Onestopenglish 15th Birthday Booklet

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Celebrating 15 years of onestopenglish This year we’re celebrating the 15th birthday of onestopenglish. Since the launch of onestopenglish back in 2001 we’ve had the privilege of working with authors and English language teachers from around the world to bring you resources to support your teaching.

Over the past 15 years, onestopenglish has grown from a handful of lesson submissions to a site with over 10,000 resources, including video, audio and downloadable lesson plans. And we’re proud to have become an online community for teachers.

Today, onestopenglish is visited by 3 million teachers worldwide and supported by a social community of over 50,000 followers on Facebook.

Hear what our editors love about onestopenglish “I love onestopenglish because when I was a teacher I knew I could rely on the website to find fun and creative lessons to use with my students quickly. Now that I’m working on it, I feel proud that we’re continuing to help teachers with their professional development and providing them with colourful, high-quality, authorwritten materials.”

Rachel

“I love onestopenglish because it really does put teachers – and their students! – at the heart. It’s great to work with such a passionate and knowledgeable team of expert authors and editors, who really care about providing good-quality classroom materials and helping busy teachers keep up-to-date with the latest educational trends and methodologies.”

Sarah “I love onestopenglish because it provides something different to all the other books and websites out there. It has a wide range of ready-to-teach lesson plans on a variety of topics all collected together in one handy place.

Exactly what busy teachers need!”

Patrick

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Take a look to see where we’ve come in the last 15 years …

Timeline 2001

Onestopenglish launches with its first-ever Lesson Share competition

2002 First series of news lessons from The Guardian Weekly 2006 The onestopenglish community grows with a magazine featuring topical resources and teaching stories from around the world 2007

2008

Resources on the site develop to include sections for young learners and business First video lessons appear

2010

Onestopenglish gets a new look … and a new Facebook page!

2011

We celebrate our 10th birthday with staff and teachers around the world

2013

Onestopenglish partners with IATEFL to launch our first IATEFL Scholarship

2016

Welcome to the Teacher Professional Development team at Macmillan Education

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What the future holds At onestopenglish we hope to support you in the next step of your professional development – helping you in your teaching as it continues to change over the next 15 years.

From establishing our Teacher Professional Development team to setting the foundations for brand-new partnerships, all of our work behind-the-scenes at Macmillan Education continues to have you in mind: our brilliant community of teachers.

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Take a look inside and explore a selection of our favourite resources from onestopenglish!

Inside this booklet you’ll find 10 resources including: 6.

1.

The Guardian News Lesson: Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary

by Tim Bowen

CLIL: Amazing world of food

by Carol Read

7.

2.

EAP Shakespeare: Introducing Shakespeare

by Chris Lima 3.

Business Spotlight: Ready for the future

by Karen Richardson 4.

ESOL: Introduction to Absolute Beginners

by Frances Marnie

5.

Live from London: First impressions er

by Luke and James Vyn

Pronunciation skills: What accent should I teach?

by Adrian Underhill 8.

Macmillan Dictionary BuzzWord: gamification by

Tim Bowen

9.

Tech Tasks for the Class: Fun projects with Instagram

by Tom Walton 10.

First steps into ...

Digital Literacy

by Daniel Barber

Visit www.onestopenglish.com/15-years to download full versions of the resources featured in this booklet, including accompanying teachers’ notes, video and audio for the classroom.

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Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary

Level 1 l Elementary / Pre-intermediate 1 Warmer What do you know about William Shakespeare?

Can you name any of his plays?

2 Key words playwright

claim

re-emphasize

anniversary

fortune

1.

If you _______________________ something, you say that it is yours. (para 1)

2.

A _______________________ is a very large amount of money. (para 2)

3.

If you _______________________ something, you say again how important it is. (para 2)

4.

An _______________________ is a date when people celebrate something important that happened in the past. (para 3)

5.

A _______________________ is a person who writes plays. (para 3)

3 Find the information Find the following information in the text as quickly as possible.

1.

2.

In what year did William Shakespeare die?

How many of his plays will be shown at a pop-up cinema in London?

Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary: ‘man of Stratford’ to be celebrated in 2016 Maev Kennedy, 1 January, 2016 1 The world shares him and London claims him but Stratfordupon-Avon is going to spend 2016 celebrating William Shakespeare as their man. He was born in Stratford-uponAvon in 1564 and died there 400 years ago.

