Six ELT apps for the iPad/iPhone

Immediately after the launch of the iPad, that crazy team of scientists here at Six Things (the ones who brought you six technological inventions teachers really want to see) got down to work on creating apps for our field. Here they are, still under development but showing a lot of promise already…

1. iGrind - delivers ten grammar exercises to your mobile phone every day for 20 years. A 21st century application of an idea from my co-author and friend Philip Kerr for a coursebook called Grind On.

2. iCELTA – Imagine having your CELTA teacher trainer in every one of your classes! This app quietly sits and listens to your lessons, occasionally giving you CELTA-type advice via text message (e.g. “slow down your teacher talk” “demo the activity first” “spelling mistake on the board”) At the end of your lesson press the feedback option, and iCELTA will ask you gently what parts of the lesson you thought went okay before giving you a mark.

3. imSick – makes your voice sound completely cold-ridden and flu-like for when you want to call in ill for work.

4. Dogme app – this paperless app at first emits a peaceful and purposeful silence. Point your iPad or iPhone at the students and watch the language simply flow out. The app then uses this to tailor a language learning activity just for you. Don’t ask what this looks like, it must be experienced.  Can be upgraded to synch with twitter and will broadcast the occasional anti-technology tweet. Note: this app works best if all coursebooks have been removed from the room.

5. 6things app – delivers a daily dose of Six Things joy to your phone. Never miss a blog post again ;-)

6. UnderstandMe app – programmed with instructions for all your favourite activities in clear and loud English. Don’t worry about losing your voice, or your cool, ever again. The volume on this app can actually go way up so that the instructions are heard by a large class of teenagers.

Do you have an idea for a killer app for English language teachers? Post a comment.

Published in:  on February 8, 2010 at 8:40 am Comments (33)
Tags: , ,

Six anagrams of well-known ELT bloggers

Awhile I ago someone sent me this link to an anagram generator. I’ve been thinking of ways to use it in class, barring simply making interesting anagrams from words or phrases for my learners to solve. Recently I found a whole new fun thing to do, which was put names into the generator and see what I get.

So, here’s a test on six things for you! The following are anagrams of other ELT bloggers out there (they are on my blogroll). I’ve included a little description next to each. Can you identify them?

1 Seller, Hell Try – I met Seller, Hell Try at a conference last year. She’s a great networker, very active on twitter and #edchat and her blog currently features a set of goals. Would I recommend Seller, Hell Try? Hell yes!

2 Obstruct Thorny - Obstruct Thorny does tend to ask questions worthy of his anagram last name, especially about coursebooks and grammar syllabi. However, the quality of his blog entries makes up for the thorniness of some of those questions!

3 A Giddy Uneven -Taking a trip to A Giddy Uneven’s blog about technology matters is not a dizzying experience, it’s a solidly written one. Some of his blog posts are very “even”, as long as you agree with him! :-)

4 Transversely Keen – Her blog transverses many topics, supposedly about technology and speaking but in reality covers a lot more. Transversely Keen lives up to her last name very well, she’s one of the keenest bloggers out there – I mean that in a good sense.

5 Noel Winks – Noel Winks is a splendid chap and recent addition to the blogosphere  who is making quite an impact despite his modest claims to the contrary. Mr Winks alternately shares stories from his life in the profession with provocative posts about culture, or the things he knows about teaching English.

6 Cease Lax – The Godfather of the ELT (blog) world, Cease Lax has been blogging since before many of the others on this list. Cease Lax has a wry sense of humour, produces far too many free worksheets for his own good and probably had a post like this around 8 months ago. Many of my favourite post ideas were probably done by Cease Lax in the past.


Finally, my name is Clay Landside Find. Creator of what one reader called “a bit of a hodge podge” of this blog, which is also – according to Onestopblogs – probably too wordy. Hopefully there are some good finds in this clay landslide of text though!

Ok, let’s hear it from all the other great bloggers and readers I’ve missed. What does your name give in the anagram generator?

Published in:  on January 20, 2010 at 8:58 am Comments (52)
Tags: , , ,

Six drinks for an English teachers New Year’s Eve Party

Mixed conditional Martini, anyone?

Mixed conditional Martini, anyone?

I’m bringing this one out from the vaults, just because I imagine there are plenty of parties about right now and this was one of my earliest lists, before many people knew about this site. And, well, yes because I haven’t had time to do a new list recently to tell the truth! I am working on a year-end bonanza, so this will have to do until that’s ready!

Below is my list of six special drinks I would serve if I were hosting a New Year’s Eve party of only English teachers (which I’m not, thankfully!).

1. The Mixed Conditional Martini. A hefty dose of vodka in this one, leading to the following sentence which gives it its name: “If I hadn’t had that extra martini last night I’d be fine now”.

