Nik's QuickShout: teacher training

Showing posts with label teacher training. Show all posts

Sunday, 17 March 2019

Bite-Size Teacher Development from Language Fuel

Over the last few weeks, I have been looking through LanguageFuel's online courses for EL teachers.

They have a great selection of teacher development courses, around 35 at present, with some really interesting content and a great selection of different topics, that vary from basics like Using Flashcards to more complex issues like Intercultural Awareness.

The courses are ideal for short bursts of study on your laptop or mobile as they have been divided into bite-size learning tasks and input. To do a complete course takes between 15 mins and about an hour.

The main content is delivered through a mixture of text, interactive activities and animated videos which visually reinforce the concepts being introduced.

Many of the courses also include some useful practical tasks that you can try to do with students and some templates for classroom planning or activities.

What I particularly liked about the courses was that many of them integrated some digital skills development for teachers and links to useful web-based resources which can help save some time with the day to day business of planning and delivering lessons.

These courses are great for novice teachers or to fill in or refresh some knowledge gaps for more experienced teachers.

Language Fuel is still at quite an early stage at present so it will be interesting to see how they grow and what else they come up with.

You can join their community for free (https://www.languagefuel.com/community-membership) and this also gives you access to their facebook group at: https://www.facebook.com/LanguageFuel/

The courses aren't free, but they are very reasonably priced and one price covers all courses. You can get a free 14 day trial at https://www.languagefuel.com/memberships
If you sign up for premium membership you can also get private one to one training through video conference.

Language Fuel is a great way to boost your training, especially if you are working in isolated conditions as so many teachers do these days.

Sign up for my monthly free newsletter and get more tips and reviews like this one and a free copy of Digital Tools for Teachers at: https://tinyletter.com/technogogy/

My Books:

Best

Nik Peachey

Tuesday, 7 November 2017

Becoming a Technology Teacher Trainer

I’m really proud to announce the release of the second edition of my Digital Tools for Teachers ebook and also the Trainers’ Edition which should enable any teacher with a basic knowledge of technology to run teacher training and development courses and sessions for pre-service and in-service teachers.

The two ebooks are available for both iOS/ Apple devices as well as in a PDF version that can be used on any reader, smart phone or computer.

The Second Edition of Tools for Teachers contains a new chapter on games and gamification with X links to games and game type resources that you can use with your students to develop their language skills. In addition to this the other chapters have had some 30 additional tools added.

The teacher trainers’ edition includes all the extra materials mentioned above as well as 3 additional chapters to enable any teacher to use the book for teacher training and development purposes.

These chapters include tips and advice for trainers, more than 20 teacher training activities that exploit the resources in the book and a chapter on digital tools for trainers that can enable them to deliver paperless digital training sessions.

The Second Edition of Digital Tools for Teachers is available from

The Trainers’ Edition of Digital Tools for Teachers is available from

I hope you find these books useful and they help you to develop your own teaching and the teaching of others as well as the learning potential of your students.

My Books:

Best

Nik Peachey

Monday, 23 October 2017

Digital Skills for Teachers - World of Better Learning

I’d like to share a short series of articles I have produced for the Cambridge University Press blog - World of Better Learning.

The series looks at the impact of digital technologies on classroom practice and the kinds of skills teachers need to ensure that they help their students to take advantage of the opportunities that increasing classroom access to the Internet can offer.

Digital skills that teachers need for the connected classroom #1: Backchannels
In this first article I look at how classrooms are becoming increasingly digital and how this impacts on how we manage classroom interaction and the tools we use to do this.
Digital skills that teachers need for the classroom #2: Setting up collaborative digital writing tasks
In this article I look at how we can leverage digital devices in the classroom to make writing activities much more collaborative and engaging.
Digital skills that teachers need for the classroom #3: The ability to crowdsource information
In this article I look at how we can use web based tools in the classroom to push more autonomy and learning responsibility onto students.
4 Tasks and 4 Tools for Creating Digital Narrative
In this article I look at how we can use technology to encourage our students to become creative producers or web content rather than passive consumers.
Creating Mobile Worksheets with QR Codes
In this article I look at how we can use QR codes to make more of our worksheets digital and accessible on our students’ mobile devices.
6 tools and tips for taking control of your teacher development
In this final article I look at how we can use technology to take control of our own learning and development.