2 Stratford was important to Shakespeare all his life, says Paul Edmondson, the head of learning and research at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. “People often think Shakespeare left Stratford and his family, went to London to earn his fortune and only came back to die,” he said. “But Stratford is where he bought land and houses, where he kept his library, where he lived and read and thought. We are going to spend the year re-emphasizing the importance of Shakespeare, the man of Stratford.”

3 The anniversary of the death of the man from Stratford, the most famous and the most performed playwright in the world, will be celebrated across Britain and the world. There

3.

When was the First Folio published?

will be performances of Macbeth in Singapore and Romeo and Juliet in Brussels. Shakespeare’s Globe is completing the first world tour in the history of theatre. During the tour, it has taken Hamlet to every country except North Korea. In London, they are also creating a 37-screen pop-up cinema, one screen to show each of Shakespeare’s plays.

4 The National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and almost every other theatre production company in the country will celebrate the anniversary. There will be traditional and experimental performances of the plays.

There will also be hundreds of lectures, international conferences, films, concerts, operas and major exhibitions.

5 Shakespeare was famous in his own lifetime but there is little evidence about Shakespeare’s life and times. His plays survived because his friends and actors collected together every bit of every play they could find and made the First Folio, published in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death. © Guardian News and Media 2016 First published in The Guardian, 01/01/16

4 Chunks Rearrange the words to make phrases from the text. playwright the most world famous in the

2.

hundreds of be there lectures will also

© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2016 NEWS LESSONS / Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary / Pre-intermediate

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3.

lifetime his in own

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1.

CA HO N T O FR BE C O DO O M W P W N IA EB LO B SI A L TE DE E D •

This extract has been taken from Monthly news lesson: Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary. To view the original lesson in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.

Fill the gaps in the sentences with these key words from the text. The paragraph numbers will help you.

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LESSON 1 INTRODUCING SHAKESPEARE Level: Upper intermediate to Advanced Aims: In this lesson, you will: Ȝ Share your current views on Shakespeare and his work Ȝ Critically discuss Shakespeare’s relevance in the 21st century Ȝ Practise summarizing ideas and expressing your own opinion in writing Ȝ Prepare to do independent study and note-taking

ACTIVITY 1 – SPEAKING Ȝ Have you ever watched Shakespeare being performed, either in the theatre or in a film? Ȝ Have you ever read the entire text of a play? If so, was it in English or translated? Ȝ In your opinion, why has Shakespeare become such a cultural icon? Ȝ Do you think Shakespeare’s plays are still relevant in the 21st century?

ACTIVITY 2 – LISTENING Video link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vM_8E7vut4 Watch a TED talk by John Bolton walking us through lessons from Shakespeare that still resonate today. What lessons can we learn from the four plays below? Complete the table.

HENRY V

OTHELLO

THE TEMPEST

HAMLET

THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON

THINK CRITICALLY

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© Macmillan Publishers Limited 2016 EAP Shakespeare: Lesson 1 Introducing Shakespeare

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In spite of his popularity, Shakespeare’s texts and language are still often considered difficult to understand by both fluent and less fluent English language speakers alike.

Where does that supposed difficulty come from? Is this general perception valid? What is the evidence for that?

This extract has been taken from EAP Shakespeare: Introducing Shakespeare. To view the original lesson in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.

Discuss the questions below in pairs or small groups:

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Ready Powersfor in the the future East 1 Warmer • When did you last review your career plans?

• When did you last update your CV? 2 Key words Read the definitions and find the key words in the article.

1.

2.

3.

4.

Ready for the future

1

2

by Margaret Davis

3 s in the process: The government website lists four step ion? fess pro or job r you nge s, cha area to ntial career Are you planning knowing yourself, learning about pote enable you se steps can The n.

A good, well-thought out plan will actio ng taki making decisions and ils deta s vide pro is Dav et rgar your career – just achieve this aim. Ma vary, depending on where you are in ice. adv ing a career and asks experts for beginning, learning new skills, consider ly simp nt. you eme do or retir es change or preparing for Do you plan your future job mov wrong with ing noth re’s The ce? chan to 4 up ress at regular them leave It’s important to check your career prog tions in situa e som are e ther but told n ous, inso tane Rob spon being intervals, Boston career coach Kathy aging your that you don’t which you really need a plan – and man AARP The Magazine – and to be sure . them of one to keep up with career is stop learning new skills. “It’s crucial ’t want to be left tern ent of Wes advances in your profession if you don What is career planning? The governm people know that Workforce behind,” Robinson says. “Successful Australia’s Department of Training and us learning builds as “the continuo making time for focused, uninterrupted Development defines career planning s nities.” Robinson , values, skill confidence and future growth opportu process of thinking about your interests make a plan that k and learning suggests that, once a year, you should and preferences; exploring the life, wor include taking a your work fits lists your learning goals. These could options available to you; ensuring that ps, or spending continuously course, going to conferences or worksho with your personal circumstances; and ing books or s to help you a certain proportion of your time read fine-tuning your work and learning plan the world of work”. articles about your profession. manage the changes in your life and © Business Spotlight, 1/2016. www.business-spotlight.de

