Seminars on Bilingualism: Madrid and Murcia

2nd Oxford Seminar on Bilingualism in Murcia

Recently we held our 2nd Oxford Seminar on Bilingualism in Murcia (27 April) and our 4th Oxford Seminar on Bilingualism in Madrid (5 May), focusing on phonics, CLIL, including Social and Natural Sciences and Arts and Crafts, and English communication skills. There was a large number of participants in both cases, all teachers and language assistants that are concerned with doing the best they can with the bilingual situations in their schools. In Madrid, the bilingual programme has moved into Secondary education, and we were pleased to welcome a number of Secondary teachers in addition to the Primary teachers.

Thank you to those who joined us! Read more and see photos from these two events on the Past Events page.

Oxford Seminar in Barcelona for all stages of education

Our Oxford Seminar in Barcelona had an amazing turn out with teachers from all levels: Pre-Primary, Primary, Secondary, Upper-secondary, Escuelas Oficiales de Idiomas and Adults. It was a productive Saturday morning with lots of interesting workshops. We had great fun sharing classroom experiences with the teachers in attendance, and we hope it was fruitful for everyone! Thank you for joining us!

Read more about the Seminar.

Wonderful turn out for Seminario Oxford en Educación Infantil in Madrid!

Almost 300 Pre-primary teachers attended our Seminario Oxford en Educación Infantil in Madrid, “Una nueva mirada sobre las matemáticas y las ciencias.” The Seminario took place in the Círculo de Bellas Artes and consisted of two practical workshops. The workshop on Mathematics, “Menos ritos, menos mitos, menos soles y palitos,” was given by José Antonio Fernández Bravo, expert in mathematics and the learning and teaching of mathematics. The second workshop, “La mirada científica de los más pequeños,” was given by Olga Schaaff and Mª Teresa Feu, both Pre-primary teachers and authors of the coursebooks, Descobrim and Alrededor de la Ciencia.

It was a wonderful opportunity for teachers to meet and share experiences! Thank you to those who attended!

Visit our Past Events page for further information and a few photos of the event.

VII JORNADA IEA ¿Cómo aprenden?

Oxford University Press España is collaborating this year with the Universidad Camilo José Cela and the Instituto de Enseñanza y Aprendizaje to bring you the VII Jornada IEA, entitled ¿Cómo aprenden? on Saturday, 21st April. Registration is free of cost, and attendance will be recognized with ECTS credits.

It proves to be quite an interesting day in which we plan to consider questions regarding how students these days learn and how we can solve the problems in our educational system. Dr. Cristobal Cobo, from the University of Oxford, will discuss the new rules involved in education today. Dolors Reig Hernández and Jordi Adell will consider different aspects of teaching with ICT. And in the afternoon teachers and experts will share experiences and participate in a round table debate, attempting to define possible next steps for our educational system.

For more information and registration, go to the University’s website. If you’re interested in attending, be sure to register on the website before 19th April.

Who doesn’t love a good story?

Stories can be a wonderful motivational tool for students of all ages! Who doesn’t love a good story? Whether told orally, read by the teacher or read by students, stories can be a rich resource of both language and content. There are many stories available on the Internet in many different formats: audio, video, text, interactive text and more. Try some of the following resources:

For a large database of stories and related activities for all levels, visit the BritLit website. You’ll find stories categorized by the Most recently created, then Primary, Younger teens, Secondary, and WorldWords. Click on the name of a story and you’ll find a short introduction of what the kit includes, plus instructions on using it in class. In most cases you have an audio recording of the story, sometimes read by its author. You also have several level-appropriate activities that accompany the story, for pre-reading, while reading and post reading, which involve all the language skills and content support. One fun story for Secondary is Orange Juice, which you can use to work on values.

At Primary Homework Help, a British children’s site, you’ll find dozens of stories for Primary students to read and listen. Many of them are presented in an online book format and children only need to click “Next” to continue the story. Text and audio can normally be turned off or left on. Many of the usual ELT Primary themes are present, and the stories can be fun ways to revise vocabulary and language structures. To revise animals and daily habits, try Twins. For Science, try The Lucky Seed.

Andrew Wright’s website also contains many short stories (see the links on the right side of the page) plus several articles about how to tell stories, writing stories and poems, and activities and games related to stories to use in the classroom. See Reading Activities for Most Texts for some ideas to do before, while and after you enjoy a story.

Happy reading!

3rd Oxford Seminar on Primary and Secondary: New Challenges, New Techniques (Part 2)

We were happy to see everyone again yesterday at the second and final day of the Oxford Seminar on Primary and Secondary Education in Palma de Mallorca.

Vanessa Reilly had the Primary teachers on their feet and involved with her “bag of tricks” and experiments for young children. Meanwhile Miriam D’Amico explored the use of readers in the Secondary classroom, and Montse Costafreda gave us many useful tips and games to help students gain autonomy through the use of a dictionary. You may download Montse’s handout here.

Thank you to all who attended!

3rd Oxford Seminar on Primary and Secondary: New Challenges, New Techniques

Thank you to everyone who attended our 3rd Oxford Seminar on Primary and Secondary Education in Palma de Mallorca. We hope that everyone enjoyed the workshops with Nina Lauder and Plácido Bazo. They both showed us different ways to teach all the students in our classes in a way that would be memorable and beneficial for each of them. We look forward to seeing you all next Wednesday for the second part of this Seminar!

You can download Nina’s handouts here:  Making Learning Memorable (Primary), Writing to Enrich Learning (Secondary)

TESOL-SPAIN Convention, Bilbao

A lovely setting for the TESOL-SPAIN Convention

We were so lucky to have a lovely weekend in Bilbao for the TESOL-SPAIN Convention this year. Thankfully, all the talks were so good that they distracted us from the nice weather outside!

Among the highlights were the opening plenary by Claudia Ferradas, who spoke about the importance of sharing culture through different types of texts, and the Saturday plenary by David Crystal who referred to many amusing anecdotes relating to cultural references in conversations among English speakers from different backgrounds. Read more and see the photos.

OUPE and UAH join forces to offer training opportunities

With the latest challenges in bilingual education and the application of technology in the classroom, teacher training gains importance for keeping up with best practices. We believe that teachers should be at the forefront of these tendencies, striving to improve education, starting with their own classrooms.

Oxford University Press España has teamed up with the University of Alcalá de Henares to offer three new courses, aimed at practicing teachers and administrators and those studying to become teachers.

These courses are recognized by the University and offer 4 ECTS credits each, which will count toward the Spanish civil servant exam. Click on each course name below for more information, or visit this website for these and other officially recognized training opportunities.

Modelos de enseñanza bilingüe para docentes

Enseñanza bilingüe para centros e instituciones

Integración de la Pizarra Digital Interactiva en el aula (iniciación)

If you are interested, be sure to sign up now! Registration is until 14th March and places are limited.

2nd Oxford Seminar on Phonics in Madrid

Participants 3rd March

Due to the immense popularity, we repeated our Oxford Seminar on Phonics in Madrid last Saturday morning. Kathryn Escribano again shared dozens of ideas that she uses when teaching phonics to her Pre-primary students. We had a great time of it, and hope all that attended did too! Click here to see a few photos and download Kathryn’s handout.