Logos Language Learning

I have a class with students in Cambodia and recently they came up with a genius way to respond to questions on the presentations that I give them.

Most of my materials require a single word answer which may be a change of form, tense, negation etc and there may be as many as 20 different questions on one exercise.

The difficultly with using Zoom is that only one student usually responds at a time, so it takes time to get around everyone. I have previously used the chat facility, but it was a bit awkward.

So what the students did was to change their name to the correct answer. It is an easy task to change your name at anytime using zoom, but they would all respond to the exercise by writing the question number and then the word that they thought was the correct answer. In this way I could see who was responding and they could choose any question number to respond to, so that we do not have to follow a set order, so for example one students would write 4 - immaculate another would write 8 - improvement etc. look at the following exercise and see that the answer to question 1 - came down with, contracted

The lesson went really well. Try it. Enjoy

We are clearing out our house in preparation for a possible move and so we have available a plethora of books, tapes and CD's that we no longer use that we are going to dispose of. Here are just a sample of what is available. If anyone wants them they are yours for free!!! We just have to work out how to get them to you.

Not sure where I got this exercise from, but it worked incredibly well on my kids the other day. They are lower intermediate level and it seemed to be just right. The exercise consists of a grid with words that look very random, but there are 9 different words with capital letters that are the start of different sentences. I showed the grid on the PowerPoint and pointed out the words with capital letters and then gave them the challenge to find all the sentences.

If you click the box around the first word it will reveal the next word. Keep clicking the same box and all the words will be revealed. enjoy.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1XbK3e3-cW9nNFDfe3qD2h-CSMxdNm4VD/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WLloc3zqouAEtY9OuIKZgSjJV5LQlJq9/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true

This is my latest contribution to the materials. It is specifically concerning informal to formal writing. For high level examinations such as IELTS the writing element usually gives higher grades for more formal language used. This presentation has two main slides - one which can be used online and you need to click on the numbered squares to reveal the informal equivalent and click on the same square to reveal the correct answer. The third slide can be copied directly and used with a class to manually fill in the appropriate words. If you are using the presentation, please remember that it will not work in Google slides as you cannot use triggers in Google slides. Download the file and use in ordinary PowerPoint. Enjoy

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Recently I have been challenging my students with working out correct word combinations and then to decide their meaning. I took this idea from the site https://www.englishrevealed.co.uk/advanced_vocabulary.php but have reformatted it so that it can be used in PowerPoint and can be given as a handout for students to do manually. When doing online classes I obviously can only use the Interactive PowerPoint where I can click on the numbers to reveal the correct answers, but in face to face classes I give the students the handout and have them fill it out. The PowerPoint can then be used to review and give feedback to the class of the correct answers. The procedure for using the PowerPoint is to complete the answers for numbers 1 to 10 and when completed click on the large white square to reveal the second half of the exercise. Enjoy

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/16pg22S7wJgKukHv4WYWMr77mvGyLjAOL/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ed5J5NVx7MPcmF5NWAODp6LnQo-grFXd/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true

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It has taken me much longer than I thought it would to repair my resources site, but I have now done most of it. I still do not know how all the files on my gmail drive were deleted. The folders were left, but all were left empty. Anyway, I have uploaded all the files and made new connections. I have also discovered a plethora of material that I still need to upload and so will work on adding to the site. There are only 3000 connections so far and so I am aiming for 10,000 soon. Hope you can enjoy the activities
It has taken me much longer than I thought it would to repair my resources site, but I have now done most of it. I still do not know how all the files on my gmail drive were deleted. The folders were left, but all were left empty. Anyway, I have uploaded all the files and made new connections. I have also discovered a plethora of material that I still need to upload and so will work on adding to the site. There are only 3000 connections so far and so I am aiming for 10,000 soon. Hope you can enjoy the activities

Home | Englishteaching Michael and Miranda Hughes have together been teaching English for over 30 years,  They have taught 4 year olds and 44 year olds ranging from absolute beginners to Phd Professors - and everything in between.  Throughout these years they have developed and produced a plethora of materials that they...

I have recently discovered that the connections on my website https://bsgcenglish.wixsite.com/englishteaching that contains over a thousand teaching materials have been broken and that very few of the materials can actually be downloaded.

