#OSE15

Onestopenglish
15th Birthday
Booklet Number one
resource site
for English
language
teachers
10 FREE
onestopenglish
resources

onestopenglish.com

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 Celebrating 15 years
of onestopenglish
This year we’re celebrating the 15th birthday of onestopenglish. Since the launch of
onestopenglish back in 2001 we’ve had the privilege of working with authors and English
language teachers from around the world to bring you resources to support your teaching.
Over the past 15 years, onestopenglish has grown from a handful of lesson submissions to a
site with over 10,000 resources, including video, audio and downloadable lesson plans. And
we’re proud to have become an online community for teachers.
Today, onestopenglish is visited by 3 million teachers worldwide and supported by a social
community of over 50,000 followers on Facebook.

Hear what our editors love

about onestopenglish
“I love onestopenglish because it
“I love onestopenglish because when I really does put teachers – and their
was a teacher I knew I could rely on the students! – at the heart. It’s great
website to find fun and creative lessons to work with such a passionate
to use with my students quickly. Now that and knowledgeable team of expert
I’m working on it, I feel proud that we’re authors and editors, who really
continuing to help teachers with their care about providing good-quality
professional development and providing classroom materials and helping
them with colourful, high-quality, author- busy teachers keep up-to-date with
written materials.” the latest educational trends and
methodologies.”
Rachel
Sarah
“I love onestopenglish because it
provides something different to
all the other books and websites
out there. It has a wide range of
ready-to-teach lesson plans on
a variety of topics all collected
together in one handy place.
Exactly what busy teachers need!”

Patrick

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 Take a look to see where we’ve
come in the last 15 years …
Timeline
2001 Onestopenglish launches with its first-ever
Lesson Share competition

2002 First series of news lessons from

The Guardian Weekly

2006 The onestopenglish community grows with

a magazine featuring topical resources and
teaching stories from around the world

2007 Resources on the site develop to include

sections for young learners and business

2008 First video lessons appear

2010 Onestopenglish gets a new look … and a new

Facebook page!
What the
future holds
2011 We celebrate our 10th birthday with staff and
At onestopenglish we hope to support
teachers around the world
you in the next step of your professional
development – helping you in your teaching as
2013 Onestopenglish partners with IATEFL to launch
it continues to change over the next 15 years.
our first IATEFL Scholarship
From establishing our Teacher Professional
2016 Welcome to the Teacher Professional Development team to setting the
Development team at Macmillan Education foundations for brand-new partnerships,
all of our work behind-the-scenes at
Macmillan Education continues to have
you in mind: our brilliant community
of teachers.

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 Take a look inside and explore a selection of our
favourite resources from onestopenglish!

Inside this booklet you’ll find 10

resources including:

This extract has been taken from Monthly news lesson: Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary. To view the original lesson in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.
6.
1.
The Guardian News CLIL: Amazing world
of food
Lesson: Shakespeare’s 400th
by Carol Read
anniversary
by Tim Bowen

7.
2.
EAP Shakespeare: Pronunciation skills:
What accent should I teach?
Introducing Shakespeare
by Adrian Underhill
by Chris Lima

8.
3.
Business Spotlight: Macmillan Dictionary
Ready for the future BuzzWord: gamification
by Karen Richardson
by Tim Bowen

9.
4.
ESOL: Introduction to Tech Tasks for the
Absolute Beginners Class: Fun projects with
Instagram
by Frances Marnie
by Tom Walton

10.
5.
Live from London: First steps into ...
Digital Literacy
First impressions
er by Daniel Barber
by Luke and James Vyn

Visit www.onestopenglish.com/15-years to download full versions

of the resources featured in this booklet, including accompanying
teachers’ notes, video and audio for the classroom.

OSE_birthday_booklet_2016.indd 2 05/04/2016 16:49 Shakes

 Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary
Level 1 l Elementary / Pre-intermediate
1 Warmer
What do you know about William Shakespeare?
Can you name any of his plays?

