LIES ABOUT THE ENGLISH WE WERE TAUGHT!

Not too long ago, if I had to ask my teacher at school if could go to the toilet, the right way to do it was to raise your hand and say: "May I go to the toilet?" Any other way of formulating the question would have resulted in a forehand slap on the back of my head. Yes it was legal to smack students at school! Well, it has been a really long time since I went to school, things have changed. 

Now you don't get smacked on the back of your head and now you don't need to use certain grammar rules which were sacred no too long ago. 

I remember that ending a question with a preposition was so wrong, it would just disgust my teacher so much she would actually make me write "I won't use prepositions at the end of a question" a hundred times. (Like that ever helped me learn the lesson!) In fact, today using a preposition at the end of a question is the most common and stylish way to formulate questions. There's no academic rule against it. 

Read this wonderful article by Lisa Muzaffar here, and get to know all of the secrets of English you were never told about!

SAT & SET NEWSLETTER

Want to give your students a great way to keep their English handy during the summer? Then you may want to suggest them signing up to our brand new newsletter WakeUp English! 

WakeUp English! includes Idioms, exercises, vocabulary quizes and loads more in order to keep student connected to English, even through all those learning-deadly summer months. 

Please click here or go to www.sat-set.com and click on the envelope located on the menu bar to the right to sign up and receive a great twice-a-week "pill" of English in your Inbox.

Stay in-line and up-to-date during the summer with our WakeUp English! Newsletter.

SAT & SET FACEBOOK HITS 50

Although it may not be a large number, SAT & SET's interaction with the world is seeing a great increase through the social networks. Humbly but steadily, SAT & SET has reached 50 "Likes" in just a few weeks and it's all thanks to you and your students. 

Please, if you still haven't liked SAT & SET Facebook, you're surely missing out on great resources, facts, contests, daily world updates and lots more. You can "like" us here. 

Don't be left out and be up-to-date with the latest teaching trends, culture and courses in SAT & SET.

So don't hesitate to "like" us and recommend us to your students. 

Folow us on Twitter as well and join our Linked-in network.

3, 2, 1...BLAST OFF! LAUNCHING A NEW WAY TO TEACH

As you all know, technology has made life easier in every aspect. Teaching wasn't going to be left out in this tech-rev and SAT & SET wasn't going to miss out on this either. 

After having tried countless e-learning platforms and never have determined an effective way to teach through the web, SAT & SET has finally found the ultimate e-learning/blended learning platform. SAT & SET 360º. 

SAT & SET 360º provides ample complementary material to all of the face to face classes you may have. We like to call it "TPH" (The perfect Homework). The platform has the ability to introduce, embed and deliver answers and practice to all students doubts, always with a great amount of feedback in all areas. 

SAT & SET 360º is backed by the Cambridge University in all of its features and specs, so a very reliable source is the provider for such great resources. 

If you want to try it out, please don't hesitate to ask us what the platform is about. We'll be holding a launching day soon for all the teachers, in order to become familiar with the platform and the possibilities it brings along.

EVALUATION TIME

Once again, comes round that time of the year where everybody's got to put together all their impressions and advice to make your student's progress more meaningful. Evaluation time is here. Don't forget to hand in your evaluations to Susana Lías as soon as possible.

Remember that your evaluations need to be as "informative" as possible. Statements such as "Needs more grammar" or "needs to improve his/her pronunciation". What we do appreciate and the students even more are comments such as: "the use of the past is still not completely mastered" "Needs to expand the use of vocabulary for describing people" etc. 

Your comments about your students are very valuable to us, so please do your best to make the information you  provide us with, useful.

For more information please contact Susana Lías.

TED TALK: John Hunter on the World Peace Game

We're going to try to post relevant teaching talks from the TED website weekly. Today we have John Hunter on the World Peace Game. A talk that was suggested by fellow SAT & SET teacher Kurt Scheller. Please take a few minutes to watch this engaging talk and please make a comment of what you thought of this wonderful talk.


ABOUT THE TALK: John Hunter puts all the problems of the world on a 4'x5' plywood board -- and lets his 4th-graders solve them. At TED2011, he explains how his World Peace Game engages schoolkids, and why the 
complex lessons it teaches -- spontaneous, and always surprising -- go further than classroom lectures can.

RESOURCES: BUSINESS INTERVIEWS

Today's material doesn't necessarily mean your students need it. To say, since the material is a compilation of 50 typical questions that you can be asked in an interview, your students may feel offended in the sense that "Why do I need these questions? Are they going to fire me?". Well, not just yet. This simple question-answer exercise may come in handy to practice expressing one's opinion about something or just getting the structure of answers embedded. 

Try to create a situation where the student is prepared to answer these question by creating a "Role-Play Interviewlike situation" and note-down how the student performs. Download the questions here.

Let us know how it all went by writing a comment in the comment box.

RESOURCES: TEACHERS

Quick and easy! That's how we would like to define this website that may be of great help to all the teachers here at SAT & SET. Althouogh, many of the activities and games proposed are of simple nature, these may come in handy when preparing your classes. Please take a look at it and let us know your opinion by commenting about this wonderful resource site.

Click here to access the site.

RESOURCE MATERIAL: TOP BLOOPERS AND FACTS OF ALL TIMES

Today's material is going to feel awkwardly funny, but at the same time interesting and "freaky". Here's some material on the most famous historical, political, social and cultural ups and downs. The material is meant to be:

DURATION: 1.5 hours

LEVEL: INTERMEDIATE-ADV

AIM: Practice past simple and present perfect; improve listening comprehension. (Describing pictures, situations, commenting on videos)

You will need a laptop to maximise the use of the material.