I checked the storage google drives that I hold the material on and found that most of the files have been deleted. It do not know if this is a result of hacking or whatever. Anyway, I need to fix it.

What I will be doing is making links to folders rather than individual documents. It will take too much time to go through every connection. Hopefully I will complete this by the end of the weekend. This is a real nuisance, but it does force me to update the site and put on the numerous materials I have developed over the past year. Watch this space!!!

Home | Englishteaching Michael and Miranda Hughes have together been teaching English for over 30 years,  They have taught 4 year olds and 44 year olds ranging from absolute beginners to Phd Professors - and everything in between.  Throughout these years they have developed and produced a plethora of materials that they...

Recently I have been helping out with the Sunway University Intensive English Programme for students who want to improve their English for future studies. The course consists of students from Malaysia and other countries. This latest course has five Japanese students. This is the lowest level class and so there are a lot of pronunciation and speaking problems - especially for the Japanese.

I noticed that the Japanese had a tendency to mix up L's and R's. B's and V's and several other pronunciation problems, so today I tried an exercise that went down really well.

I gave a demonstration to the class by reading out 9 words. I read each one twice but I did not give any hint of spelling of the words. The students had simply to write down the individual words they heard.

This was followed by a short one or two sentence passage that also contained many of the words I had just given them. All of them were very surprised as to how many words they just heard incorrectly.

I followed this up by dividing the class into two equal halves and sitting them on opposite sides of the class. Today all students have their own phones and as we have a class whatsapp group each of them know their class members telephone numbers. I gave another list to one of the groups and told them to call a partner in the other group and repeat the activity I had done earlier. (Obviously with different words). Once completed I gave the other group a different set of words and the activity was repeated again.

It was an interesting feedback session to try and decide if the mistakes were made because of not listening correctly or because the pronunciation of the speaker was not correct.

I will attach to this post links to the documents I used. The blank form can be given out as is, though the document with the word list should be cut into three slices so as to give to a different group each time. I intend to do this again and so I have prepared a second sheet which contains most of the same words as before, but now presented in a different order. Enjoy.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11Z7eWXc7cacUNh009WcLNwctc-Ni874T/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LKTMOtd2M4Y_deGKBQ23TUx97U1nQd1L/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g7sXAhYrj1J4bowRZdaxGV5EVUg1BMvI/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true, https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1gemJr88hr13XLZ3dywM2gZVWfpVFsmQg/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true

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A large amount of the presentations I have created over the past three years and uploaded to the site https://bsgcenglish.wixsite.com/englishteaching have been specifically designed for use with online teaching. During Covid many schools were forced to teach online and so these activities were especially useful for teachers to use - online.

Now that we seem to be returning to relative normality many of the presentations are not really suitable to be used in a classroom where the recipients are all in the same room and can speak face to face not only with the teacher or with each other.

So what I am doing now is to convert some of the activities into Word documents that can be printed and then completed by the class together. The teacher can then review the answers by using the PowerPoint version and go through the worksheets showing the results so that everyone can see.

An example of this is an activity that I describe as 'love expressions' where only one expression in each box is the correct idiom. The second slide then asks users to match the idiom to its correct definition. Here you can download both the PowerPoint and the Word document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WhmI2har84zedhehoqX5cu363RbhU5nU/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true and https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1gm1BcqJPg4-4YGbwkFPGP_MyK09SRwQo/edit?usp=share_link&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true

I strongly suggest that when you do activities of this sort that you give out the exercise one between two. In this way the two have to cooperate and help each other to complete the exercise.

There are also numerous exercises on my site that have been taken directly from sites that give the exercise in pdf or word format. For these I have not duplicated their work but have put a link at the bottom of each presentation so that you can download the exercise directly from the original site. As I have explained several times, I take exercises from sites, but convert them into PowerPoint format so they can be used much easier in online teaching. I do not in any way want to take people away from the original site where the activities may be downloaded for face to face class use. Enjoy.

I had this link on my Facebook this week and I found the content extremely interesting. https://docjournals.com/looktwice/ I therefore decided to convert the content into three powerpoint slides where 12 of the pictures are shown on one slide.