2 Key words
Fill the gaps in the sentences with these key words from the text. The paragraph numbers will help you.
playwright claim re-emphasize anniversary fortune
This extract has been taken from Monthly news lesson: Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary. To view the original lesson in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.

1. If you _______________________ something, you say that it is yours. (para 1)

2. A _______________________ is a very large amount of money. (para 2)

3. If you _______________________ something, you say again how important it is. (para 2)

4. An _______________________ is a date when people celebrate something important that happened in the past. (para 3)

5. A _______________________ is a person who writes plays. (para 3)

3 Find the information

Find the following information in the text as quickly as possible.
1. In what year did William Shakespeare die?
2. How many of his plays will be shown at a pop-up
cinema in London?
Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary: ‘man of
Stratford’ to be celebrated in 2016
Maev Kennedy, 1 January, 2016
1 The world shares him and London claims him but Stratford-
upon-Avon is going to spend 2016 celebrating William
Shakespeare as their man. He was born in Stratford-upon-
Avon in 1564 and died there 400 years ago.
2 Stratford was important to Shakespeare all his life, says
Paul Edmondson, the head of learning and research at
the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. “People often think
Shakespeare left Stratford and his family, went to London
to earn his fortune and only came back to die,” he said. “But
Stratford is where he bought land and houses, where he
kept his library, where he lived and read and thought. We are
going to spend the year re-emphasizing the importance of
Shakespeare, the man of Stratford.”
3 The anniversary of the death of the man from Stratford,
the most famous and the most performed playwright in the
world, will be celebrated across Britain and the world. There
3. When was the First Folio published?
will be performances of Macbeth in Singapore and Romeo
and Juliet in Brussels. Shakespeare’s Globe is completing
the first world tour in the history of theatre. During the tour,
it has taken Hamlet to every country except North Korea. In
London, they are also creating a 37-screen pop-up cinema,
one screen to show each of Shakespeare’s plays.
4 The National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company
and almost every other theatre production company in
the country will celebrate the anniversary. There will be
traditional and experimental performances of the plays.
There will also be hundreds of lectures, international
conferences, films, concerts, operas and major exhibitions.
5 Shakespeare was famous in his own lifetime but there is
little evidence about Shakespeare’s life and times. His plays
survived because his friends and actors collected together
every bit of every play they could find and made the First
Folio, published in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s
death.
© Guardian News and Media 2016
First published in The Guardian, 01/01/16

4 Chunks
Rearrange the words to make phrases from the text.
1. playwright the most world famous in the 3. lifetime his in own
2. hundreds of be there lectures will also
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NEWS LESSONS / Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary / Pre-intermediate

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 LESSON 1 INTRODUCING SHAKESPEARE

Level: Upper intermediate to Advanced

Aims: In this lesson, you will:
Ȝ Share your current views on Shakespeare and his work
Ȝ Critically discuss Shakespeare’s relevance in the 21st century
Ȝ Practise summarizing ideas and expressing your own opinion in writing
Ȝ Prepare to do independent study and note-taking

ACTIVITY 1 – SPEAKING
Discuss the questions below in pairs or small groups:

This extract has been taken from EAP Shakespeare: Introducing Shakespeare. To view the original lesson in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.
Ȝ Have you ever watched Shakespeare being performed, either in the theatre or in a film?

This extract has been taken from Business Spotlight: Ready for the future. To view the original lesson in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.
Ȝ Have you ever read the entire text of a play? If so, was it in English or translated?

Ȝ In your opinion, why has Shakespeare become such a cultural icon?

Ȝ Do you think Shakespeare’s plays are still relevant in the 21st century?

ACTIVITY 2 – LISTENING
Video link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vM_8E7vut4
Watch a TED talk by John Bolton walking us through lessons from Shakespeare that still resonate today. What lessons can we
learn from the four plays below? Complete the table.

HENRY V

OTHELLO

THE TEMPEST

HAMLET

THE MOST IMPORTANT

LESSON

THINK CRITICALLY

In spite of his popularity, Shakespeare’s texts and language are still often considered difficult to understand by
both fluent and less fluent English language speakers alike.
Where does that supposed difficulty come from? Is this general perception valid? What is the evidence for that?

© Macmillan Publishers Limited 2016

EAP Shakespeare: Lesson 1 Introducing Shakespeare
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 Powersfor
Ready in the
the future
East

1 Warmer
• When did you last review your career plans?
• When did you last update your CV?

2 Key words
Read the definitions and find the key words in the article.
1. happening in a natural way without being planned or thought about (para 1)
2. ministry (para 2)
3. the conditions in which you live, especially how much money you have (para 2)
4. making small changes to something in order to make it as good or as effective as possible (two words,
para 2)
5. extremely important because it has a major effect on the result of something (para 4)
This extract has been taken from EAP Shakespeare: Introducing Shakespeare. To view the original lesson in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.

This extract has been taken from Business Spotlight: Ready for the future. To view the original lesson in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.

by Margaret Davis
Ready for the future 3
s in the process:
fession? The government website lists four step s,
you r job or pro ntial career area
knowing yourself, learning about pote
Are you planning to cha nge
enable you se steps can
A good, well-thought out plan will making decisions and taki ng action. The
deta ils
your career – just
Dav is pro vide s
vary, depending on where you are in
achieve this aim. Ma rgar et
ing a career
beginning, learning new skills, consider
and asks experts for adv ice.
es or do you simp ly retireme nt.
1 Do you plan your future job mov change or preparing for
them up to chan ce? The re’s noth ing wrong with ress at regular 4
leave
there are som e situa tions in It’s important to check your career prog
spontane ous, but Rob inson told
being
aging your intervals, Boston career coach Kathy
which you really need a plan – and man AARP The Magazine – and to be sure
that you don’t
career is one of them . to keep up with
stop learning new skills. “It’s crucial
tern ’t want to be left
2 What is career planning? The governm
ent of Wes advances in your profession if you don
Workforce people know that
Australia’s Department of Training and behind,” Robinson says. “Successful
as “the continuo us learning builds
Development defines career planning making time for focused, uninterrupted
, values, skill s nities.” Robinson
process of thinking about your interests confidence and future growth opportu
k and learning make a plan that
and preferences; exploring the life, wor suggests that, once a year, you should
your work fits include taking a
options available to you; ensuring that lists your learning goals. These could
continuously ps, or spending
with your personal circumstances; and course, going to conferences or worksho
s to help you ing books or
fine-tuning your work and learning plan a certain proportion of your time read
the world of work”. articles about your profession.
manage the changes in your life and
© Business Spotlight, 1/2016.
www.business-spotlight.de

3 Summary
Join the words to make phrasal verbs and The article states that it is crucial to
then use them to complete the paragraph ____________________________(1) with
about the article. advances in your profession if you don’t want
1. figure up to be ____________________________(2).
2. keep out It says that you should regularly check
3. left up job postings to see if certain skills keep
4. showing behind ____________________________(3). You
should ____________________________(4)
what you need to learn or do to be able to
achieve your next career step.
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BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT / Ready for the future

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 ESOL: Introduction to Absolute Beginners

Frances Marnie introduces a series of ESOL lesson plans aimed at beginner-level students with little or no
previous experience of English. This article extract provides some general advice on how to prepare for a first
lesson with beginners. The Absolute Beginners series can be used as a lead-in to a starter coursebook.
Download the lesson plans from: www.onestopenglish.com/esol/absolute-beginners

10 tips for teaching absolute beginners

1. Find out the names of the students and clarify what is considered to be their first and last name. This shouldn’t
be too difficult as usually a family member or friend will have registered them for the course.
2. Ascertain if the students are at all familiar with the Roman script.
3. Try to find out which students have absolutely no English and which ones are already familiar with Hello and
What’s your name?
4. Find out as much as possible about the students’ background and needs. This information can be used
to adapt the lessons, if necessary. For example, if a student works in a restaurant, then basic food-related
vocabulary items should be introduced at an early stage. Similarly, if a student stays at home looking after

