TEDxChelmsford: First Annual Event

Couldn’t believe our luck! TEDx at our University! Today!

We attended the first annual TEDx event in Chlemsford, Essex yesterday. TEDx is a program of local, self- organised events to promote Ideas Worth Spreading.

The lovely host wearing an amazing jacket!

17 Speakers, from professional public speakers to business owners to an 11 year old school girl talked about Perceptions and reality – the first topic chosen for this year’s event. 

About to start! Getting excited!!

With only 100 tickets available, the audience was filled to its max. Some people even sat on the steps!

Nick Looby

Paul Martin, talking about how learning Sign Language can help you improve your body language coordination.

Susannah Howard

Looking forward to attending next year’s event, who knows, may be even in a Speaker’s capacity! 

ESL Reading: Motivation, motivation, motivation!

                              Reading? Boooooooooooooooring!

As an ESL teacher working with adult learners in the Gulf, I was initially taken aback by how unpopular my Reading classes were.

Coming from a culture of heavy readers, I have been told repeatedly that nothing makes a better gift than a book.

However, my learners simply said “But Miss, reading is booooring”…

This post is my attempt pass my experience of teaching reading to a class of learners who think they don’t like books. Ooooomph. Let’s see if we can spice things up, one class at a time 😉

First of all, let’s figure out what text types there are how to integrate Reading with other skills and course components.

I’ll go first: 

Text types: (oh, so many!)

• dictionaries
• novels
• newspaper articles
• academic articles
• non-fiction
• even menus (my personal favourite)…..                 Suggestions?

Dear All,

Hello and welcome! We just started this blog and still working on its content. Please feel free to contact us if you want to contribute! The main area is teaching ESL, adult learning and exam preparation.

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