You can find more tools and activities like these in my ebook 20 Tech Enhanced Activities for the Language Classroom.

The book is available on iOS or as PDF for other devices.

Sign up for my twice monthly free newsletter and get a free copy of Digital Tools for Teachers at: https://tinyletter.com/technogogy/

My Books:

Best

Nik Peachey

Monday, 3 October 2016

Exploiting Infographics for Digital Literacy and Critical Thinking

This is just a short post to anounce the publication of my new ebook 'Exploiting Infographics for Digital Literacy and Critical Thinking'.

Exploiting Infographics follows on from 10 Lessons in Digital Literacy, which is a collection of lesson plans based around infographics, and looks in more depth at the genre and how infographics can be used as both sources of information and as creative learning tasks for students.

The tasks that accompany the infographics are intended to encourage students to think more critically about the information they are exposed to and to question the sources of information they find whilst browsing the internet. Exploiting Infographics should help teachers to start creating their own tasks, activities and lesson plans for students and to integrate infographics in a way that will enhance students’ critical thinking, digital literacy, language and communication skills. Exploiting Infographics was conceived as part of The Digital Classrooms Series which started with the award winning Digital Video - A Manual for Language Teachers.

The series is intended to help teachers, teacher trainers, materials writers and course designers integrate digital technologies into their classroom practice in a pedagogically sound and impactful way. I hope you enjoy these books and find them useful. Related links:

My Lesson Materials

Nik Peachey

Tuesday, 10 November 2009

How to Sheets

I've just been creating some training tasks and materials which I'll be using later this week. As part of that I've created a few easy 'How to' sheets showing some basic functions a four Web 2.0 type apps and have published these on Scribd.

There will be more of these to come later, along with the exploratory tasks that go with them, but for now here are four how to sheets that you can either use online or download / photocopy to use with students or trainee teachers.

How to create online presentations and import videos from YouTube using 280Slides
How to create an online journal using Penzu.com
How to create and change the appearance of word clouds using Wordle
How to create an animated movie using Dvolver

I hope these are useful and look out next week for a few more and for some learning tasks for trainee teachers too.

Related links:

Best

Nik Peachey

Thursday, 10 September 2009

Web 2.0 Tools for EFL ESL Teachers

This has been a pretty busy week for me, mainly because I delivered my first online technology training presentation (8th September 2009) using the Adobe Connect Pro platform. I have to thank Jürgen Wagner and Verena Heckmann, e-learning specialists at the Landesinstitut für Pädagogik and Medien in Saarbrücken Germany, for offering me this opportunity to get online and promote and share some of the technological tools and activities I believe can be so helpful to EFL and ESL teachers.

The complete two hour session was recorded and can be viewed online (warts and all), so if you would like to hear me talking and displaying some of these tools then you can go to:

Nik Peachey on Web 2.0 in the EFL Classroom

My advice is to jump the first 20 mins (Me defining Web 2.0) and get straight into the good stuff (the tools and how to use them).

I also prepared a 53 page booklet to go with presentation. and you can look over it below or you can download your own copy here: Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers (8Mb PDF)

Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers

Feel free to print and share the booklet or sections of it if you find it useful and by all means leave a comment if you have any suggestions for the next edition.

Related links:

Best

Nik Peachey

Thursday, 6 August 2009

Teaching EFL ESL in Second Life. Really?

Is there a teaching degree required for teaching EFL ESL in Second Life? I will be meeting up with Dennis Newson and anyone else who is interested to chat about my experiences in Second Life and what I see as the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to delivering English language instruction there.

If you are interested and want to come along and listen or join the conversation, then come along to Dennis's Office: http://slurl.com/secondlife/EduNation%20III/171/232/22 at 18.00 GMT on Sunday 16th August 2009.

Hope to see you there. Sign up if you are interested in attending. No obligation though.

Related links:

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Nik Peachey

Tuesday, 14 July 2009

What are you Wanted for?