This extract has been taken from Live from London: First impressions. To view the original lesson in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.
This extract has been taken from Introduction to Absolute Beginners. To view the original article in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.
children, then vocabulary related to family life will be important.
5. Adapt the lesson to each student’s pace.
6. If the student is literate in their mother tongue, suggest that they invest in a bilingual dictionary and that they
bring it to every class.
7. Keep your language simple and to a minimum. Use gesture as a means of communication. (Check that a nod
means yes in the student’s culture!)
8. Remember that a smile is understood by everyone. Smiling will help create a positive atmosphere.
9. Introduce and practise basic functional language as the occasion arises. Students will probably want to
express Sorry, I don’t understand – thank you – please, etc at various points throughout the series. Give them
the appropriate phrase when they need it. Display it on the wall for future reference and use every natural
occurrence for further practice.
10. Encourage the students to adopt the LOOK – SAY – COVER – WRITE – CHECK method when learning new
vocabulary (see below).

The LOOK – SAY – COVER – WRITE – CHECK (LSCW) method

The LSCW method works because the student has to be ’active’ and say the word, write it, check it, correct it and
do it again.
• The student writes the word they want to learn on a piece of paper – making sure it’s the correct spelling!
• The student should then LOOK at the word carefully, noting the letters and shape of the word in as much
detail as possible.
• Next the student has to SAY the word. Encourage them to break it down into syllables (e.g. Mon – day) and to
notice any silent letters.
• The next step is to COVER the word.
• Without looking at the word, the student now attempts to WRITE it.
• Finally the student should CHECK the word carefully, making sure each letter is in the right place, and correct
any errors.
• The student is now in a position to correct any mistakes. Remind them that mistakes are an important part of
the learning process. Therefore, they shouldn’t worry and simply learn from them!
• Repeat as often as necessary until the spelling has been learnt.
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 LIVE FROM LONDON
First impressions
Live from London is a series of innovative video lessons featuring authentic interviews with people living in
London by authors Luke and James Vyner. Set in Brixton, this video lesson extract includes people talking
about first impressions.
Watch and download the video from: www.onestopenglish.com/first-impressions
Note-taking on first
impressions
Level: Pre-intermediate (A2) to Intermediate (B1)
Summary: Students watch the video and write down
notes on a chosen interviewee.
Objectives: listening for specific information; giving
opinions; agreeing and disagreeing
Instructions: Place your students into groups of
This extract has been taken from Live from London: First impressions. To view the original lesson in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.
This extract has been taken from Introduction to Absolute Beginners. To view the original article in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.
four. Give each student in their groups the name of a
different interviewee from the video:
1. Harry
2. Rwakn
3. Robbie
4. Lorraine
Explain that as they watch the video they have to make
detailed notes on their impressions of their person. You
could write these prompts on the board:
What’s the first thing you notice about them?
What do you think of them?
Do you think they seem friendly or unfriendly?
Would you like to meet them?
What kind of job do you think they have?
Play the video and ask your students to share their
opinions in their groups.
Play the video again to consolidate the
shared information.
Finally, ask your students whether they agree or
disagree with their group’s impressions. They can
discuss this in their small groups.
© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2015
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True or false questions
Level: Pre-intermediate (A2) to Intermediate (B1)
Summary: Students are given a list of true or false
statements about the video content.
Objectives: listening for specific information
Instructions: Look at the statements below. Some are
true, and others are false.
You can either write them up on the board or print out
the worksheet under ‘Related resources’ at the bottom
of the webpage on onestopenglish. You may wish to
change the order of the statements or play the video
first to make it more challenging, or you may even
wish to make your own true/false statements using the
transcript (from the webpage).
Please note that the answers are also given in this list.
1. Harry first notices people’s hair. [F] He first notices
their attitude.
2. Harry takes after his father. [F] He takes after
his mother.
3. Robbie first notices if people are friendly and smiley. [T]
4. Robbie asks a lot of questions when he first meets
someone. [T]
5. Lorraine thinks people first notice that she’s funny.
[F] Bubbly.
6. Harry thinks people first notice his voice. [T]
7. Rwakn thinks people first notice his eyes. [F] He
mentions his height and how he doesn’t smile much.
8. Robbie says he often stops talking. [F] He talks
non-stop.
9. Lorraine hopes people feel she’s a genuine person. [T]
10. The first thing Robbie noticed about his best friend
was her eyes. [T]
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 Amazing
Amazingworld
worldofof
animals
food
by Carol Read

