Welcome to the second post in this series. In the previous post we looked at definitions of creativity and talked about the importance of developing creative skills in our classrooms, not only for our learners but also for teachers! In this post I’ll be looking at a framework you can
Ways to Be Creative in your Classroom
Bringing some creativity into the classroom is a great way to motivate teenagers. It allows them to express themselves; it encourages independent thought and it can often give you, the teacher, a little time off. It’s important to prepare students for any creative activity. As a writer, I know only
What do you prefer?
It’s World Book Day on April 23rd. In this month’s blog post, I will share a ‘Books and Reading’ survey idea for teachers to try out with their primary students. I will also provide a simple reflection task to support Professional Development. We invite you to send us your feedback.
Life around the World Contest
Welcome to the first post in the Life around the World Contest! Each month, we will release a photo from a cover of Life Second Edition on the In Focus Blog. We want you to submit your best guess of where in the world this photo was taken. Try to tell
Making learning last: Multisensory approaches
You may be asking why a whole post is devoted to the subject of multi-sensory learning when the other posts in this series have included two or three factors that influence memory. The answer is because multi-sensory learning really implies experiential learning, which accounts for much of what we learn
The Questions We Ask
Hugh Dellar and Andrew Walkley explore questions about vocabulary that give you more feedback from your learners. Perhaps the most common kind of question that many teachers learn to ask during initial training is Concept-Checking Questions (CCQs). The basic idea is that after explaining what something means, teachers need to
A Critical Look at Critical Thinking
Before taking a critical look at critical thinking, it may be useful to come up with a clear definition of the concept. One way to think about it is to focus on the type of thinking required: “Critical thinking is thinking that is clear, logical, open-minded, and based on evidence.”
Join National Geographic Learning at TESOL 2018!
We hope you can join us at TESOL 2018! Check out the videos below to hear National Geographic Learning TESOL presenters speak about their upcoming sessions at TESOL 2018 in Chicago. Make sure to sign up for email notifications for daily reminders from National Geographic Learning during TESOL and stop
What is creative thinking and why is it important
The idea that, as teachers, we need to foster learners’ creative thinking is something I’m sure you have heard before. So why is there so much attention in our current learning and teaching context on ‘being creative’ and developing thinking skills in the classroom? And are we only talking about
Effective Phonics Routines in the Young Learner Classroom
Reading cannot be called reading unless comprehension is involved. But before children can focus their attention on making meaning from the text, they must get rid of the decoding effort. Decoding is an essential skill for reading but it is not enough in itself to enable comprehension. In order to