I just came across this collection of fun photo adapting tools and thought this one that enables you to create a 'Wanted' poster from your own image could be a useful one to use with students or on teacher training courses.

It's really easy to use, you just upload an image and then write in your own caption. You can then download and print the images or add them to blogs or web pages.

There are a number of ways you could use this with your students:

As a writing prompt - Get them to create their own 'Wanted' poster with their own captions and then exchange the posters and get someone else in the class to write the story of how they became 'Wanted'.

As a speaking prompt - Get students to create and print their wanted poster and then create their own fictional story of how they became 'Wanted'. See which students can create the best story.

For self-evaluation and reflection - Get students to think about their weaknesses and select one weakness they would like to work on improving . They should add this as the caption, then get them to think of how improving that weakness will help them and add this as the reward (they will need to be concise). They can then print their 'Wanted' posters and hang them up in class around the walls as reminders of what they need to focus on. The students could then look at each other's posters and offer each other tips and advice on how they can improve. This can work well with teacher training sessions too.

I hope you make some useful wanted posters and be sure to check out some of the other ways in which you can adapt your images here. Do leave a comment if you came up with some good ideas for how to use them and let me know which ones are your favourites.

Related links:

Best

Nik Peachey

Tuesday, 5 May 2009

A Complete EFL Teacher Training Course Online

Shaping the Way We Teach English is a fantastic resource that I came across recently. The resource is similar to other online courses from colleges and universities. It's free and accessible through The Online Language Center of the University of Oregon and it is a pretty complete teacher training course that has videos , viewing tasks, transcripts, observation checklists and even recommended supplementary web based reading.

The videos for the course are all on YouTube and can either be watched online or it is recommended that they are downloaded using http://keepvid.com/ for anyone with a slower connection.

Most of the videos ( there is one for each of the 14 modules) is about 10 -15 mins long and the quality is good. The makers of the course have used a range of teachers from around the world and you can see them working with their classes and listen to what they have to say about the way they teach.

Here's a useful example on reflective teaching

These videos and tasks could be used for pre-service or even in service teacher training, or as a self access resource for teachers who want some informal development.

As I said. Shaping the Way We Teach English is a fantastic resource, it's free and it's very complete. I hope you enjoy using it.

Related links:

Best

Nik Peachey

Thursday, 16 April 2009

Coffee With Jeremy Harmer on 3rd May 09

Sunday 3rd May 09 (GMT 18.00 = 11.00 PST) will see the next in our series of 'Coffee With ..' educational chat shows on Edunation II in Second Life, so please do come along, join our audience and meet other people interested in developing education and learning within Second Life.

In this show I'll be interviewing, teacher, teacher trainer, author and ELT guru Jeremy Harmer. Jeremy's books and writings have introduced a generation of teachers to ELT. He is also a regular conference speaker and musician.

His writing credits include How to Teach Writing, How to Teach English and The Practice of English Language Teaching

This is a chance to come along and participate in discussion with one of the UK's most influential ELT writers.

If you would like to come along and watch the show and join in the discussion, then go along to Edunation II or email Gavin at: gavin.dudeney@theconsultants-e.com. The event is free, but we are limited to 100 places. The show starts at GMT = 18.00 (GMT is 7 hours ahead of Second Life time, so that's 11.00 PST and 20.00 CET)

If you don't have a Second Life avatar but would like to know how to set one up then you can download instructions from here. Setting up a Second Life avatar

Related links:

Best

Nik Peachey

Monday, 16 March 2009

3 Views on The Future of English Language Teaching

Just been looking through the various guest writers that have appeared on the British Council | BBC TeachingEnglish website and comparing some of the very different views on the future of English language teaching.

There's an interesting cross section here. I often wonder how long a future we have and how long it will be before voice activated translation systems can replace the need to learn another language. I wonder how many of us or our students would still have the discipline to learn a language for the joy of really being ale to speak it, if they didn't have to????

Anyway, here are some differing views.

