Sue Kay has been an ELT materials writer for over 25 years. She is the co-author of Pearson's Focus Second Edition and is one of the co-founders of ELT Publishing Professionals. In this article, Sue takes us through her experience of using video in the classroom and shows us how to motivate and engage students with authentic video.

Videos are no longer a novelty

When I started teaching in the early 80s, video was a novelty in the classroom. We only had one video player for the whole school and had to book it a week in advance. There was very little published material available, but thanks to the rarity factor, the students lapped it up. 

There was no problem with getting them motivated, even if the lessons accompanying the videos were not particularly exciting and consisted mainly of comprehension questions. Lucky for me, our school had a very dynamic Director of Studies who gave great teacher training sessions and I was very taken with a presentation he did on active viewing tasks. 

I was, and still am, a big fan of the Communicative Approach and I embraced the more interactive video tasks enthusiastically: freeze frame and predict, watch with the sound down and guess what people are saying, listen with the screen hidden to guess the action, etc. 

When I’m preparing a video lesson, I still try to include at least one of these activities because the information gap provides an ideal motivation for students to watch the video and check their ideas. 

How to write a spooky story: tips and tricks for English language students

Halloween is the perfect time to let your imagination run wild and create a spooky story that will send shivers down your readers' spines. If you're a student learning English, or an ESL teacher hoping to inspire and enthuse your students, writing a Halloween-themed story can be a fun way to practice your English skills. In this blog, we'll guide you through the process of writing a spooky story step by step, from brainstorming ideas to polishing your final draft. Let's get started!

In today’s interconnected world, effective communication in English is more crucial than ever. As educators and language learners seek to measure and improve English proficiency, a resource like the Global Scale of English (GSE) offers a valuable framework for assessment. This blog post will explore how the GSE can be used to assess listening skills, providing insights into how it also helps tailor instruction and support language development.

For listening skills, the GSE focuses on how well learners can understand spoken English in different contexts. It assesses comprehension at varying levels of complexity:

Understanding simple information: At lower levels, learners are expected to understand basic information, such as simple instructions or everyday topics. The GSE provides learning objectives for how well learners can grasp essential details.

Understanding main ideas: As proficiency grows, learners should be able to identify main ideas and key points in more complex spoken texts, such as conversations and broadcasts. The GSE outlines how well learners can extract important information from various sources.

Understanding detailed information: At advanced levels, learners are expected to comprehend detailed and nuanced information, including implicit meaning and speaker intent. The GSE describes the level of detail and depth of understanding required at these stages.

The GSE also shows how students engage in different operations of listening, from global comprehension, recognizing information and identifying specific information to extracting information. By taking this into account, teachers can monitor students’ progress and assess their listening skills. An example will show this in action.

Let’s consider a level, say GSE 30-35 (equivalent to low A2 on the CEFR) and focus on how students process information. When checking a listening activity, rather than simply focusing on whether the answers are correct or incorrect, we can analyze our learners using the GSE and see what progress they are making and what we need to do as teachers to help them move on. Heres how: