This will mostly be of interest to non-native English speakers. I'm starting up a new messageboard with a friend of mine (an experienced TEFL teacher and teacher trainer) which will be for English learners of different levels to practise their English, take online lessons and so on. We plan to run it as a subscription site, but the first round of memberships will be free, on the basis that those people will get new members. This will probably be of particular help to English teachers in other countries, who can send their students to the board to practise their English with appropriate guidance, or use the resources that we put up. I realise that most people here have no need of this at all, but I thought some of you might know people for whom it would be of interest.
Hey, sounds like an interesting project that ! Best of luck with it, do give us the address, and I'll pass it round to a couple of English teachers I'm still in contact with round here...
[quote:9002cb1a1e="Tephlon"]Sounds interesting. You'll provide feedback to the messages left, correcting their english?[/quote:9002cb1a1e] Yes, exactly. There will be some areas more focused on accuracy and others more focused on communication. There are areas for conversation, lessons, word games, study and so on. At the moment, the forum is piggy-backing on another forum Kay (my friend) runs, a writers' and artists' workshop. I need to check with Kay before giving out the url, because I'm not sure if the site's ready to go live yet.
Even though I am a native English speaker, my spelling and grammer (grammar?) is atrocious (sp?) See what I mean? I would be very interested to brows this forum.
Cool. It's for everyone from elementary-level learners to 'proficiency' speakers ie non-natives whose English is good enough that one would have difficulty distinguishing them from a native.
I would be very interested in this. And not only to show my Uni teachers that the net can be used for other things than searches. I have one request, if you take those, can there be Brittish/american/austrailian/whatever culture involved, somehow? Culture, aside from the 'arts', is hard to teach when you're not native of that culture yourself.
Australians don't have culture... we have beer instead. I would love to send a lot of my students here... so once it goes live I can send it around to my colleagues and we can direct problem students your way. WOn't that be fun
This seems to me to be a good way for students to practice their english. Not just for the message board as such, but being able to use English as way of communicating with people from other countries, native English speakers or not.
I can think of a lot of people around me who need this - my innate pride doesn't allow me to say I need it too Sounds interesting, and I know some English teachers who would definitely be interested. Any clue of (about?) what the subscription would cost? Since it is meant for non-native users, prices in pounds translate to a pretty hefty sum in rupees.
Thanks, guys! We're busy at the moment getting the site to a point where we can start handing out the address. As soon as it goes (semi) live, I'll point you all to it. Mynona, definitely, all requests are given full consideration! Sam, we're looking at £10 a year. We'll probably have some kind of deal for teachers who are going to keep referring students. I'll check up on this with Kay and then let you know any further info on that.
OK, guys, the site will be going live on the 29th. We're looking for volunteers to come in, try it out and make suggestions. Please would you let me know if you'd like to do this (as I have to switch on permission to post for each new account).
Great! We're offering 3 months' free membership to our testers, with an additional 3 month for each new person you bring in.
Could I get a bunch but not in my name... I don't need them until January when I start teaching summer school and I can give them to students. Please.
As I said before, this is very interesting. And I do have a question, if you pay the fee, how does it work? Is it limited to one teacher, one class, one group, one student or what? Or am I just stupid for not understanding?
[quote:1037fabed7="spiky"]Could I get a bunch but not in my name... I don't need them until January when I start teaching summer school and I can give them to students. Please.[/quote:1037fabed7] Absolutely! Mynona, you're not stupid for not understanding, as I haven't clarified. I'm doing this in partnership with someone else, so I'd like to check with her before giving answers to those questions, but I'll get back to you asap.
[quote:f25b2fbd7f="Mynona"]And I do have a question, if you pay the fee, how does it work? Is it limited to one teacher, one class, one group, one student or what? Or am I just stupid for not understanding?[/quote:f25b2fbd7f] It's £10 for a year's membership (although you guys would get 3 free months as testers, as I said before). Teachers pay for their membership but can then get up to 20 students' memberships at £5 each. The forum is now open at http://www.eflorum.co.uk/forum/ Please click on Register to register - [b:f25b2fbd7f]don't[/b:f25b2fbd7f] click on 'JOIN EFLORUM', because that's the place where you pay, and we don't want you to do that! Once you have registered and had a look around, drop me an email to let me know which level you want to work at, and I will change your account status to that level. Most of you will be 'Advanced', I think, but some of you might prefer 'Proficiency' or 'Intermediate'. Or, indeed, 'Teacher'.
I see a bit of a problem already. You've fashioned it after the schoolsystem in England, ours isn't the same, unfortunately. We've got English courses that runs over half a year or two years or even three or one and a half. If possible could you look into alternative lenghts? Also, as I will be teaching uppersecondary/highschool/something I will be the teacher of 100 or more students at each given point. 20 student's accounts won't cover it. Also, most classes contains more than 20 students. Just a couple of opinions from me.
Thanks, Myn! I'll discuss these with Kay (the other lady running the site with me) and get back to you. We've set your account to 'Teacher'.
[quote:84de262581="Buzzfloyd"]The forum is now open at http://www.eflorum.co.uk/forum/ Please click on Register to register - [b:84de262581]don't[/b:84de262581] click on 'JOIN EFLORUM', because that's the place where you pay, and we don't want you to do that! Once you have registered and had a look around, drop me an email to let me know which level you want to work at, and I will change your account status to that level. Most of you will be 'Advanced', I think, but some of you might prefer 'Proficiency' or 'Intermediate'. Or, indeed, 'Teacher'.[/quote:84de262581] Any more takers? Thanks to Coppe and Myn for joining up. I hope some more of you will take a look!
I've signed up. I don't know how active I'll be on it. . . but for now anyway I'll try it out, I signed up as Jennifer by the way, and only just copped on that that could be problematic since you know me as Angua_rox. . .
Cool! What level do you want to be at, Hsing? You can't post until I've set the level of your account.
...um... a student I suppose. I wouldn't know how I of all people could call myself a trainee teacher or teacher of the English language...
Oh, I got this all wrong. I just got the email. Elementary, intermediate, advanced or proficiency? I honestly don't know. Well, cross out advanced or proficiency, I guess... I'll think about it for a day...
I'm going to guess I could be in Advanced. Proficiency is still a bit too high for me to grasp. I never really bothered to learn the "rules", grammar etcetera. I always just "did it right". Never scored lower than a 9 (out of 10) on any english test I did, except the one where I forgot to read the second book on the list. Still made it out with a 5, for doing the whole thing in flawless english (spoken test... ) I may have been a native English speaker in a former life