Worksheet 1 Food from animals and plants

Lesson 1: Where food comes from
Yo u n g L e a r n e r s

Circle the food which comes from animals in red. Circle the food
from plants in green. Write the words in the correct pictures.

oil

butter eggs yoghurts bananas

This extract has been taken from Amazing world of food: Lesson 1: Where food comes from. To view the original lesson in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.

This extract has been taken from Pronunciation skills: What accent should I teach?. To view the original article in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.
Food from animals
butter
ice cream bread

chicken
sausages

nuts
pasta

Food from plants

worksheet 1

oil
carrots
beans

potatoes meat

fish rice
milk cheese apples
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ONESTOPCLIL / Young Learners / Amazing world of food / Lesson 1: Where food comes from
©©Macmillan
Macmillan Publishers
LtdLtd 2011
W B NO I
M N WT P

Publishers 2011
O CDA O O O
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ONESTOPCLIL
This page has been/ Young Learners
downloaded from/ Amazing world of food / Lesson 1: Where food comes from
www.onestopenglish.com
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 What accent should I teach?
Discover the importance of
teaching pronunciation with
videos, articles and activities
from our pronunciation skills
series – starring and authored by
ELT pronunciation expert Adrian
This extract has been taken from Amazing world of food: Lesson 1: Where food comes from. To view the original lesson in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.
Underhill.
In this extract, Adrian addresses
This extract has been taken from Pronunciation skills: What accent should I teach?. To view the original article in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.
practical concerns around accents
with practical ideas to teach
pronunciation in the classroom.
Explore the full series and use the
interactive version of the phonemic
chart at: www.onestopenglish.com/
skills/pronunciation
© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2015
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PRACTICAL IDEAS FOR THE CLASSROOM
1 Teach your own pronunciation, and be upfront about it.
Tell the class about your own pronunciation of English (whether you are
a native or non native speaker) and get students to demonstrate different
accents of their first language. You can do this with monolingual and
multilingual groups. Make it clear that you give no greater value to one
variety or another and that different accents exist in English throughout the
world and within single countries. Invite them to name and imitate some
major English accents.
2 Expose your students to other accents of English whenever possible.
Constantly expose your students to short clips of different accents through
course materials, online resources and accents of other teachers in the
school. Expose them both to well-known global varieties of English, for
example accents from the United States, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand,
etc and to local accents of English from anywhere in the world, for example
in the UK this could be a Devon accent or an accent of someone from
Liverpool or Edinburgh.
Invite them to notice and play with the differences between accents. The
more they do this with their voice the more they will educate their ear to
hear the distinctions when listening to different accents outside the class.
Here are some YouTube videos you might like to use.
• Twenty-one accents www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UgpfSp2t6k
• One woman, 17 British accents www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyyT2jmVPAk
• Fun tour of American accents www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NriDTxseog
3 Be playful with different accents.
The best way to notice different accents is to try saying the different
pronunciations. Get your students and yourself to do this playfully, and with
pleasure. Encourage students to listen to the differences and above all enjoy
it. If you the teacher joins in and experiments, you can relieve the anxiety
and grow an atmosphere of creative exploration and fun in which there is
laughter with each other, not at each other.
4 Practise sounds and words, but then immediately join them up.
Help your students to practise individual sounds, but then ensure they join
the sounds up into words, and join the words up into connected pieces of
speech. A good tip is this: The right words in the right order is not the same
as correct. When doing grammar and vocabulary exercises in class it is easy
for the teacher to say good when you hear the right words in the right order.
But it is not actually ‘good’ until it has the best connected up flow and clarity
that they can manage at that moment. Students notice how it brings the
language alive when you require this and you will quickly raise the standard
in your class. Using a smartphone you can get students to practice recording
and listening to their own versions of connected up sentences that you are
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 WORKSHEET
www.macmillandictionary.com
gamification

Go to the Macmillan Dictionary BuzzWord article at:

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/buzzword/entries/gamification.html

1 Find the information

This extract has been taken from Tech Tasks for the Class: Fun projects with Instagram. To view the original article in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.
Read the BuzzWord article on the word gamification and answer the questions.

