That's really great to hear that the podcasts and season 3 have been helpful. Matt and I had to take a break since both of us had gotten pretty busy and partly because it was getting hard to come up with new show ideas and more so new games.

Next time I chat with Matt (we still chat once a month or so), I'll ask him what he thinks about starting up again.

Thanks Mark, that would be great.

Dear Mark and Matt,

Thank you for your excellent podcast. I am beginning my career as an ESL teacher in a primary school and found your information very relevant and useful.

Matt, the questions you asked were very timely - no sooner had I thought of a question, you had already asked Mark!

Keep up the great work!

Kind regards,
Ellie
Australia

Ellie - I'm glad to hear the podcasts have been helpful so far.

And, good luck on the new job!

A school in the Chicago area dramatically improved the scores of their ELL (English Language Learner) students by teaching them in English. The teacher is bilingual and would use Spanish if needed, but kept the focus on learning English and the core curriculum.

Great show...Mark, what you have provided all of us with on this site is nothing short of legendary. It's amazing you share all of this great material with us, and if there's a section on the site for more advanced lessons, I'd like to submit something. (I put in A LOT of time creating materials, mostly guided hand-outs for guided activities and games.)

With the "Dubbing Movies" activity, is this done as a class or group activity? It sounds really cool for my high school classes, but I wanted to ask if I had this right...

1. Have the students watch a scene from a movie without sound.
2. Have them make up a dialogue.
3. Have them present their dialogue while you record the scene with a camera.
4. Play it back to the class.

I'm definitely trying this, but in a larger class with groups, would you skip step 4? I'd be a little concerned about the time required, or whether they'd want to watch each performance twice over.

But, I bet you capture some hilarious performances, so I can see how the recordings would be great to save for other classes in the future to show after all's finished.

wraxus - welcome to the forums!

I'm glad to hear that you like the materials and that the podcasts have been helpful.

I've only done the "Movie Dubbing" activity with small groups, classes of just 3-4 students. With larger classes it would certainly be much harder to organize, and playing back all of the videos would take a lot of time and probably would get a little boring. I think I would just choose a few of the better ones.

It's not necessary to record the skits, but I find that it makes them try a little harder and gets them into the project a little more.

I'm working on some more advanced stuff here as well. I'm trying to put together some things for students that have gone beyond the current MES curriculum. However, I'm always on the look out for more advanced class activities. I'd love to see what you've made. Please email me:
mark (at) mes-english.com