Articles on MEC

Here you can get a brief overview of what can be found in Max’s English Corner.  After going through the overview, you may also want to look around to get a better look at what is offered and what will be coming up.

Some suggestions on how to approach dealing with a new situation, particularly in starting out with using new technology while teaching.  This isn’t a technical article, but rather provides some ways on how you might better prepare yourself and take on the changes in how you teach.

This is for the teachers who struggle to get a good lesson plan together.  Many tips are given to help orientate the reader of what to consider while planning and some different examples are provided to show some possibilities.

This article is broken down into 3 major sections:
1- Explanation of the ideas and terminology behind the PPP Model
2- A demonstration class being taught with this model
3- Some practical tips, guidelines and examples of activities you can use

Focuses on what you can do in conversation classes or when you want your students to speak in other types of classes.  This article goes over a range of considerations to help you in your planning such as clarifying your objectives, the first class of the course and evaluating your students, to name a few.  There are also many practical ideas for activities you can try out and some examples of lesson plans which you can look at.

This article begins with a brief description of how one might develop materials for a particular objective – in this case to encourage speaking about a variety of themes using some new vocabulary each time.  The article goes on to explain how one could exploit the different features of this resource in the classroom with the intention of building the students’ confidence and initiative in speaking, as well as their repertoire of productive vocabulary.

This is a guide to the short stories and anecdotes available on this site.  The first seven are accompanied by lesson plans and materials, ideas and activities you can use with them.  There are many more texts available covering a variety of themes.  These are recommended for the higher levels, around upper intermediate and up.

Brief descriptions of six videos you can use in your classroom looking at social issues and found on this website, complete with lesson plans and student worksheets.

This article is dedicated to ESL teachers looking for ideas and advice when preparing their classes with the idea of using a video in some way.  (Many of the ideas and tasks are applicable for reading and listening activities as well.)  It provides advice on how to approach using video as well as many practical activities that can involve the students in different ways.  The final section is dedicated to offering some ready-made lesson plans to accompany some videos and links to interesting sites that teachers may wish to check out.