Other New Titles New Canadian and US Idioms Resource
If I'm So Smart, Why Do I Feel Like An Idiom is a brand new contender in the idioms arena. It is available in two editions - one for the Canadian context and one for the US context.
This book includes:
- 525 idiomatic expressions and phrases
- 19 activities per chapter
- answer key and reference guides
- CD audio program
Suitable for intermediate to advanced students, idioms are introduced and practiced through a range of activity types, including:
- pronunciation focuses
- group discussion questions
- writing dialogues
- multiple choice
- crosswords
- find someone who
- scrambled sentences
- sentence completions
Certainly, there is lots of material here - and a cute title to boot.
Canadian edition (including questions on Canadian geese)
American edition (sans geese references)
Cool Websites & Blogs All the cool gurus are doing it.
Good news for those of you who like to follow interesting and informative blogs. A few of the bigger names in authorship have newish blogs - and as fans of keeping in the loop with the ESL conversations both here and globally, we thought you might be interested too.
Jeremy Harmer David Crystal Lindsay Clandfield, Luke Meddings & Chaz Pugliese Mario Rinvolucri 
These folks have their fingers on the pulse of international happenings at conferences and in the area of materials and teacher education.
We also recommend you check out the links they have on their sites. But watch out - this is an easy rabbit hole to fall into - before you know it, 2 hours has gone by!
Teaching Tips How to Prevent Learning - some popular techniques
Part II This title has shamelessly been stolen form one of our favourite sections in Jim Scrivener's excellent methodology book,
Learning Teaching. In Part 2, let's examine the role of feedback. 
If, after a lesson, you have ever thought or spoken the following sentence:
"
That lesson was great - the students got everything right and we got through all the materials!"
...there is a chance that there was:
- no error-based feedback on the activities
- that it was too rushed
- that it was dominated by a strong student
Tips for more effective feedback: 
Nominate when eliciting. When you have confident high-fliers in the class, you need to consciously avoid being fooled into thinking that everyone is at their level/ has the same answers. Call out students' names and calmly wait for their answers. If the high-flier shouts out anyway, insist on getting the answer from the student you called.
Put students in pairs to check their answers and then MONITOR purposefully. This means paying close attention to where students made their mistakes and then USING this insight to inform/alter/focus your next stage of the lesson.
Elicit answers to the board (or in some way that shows the answers clearly). When you have finished eliciting, stop and ask as neutrally as possible, "Does anyone have a different answer?"
Anticipate errors. It is always easier to deal with student errors when you have analyzed your activities to identify what problems students might have. Look at what the activity's learning aim is, look at the language in and needed to do the task and consider what might trip students up.
Be prepared to spend as much
time (if not more!)
doing feedback (confirming, correcting and clarifying) as you spend doing the activity. That much time might not be needed, but being prepared for it makes it less likely for that stage to get rushed through.
It might be helpful to keep in mind that activities do not teach. They are only there to highlight what students do and do not know. They might be the lesson's vehicle, but ultimately it's the teacher who does the driving.
Remember what it felt like to be too short to get on the coolest roller coaster at the fair ground?
IELTS Target 5.0 is for pre-intermediate students aiming to get a 5.0 on the IELTS General Training exam.
It is especially good at preparing students for the speaking section. Typical mistakes are highlighted, including less obvious things like the need to avoid short, negative answers, which tend to stall the interaction. Lots of speaking prompt samples are given, with every unit providing ample opportunity for pair and group speaking practice.
As first-timers to TESOL, we found the experience amazing, enjoyable and exhausting. Thanks to everyone who stopped by our booth to chat, discuss resources and share a laugh. We thoroughly enjoyed meeting all of you and hope to see you again next year in New Orleans!
Kitty already knows she's won, but for the rest of you lovely people who now receive our newsletter, we'd like to announce that Kitty Barnhouse Pergason of Biola University in California was very happy on April 1st.
We found quite a few interesting tid-bits this past month.
