Dear Reader,
Raise your hand if you're also overjoyed albeit slightly incredulous that January is finally gone! It seemed impossible, it felt like it lasted 87 days, it rained the vast majority of it, but hey - we made it through. It's now gone, and it left us the new season of Bridgerton as a parting gift, so what more could we want?
Today, I am very pleased not only to welcome February, but also to give you some good news: the updated self-study course on lesson planning is out and the live individual and group lessons are ready to book!
✨ Important info on this important subject ✨
Important bit #1: you can now start studying the updated self-study course on lesson planning. It's ready one day early and I think you'll find it really useful. It's got full lesson plans, lessons on how to do ESP and civic education lesson plans, downloadable glossaries, yours truly presenting a lesson plan for an imaginary committee in 15 minutes sharp and a whole unit on laws - which you'd think would be boring to produce but it was actually a highlight for me because I have a strange fascination with legal terminology. The course is free to preview and, unless you have something more exciting to do on this jolly Sunday morning, you might enjoy this little intro to laws in English:
Important bit #2: The calendar of live classes is now live and ready to book! We've got quite a lot of news and improvements to the programme - though one thing will stay the same and that's the wonderful team of trainers: André Hedlund, Emma Meade-Flynn and again, yours truly.
Here's what's new and hopefully exciting:
- Individual + small group classes at C1/C2 level: you can choose whether to have a trainer all by yourself or participate with a few other teachers - or a mix of both!
- Coaching lessons: we will have lessons that are tailor-made for practising for the exam based on the types of questions we saw in last year's exams. You will practise the right phrases to start and end your answer, what to do when you get interrupted, how to answer when you don't really know the answer, how to present your lesson plan, and much more.
- Brand new questions: each session will have brand new questions, so you can book as many as you like.
- Discounts on multiple sessions: get automated discounts when you book 2 or 4 sessions - no need for coupon codes as the discount is applied automatically in your basket!
📅 The lessons will run from Monday 9 February until the end of March. We're not carrying on beyond March (mostly because I need time off in April for my dreaded house move), so: if you want to book one or more lessons, have a go now so that you don't miss out.
If you're wondering what lessons you can book, you're in luck: here's a full list with the booking links 👇
Literature and history (with Emma)
Culture in English-speaking countries (with me)
Language teaching and assessment (with André)
Discussing laws in English (with me)
Exam coaching domande disciplinari: mixed topics (with me)
Exam coaching lesson plan (with André)
Individual exam coaching (with André and Emma)
And now that that's all done, let me come to today's topic: did you know that 11 February is International Day of Women and Girls in Science? While you could say I'm a little skeptical of some of these designated world days (I mean, I think I'll skip Put a pillow in your fridge day in May, for example), this one really can offer a lot of material for a good lesson at school level.
So today, let me show you how a non-STEM girl can walk you through some properly useful and fascinating materials on girls in STEM.
Grab a coffee and let's get going!
International Day of Women and Girls in Science
An important topic that you could develop from many different angles. Here are some of the best resources I can recommend:
Lesson plans
- A resource collection from STEM learning that you can filter by age, topic and activity type.
- A British Council LearnEnglish lesson plan for B2 level (but I think it can be adapted for lower levels, for example in this way)
- Another British Council lesson plan but for B1 level
- An intermediate level lesson plan by Linguahouse. You need to register but it's free to download.
- A lovely lesson plan by Sandy Millin
Books
Having been a girl discouraged from pursuing STEM, I'm fairly invested in the whole business of "showing little girls they can do maths, actually". One of the ways of doing this includes using books: for inspiration on books on this sort of topic, you can't do much better than the Mighty Girls website. They also have a section on mighty women in science with free downloadable posters! Finally, my personal recommendation, particularly if you're working with younger or lower level students, is the Questionneers book series. They rhyme and they're good fun, plus the illustrations are top notch.
Bonus: videos
You will find no shortage of educational videos if you google "women/girls in STEM". Which is all well and good, but nothing comes close to watching a really cool woman in STEM do her thing... and sound a little like you: meet Samantha Cristoforetti in space. You can watch her do a variety of things on the International Space Station - make a snack, exercise, discuss her hobbies. I love how she is not only knowledgeable and cool, but she can also provide an excellent model of non-native yet clear and credible pronunciation that our students can identify with.
And with that, comes the end of today's shorter than usual but hopefully still sweet newsletter!
I wish you a lovely first Sunday of February.
Take care, dear teacher ✨
P.S.: My weekly suggestion for things to listen to/watch/read to improve your English while relaxing: I've already done so but I feel like it's my duty to remind you that the new season of Bridgerton is out. I've not had the time to watch any of it yet so please no spoilers. I will also say, if you're into cheesy crime TV series that also make you curse the place you live because they're set in a Caribbean paradise and the detectives wear Hawaiian shirts, the new season of Death in Paradise is out.
✨Cool things I heard this week
Can I just say how good this platform has been for me and my preparation? I mean it's all there and it's all clear, how good is that?
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