3 Summary Join the words to make phrasal verbs and then use them to complete the paragraph about the article.

1. figure up 2. keep out up 3. left behind 4. showing

© Macmillan Publishers Ltd and Spotlight Verlag GmbH 2016

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BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT / Ready for the future

The article states that it is crucial to ____________________________(1) with advances in your profession if you don’t want to be ____________________________(2).

It says that you should regularly check job postings to see if certain skills keep ____________________________(3). You should ____________________________(4) what you need to learn or do to be able to achieve your next career step.

CA HO N T O FR BE C O DO O M W P W N IA EB LO B SI A L TE DE E D •

This extract has been taken from Business Spotlight: Ready for the future. To view the original lesson in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.

happening in a natural way without being planned or thought about (para 1) ministry (para 2) the conditions in which you live, especially how much money you have (para 2) making small changes to something in order to make it as good or as effective as possible (two words, para 2) 5. extremely important because it has a major effect on the result of something (para 4)

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ESOL: Introduction to Absolute Beginners Frances Marnie introduces a series of ESOL lesson plans aimed at beginner-level students with little or no previous experience of English. This article extract provides some general advice on how to prepare for a first lesson with beginners. The Absolute Beginners series can be used as a lead-in to a starter coursebook.

Download the lesson plans from: www.onestopenglish.com/esol/absolute-beginners

10 tips for teaching absolute beginners 1. Find out the names of the students and clarify what is considered to be their first and last name. This shouldn’t be too difficult as usually a family member or friend will have registered them for the course.

2. Ascertain if the students are at all familiar with the Roman script.

4. Find out as much as possible about the students’ background and needs. This information can be used to adapt the lessons, if necessary. For example, if a student works in a restaurant, then basic food-related vocabulary items should be introduced at an early stage. Similarly, if a student stays at home looking after children, then vocabulary related to family life will be important.

5. Adapt the lesson to each student’s pace.

6. If the student is literate in their mother tongue, suggest that they invest in a bilingual dictionary and that they bring it to every class.

7.

Keep your language simple and to a minimum. Use gesture as a means of communication. (Check that a nod means yes in the student’s culture!)

8. Remember that a smile is understood by everyone. Smiling will help create a positive atmosphere.

9. Introduce and practise basic functional language as the occasion arises. Students will probably want to express Sorry, I don’t understand – thank you – please, etc at various points throughout the series. Give them the appropriate phrase when they need it. Display it on the wall for future reference and use every natural occurrence for further practice.

10. Encourage the students to adopt the LOOK – SAY – COVER – WRITE – CHECK method when learning new vocabulary (see below).

The LOOK – SAY – COVER – WRITE – CHECK (LSCW) method The LSCW method works because the student has to be ’active’ and say the word, write it, check it, correct it and do it again.

The student writes the word they want to learn on a piece of paper – making sure it’s the correct spelling!

•

The student should then LOOK at the word carefully, noting the letters and shape of the word in as much detail as possible.

•

Next the student has to SAY the word. Encourage them to break it down into syllables (e.g. Mon – day) and to notice any silent letters.

•

The next step is to COVER the word.

•

Without looking at the word, the student now attempts to WRITE it.

•

Finally the student should CHECK the word carefully, making sure each letter is in the right place, and correct any errors.

•

The student is now in a position to correct any mistakes. Remind them that mistakes are an important part of the learning process. Therefore, they shouldn’t worry and simply learn from them!

•

Repeat as often as necessary until the spelling has been learnt.

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© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2013

CA HO N T O FR BE C O DO O M W P W N IA EB LO B SI A L TE DE E D •

•

This extract has been taken from Introduction to Absolute Beginners. To view the original article in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.

3. Try to find out which students have absolutely no English and which ones are already familiar with Hello and What’s your name?

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LIVE FROM LONDON First impressions Live from London is a series of innovative video lessons featuring authentic interviews with people living in London by authors Luke and James Vyner. Set in Brixton, this video lesson extract includes people talking about first impressions.

