Well,series 2 of Teaching English Radio will soon be back on the airwaves but just to whet your appetite
today on World Teachers' Day there was a special review programme of series 1.On the programme,the guests were Fitch O'Connell,a reading consultant,Maria Norton,English Projects Manager ,Hafedh Sellami,Primary School teacher and trainer,and Olfa Atalla Galichet,a teacher from the British Council. Hayet Toukabri ,the RTCI presenter,wished all teachers 'Happy World Teachers Day!,especially to those teachers who have very few resources at their schools but nevertheless work hard and are important in their students' lives.
In his role of 'reading expert ' Fitch has noticed it's more difficult for teachers to teach students the skills of reading and for students to engage in reading.Olfa said she had enjoyed listening to the programmes from series 1 and had used many of the ideas and activities which had been mentioned:
'it's been a wonderful experience,the ideas on the programme have been a great help to me!'
During today's programme clips from programme 1,5 and 6 were played.
Re the programme 'Lesson Planning ' the importance of planning was emphasised,with Fitch stating that 'planning gives you confidence when going into the classroom'.
As Hafedh said 'if you plan to fail you plan to fail!.
In regards to Christine Phelps' warmer activity,who now works as English Projects Manager at the British Council in Lisbon,Olfa said she had used the 'picture idea 'of dividing up the students into different groups many times and had actually adapted it for other activities including story telling.
On the topic of story telling from programme 5,Fitch said 'all children of all ages understand the structure of a story,can engage in abstract ideas...everyone loves a story!' He also said it's rewarding seeing the students write their own stories and then comparing them with the original stories.
Patric's idea of using days of the week as a base for a poem was also used by Olfa so programme 5 'Flexible Activities' of using stories,songs and poems went down very well with teachers.
On motivating the students Maria emphasised the importance of incorporating the learners' different learning styles into the lessons and having different activities to cater to their different ways of learning for instance a poster or pictures for the visual leaners. Hafedh said 'giving the students a positive attitude counts a lot for motivating them' and rewarding the students with 'compliments,encouragements in regards to what they say '
to help encourage the students in their motivation.
Finally at the end of the pre-launch programme,Hayet and Maria reminded RTCI listeners of World Teachers Day and the webquest competition.Maria went on to mention the free materials and resources on the British Council websites:Learn English Kids,Learn English Teens and Premier Skills English (for those football lovers!) as great web sites to help learners of English!
Well,it's goodbye for now until the first programme 'Supporting Each Other' of series 2
on the 2nd November!
Good luck with the World Teachers' Day web quest competition!
click here to listen to today's World Teachers' Day programme!
Patric
