Links for TD Session

For those of you on the ELC staff that attended my TD session about blogging, here are links to the blogs and webpages I showed you:

Googlism

Tutor Blogs

Tech ELT Blog

TEFLtastic with Alex Case

Jo Kent's Blog - BBC Learning English

Robert Johanson's Reading and Writing Fall Blog

Class Blogs

Bee Online

Student Blogs

Studying English Blog

Websites for creating blogs

Blogger

Diaryland

Live Journal

Typepad

Vox

Xanga

Articles on Blogging

A Blogging Good Idea

Blogging for ELT

Weblogs for Use with ESL Classes

LinguaEdge

A friend of mine in Houston has just started his own company, Linguaedge. Here's a link to their website:

http://www.linguaedge.com

They offer English courses, as well as TESOL teaching certificate courses.

New Listing on Alta Book Center website

Recently my book, The Creative Classroom, has been listed on the Alta Book Center website. If you go here --- http://www.altaesl.com/Detail.cfm?CatalogID=12848

you can read a short description of my book.

Creative Learner Centred Teaching

Just a few weeks ago, I got an e-mail from Russia. The author was a teacher trainer from Yarslavl, Russia who also is a project coordinator for an organization called Creative Learner Centred Teaching. She said:

" I am really happy that I got your book The Creative Classroom: teaching languages outside the box just before the training for teachers of English of our region (start on August,20). We (team of trainers) are greatly inspired with your ideas on using creativity training activities. We are designing training materials at the moment and plan to try many activities from The Creative Classroom with our participants. "

It's great to hear from one of my readers. She sent me a report on one of her teacher training workshops, along with some copies of handouts. It sounds like they had an incredible experience . They wrote poetry, did some mind mapping, discussed creative and critical thinking, and they even played something called newspaper bingo (I'd love to know what that is!). I wish I could have been there.

If you are interested in learning more about Creative Learner Centred Teaching, I refer you to the CLCT website:

http://clct.ru/

Book review

TEFL.NET has just published a review of my book. Take a look here:

http://www.tefl.net/reviews/creative-classroom.htm

Book Review

In this month's issue of English Teaching Professional, there's a review of my book, The Creative Classroom:

http://www.etprofessional.com/content/view/989/36/

If you can find a copy of the magazine, they have also printed an article I wrote about brainstorming.

Published in English Teaching Professional

I have an article that will be published this month in...

English Teaching Professional

Follow the link and you will see a short comment on my article.

My cousin's blog

My cousin, Sean, lives in Kyoto. He's lived there for many years and runs his own language school called Choice English.

He also writes a very interesting blog covering a wide variety of topics. Just recently, he posted a blog entry that mentions me and my new book. Here's a link to his blog:

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-0.r9DqoifqcoEwS6OMSJZA--?cq=1&p=745

BBC's 5 steps

The BBC's website has an interesting article called

5 steps to get creative:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blast/fivesteps/

It's perfect for someone working on an artistic project.

Creative Problem Solving

I've got a new article over at Humanising Language Teaching about Creative Problem Solving. If you are working on a project with your classes, or would like to help students practice both creative and critical thinking, you might want to read about CPS.

A book I'd like to read

Helbling Languages has a new book that sounds very interesting. Imagine That! Mental Imagery in the EFL Classroom by Jane Arnold, Herbert Puchta and Mario Rinvolucri is all about using students' imagination. It has 5 sections - Visualisation Training, Language in Mind, Stories Stories Tell, Images of Time and Space, and Spinning Inward. The book includes a CD-ROM with music, artwork, photos, photocopiable worksheets, and visualization scripts. There's an article about this book which includes several sample activities here. I'm looking forward to reading it and trying out some of the activities in my classes.

More articles

I have added several of my articles to my website. You can see the list here:

http://www.hallhouston.com/articles.htm

new article

I just had another article published. This time it's at developingteachers.com:

Warming Up to Creativity: Starting Points

In addition, I was mentioned at the Tech ELT Blog:

http://www.ihes.com/bcn/tt/eltblog/blog/

Spelling error alert

Anyone see a spelling error here? I hope Oxford fixes this...

New page for my book

The publisher has generously added a page of information about my book to the Lynx Publishing website. Take a look...

The Creative Classroom

New publishing news

I've just got word from my publisher that the first few copies of my book, THE CREATIVE CLASSROOM, have just been printed. She says they look GREAT! She's going to send me a few copies soon, and I'm really looking forward to seeing them.

In the meantime, head over to the Lynx Publishing website, as my book should be on sale in the next few weeks.

...and another...

Yes, that's right, my adoring fans. I've got another article published. This one is in Humanising Language Teaching. Its title is Activities for Boosting Creativity. If you like the activities in the article, look for my new book, THE CREATIVE CLASSROOM, which will be published in a few weeks by Lynx Publishing.

another article published

I wrote a lesson plan about brainstorming that was published last week on The Internet TESL Journal. It's called A Brainstorming Activity for ESL/EFL Students. I am always looking for new ways to get my students brainstorming and doing other kinds of creative work.

Promotion

I'm giving away a copy of my book, along with several other Lynx Publishing titles. If you are interested, send me a copy of your best teaching idea. For more information, go here:

free BOOKS!!!

Late November

We have reached the last few weeks of teaching at City University. Next month we will enter the testing period. Overall, work is starting to slow down, and I will have a bit more free time.