I have a comment under each picture to say what the picture looks like and I give it over to the students to say if they agree or disagree. When you click on the comment the picture will be enlarged so that it can be seen clearly. Click on the picture once and another comment will appear that will explain what the picture really is. To get rid of the picture and comment and move on to another picture, just simply click the enlarged picture a second time and both the picture and new comment will disappear.

Not much pedagogical use, but quite amusing and the sort of exercise to use when you need that filler. Can also be used at a moment in a lesson when you are thinking 'Please understand, before one of us dies!!!' So that you can restart the batteries and move on to something new after. Enjoy
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1OJR-S2v4OrrZaCLmZkyRw51dJ37wfIHJ/edit?usp=share_link&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1z8irbho3tQc5VUvIhx9crrAhdrLhd6h8/edit?usp=share_link&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1g4ypq8Wp2MXWyE8Dv5hLAnyEJyd1HDYJ/edit?usp=share_link&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true

The majority of my materials were made during the COVID era when a lot of learning was being conducted online. The presentations are therefore designed mainly for online presentation. As we are returning to relative normality, face to face classes are being conducted again. I am therefore reviewing many of my 'online' presentations and seeing how they can be adapted to be used in a physical classrooom.

Recently with my refugee kids I have been conducting face to face classes again, using my presentations, but also giving them physical exercises that they can do individually. I am using the online presentations to review the answers and responses the children make on their written responses. Here is an example of how this works. This presentation consists of four slides. The first is the exercise with the answers that can be displayed by clicking on the box numbers.

I have designed it so that if you click on the box once, it displays the word that needs correcting. This can be used throughout the lesson to show pupils some of the more difficult questions and what should be changed.

Pressing the button a second time reveals the correct answer.

The second slide is simply responses to a question and answer paper.

Slides 3 and 4 are pictures of the worksheets that can be printed and given to the children to fill in during the class time.

I am planning to do the same thing with many of my presentations - particularly for those at lower levels so that all can participate in the activity rather than just have one pupil respond to each question presented on the screen.

Here is a copy of the link and pictures of the four individual slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/14cqvSNPvgw9eVW_bVGJvmeWhcew5suBi/edit?usp=share_link&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true

I have found some excellent exercises on the different forms of the same word. English is complicated by the fact that the same base word can be changed depending upon if it is a verb, noun, adjective, negative, personal etc and sometimes it is difficult to know which form is appropriate. There are some excellent exercises at this address: https://www.englishrevealed.co.uk/advanced_vocabulary.php
I have simply taken some of their examples and turned them into presentations that can be used online or in the classroom. Something I have been doing with my classroom activity (ie face to face) is printing the activity on paper so that the students can do the exercises individually or in pairs and then the answers can be reviewed using the PowerPoint which can be used to display the correct answers. To print the exercise simply view the document in Reader mode - resize it so that it can be copied by s 'snipping tool' and paste the exercise into Word or whatever document producer you have. Here are some samples of exercises that I have just made. More of these can be found at: https://bsgcenglish.wixsite.com/englishteaching/exam-practice-powerpoint-games

For now you can connect to these three latest exercises: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1O_A_T1UCzcQLm2TRiSRJgmTvYQCZP_AU/edit?usp=share_link&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1lOA4tzoaDEksTN49CDpCTuNyeEKzjC7R/edit?usp=share_link&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1JeKAD54zS54XXAVUAmf1zzfYpLe9NGvt/edit?usp=share_link&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true

I just did a lesson with my Myanmar kids based on Genesis 1. It really went down quite well. The first was simply reading The whole of Genesis Chapter 1 using the powerpoint 'In the beginning' This I made so that when you transition from one slide to the next the background changes to reflect the content of the verses. You need to click it once to transition to the slide and then a second time to reveal the new background. It takes 20 seconds to load, but the effect is quite stunning.

Having gone presented the verses I then did a 'blockbuster' quiz. For one class I divided them into boys and girls and got them to agree on the answers to get the points.