Mario Rinvolucri

Interview with Mario Rinvolucri

Rod Bolitho

Interview with Rod Bolitho

Jenny Johnson

Interview with Jenny Johnson

There has been a whole series of these interviews with each of the guest writers that have blogged on the site, so others worth checking out are:

Hope you enjoy these and find them useful.

Related links:

Best

Nik Peachey

Monday, 9 February 2009

Blog Carnival

I'm very proud to say that I have been asked by Larry Ferlazzo to host the next EFL/ESL/ELL Blog Carnival which I will be posting here on April 1st 2009, with submissions due in no later than the day before.

If you have a blog and have posted something over the last month which you think would be of interest to teachers of English (examples of student work are also welcome!) you can contribute posts from your blog using this easy submission form.

To see examples from the last Blog Carnival go to David Deubelbeiss' blog and check out some of the entries there at: EFL Classroom 2.0

Look forward to receiving your submissions. Don't be shy.

Related links:

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Nik Peachey

Thursday, 18 December 2008

Teachers' Stories

I've just noticed a really nice new feature on the British Council | BBC TeachingEnglish website. It's called Teachers' Stories and has a small collection of video interviews with teachers talking about how they became interested in English language and language teaching.

You can find the Teachers' stories within the 'Transform' section and at the moment there are 4 videos, two from teachers in Ethiopia, one from India and another from Czech Republic.

Nice features of these videos are that you can leave comments for the teacher, there are a couple of reflection tasks for teachers to do and best of all teachers are also invited to start their own blog on the site and share their experiences and stories. There are even some tips on how to write a good blog posting from your truly!

Hope you enjoy these.

Related links:

Best

Nik Peachey

Tuesday, 16 December 2008

Resources for Continuing Professional Development

It's great to see that Teachers TV has released a series of video and support materials for for CPD leaders | Teacher Trainers. There's a good collection of quite varied material for the development of both primary and secondary teachers.

Some of the clips look quite long (up to 30 mins) for web delivery, but you can download them if you register and log in. There are also a range of support materials to go with each of the topics explored in the videos.

There are some interesting ones there now on assessment and next month they will be uploading videos and presentations on ICT and modern foreign languages, all of which sound pretty interesting.

There is also a group for CPD leaders which you might think of joining if you'd like to get advice or do some networking with other training professionals.

You can find more information at: http://www.teachers.tv/cpdleaders

This is a useful resource. It's a shame they don't offer an embed code so these could be embedded in other materials, but I guess you can't have everything for free.

Hope you find these useful

Related links:

Best

Nik Peachey

Wednesday, 3 December 2008

ESL Information Digests

I've just been browsing through the website of the Centre for Adult English Language Acquisition (CAELA) and although it couldn't possibly be described as fun and sexy, there is a lot of potentially really useful information there especially for anyone involved in teacher training and development.

There are 72 quick Q & A digests that deal with a broad range of subjects from methodology to program design and technology.

There's also a handy Tools section that has guidance for Instructors and Program developers.

You can email in a question and get it answered at Ask CAELA and even sign up for a free newsletter.

Hope you find something useful there.

Related links:

Best
Nik Peachey

Tuesday, 25 November 2008

Coffee With Kyle Mawer

This Sunday 30th November (GMT 18.00 = 10.00 PST) will see the second in our series of 'Coffee With ..' educational chat shows on Edunation III in Second Life, so please do come along, join our audience and meet other people interested in developing education and learning within Second Life.

In this show I'll be interviewing Kyle Mawer from the British Council and finding out about the work he has been doing designing materials in the Second Life Teen Grid and about the forth coming opening of the British Council's island in the main grid.

Kyle describes the work of the British Council as "both an iconic virtual representation of Great Britain, and a rich setting in which learners of English can further their learning of the language and culture of the UK as well as raising awareness of visitors to the work and opportunities provided by the British Council."

