Novice – Page 2 – Advance Consulting for Education

Using Drama Activities to Teach Pronunciation

There are many drama activities that actors use to warm up their voices and improve their projection, enunciation and overall vocal delivery. Many of these activities can be used with English language learners to help them improve different features of their English pronunciation, such as phoneme articulation, intonation, word stress, sentence stress, volume and pacing. They can also help our students learn how to express emotions and ideas correctly and accurately. In this session we take you through a variety of fun and effective voice activities for you to use with your students.

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Using Debates to Teach English

Debating, a formal process to follow to argue a point or position, is an effective communication task to include in speaking classes in order to give students the opportunity to work on key speaking skills. These skills include offering opinion, agreeing, disagreeing and persuading. In this session, we look at how to use debates in our speaking classes to fully exploit student experiential learning.

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Understanding Nonverbal Communication

In this highly interactive course, we examine the cultural complexities of nonverbal communication. We define the purposes of nonverbal communication in social settings and the ways in which it can be misunderstood in intercultural contexts. We then discuss the significance of paralinguistics in nonverbal communication. Gestures, facial expressions, head movement, and eye contact are explored as modes of nonverbal communication that convey specific social messages. Next, cultural differences in personal space, posture, physical contact, physical appearance and displaying emotion are reviewed to further develop an understanding of the subtle dynamics of nonverbal communication.

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Understanding Different Types of Tests and Assessments

This course examines the different types of tests and assessments that you, as a teacher, might develop or that students might encounter in their path toward greater English proficiency. Due to the wide variety of different test types, it is helpful to develop a vocabulary to better understand the various characteristics of test types. This course will discuss standardized, placement, and diagnostic assessments. It will identify the difference between formative and summative tests and assessments and conclude with a discussion of dynamic assessment.

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The Product vs Process Approach to Writing

Two of the most commonly used approaches to teaching writing are the product approach and the process approach. In this course we will define both approaches and discuss the advantages of each. We will then look at activities to use for each approach. Teachers will come away with a toolkit of writing activities that are appropriate for a wide range of student language proficiencies. The process of writing can seem like a daunting task for our students, but by taking advantage of the product and process approaches, students can learn how to break down the writing process into manageable tasks.

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The Principles of Testing and Assessment

In this course, we will explore the principles of testing and assessment in an ESL setting. We will examine the complex relationship between teaching, assessment and testing within the classroom. We will then explore the 5 principles of testing and assessment, which include validity, reliability, authenticity, practicality and washback. Finally, we will take a look at the application of the 5 principles to various assessment scenarios.

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The Power of Language Use

When we teach language, we often position it as a tool for communication, which it very legitimately is. This is a positive shift from previous generations where language was seen as an academic subject – you learned it, received a grade and promptly forgot it. However, with our advanced students, we want to make sure they understand that language is much more than just a communication tool; we want them to understand the power of language. In this session, we’re going to look at the vocabulary, grammar, discourse and paralinguistic tools that can be strategically used in order to be persuasive.

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The Dark Side of Classroom Management – Handling Aggressive Student Behaviour

In this session, we introduce different frameworks with which to analyze and understand aggressive student behaviour in the classroom. The frameworks come from a variety of academic fields including intercultural communication, education, counselling and psychology. These frameworks are applied to real life scenarios in order to develop practical classroom management strategies with which to mitigate and/or diffuse the aggression.

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Techniques for Fully Exploiting a Listening Text

In this session, we introduce three different lesson patterns to use to fully exploit all of the language learning potential in a listening text. The first lesson pattern exploits the listening text for both meaning and form. The second lesson pattern exploits the content of the listening text for meaning. Finally, the third lesson pattern exploits the language of the listening text for form. With these three lesson patterns in your planning repertoire you can make strategic decisions about how to use a listening text for maximum learning effect with a specific group of students.

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Teaching Multi-level Classes

Many teachers, especially those in rural settings, are faced with the challenge of teaching a class where the students exhibit a variety of English language skill levels. This course will present ideas on how to incorporate activities for a multi-level setting. Rather than planning several activities for a range of proficiency levels, this course aims to demonstrate how one activity can be adapted for use with all students, regardless of the extent of their English competencies.

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Experience Level: Novice