18 May 2017 / by Gracia Guzmán

Masterclass in ESL at Oxbridge to share and learn about expertise areas

The Oxbridge English Teaching System (OETS) is made out of a wide and wide community of teachers from different countries and backgrounds. Offering a masterclass in ESL for different areas of expertise was necessary and easy at the same time, having in mind the richness of profiles of our community members. This is why we are currently devoting our Friday meetings to masterclasses presented by our teachers. Each teacher has or will create a presentation about their area of expertise.

In order to teach a successful ESL class, the deeper the understanding of the matter, the better. Still, many trained and skillful English teachers are asked for help in subjects that are far from their own educational background. How can we minimize the risk of failing to teach a specific ESL class? Should we just say no to it? Maybe there is a way of accomplishing both tasks: teaching successful English classes and taking care of the learners' specific request for material.

Confidence comes with knowledge and experience and both passing on knowledge from one teacher to another and sharing experiences are our trademark. Our masterclasses are aimed at bringing closer English teachers with different educational profiles and that way we can be much more powerful when creating ESL material and teaching it.

Here are last Friday, 12th May, amazing masterclasses.

Raoni Farias - a masterclass in ESL about architecture. An overview of architecture´s history, from ancient, asian and islamic, middle ages, modernism, postmodernism to nowadays.

Find here Raoni's presentation: Masterclass in ESL in Architecture by Raoni Farias
Vincent Chieppa - a masterclass in ESL about social development. Engaging activities and games to discuss education in develop and underdeveloped countries.

Oxbridge teaching system - sharing areas of expertise

Perla Carvalho - a masterclass in ESL about nutrition. Differentiation between eating habits and nutrition. Quick overview of eating disorders and nutrition information.
Julie Labate - a masterclass in ESL about anthropology and archeology. Definition of anthropology and the different fields within it, with special mention of linguistic anthropology.

Find here Julie's presentation: Masterclass in ESL in Anthropology by Julie Labate

Oxbridge teaching system - sharing areas of expertise

 

The general feeling after the masterclasses was of better understanding and gratitude. Many thanks for all your brilliant presentations, your passion is our passion now!

12

June 2014
What makes a good ESL teacher. Preparation
by Radmila Gurkova
What are the qualities that make a good ESL teacher? When asked at a job interview what makes a good ESL teachers, candidates often praise personal traits such as patience, creativity, knowledge, skills, empathy, experience… But what if you have just finished your TEFL course and are not that experienced yet. Does that mean y...

30

May 2014
FM - Unifying format criteria for TEFL activities. The cherry on the cake!
by Radmila Gurkova
On debate: We need to unify format criteria when creating TEFL activities in order to create the perfect activity. The teachers creating activities and the ones correcting them have to use the same criteria. We agreed to: Creating st...

30

May 2014
TEFL classes by videoconference for elementary level students.
by Radmila Gurkova
TEFL classes by videoconference are often related to high level students. How should our teaching change in order to grant successful and exciting learning experience to our students? On debate: Elementary level stu...

16

May 2014
ESL activity lab. Creating functional beginners material - I play!
by Radmila Gurkova
The purpose of this piece of ESL activity belonging to our activities section for beginners is to introduce the verb 'play'. The previous ESL activity included the verb 'like' as well as 'play' so we removed the verb to like in order to simplify the activity. We introduced 4 Sports which all add something different to the ESL...

13

May 2014
ESL activities for beginners - a new ESL activity is born
by Radmila Gurkova
If you think these faces are too serious and concentrated, you are about right. The guys you are seeing in the picture, part of our Oxbridge TEFL teacher team in Madrid, are deeply engaged in creating ESL activities for beginners. Four teachers. One activity. An ESL activity for beginner learners of English t...

08

May 2014
How to teach beginners English as a foreign language- I want, I don't want
by Radmila Gurkova
How to teach beginners English as a foreign language in the target language only is sometimes a headache for ESL teachers. As it turned out, teaching the function I WANT in English without translating is not that easy. Students tend to confuse its meaning with I LIKE because this structure appears in similar contexts. How to teach beginners I...

20

March 2014
My favorite ESL class
by Radmila Gurkova
We asked different teachers about their favorite ESL class. We wanted them to explain what makes a great ESL class really memorable. We often hear teachers complaining about certain students and classes that were difficult. It's much more productive and rewarding to hear about TEFL teacher's favorite class...

14

March 2014
Positive learning environment: Learn from sports and apply to ESL classes to create the best environment for your students
by Radmila Gurkova
What is the best learning environment and how can we create a positive learning environment in our ESL classes? What can we learn from sports about positive learning environments? ...

07

March 2014
How to teach pronunciation through ESL activities. Say it clearer, not louder
by Radmila Gurkova
The OxbridgeTEFL community launched the project of how to teach pronunciation through ESL activities as a result of the necessity of creating specific tools -apart from the usual work on pronunciation through vocabulary activities- that would target Spanish learners' pronunciation. What moved us ...

27

February 2014
My Top 5 Reasons to do a TEFL course: featuring India Boddy
by Radmila Gurkova
Maki...