English Toolbox Tips

We received some very detailed responses to our contest on pronunciation problems (thank you, Abdullah, for the diagram of the human palate); however, we decided that simple was best in this case. Betsy P. in Barcelona recalled her years teaching in Asia, and the problems some students had with making the “r” sound. So she asked them all to imitate the roar of a lion: once they were in full “RRRRRRRRRRR” mode, she had them segue immediately into saying the word, “ring.” This proved to the students that they could, in fact, pronounce the phoneme correctly. Great trick, Betsy—you get five free credits from English Toolbox!

The topic for this week’s contest is word order in sentences. It’s a very general topic, so we expect lots of suggestions. Send in your tried-and-true methods to info@englishtoolbox.com by 7 July, and we’ll pick the best one and publish it in this space next week. The winner will receive five free English Toolbox exercises, even if s/he isn’t a subscriber! We look forward to reading and sharing your great ideas.

// posted by English Toolbox Co. @ 12:20 PM

Well done, Michelle—you get five free credits from English Toolbox! For our next contest, tell us how you solved a particularly difficult pronunciation problem. Send in your tried-and-true methods to info@englishtoolbox.com by 24 June, and we’ll pick the best one and publish it in this space next week. The winner will receive five free credits from English Toolbox (which can be used to get up to five exercises) even if s/he isn’t a subscriber!

// posted by English Toolbox Co. @ 8:15 PM

You may have noticed that we’ve added descriptions of each type of exercise in our search area. So now, when you search for exercises, you will see in the description whether it’s a gapfill, matching, multiple-choice or other type. Thanks to Richard M. in Germany for the suggestion!

// posted by English Toolbox Co. @ 12:36 AM

We were very pleased by the response to our first weekly contest (“icebreakers”). Our winner, Bill P. in Indonesia, asks his students/seminar course participants to remember their favorite vacation/holiday. Then pair up the students, and give them each one minute to describe the vacation’s high points to the other (this is done with all pairs at once, resulting in what Bill called “a nice cacophony”!). After both have spoken, rotate the students and repeat. Continue until everyone has told/heard about everyone’s vacation. Re-seat the students, and quiz them on what they heard: e.g., “Kim, where did John go on his vacation?” The students are thus forced to really listen to each other during the recitations, and keep all the places, activities, etc., straight for the follow-up quiz. Good one, Bill—you get five free English Toolbox Co. exercises!

The topic for this week’s contest is teaching the perfect tenses. How do you explain how and when to use past & present perfect, especially in contrast to simple past/present? Send in your tried-and-true methods to info@englishtoolbox.com by 10 June, and we’ll pick the best one and publish it in this space next week. The winner will receive five free English Toolbox exercises, even if s/he isn’t a subscriber! We look forward to reading and sharing your great ideas.

// posted by English Toolbox Co. @ 12:28 PM

We’ve had several queries about the English Toolbox Interactive HTML Exercises. Everyone likes them, but they’re not always sure how to use them in their teaching. First of all, there’s a difference between the printed and the computer exercises. The MS Word document exercises can be used in class or given as homework, but the Interactive HTML Exercises are for the student to use outside of class for testing and review. When you download an HTML file, it has the file extension “.htm,” which means it’s a web page that can be opened in any web browser. Simply e-mail that file to your students: they can save it to their hard drive, open it and use it as many times as they wish. You can also post the file to a school intranet or to a web site you’ve created: simply make it a new page on the site and send the URL to your students. The Interactive HTML Exercises shuffle questions and answers every time they’re opened, which makes it more difficult to memorize the answers; they also give the students a running score and a final score, so they can see improvement each time they use the exercises. Our samples show how the exercises appear on the students’ screens: click here or here. So the next time you download some English Toolbox files, try one of the HTML exercises: your students will love them and will ask for more!

// posted by English Toolbox Co. @ 12:04 PM