Watch and download the video from: www.onestopenglish.com/first-impressions

Note-taking on first impressions

True or false questions

Level: Pre-intermediate (A2) to Intermediate (B1)

Summary: Students are given a list of true or false statements about the video content.

Objectives: listening for specific information

Objectives: listening for specific information; giving opinions; agreeing and disagreeing

Instructions: Look at the statements below. Some are true, and others are false.

Instructions: Place your students into groups of four. Give each student in their groups the name of a different interviewee from the video:

You can either write them up on the board or print out the worksheet under ‘Related resources’ at the bottom of the webpage on onestopenglish. You may wish to change the order of the statements or play the video first to make it more challenging, or you may even wish to make your own true/false statements using the transcript (from the webpage).

2. Rwakn 3. Robbie 4. Lorraine Explain that as they watch the video they have to make detailed notes on their impressions of their person. You could write these prompts on the board: What’s the first thing you notice about them?

What do you think of them?

Do you think they seem friendly or unfriendly?

Would you like to meet them?

What kind of job do you think they have?

Play the video and ask your students to share their opinions in their groups.

Play the video again to consolidate the shared information.

Finally, ask your students whether they agree or disagree with their group’s impressions. They can discuss this in their small groups. © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2015

Please note that the answers are also given in this list.

1. Harry first notices people’s hair. [F] He first notices their attitude.

2. Harry takes after his father. [F] He takes after his mother.

3. Robbie first notices if people are friendly and smiley. [T] 4. Robbie asks a lot of questions when he first meets someone. [T] 5. Lorraine thinks people first notice that she’s funny.

[F] Bubbly.

6. Harry thinks people first notice his voice. [T] 7.

Rwakn thinks people first notice his eyes. [F] He mentions his height and how he doesn’t smile much.

8. Robbie says he often stops talking. [F] He talks non-stop.

9. Lorraine hopes people feel she’s a genuine person. [T] 10. The first thing Robbie noticed about his best friend was her eyes. [T]

N FR BE O DO M W W N EB LO SI A TE DE D

1. Harry

CA

This extract has been taken from Live from London: First impressions. To view the original lesson in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.

Summary: Students watch the video and write down notes on a chosen interviewee.

Level: Pre-intermediate (A2) to Intermediate (B1)

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Amazing Amazing world world ofof animals food

Circle the food which comes from animals in red. Circle the food from plants in green. Write the words in the correct pictures.

oil eggs

butter

yoghurts

bananas

Food from animals

butter

bread

ice cream

chicken

Worksheet 1 Food from animals and plants

Lesson 1: Where food comes from

sausages

nuts

pasta

Food from plants

oil carrots

beans

meat

milk

fish

cheese

apples

© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2011

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ONESTOPCLIL / Young Learners / Amazing world of food / Lesson 1: Where food comes from

rice CA HO N T O FR BE PHC O CDA O O O M N WT P W BE N OCIA EB D LO O B SI OW A PI L TE NLDE ABE OA D L• DE E D •

potatoes

This extract has been taken from Amazing world of food: Lesson 1: Where food comes from. To view the original lesson in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.

by Carol Read

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What accent should I teach?

In this extract, Adrian addresses practical concerns around accents with practical ideas to teach pronunciation in the classroom.

Explore the full series and use the interactive version of the phonemic chart at: www.onestopenglish.com/ skills/pronunciation

PRACTICAL IDEAS FOR THE CLASSROOM 1 Teach your own pronunciation, and be upfront about it.

Tell the class about your own pronunciation of English (whether you are a native or non native speaker) and get students to demonstrate different accents of their first language. You can do this with monolingual and multilingual groups. Make it clear that you give no greater value to one variety or another and that different accents exist in English throughout the world and within single countries. Invite them to name and imitate some major English accents.

2 Expose your students to other accents of English whenever possible.

Constantly expose your students to short clips of different accents through course materials, online resources and accents of other teachers in the school. Expose them both to well-known global varieties of English, for example accents from the United States, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, etc and to local accents of English from anywhere in the world, for example in the UK this could be a Devon accent or an accent of someone from Liverpool or Edinburgh.

Invite them to notice and play with the differences between accents. The more they do this with their voice the more they will educate their ear to hear the distinctions when listening to different accents outside the class.

Here are some YouTube videos you might like to use.

• Twenty-one accents www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UgpfSp2t6k • One woman, 17 British accents www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyyT2jmVPAk • Fun tour of American accents www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NriDTxseog 3 Be playful with different accents.