2. The Champagne Collocation. Basically this is like a big punch bowl filled with champagne and a mix of other alcoholic drinks it’s best not to ask about.

3. The Bacardi Washback. Washback (or backwash) is a term in testing about how a test affects the teaching that precedes it. There can be positive and negative washback. This drink has positive washback, trust me.

4. Learner-centred lager. This is the cheap beer I’d have on hand to serve to any students who managed to sneak in to the party.

5. RP  Reisling. RP stands for Received Pronunciation, the accent of the Queen of England. RP Reisling is a fine chilled bottle of aromatic white wine from Germany that will have you speaking English with a flawless German-Posh-English accent.

6. Speech Act Slammers. A speech act is “doing something with words” (Thornbury, An A-Z of ELT). A speech act slammer is “doing something with tequila”, usually drinking it. To finish the evening.

Right, does anyone else have something they would add to this party?

Published in:  on December 18, 2009 at 12:47 am Comments (13)
Tags: , , ,

Six fun little mnemonics

What's the mnemonic to help us spell "field" correctly?

A mnemonic is a sentence or short poem to help you remember something. I’ve always been on the lookout for good mnemonics to help in my teaching, and awhile ago I came across a really neat little book called i before e – old school ways to remember stuff. I thought I’d share six fun little mnemonics that you can use in your teaching (well, maybe not the last one…).

1 Spelling rule: i before e, except after c. This is the most famous one, used to remind us how to spell words like friend, or field. Actually, to make up for the exceptions like weight (which goes against the rule) there is a longer version I found which goes

i before e, except after c

or when sounded like a, as in neighbour and weigh.

2 Spelling Wednesday – remember how to spell this with the following. The book I mentioned above has a whole chapter of these!

WE Do Not Eat Soup Day

3 The months of the year. Most readers will probably be familiar with this one, Thirty days has (originally hath) September, April June and November; All the rest have thirty-one… But how does it end? I always ended with the lame “except February, which has twenty-eight”. I’ve found two other versions though, which I put below.

Excepting February alone, And that has twenty-eight days clear, with twenty-nine in each leap year.

Excepting February alone, which has but twenty-eight, in fine, till leap year gives it twenty-nine.

4 Parts of speech. The American readers of this blog might have been familiar with a song: Conjunction junction what’s your functio (if you are one of those poor deprived souls who did not grow up with Schoolhouse Rock, you can see a video here) Anyway, here are a couple of others:

The preposition shows relation, as in the street, or at the station.

Conjunctions join in many ways, sentences, words or phrase and phrase.

5 Commas. I think this one is cute:

A cat has claws at the end of its paws

A comma’s a pause at the end of a clause.

6 Finally… I wanted to include one very useful mnemonic for English teachers for the upcoming end-of-year party (and also to get this in before the TEFL Tradesman said it :-)

Beer before liquor, never sicker… Liquor before beer, never fear.

Published in:  on November 26, 2009 at 5:47 pm Comments (14)
Tags: , ,

Six favourite items of stationery

Apart from my work slaving over materials and on this blog I am a regular online tutor for teacher education courses, inlcuding courses with The Consultants-E, and  a Trinity Diploma course offered by Oxford TEFL. At the beginning of the course we get people to share lists of things (surprise surprise!), a bit like here. Well, this month one teacher started a list that was so popular that I just have to do it here. It seems so perfect for teachers, even though it’s a bit sad in a way…

These are my six favourite items of stationery.

6.Multi-coloured paper clips. Perfect not only for holding things together, but also can be used as counters.

5. Magazine holders. I particularly like the really sturdy card or plastic ones. Seeing my magazines neatly lined up in a bunch of those on a shelf… beautiful!

4. Highlighter pen. Always have one to hand as I am editing or correcting things. I usually stick to standard yellow or pink.

3. Leather moleskin notepad. I used to carry one around with me all the time and jot down ideas. I’m beginning to do this more on my ipod touch now, but I still have the notepad. Gorgeous little thing.

2. Leather wastepaper basket. I picked one very similar to this up in a market in Florence, it’s great. Does it count as stationery? I think so!

1. A really good ballpoint pen. I would never buy a Montblanc or anything expensive like that (even if I could afford one, which is far from being the case) but there really is no substitute for a good heavy ballpoint pen.

Many thanks to Paul Walsh, the teacher in question who came up with this idea AND let me use it on my blog.

What kinds of stationery do you like? Am I the only one who likes getting interesting stationery gifts? Do you have an item of stationery that you protect like mad and would never leave just hanging around the teacher’s room? Post a comment.

Published in:  on November 13, 2009 at 2:13 pm Comments (25)
Tags: , ,
« Older Entries