This extract has been taken from Macmillan Dictionary BuzzWord: gamification. To view the original lesson in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.
1. What is gamification?
2. What should happen if you make tasks more fun?
3. What is gamification mainly associated with?
4. Why are gamification techniques used in marketing and advertising?
5. Where is gamification most extensively applied?
6. When did the terms gamification and gamify first appear ?

2 Find the word

Look in the text and find the words that match the definitions. The first letters of the words or phrases are
given. The words are in the order in which they appear in the text.

1. a two-word verb phrase meaning to spend most of your time doing or thinking about something
i______________ y______________
2. a verb meaning to lose your ability to fight against something
s______________
3. a verb meaning to continue trying to achieve something difficult
p______________
4. a two-word adjectival phrase meaning knowing a lot about technology
t______________-s______________
5. a noun meaning the set of attitudes and beliefs that are typical of an organization or a group of people
e______________
6. a verb meaning to become definite or easily understood
c______________

3 Comprehension check
Are these statements true (T) or false (F) according to the text?
1. The term gamification is restricted in scope to electronic concepts.
2. Gamification is also applied in life management/productivity apps.
3. The concept underlying gamification is completely new.
4. The terms gamification and gamify were coined by an educational expert.
5. The terms gamification and gamify became generally known in the early 2000s.
6. The suffix -ify is used to create verbs meaning ‘to make something become something’.
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 Tech Tasks for the Class
by Tom Walton

Instagram
The Tech Tasks series provides a list of lesson ideas and fun tasks to do with your
students using the latest digital technologies.

In this extract from the Tech Tasks series, Tom Instagram as a class vocabulary book
Walton looks at Instagram as an educational
This depends a lot on the level you teach, but if
This extract has been taken from Tech Tasks for the Class: Fun projects with Instagram. To view the original article in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.

resource, exploring how it can be used to help

you’ve been looking at clothes vocabulary in class,
students develop their speaking and vocabulary
for example, you can ask your class to Instagram
This extract has been taken from Macmillan Dictionary BuzzWord: gamification. To view the original lesson in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.

skills both inside and outside the classroom.

Level: Intermediate, Upper intermediate,
Advanced
Do your students want to use Instagram
for class?
If you’re not familiar with it, Instagram is an app for
sharing photographs from a user’s smartphone. It
is one of the world’s most popular social networks
and one that a lot of your students are probably
already using. If they are, they’ve probably become
enthusiastically addicted to it (like me!), so wouldn’t it
be great if we could take advantage of that enthusiasm
for class projects?
various items of clothes in their wardrobe. They could
even model the clothes, and then this becomes a fun
homework project. Your students need to remember to
hashtag any photos they post (e.g. #cool #faded #jeans),
as the hashtags are the vocabulary items you want
them to learn.
But before you begin…
Before you begin with any tech tool, you want what I
call ‘the 3 Ps’: practice, permission and privacy.
The only way to get some practice is to create an
account and start using it. If you aren’t already an
Instagram user, consider becoming one only for class
projects.

Tape poetry Remember that you don’t need to be an expert on

Instagram (or any other Web 2.0 tool) in order to use it
If you’ve never heard of tape poetry, you’ll find plenty
successfully with learners. You already have experts in
of examples on Instagram itself (see tag #tapepoetry). It
your class – some of your students. Ask them to provide
basically involves writing a poem, cutting up the lines
their classmates with any help they require!
into strips (hence the name ‘tape’ poetry) and pasting
it on to an interesting background. In street art, the
If you teach anyone under the age of 18, it is important
background is always a suitably interesting wall or door,
to get permission from parents and your school. Note
but a classroom or corridor noticeboard makes a great
that you are more likely to obtain this if you can show
alternative. If you work in a secondary school, enlist the
that you are doing what is possible to guarantee as
collaboration of the art or technology department, and
much privacy as possible.
this can make a great cross curricular project. It could
be that you want to specify a particular area of target
language you want to be included.

