams can have a competition to see which is the fastest.

This game works very well for students who know simple subject verb agreement on tests and in writing, but sometimes make mistakes when speaking.  It is also very good to promote speed for students who still speak at a slow pace.  In general, it makes students think and speak quickly, which gets their brains really working hard.

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Even though it’s February, happy New Year!  Valentine’s Day is on the way and Mark has a new site with some cool teacher tools.  Print With My Pic.com allows you to add your photo to cards, calendars or certificates.  Since Valentine’s is just around the corner, why not send your Valentine a card with your photo!

This week’s show is about teaching holidays.  Every time a holiday rolls around it seems like we should be teaching or working with those holidays and seasons.  This show we discuss ways to teach holidays with beginners to advanced students.

For Valentine’s and other holiday materials, check out the teacher printables at MES-English.com.

If you have any other tips or advice for other teachers out there on teaching holidays, we’d love to hear from you. Please post your comments here or over on the ESL Teacher Talk forums!

 

Game of the Week: Last Card out

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Christmas is upon us … ho! ho! ho! Merry Christmas everybody!  Tis the season, so Matt has a new Christmas Song for you to download and use in your classes: Merry Christmas!  It’s a play-like song with speaking, actions and a matching picture book!  There are a few more resources discussed that are available for download from MES.  You can find all those here, MES Christmas, if you are interested.

This week’s show is about motivating your students.  Matt goes over his three keys for motivation your students and Mark comments and adds two more areas to think about in your lessons.

If you have any other tips or advice for other teachers out there about motivating students, we’d love to hear from you.  Please post your comments here or over on the ESL Teacher Talk forums!

Game of the Week: the Knock Out Race

This is a new board game from Tools for Educators that you can completely customize with images, text only or a mixture of both.  It’s different than most board games out there in that it’s a loop.  So you can practice your content several times and even increase the difficulty or add new tasks with the same content.  It has been a big success in my classes and I hope your students enjoy it!

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This show was recorded back in the summer and a few shows got bumped up, so if you feel we’ve gone back in time, I guess we have But first, we of course have some new things on the web to talk about …  Check those out at the end of the show notes.

Teaching toddlers:

This show goes over some basic problems that come up in teaching classes with 1-3 year olds: short attention spans, running around the room, eating your materials, high expectations of the parents and more.  Each problem is addressed and a few ideas for dealing with each are discussed.

More advice and focus is given to the actual planning and running of the classes:

Quite a bit in this show and we hope some of it is helpful if it’s not all applicable.

If you have anything to add to the show, your own advice or questions, please let us know.  Post them here or over at the ESL Teacher Forums.  We’d love to hear from you!

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New materials from Matt and Mark:

Mark has a new site, 123 Print Calendars.com.  You can make custom calendars for you classroom or for home.  Enter events, class schedules, vacations, students’ birthdays, whatever.  All the text is 100% customizable.

There are all kinds of themes to choose from.  I hope you are able to find something you like.

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Happy fall everybody!

We’ll get back to fall and Halloween for the games of the week, but Matt has some great news for you.  He’s finished and launched Dream English volume 3.  There is a download pack on his website and it contains all of the songs from the 3 CDs plus a few bonus songs (over 45 songs.)  You can also just get the new CD from there as well.

There are bits and pieces in there about how to adapt these ideas to children’s lessons.  We also discuss some ideas and advice for helping quiet students.

There are 4 activities mentioned toward the end of the show to help apply some of these concepts in your lessons.

Games of the week:  It’s a mummy. You’re it!

I just made that name up, but this week Matt has a Halloween theme game that uses some flashcards and game cards from MES-English’s Halloween set.  Using a few cards and playing some Halloween music, you can have a lot of fun selecting students for different language tasks or it can be a knock out game you use at a Halloween party.

There are two more games mentioned that are just party games and might be fun for you to use with your students.

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Mark starts off the show with a description of a few new things MES English has to offer its users.  In the show Mark has gone over his speaking first curriculum and now some of that is listed on the MES English website with links to all of the resources and additional resources you might need.

There are also some new teaching videos at MES-TV.  There are straight vocabulary videos, questions and answer videos as well as interactive question only videos. These are great for non-native teachers and teachers that just want to expose their students to another voice.  Check them out – http://tv.mes-english.com

This show deals with teaching the past tense. The main points of the podcast are:

There are quite a few games and activities listed in the show, 4-5, I believe.  So, this show there is no designated game of the week section, but we hope some of the activities mentioned in the show will give you something to work with.

If you have any questions of comments about the show, please post them here or over on the ESL Teacher Talk Forums at MES-English.  We’d love to hear from you.

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Matt has a few new songs on Dream English for younger children (shapes and more.)  There’s also a little discussion on the benefits of using children’s songs .

Dream English has 40+ free downloadable chants.  They are very popular for teaching languages and Matt and Mark go over teaching with chants.  The main points of the podcast are:

Matt added a free simple background beat clip for ETT listeners!  You can use the file to create your chants for anything.

Later in the show, Mark discusses sentence reduction and incresing student fluency.  He explains in adult classes how teachers can use some chanting to increase speed, fluency and pronounciation.

Game of the Week: the Chanting Game

Matt brings the game of the week this week.  It can be very simple or use more complicated language structures.  It can be used with classes of 6 and up and is a whole lot of fun.  Many variations of the activity are discussed as well.  Give it a try and let us know how it goes!

A challenge for listeners.  What’s a better end to this sentence than Mark’s off-the-cuff  response:

“I have a bird and her name is …”

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The show starts off with unseasonable weather and a circus but moves quickly into this show’s theme, the present continuous.

Matt and Mark go over:

Towards the end, Mark goes over quite a few games that can be used to practice the present continuous.  The games were mentioned fairly quickly, but a couple that have further explanations can be found here: Go Fish, Memory, Slap, board games, and Bounce Around

Game of the Week: the Skit Kit

The activity has many parts and it’s also great for introducing focused target language.  We hope you and your students enjoy it.

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Matt has added some new simple easy songs for 1-3 year old classes.

Mark covers the city, food and animals as examples of thematic units and we hope that gives you so ideas for introducing vocabulary, working in target language, and working in role-plays.  There are also some discussion on the benefits and reasons behind why a thematic unit is beneficial.

If you have some ideas to add or questions about the show, please post your questions and comments here or at  the ESL Teacher Talk Forums.

Game of the Week:  a Shopping Game

This is a game that can be worked into thematic units such as shopping!  Using flashcards or slips of paper with items written on the cards and play money, students have to buy and sell items using language centered around shopping and bargaining.