Finally I gave them a wordsearch with the instruction that one of the words on the list is NOT in the wordsearch. There would be a big prize for the first person to find the word that is not there in the wordsearch. They all hurriedly tried to find the missing word, but I am afraid I epitomize the anagram of teacher being a cheater as ALL the words are actually in the wordsearch - there are none missing.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1jQMtGAJb84dmf8_i9jd7MNFB7eMNRMtw/edit?usp=share_link&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eAbaytpiy5_7aWOfIhImPB2hsNk40ylN/edit?usp=share_link&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qgwD3MQsOeGlbPBI4qh9QaImEPCARHmQ/edit?usp=share_link&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true

I just remembered. Here is a warning. If you do download these exercises in Google slides and try to use them online the triggers facility will not work. They will only work if you download the presentation and display it in PowerPoint presentation mode. Sorry for this but this is one of the inadequacies of Google slides.

To start my contribution of edited exercises from other sites, these links are taken from the site: https://www.englishrevealed.co.uk/advanced_vocabulary.php
I have taken the exercise and developed it so that students not only match the correct pairing, but on a second slide they have to work out the meaning of each pairing. This exercise has brought up much discussion of the context of when these sayings are used. I firmly believe that when we teach new vocabulary we must also teach the context and situation where it is acceptable, and sometimes where it can sound ridiculous.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1DWQpdrJQZe5tRZ_68AnhicQSKxaTAQnz/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true,

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1WAluQPUHrQu1smTItngPwp8Vzvg-1SXV/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true,

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1eTu6SJw2VQjc42Psf0ZTckFKFJH08kTo/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true,

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1h7ChSzmPLpek0YNwFesqHHFYb1nvBxxn/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=108857141217468403774&rtpof=true&sd=true

I have not maintained this page very much mainly because the majority of activities I have prepared have been prepared from material taken directly from other sites. I may well be brilliant 🥱at preparing different PowerPoint activities, but I am useless at originating the content. Please remember that the anagram of teacher is 'cheater' and so many of my activities are directly taken from other sites.

I am well aware of the copyright issues of taking material from other sites and their desire to 'monetize' their work. I have actually contacted a couple of sites for permission to use their material and have been told I am not allowed to use it on another webpage.

I have respected this requirement, but I feel that I wish to honour the spirit of sharing rather than the legal aspects. First, all the materials I use are freely available - I do not subscribe to any sites and so I am not taking things that can not be taken by anyone visiting the site. Second, I am reformatting it to be used in a different presentation medium - PowerPoint, which is much easier to use for online classes using Zoom etc. Thirdly I acknowledge the source of the material for each presentation so that users may visit the site if they want additional activities.

So I will be making available numerous activities that I have prepared and used with the online lessons I have been conducting over the past two years. So watch this space.

I have accumulated some 2,000 activities - many of which are available at https://bsgcenglish.wixsite.com/englishteaching which has recently been revamped with a new menu system, but I will also publish more stuff here for you to download directly.

Finally because I have so much material I am open to the offer that if anyone has worksheets that they would like to be converted to an interactive PowerPoint presentation then please feel free to contact me, either by messaging or commenting on this page and I will do my best to help. I offer this service for free and so I would be interested in trying something new.

All the best to you all for the new year 2023. I wish you God's blessing an love as you keep on teaching. Michael

It is a long time since I have added anything new to this site. Mainly because I have been working on lots of material that I have been using online to teach refugees and others in Myanmar, Cambodia and here in Malaysia.

A large number of my students are quite advanced already - some are even considering taking the IELTS exam and hoping for a high grade of 7+. One thing I noticed in looking at the IELTS rubric is that to achieve a IELTS 9 you need to use 'idiomatic' language, which I can only assume means the slang, cliches, metaphors and many other devices that are normal in two native speakers casual conversation.

I have therefore been compiling a number of different exercises that list some - by no means all - of these types of expressions. Do you know what an Oxymoron is? Have you ever heard of a Malapropism? Well now you can find out and share these with your students. They can all be downloaded from my Wixsite at: https://bsgcenglish.wixsite.com/englishteaching/slang-idioms-metaphors-etc and there are hundreds of other activities on the site that you can use.

I hope to publish some more stuff quite soon. All the best to you in your teaching and especially for those of you still teaching online - these are especially useful. Michael

During the Pandemic I have been conducting a number of online classes to various refugee children. Teaching online has been challenging and so I have prepared many lessons to be used online rather than with pen and paper. One such lesson is in my series of Story Telling where I present an entire book with illustrations and worksheets.