Kyle is particularly interested in using the medium of gaming as a learning tool and adapts free online computer games for use with his classes. The games, materials and lesson plans he’s found, developed and successfully used have been posted on the wikispace he runs at http://kylemawer.wikispaces.com

If you would like to come along and watch the show and join in the discussion, then go along to Edunation III and click the sign-up terminals or email Gavin at: dudeney@theconsultants-e.com. The event is free, but we are limited to 100 places. The show starts at GMT = 18.00 (GMT is 8 hours ahead of Second Life time, so that's 10.00 PST and 19.00 CET)

If you don't have a Second Life avatar but would like to know how to set one up then you can download instructions from here. Setting up a Second Life avatar

Related links:

Best

Nik Peachey

Wednesday, 22 October 2008

Coffee With Gavin Dudeney in Second Life

This is just a quick announcement about a free event for educators in Second Life. On Sunday 26th October at GMT = 18.00 (GMT is 7 hours ahead of Second Life time, so that's 11.00 to 12.00 PDT)

I'll be interviewing Gavin Dudeney co author of How to Teach English with Technology from The Consultants-E about his teacher training activities in Second Life.

This will be a pretty informal event and there will be plenty of opportunity to ask questions and find out more about the work of one of the main innovators of ELT and teacher training in Second Life. You'll also be able to find out a bit more about some of the free educational tools Gavin has been developing for use in Second Life.

If you would like to come along and watch the show and join in the discussion, then go along to Edunation III and click the sign-up terminals or email Gavin at: dudeney@theconsultants-e.com. The event is free, but we are limited to 100 places.

To find out more about Gavin's work in Second Life, Check out his blog That'SLife

If you don't have a Second Life avatar but would like to know how to set one up then you can download instructions from here. Setting up a Second Life avatar

Hope to see you there.

Related links:

Best

Nik Peachey

Tuesday, 21 October 2008

Lip Sync for Second Life

I've just been trying out the beta Lip synching feature of Second Life in preparation for a chat show I'll be doing this coming Sunday on Edunation III. I'm hoping to be able to create a video recording of the show and decided to see how well I could record video and use the lip synching feature to make it all look more realistic.

Well here are the results.

I'm actually quite impressed. I think it does add an element of realism that has been missing and greatly increases the potential of Second Life for creating Machinima or any other video or animation projects. If you want to have a go with the lip synching, this video shows you how to switch it on.

To create the movie I actually used two computers each with a seperate avatar on. I then used one avatar as the 'actor' and the other avatar to record the sound and video (recording was done on a MAC running I-ShowU) I then edited it with I-Movie and uploaded directly to YouTube from there.

On Sunday 26th October at GMT = 18.00 I'll be interviewing Gavin Dudeny co author of How to Teach English with Technology from The Consultants-E about his teacher training activities in Second Life.

If you would like to come along and watch the show and join in the discussion, then go along to Edunation III and click the sign-up terminals or email Gavin at: dudeney@theconsultants-e.com. The event is free, but we are limited to 100 places.

Hope to see you there.

Related links:

Best

Nik Peachey

Friday, 17 October 2008

RSS and Personal Homepages for Teachers

I've finally found the time to edit and upload a video presentation I created for a training course here in Morocco. The focus of the presentation is on how setting up personal homepages and using RSS feeds can save teachers time and keep them better informed.

The catalyst for finally getting this done, is a discussion that is taking place between the Learning With Computers group (EFL teachers mainly based in South America, but increasingly becoming more international). If you want to be involved in this discussion you can sign up to join the group at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/learningwithcomputers/
You can also follow the discussion on their blog at: Learning with Computers

You can watch the video presentation from my YouTube channel, above, or if you would prefer a higher quality version, click this link Personal Homepages and RSS.

If you are interested in creating your own personal homepage or doing training to help other teachers create homapages, you can find the tasks and instructions that I refer to here: Creating a personal homepage

Hope you find this useful and that you join the discussion.

Related links:

Best

Nik Peachey

Tuesday, 15 July 2008

ELT classroom videos

Videos of teacher working in the ELT classroom is pretty difficult to come by, so this makes this series of videos from the British Council that much more valuable.

As you can see from this example the videos have footage from the real practicing teachers accompanied by expert commentary. This is useful stuff for anyone involved in teacher training.

You can find the full series of 9 videos ( about 5 mins each) within the Teaching English website's Training videos section.

Hope you find these useful.

Best

Nik Peachey

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