The best way to notice different accents is to try saying the different pronunciations. Get your students and yourself to do this playfully, and with pleasure. Encourage students to listen to the differences and above all enjoy it. If you the teacher joins in and experiments, you can relieve the anxiety and grow an atmosphere of creative exploration and fun in which there is laughter with each other, not at each other.

4 Practise sounds and words, but then immediately join them up.

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© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2015

Help your students to practise individual sounds, but then ensure they join the sounds up into words, and join the words up into connected pieces of speech. A good tip is this: The right words in the right order is not the same as correct. When doing grammar and vocabulary exercises in class it is easy for the teacher to say good when you hear the right words in the right order.

But it is not actually ‘good’ until it has the best connected up flow and clarity that they can manage at that moment. Students notice how it brings the language alive when you require this and you will quickly raise the standard in your class. Using a smartphone you can get students to practice recording and listening to their own versions of connected up sentences that you are practising in class.

CA HO N T O FR BE C O DO O M W P W N IA EB LO B SI A L TE DE E D •

This extract has been taken from Pronunciation skills: What accent should I teach?. To view the original article in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.

Discover the importance of teaching pronunciation with videos, articles and activities from our pronunciation skills series – starring and authored by ELT pronunciation expert Adrian Underhill.

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WORKSHEET

gamification

www.macmillandictionary.com

Go to the Macmillan Dictionary BuzzWord article at: http://www.macmillandictionary.com/buzzword/entries/gamification.html

1 Find the information 1.

What is gamification?

2.

What should happen if you make tasks more fun?

3.

What is gamification mainly associated with?

4.

Why are gamification techniques used in marketing and advertising?

5.

Where is gamification most extensively applied?

6.

When did the terms gamification and gamify first appear ?

2 Find the word Look in the text and find the words that match the definitions. The first letters of the words or phrases are given. The words are in the order in which they appear in the text.

1.

a two-word verb phrase meaning to spend most of your time doing or thinking about something i______________ y______________

2.

a verb meaning to lose your ability to fight against something s______________

3.

a verb meaning to continue trying to achieve something difficult p______________

4.

a two-word adjectival phrase meaning knowing a lot about technology t______________-s______________

5.

a noun meaning the set of attitudes and beliefs that are typical of an organization or a group of people e______________

6.

a verb meaning to become definite or easily understood c______________

3 Comprehension check The term gamification is restricted in scope to electronic concepts.

2.

Gamification is also applied in life management/productivity apps.

3.

The concept underlying gamification is completely new.

4.

The terms gamification and gamify were coined by an educational expert.

5.

The terms gamification and gamify became generally known in the early 2000s.

6.

The suffix -ify is used to create verbs meaning ‘to make something become something’.

© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2014 MACMILLAN DICTIONARY BUZZWORD / gamification

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1.

CA HO N T O FR BE C O DO O M W P W N IA EB LO B SI A L TE DE E D •

Are these statements true (T) or false (F) according to the text?

This extract has been taken from Macmillan Dictionary BuzzWord: gamification. To view the original lesson in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.

Read the BuzzWord article on the word gamification and answer the questions.

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Tech Tasks for the Class

by Tom Walton

Instagram The Tech Tasks series provides a list of lesson ideas and fun tasks to do with your

In this extract from the Tech Tasks series, Tom Walton looks at Instagram as an educational resource, exploring how it can be used to help students develop their speaking and vocabulary skills both inside and outside the classroom.

Level:

Intermediate, Upper intermediate, Advanced

Do your students want to use Instagram for class?

If you’re not familiar with it, Instagram is an app for sharing photographs from a user’s smartphone. It is one of the world’s most popular social networks and one that a lot of your students are probably already using. If they are, they’ve probably become enthusiastically addicted to it (like me!), so wouldn’t it be great if we could take advantage of that enthusiasm for class projects?

Tape poetry If you’ve never heard of tape poetry, you’ll find plenty of examples on Instagram itself (see tag #tapepoetry). It basically involves writing a poem, cutting up the lines into strips (hence the name ‘tape’ poetry) and pasting it on to an interesting background. In street art, the background is always a suitably interesting wall or door, but a classroom or corridor noticeboard makes a great alternative. If you work in a secondary school, enlist the collaboration of the art or technology department, and this can make a great cross curricular project. It could be that you want to specify a particular area of target language you want to be included.