I have compiled a resource of the book The Lion, The Witch and The wardrobe - the first in the Narnia series. The presentation of this book has been broken down into five different presentations - all of which have the same format. I am afraid that the quality of the pictures is not very good as I took direct screen shots from the movie, so they may not be clear. Also available is a Word Document that has the complete story. All five lessons can be downloaded from this link: https://bsgcenglish.wixsite.com/englishteaching/story-telling

I have developed a whole new way of presenting new vocabulary to students online. I am so much aware of how students today take international examinations such as ToEFL, IELTS, Cambridge etc and in order to achieve the highest grade they need to have a superior knowledge of vocabulary.

I have therefore taken words which are considered to be different levels and present them with a simple definition along with lots of example sentences how the words are used. So far I have 2 elementary, 6 intermediate and 4 advanced. As I continue my online tuition I will be able to add to these weekly. The link to go directly to presentations, along with a detailed explanation of each exercise is:
https://bsgcenglish.wixsite.com/englishteaching/copy-of-instructional-powerpoints

I have not added anything to the site for many months now, but all that is going to change as I consolidate all the new materials I have made for teaching online during the pandemic.

I will start with a new presentation that I have been using with the blockbuster, Jeopardy and any other games that have an element of competition. This is a scoreboard that can be used throughout the game and you can change the names of the participants and the scores as you go along.

It does take some practice to integrate the scoreboard with the presentations as you have to present both in the Reading view and not in the full screen view as normal. Complete instructions as to how to do this can be found on this page: https://bsgcenglish.wixsite.com/englishteaching/copy-of-instructional-powerpoints

This is a direct link to download the scoreboard:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/114of5ZhBC64xqsRgXm_-n5f5ovlqNlqd/view?usp=sharing

Here are some illustrations to show you what I mean

Logos Language Learning updated their address.

I recently shared connections to my adaptations of the pelmanism game. I have now added several more presentations, but as I have to do online teaching I have adapted the approach to make the game a little more interesting.

Instead of asking each participant to open up 2, 3 or 4 different windows they only open 1. Once open the window is NOT closed but left open.

The next person opens another window and sees if the two parts connect. I have used this with proverbs so for example one window may say: 'A rolling stone', and somewhere in the grid is another window with the words 'gathers no moss' And so once both windows are revealed the students have to point out the connection and the teacher can show the connection by using the same colour button that I normally use for each team.

You may have to open several windows to get a match and it is up to the teacher if they want to point out the matches or let the students discover them for themselves. Here is a picture sequence of how the game may work

For those who are using Zoom etc I came up with an idea for my advanced class that worked really well the other day.

The difficulty we have with Zoom is that there is no natural interaction between the participants and while the teacher may be interacting with each student as much as possible, the fact is that most of the other participants tend to switch off until it is their turn to interact with the teacher.

Last week I told my students to prepare a one minute talk on something exciting they had done. But I also sent each one two separate words that they had to include in their talk. As they are advanced students I gave them words such as: incarcerate, impudent, conglomerate, judicious etc. Not your normal everyday story words. They were given the words two days in advance so they could find out the meaning and try and use them in context.

Their task was to include the words in their talk but to try and disguise the words so they sounded natural. The competition I set the students was that all had to listen to the individual talk, but had to determine which were the two words that I had given the story teller to put in the talk.

The winners were those who could slip their words into the speech and not be recognised and so they developed the art of putting in other 'bombastic' words to confuse the others.

When they finished their presentation then all the other members of the class were invited to use the chat facility and tell me directly which two words were the ones I had given.

For some of the participants who had not really prepared the words I gave them were obvious and were easily seen, but one or two of the class hid their words amongst other bombastic words and nearly got away saying their words that were undetected.

There are 8 students in the class and whilst most of the words were found by at least one of the other students it was a very interesting game to play.

The second time we played this the students started to catch on and prepared a much better and 'confusing' talk for the others and two actually managed to say their words undetected.

The beauty of this activity has been for the students to increase their listening skills, increase their understanding of more complex words and enjoy a competition where one was declared the winner.
I am trying this again with a lower level class so will not use such formal vocabulary. Not sure if it would work with a large class, though I think I would split the class and put them in the break out rooms.

If anyone else has any ideas of helping students interact better on Zoom then I would be interested.