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Showing posts from September, 2014

Interviews with Plan Ceibal English Remote Teachers

Last week, we held two more training days for remote teachers working on the Plan Ceibal English project . In Buenos Aires, this was the first training day that the British Council and Plan Ceibal have organised since the project began, and this was followed the day after with the third RT training day in Montevideo.  On both days, while waiting for the sessions to begin, I interviewed some of the teachers to find out what they thought were the challenges of teaching children English via video conferencing and what they enjoy the most about the project . Interviews with RTs in Buenos Aires: Interview with RT Isabel Aurelio from Graham Stanley on Vimeo . Plan Ceibal English RT Training Day Interviews - Buenos Aires from Graham Stanley on Vimeo . Interviews with RTs in Montevideo: Interviews with RTs in Montevideo Sep 2014 from Graham Stanley on Vimeo . Interview with British Council quality manager Mem from Graham Stanley on Vimeo .   Read more about th

Teaching and Learning English Under Difficult Circumstances

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Last week, Dr.Richard Smith had been due to give a workshop and attend an English breakfast in Buenos Aires prior to presenting at the 39th FAAPI / APISE congress in Santiago del Estero, Argentina . Unfortunately, he had to cancel at the last minute and the British Council Argentina asked me if I could come to Argentina earlier than I'd planned to so they could fulfill their commitments to the embassy and the school they'd planned the workshop for. I was happy that I could do so and decided to keep the theme of the workshop that Richard had planned. I prepared slides to go with it, but there wasn't a projector at the school, so I abandoned this and stuck to the low tech of paper, pens and post-its on the day. I told the 80 participants that I'd share the slides here and also summarise what they prepared, so here it is! Abstract:  Many English teachers find themselves teaching in difficult circumstances. Large classes, multiple levels, and demotivated students are

Using Digital Games to Demand Higher

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Last Friday, thanks to the British Council Buenos Aires , I had the pleasure of leading this workshop with 300 participants at the 39th annual FAAPI conference in Santiago del Estero, Argentina . Photo by Pablo Toledo, British Council Argentina Apart from being surprised at the number of participants, I was encouraged to see so many hands being raised when I asked how many of the teachers in the audience played games themselves.  Normally, when I ask this question, less than half the audience put up their hands, but this time more than half of the audience raised their hands.  After running through reasons for using games in the language classroom and showing how graphics in games have changed since the early days, I had time to work through two digital games-based activities with the participants ( Droppy and Spent ) and to talk briefly about other games that can be played. Because Jim Scrivener had been one of the plenary speakers, and the focus of his opening

Presenting at the 39th FAAPI congress in Argentina

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Today, I was able to present the Plan Ceibal English project, along with Serrana Muiz of Plan Ceibal, at the 39th annual FAAPI congress in Argentina. Photo by Maria Paola Sviatschi Here are the slides from the presentation: Remote teaching - FAAPI 2014 from Graham Stanley