MacMillan English Campus

As a music graduate, a former EFL teacher and now a fairly nerdy editor, I’ve long been intrigued by the relationship between music and language learning.

According to science boffins, sensitivity to music begins in the womb, with children up to a year old able to recall melodies they heard

This week’s news item, adapted for MEC from a news article originally published in the Guardian Weekly, is about Japan’s recent victory at the women’s football World Cup in Germany. Inspired by the earthquake and tsunami which devastated parts of Japan, the Japanese players won the final against the USA.

You can

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

I’ve recently stumbled across a number of thought-provoking articles about the ways in which languages impact on the world around us. Guy Deutscher’s fascinating article, Does your language shape how you think? (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html) is an exploration of how different languages lead their native speakers to see the world in

This week’s news item, adapted for MEC from a news article originally published in the Guardian Weekly, is about the Arctic region where climate change is making it easier to extract oil and minerals. As a result, there is now growing interest amongst Arctic countries to establish their political and military

George Bernard Shaw once said that England and America are two countries separated by a common language. Nowhere is this truer than in the ELT classroom. Students will learn their preferred version of English, in large part due to their proximity to Britain or America, although the differences between the two

A few months ago we introduced you to the free version of Sounds: The Pronunciation App. You can find more about it in the post: What’s your phone got to do with Adrian Underhill? The app spread like wildfire, both teachers and students have been thrilled about the new

This week’s news item, adapted for MEC from a news article originally published in the Guardian Weekly, is about the film The First Grader, which recently premiered in Kenya. It is the true story of Maruge, a man who started primary school at the age of 84.

You can find this story

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

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

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’s news item, adapted for MEC from a news article originally published in the Guardian Weekly, is about diabetes. The disease now affects 350 million people around the world.

You can find this story in the News Items section on your Work Area screen.

July word games

This month’s Witch’s Pot topics are

I’m not a person usually lost for words or ideas and generally don’t have too much trouble getting engrossed in a piece of work. It’s quite easy, really, when you work in such an inspirational environment as ELT publishing, surrounded by talented people, and when you enjoy what you’re doing. But,

In Our Time is the title of the first collection of short stories published by the great American writer Ernest Hemingway. It is said that the title was named after the line in the Book of Common Prayer: “give us peace in our time”. In Our Time is also a live

This week’s news item, adapted for MEC from a news article originally published in the Guardian Weekly, is about how kung fu is bringing many tourists to Shaolin temple in China.

You can find this story in the News Items section on your Work Area screen.

Kerstin

Read More