MacMillan English Campus

On May 17th 1792, the New York Stock Exchange was born under a sycamore or buttonwood tree. Signed by 24 stock brokers, the Buttonwood Agreement promised only internal trading with no auctioneers, and a maximum commission price on any trade was agreed.

With the recent economic crisis being felt across the world,

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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Who doesn’t love Google Street View? I’m terrible at reading maps, and never go somewhere new without walking the walk through Street View first! And now you can be a virtual tourist, venturing inside some of the buildings you walk past with the Google Art Project.

The Google Art Project is

Today is International Women’s Day, a day celebrated all around the world to celebrate and at the same time raise awareness of women’s issues, such as discrimination in the workplace, sexism and female health. The theme for International Women’s Day 2012 is ‘Connecting girls, inspiring futures’, and events are held in

As Valentine’s approaches it’s time to resurrect our Blended MEC Valentine’s poetry competition. Last year we asked you to get your students to write variations on the ‘Roses are red, Violets are blue…’ poem format, using it to deliver some untimely bad news. You can build on this by

With the announcement this week of the nominations, the Oscars season, and the fever that surrounds it, is upon us. Whilst your students will range from film buffs to dunces, film is one of those teacher-friendly topics that most people have something to say about. To get the discussion started show

Earlier this week, the seven Republican candidates for the 2012 US presidential elections took to the stage in the North American City of Sin to debate the merits of their own political aims, and those of their partisan rivals. However, while the aim of the debate was to persuade the electorate

Storm season which is between August and October, when the Pacific Ocean warms up seems to be nearing its peak. Although, it is halfway through it has been an active season with up to 18 named storms. The latest one: Irene was the 9th named storm of the season, the first

This week London celebrated it being one year until the start of the Olympic games.  With Olympic coverage being watched all over the world, the games can make an excellent basis for a classroom activity.  For authentic listening material you could try the following video which compiles clips of athletes talking

A fun way to bring online learning to your classroom is to make use of the internet’s vast array of funny videos.  You can combine these fun resources with the language focus of making predictions.
Get your students talking by putting them in pairs then showing them the beginning of the

Zoos are for children only? Rubbish. A recent late night at the London Zoo took me back in time to one of my favourite childhood activities, and reminded me of how entertaining it is to look at animals (and at adults looking at animals).

Why not get your students to

This week sees the release of the hotly anticipated comedy Bridesmaids about the lead up to a wedding that goes anything but smoothly.  You can watch the trailer with your class here-

Get your students to discuss in pairs the best wedding that they have attended- what made it so special?  Ask

Winnie the Pooh, the bear loved the world over, turns 90 this year which is a great excuse for a light-hearted lesson on Pooh, comics and children’s literature.  For a fun warm-up why not introduce them to the Pooh theme song.  Are you students brave enough to