Quotes
Everyone loves a good quote. Collecting quotes makes
a great project. The quotes can be either on the themes
you work on in class or just random quotes that your
students find, like and share with the rest of the class.
There are lots of apps that allow you to create quotes,
which your class’s Instagram users will be able to tell
D •
TE DE E
SI A L

you about!
EB LO B
W N IA
M W P
O DO O
FR BE C
O

© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2016

N T
CA HO
•P

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15:22

16 17:35
 Digital

First steps into …

literacy

Blended
learning

Flipped
learning

The
Digital Literacy
Four Cs

Ed Tech, or education technology, features prominently in the world of ELT these days. Things certainly look as
if they are changing fast around us, but how are these new ideas transforming language learning and teaching?
In the First steps into … series Daniel Barber helps us to navigate around the emerging technologies and
become familiar with them, offering helpful advice on how to start integrating elements into lessons. This
extract from the series explores the topic of Digital Literacy.

Digital Literacy Why promote digital

Literacy is more than just the ability to read and write. Any
literacies in ELT?
primary school teacher will tell you that it involves mastering Firstly, digital literacy should not be limited to the IT class,

many different skills, from analysing how texts are organized
to understanding the writer’s reasons for writing. Similarly,
digital literacy should be understood as a range of separate
sub-skills, or literacies.
What are digital literacies?
In Volume 66 of the ELT Journal, Nicky Hockly groups digital
literacies under four main categories – language based,
information based, connection and (re-)design based.
Language-based literacies include the ability to read and
write new text types such as blogs, text messages, forum
discussions and hyperlinked texts. It also includes the
language we need to participate effectively in multimedia
environments such as video gaming and mobile apps.
Information-based literacies include ‘search literacy’ –
knowing the right search terms to find information digitally,
and, once we have found that information, knowing how to
decide how reliable it is. ‘Filtering literacy’ is about knowing
how to manage ‘information overload’ – the problem of
being faced with too much information.
Connection literacies are about managing your online
identity and relationships. ‘Network literacy’ helps you select
the relevant information from social media ‘feeds’ and other
online networks.
This extract has been taken from First steps into ... Digital Literacy. To view the original article in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.
in just the same way that the goal of traditional literacy is
not limited to the language classroom. Literacy extends into
all subjects and areas of learning, and now so does digital
literacy. To ignore the digital needs of students in ELT is to
deny them a complete education in English for today’s world.
Secondly, to develop digital literacy we need to bring
technological modes of learning into the classroom.
This has the potential benefit of making learning more
motivating, fun and integrated into their lives outside class.
Finally, English is in many ways the language of technology
and a passport to the online world. Consider the fact that
more than half of the top 10-million websites have content
in English, and that many students are not learning English
to travel to English-speaking countries, but are motivated by
the promise of greater personal, academic and professional
opportunities on the internet. If their needs as users of
English are within this technological sphere, shouldn’t we
promote the skills they need to succeed there alongside
their English language skills? Could we even describe English
proficiency as one of the most important digital literacies
there is? If so, our role as teachers of English needs to adapt
to this new reality.

(Re-)design-based literacies are defined as ‘the ability to

recreate and re-purpose already-made digital content in
innovative ways’. This recognizes that a lot of what we
produce online is ‘reformulation’ of what others produce:
copying and pasting, quoting from wikis, retweeting
tweets, manipulating images and sharing others’ posts. It is
important to be aware of issues surrounding these activities,
such as copyright, so that we can do so sensitively, creatively
and productively.
D •
TE DE E
SI A L
EB LO B
W N IA
M W P
O DO O

© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2016

FR BE C
N T
O
CA HO
•P

OSE_birthday_booklet_2016.indd 12 05/04/2016 16:49

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This extract has been taken from First steps into ... Digital Literacy. To view the original article in full, visit: www.onestopenglish.com/15-years.
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