Please make some comments on the material such as whether the students found the class interesting, typos, broken links, etc. Let us know your impressions.
Download the material here.

ARTICLE: HOW TO MAKE YOUR CLASSES MORE INTERESTING

Sometimes while teaching you may encounter "dead-end,situations" No matter how long you've been teaching, but inspiration may run out soon. Here's a great article on how to make your classes more interesting. You don't need to follow the steps strictly, but do it adapting to the needs of your classes and students.

TEACHER RESOURCES

Here's a link to a brear website that may be of help when planning a lesson, especially when teaching adults. Click here to know more.

Don't forget to comment what you thought of the website.

SEMANA SANTA DAYS OFF

As you all know, Easter week is drawing near and some companies and students would like to take the whole week off. So, we suggest you finding out from your students whether your classes are going to take place on April 18-19-20th. If the classes you have on either of the days are cancelled must be notified by the student or the HR Department to us on recepcion@sat-set.com. In the event that these classes are cancelled and you're in town during those days, we can try and get you some sub classes, but please let us know your intentions for that given week.

Thanks a lot! Don't forget to ask your students about their Easter holidays. 

BTW, if you see fit, you can also inform your students, that during Easter week SAT & SET is offering special one to one prices and a "bring a friend along" discount. So tell them to log on to our website www.sat-set.com to find out more details about this offer.

HOW TO POST ON THE BLOG?

We've noticed that some people are having trouble commenting on the blog, so let's take a look at the simple two-step process on how to comment on the best BLOG for Teachers on the Internet:

1. If there's a post you like, you want to share*, you want to ask about or just say thank you to you should first click on COMMENT HERE and write your comment. *If you want to share, just click where you want to share it to facebook, digg, etc. and share it.

2. Once you're done praising our work, you must pull down the menu on Comment as: and choose Name, and jus type your name in.

Here's an example of what you have to see:

And one more request, we know you're out there, reading and making good use of the Blog, it doesn't hurt that much to make a comment, and it helps us get a feel of what you think about what we're doing here.

Thanks and enjoy!

AUDIOS TEACHER'S COMPUTER

In order to make everybody's life easier, we've added the complete AUDIO TRACKS for the BUSINESS ONE:ONE series.

So you can either come in and with a pen drive can take the audios with you or ask us for a CD and burn the Audios yourself. 

Bit by bit, we'll keep adding more and more audios resources.

So, come on in and take the audios with you!

MATERIAL: MISCELLANEOUS TONGUE TWISTERS

TONGUE TWISTERS have always been one of the resources that if used well does help the students get an insight on the English culture and, of course, so many ways to make their life impossible with all those inconceivable pronunciation sounds. 

Here's a collection of the most famous tongue twisters. (Click here to download) Use them wisely, because the wiser the use, the wiser we get, while the wise only make us wonderfully wiser, through the whizzing wise tongue twisters. Enjoy!

NEW INTERNAL STRUCTURE IN SAT & SET

In an attempt to improve the way we do things here at SAT & SET we've taken an important decision regarding the internal strucutre of departments which surely does affect you. Here's what we've done.

Department of Coordination (Department of Studies MADRID: Caroline Boyd, Monica Vallejo and Susana Lías & BARCELONA: Lissette King & Nuria Ayma) This department will be in charge of the coordination (assigning teachers, time-tables, attendance sheets, evaluations) of all the courses and classes that SAT & SET has. Not only the regular in-company classes or regular intensives, but also the coordination of all the Specific Courses. If you do have any questions regarding any of the previous topics, please refer to the department of Coordination.

Department of Course Content (Department of Specific Courses) (Rohit Daswani and Marina Tsygankova): This department will be in charge of giving you advice on what material to use and how to use it in your classes, let it be a regular in-company classes or a specific seminar or immersion course. From the  next course onwards the Department of Course Content will let you know which are the best books, resources and materials to use in order to maximize the time spent during your classes.

Both departments will still continue with their traditional names of Department of Studies and Department of Specific Courses until the transition has been effectively carried out.

Please don't hesitate to contact any of us for whatever reason concerning the new company organization.

NEW BOOKS ADDED TO THE LIBRARY

Please check out some of the new books we've added to our library recently:

• Traveller - Advanced C1 student's book [mm publications] 
• Traveller - Advanced C1 workbook-teacher's edtiion [mm publications]

• Speakout Elementary - Student's Book (with ActiveBook) [Longman]

• Get Ahead in FCE - student's book [Garnet Education]


We've also added a the whole series of Business Vocabulary in Use for all levels. Don't forget to check them out!

SAT & SET teacher on TV!

One of our teacher's, Arma Kleinepier, was recently interviewed by TeleMadrid describing her job when she's not teaching. She organizes fun biking routes around the city. This is one more example of the variety of teachers at SAT & SET.
Enjoy the video (Arma starts her tour on minute 11)

TEACHER TRAINING SESSION 04/03/2011. WE ALL NEED TO GO!

We're glad to invite you to out TTS to be held on Friday March 4th 2011 at our SAT & SET offices in Madrid. We'll be taking a look at:

1. How to plan a course/lesson? How to use material appropriately? (Bring along lessons that were Masterclasses for you)

2. Technology. What do I do with it? (Bring in any website, blog or platform in mind, which is worth sharing with the rest of us)

We hope to see you all. Please confirm your attendance to the TTS by sending an email to rdaswani@sat-set.com saying YES or NO in your subject line.

Don't forget to comment or like us on Facebook.

MATERIAL: ARTICLE

IDIAN MARRIED TO 39 WIVES:
Some weird news. Good article on present simple for our recently initiated students.

Click here to read the article.