This Sunday I went to a teacher training seminar for English teachers hosted by Cambridge ESOL at a conference hall of NTU.

It’s really worthwhile to spend the whole morning there getting new ideas and reflectionsl.

The topics of this seminar are not unfamiliar for English teachers:

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Practical Teaching Ideas: ‘Classroom Management’ and ‘Getting Shy Students to Talk’

For teachers in my school, it is not difficult to keep a class in order. Our kids are quite polite and well-behaved. However, as an English teacher, I hope my class can have more time practicing English, not just listen to me quietly.  

Here are some good ideas I learned in this seminar:

1. Think of my strengths and weakness in my classroom-management.
What am I good at?  What do I want to improve?

2. Use clapping to get Ss’ attention to go back from their activity or oral practice. Anne had shown a good example in this seminar. She used a set of clapping with rhythm to end our discussion and continue her speech.

3. How to help Ss, who have totally given up learning English, to gain the motivation to learn English?

Anne reminded us, teachers need to go into Ss’ world, find out what they are interested in or good at, and give them a chance to introduce their interest to their classmates–in 3 to 5 English sentences. Of course the teacher needs to help Ss prepare for the English part.

In this way, when they are showing their ability in something they are confident, they can get an experience of success and also a sense of achievement in English classes. Thus, they would more likely be more intereted in learning English and using the language to express their ideas.

There are still lot to share, but I’ll just stop here.  

I felt so lucky to be an ET because there are always teacher-training seminars or programs held by different professional institutions.  I can refresh myself from time to time, not restricted in routines.  

PS Rating: 
Speaker:
Topic & Content:
Setting-Up:

Bonus: Bookman Publisher provided good deals for this seminar. I bought several picture books with really good price!