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#TeachingChangesLives – Verissimo Toste

Children in playgroundAt Oxford University Press, we believe that education changes lives for the better. Every day, we aim to enrich the lives of individuals and communities through education and learning English.

We can’t do this without you – the teachers in the classroom! That’s why we have just launched our #TeachingChangesLives campaign – to hear how your English Language Teaching has changed lives for the better.

Verissimo Toste, who has taught English as a Foreign Language for 30 years and is now a teacher trainer working in the Professional Development Team at Oxford University Press, kicks us off with his story about how English teaching changed one of his student’s lives in particular.  A student in one of his classes was having trouble getting his father to sign his school projects. His father went to work before he got up and arrived back home after he had gone to bed. Watch the video below to hear the idea that Verissimo had to help this student, which not only improved the student’s English but also the relationship with his father.

It’s stories like these that remind us how teaching can changes lives. Have you ever thought about how your own teaching has helped to change lives for the better? The   #TeachingChangesLives competition has been created for that purpose: to hear your stories. Enter today and you could win a two-week all-expenses paid Professional Development scholarship in Oxford in summer 2016!

To enter, show us how your English language teaching has changed lives for the better by submitting a short presentation (no longer than 15 slides) or video (no longer than 5 minutes). Your story can focus on an individual student, a class, or an entire institution.

We look forward to hearing how your teaching changes lives! Find out more here and don’t forget to share your stories on Twitter using the hashtag #TeachingChangesLives.

If you want to hear more stories and teaching tips from Verissimo, why not take a look at his videos on our YouTube Channel.


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Interview with Marija Jović, a Project Competition finalist

This interview with Marija Jović, a teacher in Serbia and a runner-up in the recent Project Competition, was originally conducted by Anica Đokić of the Elementary School “Sonja Marinkovic” Novi Sad and posted on the “Sveti Sava” school’s English blog, Svetisavabadnjevac.

Marija's project

Over 700 hundred projects were submitted to the International Project Competition organised by Oxford University Press. The topic was “Communication” and the participating teachers and their students had to create a paper project about this phenomenon. We will hear more about the competition from our colleague, Marija Jović, whose work was chosen among the six best of all 700!

Q: How did you learn about the competition and how did you decide to participate?

The magic word is surfing. I often use the Internet, Twitter, Facebook and other social networks. I also google because I am curious and always willing to learn. I don’t even remember how I came across this competition but I do remember I was determined to give it a try. Except being curious, I am also very competitive. However, I am often not motivated by the prizes, but by the process of reaching the goal, by participating with other colleagues from all over the world and most important by including my students into something new and challenging.

Q: What was your students’ opinion about it and how motivated were all of you to create and submit a project?

I am very proud of my students, especially of those who are willing to participate in different projects. They write, draw, act and even dance if that is necessary for our English lessons. So when I asked them to pose for this project, they were more than interested – they were flattered. Of course, they liked the prizes too and I promised to grant some extra marks for their effort only, regardless of the competition result.

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Voting begins for the Lexiophiles Top 100 Language Lovers 2011

Vote for OUP ELT in the Top 100 Language Lovers 2011

For the fourth year running, Lexiophiles (in association with bab.la) is on the hunt for the Top 100 Language Lovers 2011. In 2010, Oxford was proud to have been awarded 27th place in the Top 100 Language Blogs competition for this blog, and 11th place in the Language Teaching Blogs category.

This year, Lexiophiles and bab.la are extending the competition beyond language blogs to include Facebook pages and Twitter feeds that focus on language learning and provide a range of information and resources for language learners and professionals. Of the 747 providers nominated, 500 have been selected for voting, of which the top 25 in each category will form the Top 100 Language Lovers 2011.

The OUP ELT Global team is delighted to have been shortlisted in not one, but three categories this year:

So… time for another shameless plug! We’d love to feature in the Top 100 again, so here’s our appeal for help…

If you like our blog, Facebook page or Twitter feed, please vote for them! To vote, simply click on the button at the top of this post and choose the relevant category, or select one of the categories above, and find us in the list. Select the checkbox next to our name and then click on ‘Vote’ at the bottom of the list. Please note, you can vote only once in each category.

We also acknoweldge the fact that there are many great providers of language content in these categories and that you may already have your favourites. So we thought we’d share ours with you. Even if you can’t vote for all of your favourites, it’s worth subscribing to or following them anyway.

Here’s a breakdown of our favourites by category:

Language Learning Blogs

Language Facebook Pages

Language Twitterers

So get voting! Remember, we’re in the Language Learning Blogs, Language Facebook Pages and Language Twitterers categories. Voting closes on 29th May, so be quick!!

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Voting begins for the Top 100 Language Blogs 2010

Vote for OUP on the Top 100 Language Blogs

For the third year running Lexiophiles is on the hunt for the Top 100 Language Blogs in the blogosphere. In total, 495 nominations were received and broken down into four categories of 100 blogs each: Language Learning blogs, Language Teaching blogs, Language Technology blogs and Language Professionals blogs. From these 400 the top 100 will be chosen by the voting public.

The OUP ELT Global Blog team is delighted to have been shortlisted under the Language Teaching category along with a whole host of fantastic and well-established blogs. Given our short existence, we couldn’t be happier to be in this position already.

So… time for a shameless plug! We’d love to feature in the Top 100, so here’s our appeal for help…

If you like this blog, please vote for it! To vote, simply click on the button at the top of this post or in the sidebar on the right, or select one of the four categories above. You can vote only once in each category, so choose carefully.

We also acknoweldge the fact that there are many great blogs in these categories and that you may already have your favourites. So we thought we’d share ours with you, just in case you needed any help deciding. Even if you can’t vote for all of your favourites, it’s worth subscribing to these blogs regardless.

Here’s a breakdown of our favourite blogs by category:

Language Learning

Language Teaching

Language Technology

Language Professionals

So get voting! Remember, we’re in the Language Teaching category. Voting closes on 24th May, so be quick!!

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Three Question Interview – Shaun Wilden

We have asked top ELT authors the following 3 questions:

1. What’s your favourite ELT book?
2. What or who has had the biggest impact on ELT in the last 25 years?
3. What do you wish you’d known when you started out in ELT?

Here, Shaun Wilden answers these questions in a short interview:

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