Talk to the Clouds

Month: January 2010

  • Words about Words

    “Euphemism” is a pretty big word, but it’s so useful that it’s part of a set of words I generally wind up teaching to my students if they’re at least intermediate level. These “words about words” belong to a vocabulary set that’s above or outside of the level of the other words they know. However,…

  • Fly Around the World with Google Earth

    I swear I’m not a cheerleader for Google, but they consistently bring out free products that are of interest to the international community, and they’re often or usually cross-platform. Google Earth is a program that I think everyone should try, especially if you’re curious about other parts of the world, you live overseas, or if…

  • Important Reading on “NNESTs”

    It is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the US, so it occurred to me it might be timely to post on this topic, which has surprising intersections with issues of racism and classism. (Language-based discrimination often does.) An issue that is close to my heart is the status of English teachers who learned English…

  • New Twitter Account, Spiffing Up

    I mentioned this briefly in an earlier post, but there’s a new Twitter account tied to this blog. So please feel free to follow @talkclouds. I’m delighted to follow other English teachers back, and if you have some other people to recommend that I should follow, please let me know! Also, I’ve cleaned up and…

  • 12 Days of Christmas: EFL Classroom 2.0

    Well, I’ve made it to Twelfth Night without missing any days. I wasn’t sure that would happen. If you’ve been reading all along, thanks for sticking with me! I hope today’s resource will help everyone who’s trying to force their brains back into lesson-planning mode after the holidays. It’s not easy, searching for inspiration when…

  • Twelve Days of Christmas: Delicious

    It’s the next to last day of this twelve-part series. I hope you’ve been enjoying the variety so far! I was debating whether to post about this service, since my geekier friends have been using it for years, but I checked with a couple of English-teaching friends and they weren’t familiar with it. (I’m in…

  • Twelve Days of Christmas: Free E-Books

    Only a couple more posts left after this one! Grab a mug or cup of cocoa, green tea, barley tea, or your other beverage of choice, particularly if it’s snowing where you are right now–not too close to the computer, mind you–and let’s settle in with a stack of entertaining and educational free reading material.…

  • Twelve Days of Christmas: TeacherTube, Vimeo, and more

    Everyone knows about Youtube and quite a few teachers use it, but there are a few more resources that are slightly less well-known and can liven up lesson points or bring more English input to an EFL teaching situation. Many teachers already know about TeacherTube, but not everyone does. It’s worth checking out if you…

  • Twelve Days of Christmas: Google Voice

    On the eighth day, we’re taking a moment to focus on a service that’s mostly of use only to folks working in the US, although there are some ways in which it could be useful to people with a lot of American friends and family. If that isn’t you at all, well, happy new year…