MacMillan English Campus

The great thing about many of the online resources we have available these days is that they are not just resources in a static sense; they are also spaces that we can continually re-source for all kinds of student activities.

Russell Stannard recently spoke at IATEFL about the connected classroom, where we

Background

Flickr is a free online platform which allows members to upload and share their photos. Users can annotate and comment on the images, create sets and slideshows of their photos, and join groups based around particular themes and interests.

It occurred to me that these features might well be harnessed to engage

A more course-integrated use of web tools

With more and more EAP teachers at our school bringing the digital world into their classrooms, we recently decided to take a leaf out of BECTA’s 2008 report on educational technology use and consider more concretely the idea of ‘pedagogy before technology’.

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Even if your school hasn’t opted for a VLE yet there are numerous ways to start introducing an online tool to your teaching.  You can choose between a number of options: Writing tasks lend themselves to being used for collaborative writing with, blogs or wikis the obvious choice.

Blogs and wikis –

As Eva wrote last week, the English love to queue. A fortnight ago it was for Wimbledon; last week it was for the best-selling book and film franchise, Harry Potter. Last Thursday, London’s Trafalgar Square was awash with children and adults of all ages, queuing to see the première

Creating the games for MEC was a huge challenge. We didn’t know how hard it was going to be when we decided that we must have games that were definitely real games with a proper ‘gaming challenge’ as well as real pedagogical value. However, the hard work has paid off; they’ve

1.   The Language Instinct (Steven Pinker)
I credit Steven Pinker as the person who first made me think differently about language. I had always been interested in language but this book made me decide that I wanted to know more, and was what led me to my degree in linguistics

Over the coming weeks, the team here at MEC will be bringing you regular updates on all things editorial, from the professional to the personal, so keep a look out…

In the meantime, find out more about the editorial team here – a bit of background info on how they came

English teacher in Paris, Todd Burch, writes:

One challenge faced by many teachers is to find a simple way to distribute, receive and exchange documents with students.  Email is too limiting when it comes to managing a large number of documents , and the file size restrictions make sending large documents difficult,

Barbara Toth, English language teacher at Katedra (Hungary), writes:

Nowadays, teachers find it challenging to draw and keep students’ attention, especially while discussing grammar elements during the class.Students have become more demanding and picky in terms of what types of resources teacher use. It is mostly due to the fact

MEC and onestopenglish Assistant, Giulia Merlo, writes:

Weboword Connect is the first community dedicated to Visual Vocabulary.

It has a forum, a blog, a chat, and many other social resources to connect you and your students to other language enthusiasts

“What I want to show is online tools that might help students consolidate vocabulary by helping them memorise it, use it productively and store it in effective ways.”

This is how Ania Rolinska describes our next MEC online clinic ‘Using online resources to teach vocab’.

Ania (pictured above)

An interview with Patrick McMahon:

Meet one of our MEC authors Patrick who has bravely agreed to answer our gruelling questions. Patrick has written lots of EAP material for MEC and has recently completed some EAP lesson plans for our very own Teachers’ support area.

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MEC Marketing Assistant, Jane Petrie, writes:

Jane Petrie

Since February, Macmillan English Campus has been attracting significant interest in Asia with the aid of Patrick Hafenstein, our Sales Executive, based in Taiwan.

He’s been exploring how and why the Macmillan English Campus is generating such an e-learning buzz. We put some

Our sales representative for East Asia, Patrick Hafenstein, writes:

‘No matter which country in Asia or which type of institution, blended learning is being embraced.

In Taiwan, universities are taking technology on board in the classroom thanks to a NT$50 billion academic excellence initiative from the Ministry of Education. Although hardware