Online Grammar Activities

Dmitry Medvedev addresses Russia's failing education

“Over time, apes waded into water more and more often, further and further away from the shore, learning how to swim and to dive for food. They developed an erect posture. For some yet unknown reason, some apes resumed their way of life on land, while others became so adapted to life at sea that they remained there forever and turned into dolphins.”

Critics say that Russian schools are steadily deteriorating, partly due to the age of teachers and underfunding of schools at all levels.

The big shock came when a recent Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) survey ranked Russia – a country once known for its education prowess – 43rd in the world. Pisa is an internationally recognized student assessment for 15-year-olds carried out by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

After the Pisa survey results were announced last February, President Medvedev announced a programme for school reform. “Pupils will be involved in research projects and creative activities so they can learn how to invent, understand and assimilate new things, express their own thoughts and make decisions,” he said.

Giving schools a choice

The Government is preparing full-scale school reforms which will introduce individualised learning. Reforms in primary and secondary schools (grades 1-9) will begin in September. Some teaching will be done outside the classroom: students will be given 10 hours a week for tours, walks and creative work in places of cultural interest. The government has also promised a 30pc increase in teachers’ salaries this year. But reforms at high school (grades 10-11) are still in the design phase.

“The school will have more power to form its own curriculum in accordance with the students’ wishes,” said Irina Abankina, director of the Institute of Education Studies at the Higher School of Economics National Research University.

The pupils will choose a total of six additional subjects and decide whether they want to study them at the basic or 
professional level. There should be at least four in which the pupil will pass the Unified State Examination. The applicant will then be admitted to university based on these results.

Accordingly, a student who is not interested in the natural sciences will not be forced to study chemistry, physics and biology separately, and will be able to opt for an integrated natural sciences course that includes a more general study of these subjects.

The Future of Online TEFL/ESL Supplementary Resources through ...

Supplementation of TEFL/ESL lessons has always been a time-consuming process, eating into teachers’ precious planning and preparation time. In many language schools around the world, teachers are faced with two starkly opposite supplementation situations. Either they face re-inventing the wheel every lesson with their own self-made handouts and worksheets, or must stare at a whole wall of supplementary books and resource packs looking for the appropriate worksheet. Schools similarly face challenges in what materials from the plethora available to invest their limited budgets in.

The future of supplementation in English classes surely lies online. This is primarily for three reasons. Firstly, the budgets of language schools are being squeezed owing to the high costs of paper-based supplementary resources. A single copy of a grammar resource book containing photocopiable materials is usually between 20-50 US dollars. Secondly, more and more schools have access to computers, the Internet, printers and photocopiers, opening up the online sphere for quality TEFL/ESL handouts. Thirdly, one site, www.handouthub.com has successfully piloted intelligent handout matching, whereby the site matches the chapter numbers and pages of common TEFL/ESL course books with handouts on its large database, cutting teacher planning time massively.

This is a huge step for the online market for downloadable supplementary TEFL/ESL resources. There can be no denying that this sphere has been severely underdeveloped until this. Simply searching ‘tefl handouts’ on any search engine reveals the flaws in the much of the current market. For one, many sights promise free resources such as grammar activities, which turn out not to be downloadable. Online grammar activities embedded in websites offer little to no benefit to classroom teachers who need paper handouts. Furthermore, the market for subscription handouts is nascent, and arguably cornered by the publishers – providing limited supplementation to their own printed books. What subscription sites that have existed either do not contain enough handouts, offer poor quality handouts in relation to their paper competitors, or offer handouts that do not supplement, but in fact replace course book material.

The way forward is undeniably intelligent handout matching, pioneered by Handout Hub. After many months of research and development, I, the founder, came upon the idea that most major TEFL/ESL language chains operate with the same course books, and in most institutions, teachers need worksheets targeted to these books. For a fee competitive to paper-resource books, schools and teachers can therefore subscribe to download handouts matched exactly to the lesson/grammar they want to teach. For example, browsing Cutting Edge Intermediate on handouthub.com and clicking on chapter 9 ‘Future Society’, the website returns eleven different handouts teachers can use depending on what page they are teaching; from language for future predictions to phrases with ‘make’.

Grammar games, cognitive, affective and drama activities for EFL students

Grammar practice activities, a practical guide for teachers

Got grammar?, ready-to-use lessons & activities that make grammar fun

More grammar games, cognitive, affective, and movement activities for EFL students

Quick and easy grammar games to boost writing power