Instagram as a class vocabulary book This depends a lot on the level you teach, but if you’ve been looking at clothes vocabulary in class, for example, you can ask your class to Instagram various items of clothes in their wardrobe. They could even model the clothes, and then this becomes a fun homework project. Your students need to remember to hashtag any photos they post (e.g. #cool #faded #jeans), as the hashtags are the vocabulary items you want them to learn.

But before you begin…

Before you begin with any tech tool, you want what I call ‘the 3 Ps’: practice, permission and privacy.

The only way to get some practice is to create an account and start using it. If you aren’t already an Instagram user, consider becoming one only for class projects.

Remember that you don’t need to be an expert on Instagram (or any other Web 2.0 tool) in order to use it successfully with learners. You already have experts in your class – some of your students. Ask them to provide their classmates with any help they require!

If you teach anyone under the age of 18, it is important to get permission from parents and your school. Note that you are more likely to obtain this if you can show that you are doing what is possible to guarantee as much privacy as possible.

Quotes Everyone loves a good quote. Collecting quotes makes a great project. The quotes can be either on the themes you work on in class or just random quotes that your students find, like and share with the rest of the class.

There are lots of apps that allow you to create quotes, which your class’s Instagram users will be able to tell you about!

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© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2016

CA HO N T O FR BE C O DO O M W P W N IA EB LO B SI A L TE DE E D •

This extract has been taken from Tech Tasks for the Class: Fun projects with Instagram. To view the original article in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.

students using the latest digital technologies.

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Digital literacy

Blended learning Flipped learning The Four Cs

First steps into …

Digital Literacy

Ed Tech, or education technology, features prominently in the world of ELT these days. Things certainly look as if they are changing fast around us, but how are these new ideas transforming language learning and teaching?

In the First steps into … series Daniel Barber helps us to navigate around the emerging technologies and become familiar with them, offering helpful advice on how to start integrating elements into lessons. This extract from the series explores the topic of Digital Literacy.

Literacy is more than just the ability to read and write. Any primary school teacher will tell you that it involves mastering many different skills, from analysing how texts are organized to understanding the writer’s reasons for writing. Similarly, digital literacy should be understood as a range of separate sub-skills, or literacies.

What are digital literacies?

In Volume 66 of the ELT Journal, Nicky Hockly groups digital literacies under four main categories – language based, information based, connection and (re-)design based.

Language-based literacies include the ability to read and write new text types such as blogs, text messages, forum discussions and hyperlinked texts. It also includes the language we need to participate effectively in multimedia environments such as video gaming and mobile apps.

Information-based literacies include ‘search literacy’ – knowing the right search terms to find information digitally, and, once we have found that information, knowing how to decide how reliable it is. ‘Filtering literacy’ is about knowing how to manage ‘information overload’ – the problem of being faced with too much information.

Connection literacies are about managing your online identity and relationships. ‘Network literacy’ helps you select the relevant information from social media ‘feeds’ and other online networks.

Why promote digital literacies in ELT? Firstly, digital literacy should not be limited to the IT class, in just the same way that the goal of traditional literacy is not limited to the language classroom. Literacy extends into all subjects and areas of learning, and now so does digital literacy. To ignore the digital needs of students in ELT is to deny them a complete education in English for today’s world.

Secondly, to develop digital literacy we need to bring technological modes of learning into the classroom.

This has the potential benefit of making learning more motivating, fun and integrated into their lives outside class.

Finally, English is in many ways the language of technology and a passport to the online world. Consider the fact that more than half of the top 10-million websites have content in English, and that many students are not learning English to travel to English-speaking countries, but are motivated by the promise of greater personal, academic and professional opportunities on the internet. If their needs as users of English are within this technological sphere, shouldn’t we promote the skills they need to succeed there alongside their English language skills? Could we even describe English proficiency as one of the most important digital literacies there is? If so, our role as teachers of English needs to adapt to this new reality.

•P

© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2016

CA HO N T O FR BE C O DO O M W P W N IA EB LO B SI A L TE DE E D •

(Re-)design-based literacies are defined as ‘the ability to recreate and re-purpose already-made digital content in innovative ways’. This recognizes that a lot of what we produce online is ‘reformulation’ of what others produce: copying and pasting, quoting from wikis, retweeting tweets, manipulating images and sharing others’ posts. It is important to be aware of issues surrounding these activities, such as copyright, so that we can do so sensitively, creatively and productively.

This extract has been taken from First steps into ... Digital Literacy. To view the original article in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.

Digital Literacy

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