Adir Ferreira Idiomas

Posts Tagged ‘speaking’

Hello, everybody!

I was reading a little article by AJ Hoge: The Key to Excellent Speaking, and he brings a very interesting way for us, teachers, to improve our speaking skills using movies, check it out:

Only watch one scene or segment per week (maybe 2-3 minutes). Follow this method:
a) First, watch the scene with subtitles in your language. This will help you understand the general meaning.
b) Second, watch the scene with English subtitles. Pause. Use a dictionary to find new words you don’t understand. Write the new sentences in a notebook.
c) Listen to the scene a few times, with English subtitles. Do not pause.
d) Listen to the scene a few times, without subtitles.
e) Repeat a) – d) everyday for one week.

How do you watch movies? Do you have your little vocabulary notebook beside you? If not, then do it! Every new expression is important!

See y’all soon!

Yo, people! How’ve you all been?

I’m going to be teaching this pronunciation course next month via Aulavox and I have done a lot of research and come across some very interesting sentences to practice some sounds. They’re like tongue-twisters.

Voiced T practice

Betty bought a bit of better butter. But, said she, this butter’s bitter. If I put it in my batter, it’ll make my batter bitter.

‘SH’ Practice

Joe’s weather machine shows a sharp drop in air pressure, especially offshore.

Ships in motion on the ocean should be sure to use caution.

‘J’ Practice

A German judge and jury have charged and jailed a strange giant, who sat on the edge of a bridge throwing jelly onto large barges.

Well, these are only some examples. Want some more? Sign up for my newsletter on my website to have news on the Pronunciation Course in March.

Now, as I’m a very generous guy, click here for lots of tongue twisters.

Take care, y’all!

Guys, I’ve found this series of teacher training videos by the University of Oregon and they cover core areas of teaching as Reflexive Teaching, Contextualizing Language, Peer Observation, among others.

Here are the first video for you to check out!

Tell me if it has been valuable for your teaching or if you used any of the activities or concepts expressed in the videos.

See you next time!

Guys, how’ve you all been?

I came across this very good workshop on teaching kids, by a British teacher in Japan.

He’s very lively and motivated and we can learn (and review!) a few things about kids. There are six parts and the first one is here for you.

Check it out and tell me what you think!

See you next time!

I started teaching the little ones (7-11) some years ago and I have discovered great things about them:

- You can’t underestimate a child’s intelligent or perception;

- They learn fast, but they forget fast too!

- They’re highly kinesthetic, so keeping them in their seats is a real challenge;

- Bring lots of extra material (pens, erasers, etc.). They lose their all the time.

- And last but not least, they need routine. And here’s what this next tip is all about.

Always put the date on the board, like this “February, 5th 2009″ and say it aloud every time. This way, by the end of the year, they will have learned the months, some ordinal numbers and the year, naturally.

There’s this very smart girl in my 3rs grade classroom who asked me once, “Teacher, por que você não colocou o ‘th’ no dia?” And it was because it was a third of December. So they notice it!

You can also draw a sun, a cloud and a cloud with raindrops to show what the weather is like that day, and always say, “sunny”, “rainy”, “cloudy”, etc.

Remember: kids learn a lot with visual and listening approaches, make very good use of them!

See you next time!

Hey everybody! After two extremely rainy days here, I am back, at full blast!

Let me share with you a technique I learned last year and it’s working miracles with my adult students.

Take a text with the grammar topic you are studying, for example, the Simple Present, about daily routines. (I just made this up, ok?)

I get up at 7 am, I brush my teeth, then I have breakfast. Next I get dressed in five minutes and drive to work. I start work at 8. At 12 I go to the cafeteria on the corner to have lunch.

Then ask questions (lots of them!) like this and have them give complete answers:

1. What time do you get up? Do you get up at 7 am or do you get up at 7 pm? Do you get up early or do you get up late?

2. What do you brush? Do you brush your teeth or do you brush your hair?

3. Next, do you have breakfast or do you have lunch? Do you have breakfast in the morning or do you have breakfast in the afternoon? Do you have breakfast at night?

Notice that you can practice verb tenses (do/does/third person), prepositions and lots of question words and you don’t necessarily have to give them the translation because you will give them options.

You can also have them write the answers in full, if time allows.

Yeah people, we’re all starting all school year and I really hope to see lots of comments about how you used this and other tips in your classes.

Take care and make sure you come back!